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Hummus be joking
Returning home after a week away in wild wet windy western Wales, I was so hungry I could have eaten a horse chestnut (if there were any left now that …
Gooseberry: a fool’s guide
Even though I encounter it all the time, I never cease finding the immense ignorance of the general UK population shocking. I can barely believe the speed with which the …
Coriander candour
Coriander (Coriandrum sativum) is an interesting plant. A member of the huge Apium genus of umbellifers, closely related to other important culinary plants such as caraway, carrot, celery, chervil, cumin, …
Dydd Mawrth Crempog
The movable Christian feast known amongst other things as Shrove Tuesday, Dydd Mawrth Ynyd, Carnival or Mardi Gras (depending on whether you’re from Bognor, Bangor, Barranquilla or the Bayou) is on February 28th this …
Eggsistentialism
I adore eggs, whether they be fried, poached, scrambled, soft-boiled, hard-boiled, hot, cold, sweet, savoury, in omelettes, in custards, in cakes, in flans, in soufflés, mousses, meringues, mayonnaise, coddled, curried, benedict, over-easy or …
King Basil
If someone held a gun to my head and said “You can only use one herb ever again, choose now punk or I’ll blow your brains out” (admittedly, an unlikely scenario), my …
Rooting around rwden
The most underused and unappreciated of all the winter vegetables is surely swede. The big purple root was once ubiquitous in the UK, a routine staple with the school dinner and …
Ill bread
Humans have been turning cereals into flour and making bread for at least 30,000 years. After wheat and barley became the first plants to be domesticated 10,000 years ago, bread …
Currant affairs
The fruits on my two blackcurrant bushes are so abundant their sheer weight sags the shrub’s woody branches almost to the ground. I’ve been picking daily for a week and …
Lovage story
Of the many herbs I grow, the early spring vanguard are now sprouting enough greenery to be regularly harvested: chives, mint, parsley, sage and, that most underrated and underused of …