Cafe a Vin - A much better starter...

A couple of months ago I moaned about a very small starter at Browns in the City.  What a contrast was the charcuterie starter at Cafe a Vin in Spitalfields Square on Thursday. Their charcuterie maison came with a celeriac remoulade and cornichons too.  About four times as much food as Brown's for just a pound more!

We had a very nice Languedoc, Les Trois Poules Rouge 2013, from a vineyard about ten miles north of Montpellier for £26.50.  This is a nice City (well just outside, technically) brasserie (pretty waitress, too) with not too outrageous prices.  I'll go there again.

Smoked Mackerel Pate

I just did one of those online tests to see if I was getting Alzheimer's disease which, according to the test I am not (yet).  One of the things that was recommended, after having got my results, was that I should be eating more oily fish.   Now I dislike fish intensely.  I think it is, at best, effete, bland and lacking in texture (white fish, salmon).  At worst it is noxious, putrid tasting and smelly (mackerel, herring, sardines)  How can it be both?  Well it depends on the fish, of course.  However, suffice to say, I would never choose to eat fish if meat was available. The number of times my heart has sunk when abroad and someone tells me that they are taking me to a "nice seafood restaurant" (talk about contradictory terms).  Oddly, I do enjoy crustacea but not molluscs.  I particularly dislike oysters, which, as Sophie once said, is odd given they "taste like your favourite part of a woman's body"  "They taste like bottom?" I replied, receiving a kick as a result. No doubt this is something to do with their reputation as an aphrodisiac. Or is it that girls taste like oysters?  Given I tasted girl well before I tasted oysters, for me, it is the former.

Anyway, given my team of doctors are now banging on about oily fish too, I thought I would dig out what is, oddly, given the above, a favourite recipe.  This is smoked mackerel pate; a recipe as given to me by my Uncle Keith, who was in the Airborne at Arnhem but spent his twilight days living in East Sussex, trout fishing, making game pies, collecting pickelhauben (which sounds, in this context, like some sort of Scandinavian herring dish) and smoking his own fish.  He was the one who left me many, many bottles of classed growth claret in his will. 

This is a tremendously simple but tasty recipe and only has three ingredients: Peppered smoked mackerel fillets, fat free fromage frais and lemon juice.  The peppered fillets give it a bit more bite than the normal ones and avoid fishy blandness.  I use fromage frais because most recipes and ready made mackerel pate are usually high in fat, being made with cream cheese or crème fraîche.  No point in eating oily fish for your health if you bung a load of cheese into it!  

I just put a pack's worth of mackerel fillets in a bowl, broken up with a fork, with about three or four tablespoons of fromage frais and a couple of squeezes of lemon juice and then use my hand held blender on it until it turns into a smooth paste. Then decant it into small pots.  I find that one pack of mackerel gives you enough pate for three pots.  If you put cling film over the top it keeps in the fridge for about two days.  I have mine with wholemeal pitta and/or cucumber and pepper batons.

Full English Breakfast: The Magic Nine at Sainsbury's

I was having breakfast at Sainsbury's on Sunday and noticed that they had all the constituents for the Magic Nine of the Full English Breakfast.  Now although I knew you could pay extra to have additional items added to your big breakfast, as I usually order an extra egg, I hadn't spotted that there was another short list of things you could order on top, which included mushrooms.  So by ordering the big breakfast plus mushrooms and black pudding I could achieve the Full English Breakfast, albeit a rather bargain basement version.  In fact paying 79p for one rather under-cooked mushroom wasn't really good value but it enabled me to record, for the first time, a breakfast featuring the Magic Nine.

Large Veuve Clicquot Champagne Bottles in John Lewis Food Hall

I was in John Lewis in Oxford Street the other day, where they have a John Lewis Food Hall (not a Waitrose, as is more usual) in the basement.  They have a pretty good wine department there but what really intrigued me was these three big bottles of Veuve Clicquot.  When I was younger I had one of those big book of facts type books which contained things like paper sizes and, apposite to this post, large Champagne bottle names.  

