A mere truffle...

Imagine a cold winter's night at Grove in southern Tasmania ... a good bottle of Tasmanian merlot is warming the cockles of those sitting around an open fire, over which a chicken is being slowly roasted in a pot with parsnips ... and truffles. The cook? Why, none other than Tim Pak Poy, Sydney chef extraordinaire. The night before, at Bishopsbourne in northern Tasmania, he cooked another meal for another small gathering of farmers, this time, fresh Tasmanian scallops with truffles.

Pak Poy returned to Sydney on Wednesday (JULY 2) taking the first truffles of the season back with him to dish up in subtly imaginative ways at Claude's, his restaurant in Woollahra. Of Chinese and Scottish descent, Pak Poy is considered by the cognoscenti to be one of Australia's finest chefs, while Claude's is a small terrace which can seat only 40 people - only five nights a week and the waiting list is long.

Growing up in Adelaide, Pak Poy picked grapes on leaving school, and worked in a dairy and for other primary producers. So it's not surprising he's keenly interested at source in the tiny Tasmanian truffle 'industry'. Truffles might look like dung, but the pungent fungus is worth more than its weight in gold, selling at $3000 a kilo - that's $3 a gram.

Perigord Truffles of Tasmania was established ten years ago by Duncan Garvey and Peter Cooper - a venture that began by chance. Garvey had completed a degree in Agricultural Economics at the University of New England. Back in Tasmania, he was dining in a restaurant in Launceston and idly listening to a conversation at a nearby table ... about truffles as a prized delicacy in Paris. Bingo! He wanted to do something different ... and truffles are out of season in the northern hemisphere during our winter.... So...

Garvey and Cooper established Perigord Truffles, which sells hazelnut, English oak and holm oak trees to farmers, provides advice, harvests the truffles with specially trained English springer spaniels, and markets them, with the sale price split equally. Only 4.5 kilos were harvested last winter - bought by Tim Pak Poy.

This winter, after only the first week of the 12 week season, 4 kilos have already been harvested. Garvey says the combination of a mild spring last year and a cold winter this year has created the perfect conditions. This is because the soil needs to be warm in November and early December for the fungus to grow on the tree roots, while it needs to be cold for the truffles to mature before harvesting.

Not surprisingly, Tim Pak Poy's rural dinners have stimulated the tastebuds of growers, which in turn has stimulated interest in their long-term investment. Commercial production is the goal, with a ready export market waiting in the northern hemisphere.

"It was fantastic," sighed one farmer who partook of the chook.

Eating England...

WOULD you be offended if I said ‘spotted dick’?” asked the news editor. No, I said, I wouldn’t, nor yet by toad-in-the-hole or mention of faggots. I was a little hazy on the details, but knew they were English foods, rather than terms of abuse – or endearment.

Before dispatching me to investigate British cooking in Hobart, the (English) news editor went on to describe his own rather racy version of toad-in-the-hole (sausages covered in batter baked in the oven), to which he adds sage and onions, but only at one end so as not to upset the purists.

Peggy Wolfe, of Howden, who lived in Suffolk, filled me in on the spotted dick. “Oh spotted dick is lovely,” she said. “It’s a suet pudding and it must have currants. You roll it up, it’s about a foot long, you need a fish kettle or something similar to cook it in, and then you cut slices for each person.” Peggy does not make it, however: “I like to cook simple things and there is nothing simple about spotted dick,” she said.

Faggot familiarisation came from Margaret Jabour, who dashed the recipe off her computer – minced pigs liver, bacon and onions, mixed with soaked bread and herbs, rolled into patties and baked – while I was at her house for Sunday lunch with the Brits social club.

Lunch was bangers and mash and mushy (sounds like pushy) peas, covered with onion gravy. Margaret said it would the first take-away food she remembered, bought in little containers at Southend-on-Sea.

Many of these traditional English dishes come under the heading of “nursery food” – childhood favourites made by your nanny or your mum, depending on where you stood on the social scale.

