Old Cookbooks and Cutting Logs

First published in The Sunday Times Ireland, 30 March 2025

Some cookbooks become old friends and proudly bear kitchen scars in the form of splodges or pages that are stuck together. Looking at our copy of Simon Hopkinson’s Roast Chicken and Other Stories I’m struck by two things. Firstly, it’s remarkably clean, although there are quite a few marginal notes; secondly, it’s now just over 30 years old.

Its age was underlined for me when I was cooking Hoppy’s Aubergines Baked with Herbs and Cream (to which title I have added initial capitals as a mark of respect). This is a dish, he tells us, that he always ate at a restaurant called Hièly-Lucculus in Avignon. Opened in 1938, it has a Michelin star these days and I’m not sure such a humble dish still features in its repertoire.

Essentially you fry fairly thick slices of aubergine in olive oil – I brushed them with oil and cooked them on a dry pan to avoid them getting sodden. Leaving them to cool, you skin some tomatoes, season them, pop them in a pan with a big knob of butter and let them stew for 5 to 10 minutes before adding some finely chopped garlic.

This is poured into a baking dish and overlapping slices of aubergine are arranged on top. I didn’t have any fresh tarragon, it being early Spring, so I chopped some chervil with parsley, chives and basil and added this to a pot of crème fraiche loosened with some double cream and just warmed through. The mixture was then poured on top and the whole thing cooked for half an hour at 190ºC.

The age of this cookbook is underlined when the author says “In France, crème fraiche would be used, which has a sharpness that English cream does not have. Add a squeeze of lemon juice to the finished dish if you wish.” Well, these days it can be found in any supermarket, even – heaven forbid – a low fat version.

Anyway, it’s a lovely dish: fresh and tart with acidity of the tomatoes, rich with the dairy, and the aubergines have certain meaty substance.

The tomato seedlings are all doing well and have just been transferred from the high dependency environment of window ledges in the house to a cold frame in the polytunnel, not without a degree of trepidation. And the two tomato plants that were taken as cuttings back at the end of Novemeber are about to be planted out – with bubble wrap protection – in the tunnel and are starting to flower. I’m getting increasingly excited about this little experiment.

Cucumbers have just germinated and courgettes cannot be far behind but I bought a couple of plants so as to get a head start. Before we know it, the risk of frost will be past but they are certainly not going outside.

A new load of Gee Up organic stable manure has arrived in time for a good mulch to go down on the asparagus bed which is now all inside. It will also be used in quantity or the hard-worked beds in the tunnel.

The Home Guard early potatoes are well up under cover while their outside cousins, and some British Queens, will take quite a while. I have also planted potatoes for the first time in containers. Five big pots, each containing three saved Pink Fir Apple tubers, are now standing on the terrace where I’ll be constantly reminded to keep them watered. The growing medium is half manure and half general purpose peat-free compost. They will get a regular seaweed feed too.

For the past week I have been working in the woods gathering fallen timber and transporting it down to the barn where it’s transformed into logs using a very noisy and dangerous electric bench saw. Ear and eye protection are essential. The exercise is doing me good, especially as there is quite a lot of hand-sawing to do before the lengths of wood can be retrieved.

In various parts of the woodland there are carpets of white wood anemones, one of the most cheerful sights of Spring, and a pungent aroma of wild garlic as it gets trodden underfoot. It will be a while before the bluebells spring into action but there are plenty of them.

I used to look askance at the more spindly fallen branches but I’ve since discovered that they make great kindling if seasoned for a while. And some are dry enough to use straight away – mainly ash, but also some sycamore, beech and oak.

I am hoping to steel myself to the task of carrying on this gleaning through the Summer so as to accumulate enough fuel for the coming year. It’s curiously satisfying and, of course, it’s free.

It also hones the appetite mightily and I need to lose some weight. So, I’m trying intermittent fasting along with a fairly keto lunch and going quite low on carbs at supper. Nothing is more tedious than hearing about other people’s diets, so I promise faithfully not to report on how it’s going. Also, pride before a fall and all that.

But I will mention the sheer thrill of the tomato experiment in dispatches. Is it possible that I can extend the growing season? Only time will tell, so stay tuned…