Now of course I am familiar with and have had magnums and jeroboams but I think this is the first time I have actually seen some of the "Biblical" large sized bottles before.  They had a Methuselah (eight bottles) for £575, a Salmanazar (12 bottles for £750  and a Nebuchadnezzar (20 bottles for £1400).  Now, of course, the equivalent price per bottle (£70 for the Nebuchadnezzar which is nearly double what Waitrose charge for a single bottle) certainly doesn't provide a bulk discount; in fact you pay far more for the privilege of having such a conversation piece.

Certainly, if I was going to drop £1400 on a bottle of Champagne I wouldn't buy one which had been stored in a hot store, upright and under bright lights.  I stopped drinking Veuve Clicquot because there was a period, a few years ago, when they were selling it with insufficient cellaring time.  I gather it is better now, so maybe I should get one for Christmas.  Not one this big, though.  How would you chill it?  You'd have to put it in a bath full of ice, I suppose, or a dustbin.  Not very elegant ,though.  I suppose if you have seven of them there would be enough to give a lady a bath in it.  

Beaujolais Nouveau 2014

Back in the nineteen eighties and nineties, the Legatus remembers all the wine bars and off licences in the City celebrating Beaujolais Nouveau Day in November and it was traditional to go out and drink what was, at best, a rather peculiar-tasting wine on the day. All the supermarkets would have big piles of the wine on sale the following weekend and the newspapers would be full of comparative reviews of the different growers' wines (Beaujolais has always suffered from too many very small winemakers).

A marketing device more that a proper wine, Beaujolais Nouveau is unusual in that it is bottled and released for sale very shortly after harvest (six to eight weeks), originally, since 1951 when it was first created, on November 15th and now, since 1985 on the third Thursday of November.  It makes up slightly less than a third of the total wine production of Beaujolais.

The tradition, in the UK, seems to have lapsed now and I can't remember seeing it for sale in a supermarket for some time but I spotted some in Waitrose yesterday and as it was from the usually reliable (if controversial - the company was fined in 2006 for mixing grapes from other regions into their Beaujolais) Georges Duboeuf I picked up a bottle to take to my particular friend A's, yesterday.

In the US they market it as a Thanksgiving wine and it is the second biggest foreign market for the wine (the French drink more than half of the production).  The biggest foreign market is Japan.  The Japanese love it; importing nearly 8 million bottles last year but then they also enjoy murdering dolphins, buying beetles for pets from vending machines and making dubious films involving women dressed as schoolgirls being tied up and tortured, so their taste is suspect.

Having been in decline since the end of the eighties (1985 saw the peak production of 67 million bottles - the annual total is less than half that today) there are signs of something of a comeback for a wine that the Legatus remembers removing the enamel off his teeth, more often than not.  The Beaujolais region has been trying to improve the quality of the wine over the last decade and has reduced the number of vineyards producing it by over a third to help in this.

SA, A fast lady in every way

I had a girlfriend back in the eighties who took part in the annual Beaujolais Nouveau Run, once.  In 1970 London restaurant owner Marcus Berkmann and TV presenter, writer, Member of Parliament and London Playboy Club director Clement Freud (who we once chatted to about this in the first class carriage of an InterCity 125 train between Bath and London a few years ago) were having a dinner of coq-au-vin at the Hotel Marittones in the Beaujolais region of France. During the course of the dinner they evolved the idea of racing back to London to see who could get a case of the newly bottled Beaujolais Nouveau back home first. They did the same the following year (Berkmann won both times) but then Fleet Street got involved through The Sunday Times and the larger Beaujolais Run took off involving, more often than not, a number of classic British sports cars. People started to get it on to aircraft, including using Concorde, to get the fastest time. Eventually, the Royal Air Force entered and took the record for the run by using a Hawker Harrier jump jet, which was rather unsporting of them.

The Beaujolais Nouveau run still happens although, oddly, it now starts in the UK (including, in 2009, from the Brooklands old motor racing circuit which is just a few miles from where I live) and finishes in Beaujolais.