British author Susan Moody, who divides her year between here and there, says restaurants and pubs in the City “do a roaring trade with ‘nursery food’ for City gents harking back to Nanny and the nursery”, and Marks & Spencer caters to nostalgia with fast-selling take-home steak and kidney pudding (aka Kate and Sidney) with a suet crust, bubble and squeak (cabbage and potato mixed together and fried), shepherd's pie, bread and butter pudding, treacle sponge and more.

“Real” nursery food, says Sue, includes bread and milk and tapioca pudding (or frog's eyes in glue). Peggy remembers junket set with rennet and served with stewed fruit. “They weren’t tremendously full of ideas,” she said. “Now I come to think of it, they were a bit boring, but that was nursery food.”

Families would eat nursery food “because, if you had a large family, they were things everyone could eat.” “And you kept to the same things every day, as far as I remember, a roast on Sunday, and spotted dick with custard always on a Saturday.”

It probably does not qualify as nursery food, but it’s certainly nursery-rhyme food – Peggy remembers four and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie – rather more than 24 actually. They were more accurately rooks rather than blackbirds and you got a pile this high, said Peggy, her hand hovering a metre off the floor.

Rook pie was a specialty at the start of the shooting season in August, when, left alone, rooks made a nuisance of themselves by eating brussels sprouts, cabbages and seeds just planted. “You would use just the breast,” said Peggy. “They had blue skin and did not look very appetising, but with a good thick gravy they taste good.

“About 24 farmers would all meet at one person’s house. They’d have blackbird pie and probably some sort of heavy pud afterwards, like spotted dick. Then they all settle down to a game of farmer’s glory, which not unlike like euchre. They would stay all night and then go home absolutely rolling - it wasn’t safe to be on the roads.”

Blackbird pie aside, it is desserts that feature largely in memories of an English childhood. Peggy, who is 85, has a book in which her grandmother copied her “receipts” in about 1880. Peggy doesn’t “suppose for a minute” that she actually cooked them herself, but the 40 recipes are copied in copperplate handwriting, with nothing scratched out and very few amendments. The collection is weighted with puddings, including Albert, king of Delhi, cabinet and railways puddings, Balmoral tartlets, apple snow and a very good marmalade, which Peggy has made.

Peggy says her own version of trifle - sponge cake, sherry fortified with a little brandy, strawberry jam, almonds put through the mincer and custard, and cream on top – “goes very well at a party – I mean quickly – that’s how one judges it”.

Rhubarb and custard made with eggs (Peggy agrees with English food writer Jane Grigson who said: “Custard powder has been one of our minor national tragedies”), jam roly-poly, crumbles of all kinds, apple pie, baked rice custard, queen of puddings, gooseberry pie, fools (fruit puree with whipped cream), steamed puddings of all sorts and summer pudding were all mentioned as I talked to Brits.

Jill Lee, however, “a Yorkshire girl” now resident in Claremont, will never eat Yorkshire pudding as a dessert. Yorkshire pudding, a batter, is traditionally put in the roasting pan after the meat comes out, baked and then served with the meat. Some people, however, serve it with golden syrup and cream as a dessert.

“I never had that,” said Jill. “I had Yorkshire pudding with gravy - same with pancakes; my mum made a potato pie and we had it with pancakes. I could never have a pancake with anything sweet - my tastebuds just would not adjust to that.”

Now, Jill makes her Yorkshire pudding in a deep muffin pan and serves them with any roast, but when she was growing up, Yorkshire pudding was made to “fill up all the little tummies”. When meat was scarce after the war, her mother would make it as a “continental quilt” in the roasting pan and serve it to her eight children with a stew made of just bones or with pigs trotters.

At the Brits lunch Bill Fairhurst and Philomena Mitchell also remembered sparse rations during and after World War II. “What do you most remember eating as a kid?” Bill asked Philomena. “Chips and spuds,” they chorused in unison, and, said Bill, “usually fried to death or boiled to death”.

Philomena remembers a girl coming to school after the war with just one banana. “She nearly got lynched,” she said. “That was Gertrude, she used to say ‘call me Gert, leave the rude bit out’.”

