Frydmania

Jam. Jam. Jam. I love how the word becomes so many different things. A musical session. Something being stuck. A tight squeeze. A collection of traffic (also no doubt in a tight squeeze). And a solution of fruit, sugar, and sunlight in a jar.

One of my early memories is visiting my grandparents in Edinburgh, and my granny getting out the special plates, cups, saucers…There would be home baking of a high standard, there would be scones, and there would be raspberry jam. Seedy, jewel bright, definitely well set but happy to sit upon a scone.

I now have that tea set. I may not make my jam to quite the same set – I probably like mine a little looser.

But I also have memories of Robinson’s jam, at home, and its un-PC characters on the side, though I quite liked the notion of being able to save up coupons to get a badge of some kind. That never quite happened, but still. There was jam.

There must have been bread and jam. There was certainly jam in a sponge cake. Jam tarts. I don’t know how much was made and how much was bought – I suspect a mixture. Mum would have baked bread, minced her own leftover meat, so I think I can presume on some jam making too.

There is a telling moment in the E Nesbit book, Ballet Shoes. The girls’ family is hard up, and they are told that they can have bread and butter, or bread and jam, but not both butter and jam. (I hope I’ve got the book right – I haven’t yet checked it’s that one.)

As a final years of- and post-rationing girl herself, Mum would encourage me to have a reasonable amount on my bread – ‘not just a scrape’. I suspect it was some of the rationing experience, not wanting me to have that too.

But for all of this, I am a bread and butter OR bread and jam girl. I don’t really like to mix the flavours (though I happily mix flavours in other culinary pursuits).

In my first couple of years of full-time work, I would walk home across the city. This brought me down via the fruit and veg delights of Argyll Place. Plenty to try out. (I would then tend to get the bus the rest of the way if I’d bought a lot. That happened – a lot.)

I started by trying making microwave strawberry jam (Rose Elliott, I think, was the source of this suggestion). Great way to start making jam, get used (but not too scared by) the sudden bubble up of fruit and sugar.

I moved on to blackcurrant, raspberry. There may have been others, but really, once you’ve cracked blackcurrant and raspberry, most of your jam needs are sorted.

Rhubarb and ginger jam came later (see my post on rhubarb), and gooseberry, though these were considered more as treats due to the (relative) scarcity/cost of ingredients.

Actually, I also later got into bramble and apple jam, or just bramble jam. Perfect for making use of my foraged brambles, and I gained one young fan who was very happy if there were a bramble jam food parcel from time to time.

A couple of times, I organised a food swapping event at home, going by the name JamTastic. I still fancy reviving it. There are clearly jam and marmalade specialists out there, as well as makers of pickles, growers of veg, and more.

Over time, I have made a happy acquaintance with other jams, though these tend to be shop bought, again due to cost and scarcity of fresh ingredients.

Cherry jam, particularly glossy, and just grand with a nice warm croissant. Apricot jam, useful for sticking marzipan to cake, but good for other jam-intake moments.

Jam selections reach their height when combined with pancakes. Every now and then, I’d make a medium sized batch for us, get out the jams, syrups, honeys and allow us to mix and match. I do rather like some acidity to a jam that goes with a drop scone, so blackcurrant is great – as is marmalade, actually.

I’ve written before, I think, on the joy of jam making: the wonderful depth of colour as the fruit warm and burst; the cauldron like effect of making a big batch in a big pan.

I like the flow of jam making: putting a plate in the freezer, checking for a set. I have a device for helping get jam into jars, which is good, as is the chance to use a ladle for a change.

And I also like the labelling, the putting away. The sense of treasures stored up for another day. Jam IS treasure, a great use of seasonal fruit, a present in the making…So dive in.

Time to start on those ingredients I love intensely, but haven’t yet been courageous enough to try cooking at home. First up, duck. I’m feeling vindicated in my choice, since the joint winners of Masterchef Professional both chose it as part of their final menu. That’s OK by me too.

I don’t quite know where the enjoyment of duck came from. Potentially from duck with pancakes at a Chinese restaurant. We didn’t go out for meals a lot as a child, so when we did, you had something to remember. Doing those banquet choices meant everyone got to try lots of different things – and that there would be duck.

I love the theatre of it – all the preparing of the slivers of meat, as well as the choosing how to put the combination of duck, salad veg and sauce together. There would inevitably be a few where you put too much into the pancake, and it spurted out as you bit into it, but I don’t remember worrying about it too much.

Duck is rich. There’s no getting away from it. That’s why it’s celebrational, I guess. Why it’s great in small quantities as a starter. Wading through a lot of it would be hard work – and that would be a shame.

I have a friend who would always choose something ‘known’ when having a meal out, to avoid disappointment. I’m probably the other way round – I want to try things I don’t know so well. Particularly if I can have something I’ve never tasted before.

I did once choose duck in a pasta dish for a meal out, and didn’t enjoy it. Not sure why. But thankfully it didn’t stop me trying again another time.