Anyway, this year's vintage was much better than all of the ones I remember from the past; much more full bodied and fruity but with that typical gamay whiff.  The mouth-puckering acidity had gone and so had the nail polish smell.  Not bad at all!  Probably not worth £7.99 a bottle though!

Micro terrine in Brown's Old Jewry Street

£7.50!

Brown's is a once trendy restaurant chain that originated in Brighton back in 1973. Their second branch was in Oxford but. oddly, I never went to it when I was at university there, in the late seventies and early eighties, because you had to queue outside to get in and the Legatus is not overly fond of queues (Salute and that's it!).  It was very popular with students seeking out Spaghetti Bolognese (which was then considered culinary exotica) and such like and had the added attraction of waitresses wearing short skirts (almost unheard of in 1979) and fishnet tights.

Brown's Oxford

No, I had come into some money. fortuitously, just before I started at College and so was more likely to be found in La Sorbonne, founded by André Chavignon in 1966 (it closed in the early nineties and is now a Thai restaurant).  It was a traditional, classic French restaurant of very high quality where a dinner for two would cost £50 in 1979, at a time when my student grant, from which I had to pay my accommodation, food and book costs, was £1500 a year.  Chavignon's sous-chef was a young fellow by the name of Raymond Blanc who went to set up his own restaurant in North Oxford called Les Quats Saisons.  It had just got it's first Michelin star when I went there in 1980; the first Michelin star restaurant I had ever eaten at.  Chavignon was not amused by Blanc's defection and setting up of a rival top class French restaurant in the city and famously called Blanc un petit rat!

I did eventually go to Brown's in Oxford years later, after attending a college gaudy (an event held every seven years or so for people who started at College in the same year).  These events were always interesting in that you could see how well or badly your peers were ageing.  In my case it was an opportunity to have Port-fuelled nostalgic sex with former girlfriends (there was a lot of that sort of thing going on!).  It was one of said ex-girlfriends who took me to Brown's the next day for the first time.

Brown's Old Jewry Street

However, the branch I visited this week was at Old Jewry Street in the City of London, close to a former office I used to work in.  We used to regularly visit this branch and I still do with a former personal assistant.  I was there with some Canadian lady friends on Monday and I ordered, as a first course,  some terrine. When it arrived however I was appalled by the tiny serving.  I am not exaggerating but the piece was about one and half inches by one inch.  It is the smallest piece of pate or terrine I have ever had in any restaurant anywhere on earth!  £7.50 for this was outrageous!  I don't mind paying for good food but I don't like being ripped off.  Brown's you are on a warning!

What is a Full English Breakfast?

Garfunkels, Terminal 4, London Heathrow Airport, October 2010

I was having lunch with an old friend the other day and we were discussing cooked breakfasts.  Her view was that baked beans were not part of a proper English breakfast and should never be eaten before 6.00pm.  This is an assertion I have heard before, and although I feel that this is a ridiculous notion, it does raise the important question of what does, indeed, constitute a Full English breakfast; one of Britain's great contributions to international gastronomy.  This does not mean, of course, that I don't have my own preferences but I am not tied to externally imposed "rules".

Langham Hotel, London, February 2011

Eschewing the effete bread-based efforts of our continental cousins the cooked English breakfast really came to the fore in the nineteenth century and certainly helped fuel the industrial revolution and assist Britain's rise to the greatest Imperial power the world has ever seen.  Try and run the world by starting the day on a few flaky croissants or some slices of cheese and ham and see how far you get!  

The proper constituents of a Full English breakfast are as controversial as what goes into a Bolognese sauce, Poulet Marengo or a Salad Niçoise.  So let's have a look at the candidates.  I will illustrate them with pictures from my own breakfast experiences!


Eggs

Hotel Inter-Continental, Lusaka, December 2010

These can be fried, scrambled or poached.  The Legatus much prefers fried eggs but will cope with scrambled, although it is very difficult to get good scrambled eggs in a restaurant, unless prepared to order and impossible in a hotel buffet where they usually take on the same consistency as that marbled foam rubber used in cheap furniture.

Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco, October 2009

Poached eggs used to be more popular when I was young (my mother used to attempt them; usually with disastrous results) but now they are the breakfast equivalent of wearing a bow tie every day; slightly pretentiously eccentric.  You do sometimes get them in places that serve Eggs Benedict as part of a cooked breakfast.  I've never been convinced by Eggs Benedict: Hollandaise sauce is too rich for breakfast and the muffin is too thick a platform for the egg.  I did have a good one on the Orient Express twenty years ago but that was an exception.

A  goose egg under way at home June 2013

I prefer two fried eggs but have been known to take one large egg (such as a goose or turkey egg) once in a while.  Currently, I prefer duck eggs to hen's eggs.  If I am having scrambled eggs I prefer three or even four, if they are small.  I tend to eat scrambled egg as a separate meal without all the constituents of a Full English, except, perhaps, some chopped ham. 

Omni Hotel, San Franciso, October 2009

Of course, I did not eat eggs for many years as the government and scientists had decided they were bad for you; something they have now done a complete 180 degree turn on.  I have also had a three fried egg presentation once but that was small eggs cooked as one, giving a thicker white.


Bacon

Bongusto Restaurant, Victoria, London, March 2009

People in most countries can produce a good fried egg but when it comes to bacon Britain really does reign supreme.  What passes for bacon in most countries are dark brown, greasy strips of fat cooked until they are brittle; like baked shoe leather and about as tasty.  Proper bacon for a Full English should be back bacon.  Each rasher is made up of one part (the larger part) of pork loin and one part of pork belly. The American brittle bacon is exclusively the fattier pork belly variety.  In fact, quite often I jettison the pork belly piece and just have the pork loin medallions. Properly cooked bacon should be soft not brittle.  Some foreign hotels and restaurants serve ham instead of proper bacon but this is a poor substitute.


Sausages

Grand Cafe Royal Exchange, London, November 2011

You can't have a Full English without sausages (plural, please) otherwise it is just bacon and egg or a cooked breakfast.  These is nothing wrong with bacon and egg but it makes a lightweight start to the day without some serious meat to back it up.  Sadly, most Full English breakfasts in restaurants or cafes are let down by the sausage, which is often of poor quality compared with the bacon.

Chipolatas from Maurice Jones at home, March 2014

This is an area where the home cooked version of a Full English triumphs (in the same way as a traditional Sunday lunch is best at home) as you have complete quality control.  I get my sausages from prize-winning sausage maker Maurice Jones & Sons in Oatlands, Surrey. Vastly superior to anything from a supermarket.  You need to get there early if you want them on Saturday, however!

Arsenale Hotel, Cartagena, November 2013

The variety of sausages you get around the world is startling; including turkey and beef ones in Muslim countries.  In South America I have had spicy ones reminiscent of Spanish chorizo (which just means sausage of course, anyway - "chorizo sausage" is tautologous) which while interesting aren't really right first thing in the morning.

Ritz-Carlton, Philadelphia, October 2009

My worst sausage experience was the sausage meat I had in Philadelphia which was dripping in maple syrup.  Disgusting!


Mushrooms

Côte London Bridge, London, May 2014 

I admit that I don't always have mushrooms if I am cooking breakfast at home but there is a good argument that they are a compulsory ingredient for a proper Full English Breakfast.  Americans can find the fact that we have mushrooms for breakfast in Britain, rather odd.  In fact they are one of the newer ingredients as they have only been cultivated in Britain since, surprisingly, the mid-twentieth century.  What you get in restaurants varies between whole or halved small button mushrooms, sliced larger cup mushrooms or a whole or sliced large flat mushrooms.  I prefer the middle option. Never, never tinned mushrooms though!


Tomatoes

Gossips Cafe, Yarmouth Isle of Wight, August 2011

These are another compulsory ingredient (even more so than mushrooms).  Fried or grilled they should be soft to the point of disintegration.  They should not have, as some hotels offer, cheese on them.  Even worse are the places that put pesto on them.  They should also not be tinned.  There is an increasing fashion in London for more upmarket places to serve plum tomatoes sliced in two vertically but, again, this is a bit prissy.