Bill, who grew up in Chorley Lancashire remembers sparrow pie. The birds were not shot, but trapped and kept alive until you had 70 or so “enough to make a big pie for a family ocaission”.

Philomena went on to run a pub in Openshaw, Manchester, where there were 22 pubs “just on our side of the road”.

In her book Eating England (Mitchell Beazley, 2001) Hattie Ellis acknowledges that “for traditions to remain alive they must bear change and avoid becoming the edible equivalent of morris dancing” but makes a plea that regulars not become complacent about the survival of the English pub, the biggest owner of which, she points out, is a Japanese investment bank called Nomura.

Forty years ago, when Philomena was a publican, pub food was not trendy nor substantial. “We had pickled eggs and pickled onions on the bar, and people would come round selling kippers in a sachet with a bit of butter on them to the drinkers,” she said.

Peggy’s daughter Rosie Ottevanger, followed her family to Tasmania. Peggy’s sister in law Audrey led the charge in the late 1950s, then her son Christopher came in 1966, followed by her daughter Dee in 1969. Peggy moved here in 1984, and Rosie the following year.

Rosie was delighted to be able to buy a hare recently, but it had been skinned. She has asked the Snug butcher to next time leave the skin on. Why? “Because you want to hang it for about five days,” said Rosie. “You want the liver, heart and kidneys for forcemeat balls, and the blood for the gravy; you can substitute claret, but it’s not the same.”

English fish ’n’ chips, Lancashire hotpot, Wiltshire bacon, Colchester oysters, the way they sweet-pickle ham in Suffolk, and extravagant breakfasts in smart houses of kedgeree, ham and kidneys, eggs and button mushrooms and kippers came into the roll call of memories.

And so did subtle regional differences that even a native Briton can lose sight of after living a long time at the other end of the world. When she was served scones on her most recent visit to England, at afternoon tea in Dorset, Margaret Jabour remarked that the scones were square instead of round. “You’re in Dorset, that’s Devonshire,” (the county next door) she was told.

“In Dorset the scones are square and have cinnamon sugar on top, and no jam, but they are still served with clotted cream,” Margaret said.

Nowadays, traditional English fare is only for special occasions. Jill still enjoys cooking, but has to be in the mood – a grey, rainy day will usually bring on the mood to “light up the oven”. Bill enjoys stir-fries and pasta.

Most of them enjoy modern English cooking, as demonstrated on television by the likes of Delia Smith, Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson.

Peggy Wolfe loves TV cooks, but says there are rather too many of them. “You get a sort of mental indigestion,” she said. “Delia very good; down to earth. They all have their good points. Nigella is rather more beautiful than her cooking; most of the chaps I know look at her because she has a lovely figure. She is rather well made as you might say . . . but I don’t know about her cooking.”

The Brits Social Club meets at the Old Hutchins School Inn (formerly the Masonic Club), 181 Macquarie St, on Thursday nights. Those who want to eat arrive about 6pm, those who just want to play cards or darts arrive about 7pm. Phone 6265 1186 for details.

YORKSHIRE PUDDING
This is the way Jill Lee makes her Yorkshire pudding.
1 cup plain flour
2 eggs
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup of milk

As much as an hour, or at least 15 minutes before you want to eat, mix all the ingredients together and beat with a hand wand, egg beater or balloon whisk (this allows the flour to swell). Preheat the oven (or turn it up after the meat is cooked and resting) to 220C.
The Yorkshire pudding can be cooked in a deep muffin pan (non-stick is easiest) or simply poured into the baking tray the meat has come from. If using muffin pans put enough lard or Supafry to coat each recess. Put the muffin tray or the empty meat pan into the oven to get really hot.
Meanwhile, beat the batter again to fluff it up.
When the fat is very hot, fill the muffin pan or meat tray to only about half way and put it in the oven. The batter must be poured in when the pan is hot so that the batter crimps around the edge of the tin.
It will probably take about 20 minutes to cook, but do not open the oven door to check for at least 15 minutes. If cooking in a muffin tin, turn one over after 20 minutes. If the bottom looks a bit pale, Jill turns them all over at this stage and cooks them for another five minutes to brown the bottoms. Turn off the oven when they are done. You have about 10 minutes’ grace to leave them in the cooling oven if the rest of the meal is not ready.