Duck with plainish carbs seems to work well. Duck in wraps has been good. Occasional treats like duck sausage alongside a plainer roast. And enough chefs and food writers have advised on duck fat for roast potatoes to make them really crispy. I have spotted it in supermarkets, though again not tried for some reason.

What is is with my ‘restaurant category’ ingredients? Some of it is to do with my perceptions on how easy they are to prepare. Or perhaps how much they cost to buy as raw ingredients. So if it’s an occasional meal out, where someone else has done the prep and the costing for you: why not?

Duck and orange is a classic. And again, thanks to the likes of TV cooking competitions, so are confit duck legs. Dan did choose cassoulet when we were in France a few years back – we were in a region where it’s a speciality, and the confit duck legs aspect of the dish was good.

I’ve read a few versions of how to do your own duck and pancakes at home, and maybe I will try it some day. Maybe I will equally buy duck breast and try something with that. I love fruit flavours in savoury cooking, and luckily duck lends itself well to that.

In the meantime, it remains a treat. An indulgence. And that’s probably quite a good situation really. It keeps it special. It keeps it memorable. And it sure as anything keeps it on my ingredients list.

Once upon a time, on a dark and snowy January afternoon, a little girl was collected by her daddy from school as a surprise. They went off into the big city, went to the cinema, watched Snow White, then went to a Chinese restaurant with a moving waterfall picture. Just as it couldn’t get any better, it did: she tried king prawns.

Yep, that was me. I was either 5 or 6. My brother was pretty little at that time, so I think my parents must have decided on this being the best way of doing a birthday treat. It took many years for me to realise that the meal out was in fact a birthday one. My main memories are of the snow, the surprise, the waterfall picture and the jumbo prawns.

Prawns, for all of their choice in food intake, are still good for you – low in fat, if I remember. But I love the little bit of give (not quite crunch) when you bite in. I can do the ones where you shell them – a bit – though larger ones that need a lot of shelling are a lot of effort for not much reward.

I love the pale pink of prawns. My second main memory of prawns is as that once ubiquitous starter, prawn cocktail. Dad would make this for us as a treat from time to time. There would be a rummaging in the court cupboard to find the posh glasses that could be used for trifles and the like, but that were a good size for prawns too.

Part of the appeal was, no doubt, the marie rose sauce. Given that small children generally like ketchup, and I have a great fondness for mayonnaise, there was no not liking to be done. Lettuce: probably floppy, lamb’s lettuce type, or maybe iceberg. But the colour contrasts are still worth it.

I decided to try making prawn cocktail myself a few years ago. It’s a bit of a favourite when the weather is warmer, and you don’t really want to cook. I do like it with iceberg, for a bit of crunch to offset the prawns.

For some reason, I also took to putting a chopped apple in too, skin on, for some more crunch and colour contrast. And if you need some carbs, it’s rather good with oatcakes alongside.

Jumbo prawns do stay in my mind in Chinese restaurant contexts. I know you can get prawn curries, but it doesn’t quite feel right.

Though I stretched a point by making a Thai curry with prawns (from Nigella Express), last autumn, and have been happily making it since. The prawns sit well against some sweet potato, with some chopped mango in the sauce for a little additional sweetness.

Lots of good textures, and some great warmth – welcome in the winter, on wet Friday nights when it’s been a long week and you need something with some spice that doesn’t need much chewing either. (Not that chewing is exhausting, but you know what I mean.)

On the occasion that multipack sandwiches are bought and shared, I generally eat the prawn and mayo one. It may seem like an act of public service, written like that, but really it’s a cunning scheme to make sure I get some prawns. I’ll even forgo some crispy bacon in the BLT one for them.

The best pudding in the world is Gooseberry Fool. Fact. Forget sinful chocolate mousses, boozy trifles and the like – you want the honeyed sweetness, the ‘slip down easily’ nature of a soft pudding. Turning a hard green hairy berry into bliss? That’s kitchen alchemy of the highest order.

To be honest, I thought that was the main purpose of gooseberries – to be turned into fool. And yes, you can make fools with other fruit (I tried rhubarb once), but gooseberry fool just seems to have the edge.

But a summer or so ago, we found ourselves at a pick your own with gooseberry bushes boasting giant sized berries, and I knew I had to pick a good haul.

Dan encouraged me to make gooseberry jam, as a different way of using them. I didn’t need too much encouraging, to be honest. Gooseberry jam is translucent, the little dark seeds suspended in the sugar and puree of fruit. Some jams deserve to be set, but gooseberry jam works very well as a sloppier jam.

I have rather special memories of gooseberry jam. A long time ago, at the end of my first stint in Poland, I took part in a summer camp, renovating a special school in Przemysl, right down in the south east tip of Poland. There was a lot of physical work, with painting, sanding, wire brushing and so on, and morning break was a point to look forward to.