Toast

Sainsbury's Cobham, May 2014

This is usually served on the side but the Legatus likes it as an integral part of the full plate.  When I was small I would be given egg, bacon and fried bread for breakfast but fried bread is disappearing before the onslaught of the healthy eating brigade.  Frying a slice of bread at least doubles the calories but as a typical Full English breakfast comes in at about 1000 calories plus that really isn't going to matter that much.  I tend to have toast rather than fried bread as it is more absorbent for soaking up bean and tomato juice etc.


Baked Beans

Churchill Cafe, Whitehall, London, November 2011

Baked beans seem such a staple of a Full English that I was genuinely surprised by those who maintain that it shouldn't be included.  I would venture that such people are in the minority now and that their insistence that beans should only be eaten after 6.00 pm is rather akin to those who insist on saying "an" when the following word begins with an "h".  They are technically correct, perhaps, but the English Breakfast, like the English language, is constantly evolving.  Britain makes and consumes more baked beans that any other nation on earth; to the extent that in February this year a government minister here was trying to encourage people to eat less of them to avoid the excess generation of gases that contribute to global warming.  I am not joking!  The UK version of baked beans is very different from those served in the US which have more than twice the sugar in them.  In fact, Heinz Baked Beans, which were first imported from America and sold as a luxury item in Fortnum & Mason in the nineteenth century, are now exported to the US, having been made here since 1928.  They started to become part of a cooked breakfast during the Second World War when there were very few tomatoes in Britain as these had always been produced in the Channel Islands which were, of course, ocupied by the Germans. Today many places offer an option of baked beans or tomatoes but not always bothg.


Potatoes

Giraffe, South Bank, London, February 2011

These are another controversial ingredient.  Probably, traditionally, bubble and squeak, a fried mixture of shredded potato and cabbage, was included in earlier versions of the Full English.  This has now, largely, been supplanted by American hash browns, saute potatoes or chips (French fries for our American cousins).  I have had shredded potato mixed with other things in foreign hotels.

Royal York Hotel, Toronto, August 2010

I would venture that chips are really only served when the Full English is served at lunch time lunch as an "all-day breakfast".  This is certainly the practice in the breakfast Nirvana that is Eegon's of Cowes.  For their larger breakfasts they serve saute potatoes.  I have never been that fond of hash browns but they are more digestible in the morning than solid potato.  Producing potato dishes as an accompaniment to a Full English at home really does add an extra level of complexity to the whole performance, however.


Black Pudding

Sheraton Hotel, Edinburgh, September 2013

Is black pudding (a blood sausage) a part of an authentic Full English or a regional variation in the manner of cockles (yes, really) in Wales, Soda Bread in Ireland or haggis in Scotland?  The traditionalists maintain that it should be included and, certainly, it was certainly part of the cooked breakfasts served at my college, although that had a lot of people from the north of England as students.  The Legatus, being from the south, thinks that this is a northern affectation but it certainly adds to the finished article.

Eegon's, Cowes, Isle of Wight, August 2013

So, according to some writers, these are the "magic nine" ingredients which transform a "cooked breakfast" or "fry up" into a "Full English breakfast".  As we have seen, however, there is not universal agreement on this.  I have also had, onion rings and steak included, especially in the terrifying Steakfast from Eegons; the only cooked breakfast in the world I was unable to finish.

Braid Hills Hotel, Edinburgh, August 2016

Latterly, since I have been spending more time in Scotland I have added haggis to my home-cooked breakfasts; usually in small fried slices but occasionally using the leftovers from a complete haggis.  When in Scotland, of course, I always have haggis in my breakfast.

Waldorf Astoria, Edinburgh, February 2013

Interestingly, in checking through my photographs I realise that I haven't actually had a breakfast with all the "magic nine" in it.  The closest I have got was this superb example from Scotland which had haggis but no potato and fried bread instead of toast.  Something to strive for still!