TOAD IN THE HOLE
The above recipe becomes Toad in the Hole when added to:
Enough good pork sausages for the number you want to serve (try the little pork chipolata sausages from Wursthaus Kitchen) grilled or fried.
To the Yorkshire Pudding batter you can add about half a teaspoon of dried sage. Then heat some fat in a baking dish in a hot oven, then quickly add the sausages and pour the batter over the top and bake for about 30 minutes.

FAGGOTS
Margaret Jabour’s recipe
500g (l pound) pigs liver
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
500g (1 pound) soaked bread
1 teaspoon mixed herbs
40g 6 (ounces) fat pork or bacon
¼ teaspoon mixed spice
salt and pepper
pig’s caul, if available
Wash and dry the liver and cut into pieces. Soak the bread in water and beat it with a fork to get out any lumps. Cut up the pork fat or bacon and the onions. Put the liver, pork and onions through a mincer and mix thoroughly with the bread, parsley, herbs, spice, salt and pepper. (Season rather highly, as faggots should be very savoury.)
Cut a pig’s caul into pieces about 20cm (4 inches) square and put some of the mixture in each square. Wrap up and put into a baking tin, join downwards, so that each faggot touches the next. I you don’t have a caul, place the unwrapped faggots closely together in the tin and cover well with baking paper.
Bake in a hot oven 220C for 35 to 40 minutes. Serve hot or cold.

First appeared in The Mercury Saturday, June 7, 2003

Tuesday, July 1, 2003

Pizzles* for Peace...

Denmark, I am told, has a very effective defence policy. Belligerents phoning up to declare war are greeted with the simple recorded message “We surrender”.

Very enlightened.

Too enlightened perhaps for a country like Australia with its proud Anzac tradition, a nation whose reputation for peace has been forged in the fiery crucible of every major and minor battlefield of the 20^th and 21^st Centuries.

Instead, let me suggest an alternative. Replace our present defence and foreign policies with venison pizzles.

Adopt a policy of pizzles for peace. Enact legislation declaring the fare to advance Australia be venison pizzles – compulsorily consumed by every Australian on our national day as a powerful message of deterrence to friends and foes alike.

Instead of the triumphantlist crowing of our kow-towing Prime Minister, and a fishnet-stockinged Foreign Minister dancing to their tune, the message in such a policy to the Bobiches and Dubyas of America would be “Don’t beat round the Bush with us mate. Here, we don’t just cut ‘em off – baby, we eat ‘em!”

That should give them pause for thought - make them think twice before they next ban our lamb. Or automatically count on us in the countdown to their next military mis-adventure.

And an annual feast of venison pizzles would be a hell of a lot cheaper than a few Collins subs and replacements for our crashing F111’s and Blackhawk choppers.

In Asia, powdered venison pizzle is regarded as such an efficacious and powerful virility and strength tonic they measure the annual dose by the teaspoon.

Imagine the deterrent message if, looking south, they saw every man, woman and child in the country, all 19 million of us, eating a whole one.

Nothing more would be needed to make the Indonesian jihadists quickly revise their plans of Uluru for Allah.

And, for their Islamic brothers elsewhere, the message would be interpreted as a diplomatic suggestion that, to the Koran’s teaching of ‘an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth’ should be added ‘a prick for a prick” – you give us Bin Laden, we’ll give you Howard; you give us Saddam, we’ll give you George W.

Pizzles for Peace – Recipe.

Lightly brown one pizzle* per person in butter and simmer gently in a rich venison stock, over low heat, for three days – or until tender. Serve with steamed warrigal greens and eat with your fingers, as you would a spear of asparagus.

Pizzle -- Vulgar. 1523. Flem. The penis of an animal; often that of a bull, used as a flogging instrument. (Shorter Oxford)