Poland does well at a soft, less acidic version of cottage cheese (ser bialy, or white cheese). Mash it up with a bit of jam, maybe a little cream or ‘yoghurt-cream’, and you get a kind of spreadable yoghurt. It is tremendous with blackcurrant, but it was transcendent with gooseberry jam.

Add some good bread, and apply, frequently. Preferably while sitting half in and half out of a window, on the top floor of a boarding school block, with beautiful views.

Gooseberry, in Polish, is ‘agrest’, so gooseberry jam becomes ‘dzem agrestowy’ – aggressive jam, as I liked to think of it. But prickles on the bushes and hairs on the gooseberries are quite overcome when you persevere enough to make yourself some jam. And you don’t even have to go to Poland to appreciate it.

Gooseberries and fish is meant to be good – in the way that chefs can serve things like rhubarb with fish. The acidity cuts through the richness of the fish, provides some colour on the plate, and so on. I haven’t done this as yet – guarding the gooseberries too jealously, I suspect – but it sounds worthwhile.

Unlike some of my other ingredients, I’m not going to offer more variations. When you have a flavour this wonderful, and you know what you like, it’s best not to mess.

I start this post, and a Sylvia Plath poem about mushrooms goes through my head. Can’t remember it all, but the last few lines suggest that, one day, mushrooms will take over the world. From my point of view, that wouldn’t be a bad thing…if I got to eat them.

Mushrooms. A great divider. Some hate the softness of texture, see it as slippery. (And if you’re on pickled mushrooms, a Polish delicacy (for some), I’m with you there.) But many others love the pungency, the juices as they cook, the beautiful natural colour palette between cap, gills, stalk.

I love the look of large mushrooms (the kind you can stuff), when you remove the stalk, and you get to see the dark folds of the gills. Just before you hide them in butter, garlic, herbs, cheese…that kind of thing.

Week by week, my veg selection may change when I shop, but mushrooms are part of it, pretty much every time. Whether they’re adding texture to a pasta sauce, nestling in a risotto, they’re welcome.

They also happen to be a brilliant ingredient for involving kids in cooking. Too little for chopping with knives? Mushrooms can be ripped, broken up with the fingers. I still love the ‘clunk’ of separating mushroom cap from stalk. It’s this pattern of little pleasures in cooking that draw us to ingredients, as much as the tastes, I think.

I had an early experiment in salad creation, pairing raw mushrooms with oranges, and using some of the juice as an alternative dressing. It didn’t go a great deal beyond that, to be honest, but I still like raw mushrooms too. Writing this, I’m now thinking some babyleaf spinach wouldn’t go amiss, and maybe a little honey in the dressing?

Mushrooms as a child also included Campbells condensed mushroom soup. Dan doesn’t go for this (smell and texture I think is the issue), though it can make a great easy sauce for cooking chicken with. I also had a small phase of making cheese on toast with grilled mushroom on top – pretty good, though I think my heart belongs to tomato instead as a topping.

I also have a memory, as I write, of Little Grey Rabbit books. There’s one where she meets…a traveller? I can’t remember how he’s described. But he teaches her various things, including cooking mushrooms in the fire until they are smoky and juicy. I’m sure part of my food memory of mushrooms comes from this, imagining how good it would taste.

There’s that famous comment ‘Life is too short to stuff a mushroom‘. (Sadly, can’t remember the origin just now, and I’m writing this quickly, so I’ll maybe check another time.) [Update: it was Shirley Conran, in her book Superwoman.]

Still, I think there’s ALWAYS time to stuff a mushroom – or indeed, to deep fry it if you can, in breadcrumbs. In my veggie days, breaded mushrooms were one of my great delights on the occasions we went out as a family and I could choose a starter. And I wouldn’t say no to them now, either.

Later, I came upon a pretty good substitute – baked mushrooms. Nigel Slater and Nigella seem to go halfers on whose idea this is, but it’s pretty fabulous with – again – garlic, butter, and so on. I love the way that, even with little button mushrooms, they can look unassuming as they come out of the oven. But the juices…just make sure you’ve got plenty of bread for mopping.

I’m pretty happy with mushrooms as part of a breakfast too. I remember a great one, where my great aunt had found field mushrooms while out for a walk – it may have been a brunch, or even an evening meal, but the mushrooms rose to the occasion.

Some Polish friends in Edinburgh are great mushroom picking aficianados. I keep meaning to ask to go with them, because I love a little foraging (usually limited to brambles and the odd wild raspberry), and getting mushrooms, not just fresh but FREE, would be even better.

Some mushroom tastes I still have to acquire. I’m not the greatest on dried mushrooms, for some reason, although my brain recognises the notion as good. I’m not that keen on straw mushrooms either, which crop up in Chinese cooking. Something a little too musty about them, I think.

The whole point of mushrooms taking over the world is – well, that’s kind of what they’re meant to do. Growing on dead trees. In hollows. On compost heaps. So they taste great, and they just happen to help with decomposition. Here’s to the ever helpful mushroom.