From little acorns – how the finest jamon is created

Posted on February 6, 2019 by Nick Harman under food, food producers, Restaurants, Southern Europe

While we are all still on a plant based diet kick right now, there is still room for meat that is ethically and responsibly sourced, traditionally made and totally delicious.

Away in the distance, under the hundreds of Spanish oak trees, large dark shapes are moving. An occasional grunt or squeal drifts our way and Antonio Hernández of the Dehasa ‘Los Pinos’ answers back with strange noises.

The black Iberian pigs prick up their ears, or they would if their ears weren’t so charmingly floppy, and a mob begins to move toward us. Continue reading →

Catching Up With Hastings Fish

Posted on December 9, 2018 by Nick Harman under chefs, Europe, food producers, Northern Europe, Restaurants

Nick heads down to Hastings to do a bit of fishing for Xmas recipes and discover more about fish

Storm be a brewing

The wind and rain are lashing the Stade on Hastings’ seafront by the Old Town, with people being almost bowled over as they move between the ancient black net sheds and the spanking new Jerwood art gallery on the beach.

I have my head firmly down and my coat wrapped tight around me, my glasses are so covered in moisture that when I do look up it’s like being in a blurred psychedelic light show. Where am I? I ask in desperation, to no one in particular.

A passer by takes pity and directs me to my destination, the Classroom on the Coast on the Stade. Pushing open the heavy door and sliding inside I’m suddenly out of the elements and I feel as happy as a fisherman who’s managed to get below deck in a Force 10.

Which is apt as there is an old fisherman waiting inside; John ‘Tush’ Hamilton is one of the last of the Hastings fish ‘hawkers’. Continue reading →

Going out for a beer, or several, in Slovenia

Posted on October 18, 2018 by Nick Harman under beer, chefs, craft beer, cruises, Europe, food, food producers, Restaurants, slovenia

There’s a burgeoning beer scene in Slovenia and some wonderful scenery too. Nick sees if something can successfully be organised in a brewery.

The men in the ‘pub’ of the Union Brewery in Ljubljana are in fine voice tonight. As a woman cranks rousing tunes out of an accordion that’s almost as big as she is, they roar out the choruses whilst waving mugs of beer to the beat.

It’s all sung in Slovenian of course, so I have no idea what the words mean, but I’m happy to raise my own glass and cheer loudly at the end of each song. The conviviality meter has gone off the scale here in this packed bar/restaurant.

Also off the scale is the platter of meat in front of me featuring slabs of pork, tangles of spicy sausages, juicy spare ribs and more all piled onto sauerkraut and baked potatoes. Continue reading →

Delta Force

Posted on May 29, 2018 by Nick Harman under chefs, Europe, food, food producers, Northern Europe, Restaurants, Uncategorized

The eco-conscious Ebre Delta in Tarragona is unlike any other part of Spain. I took a few days to explore the rice, the food, the wine and even the sake.

Paella is taken very seriously in the paddy fields

‘In a few square kilometres, I can find everything I need to eat,’ says local legend Senor Polet, as his friend stirs an enormous paella in the kitchen.

Outside the ancient house, a barraca style that’s typical of the area, the paddyfields of the Ebre Delta stretch away, stopping only at the base of the distant mountains in one direction and the nearby Mediterranean sea in the other. Continue reading →

Tack For The Memory. Sweden On A Plate

Posted on April 29, 2018 by Nick Harman under cheese, Europe, food, food producers, Northern Europe, Restaurants

Forget fika, there’s more to Swedish gastronomy than coffee and buns. Nick takes the plane north to dig down into the food-rich region of Jämtland Härjedalen

The Sound Of Silence

It takes two airplanes to get to Östersund, the capital and only city in Jämtland Härjedalen. The final descent out of a clear blue sky reveals a countryside that seems more lakes than land, with the lakes still frozen in April and blanketed in thick snow.

The melt is beginning though and soon the locals will put away their skis, the area is famous for its skiing, and begin to cycle and hike through their forests and fields. The Swedish here love to be outdoors whatever the weather.

And they love to eat well, the region is dotted with over 200 artisan food and drink producers, as well as restaurants and chefs that take inspiration and ingredients from the land and water around them. Self-sufficiency is real here, not a fashion.

The Frozen North

Östersund on the edge of Lake Storsjön is a lively, friendly place and geographically it’s celebrated as the very centre of Sweden. The bars and restaurants don’t compete for business, they share it and as I move around the town I find the same faces – bartenders, chefs, shop owners and local food entrepreneurs lall waving cheerfully as they slip and slide on the snow.

All that Jazz

A cocktail in Jazzkoket in Östersund Sweden

Drink it or wear it?

In the centre of this centre of Sweden is Jazzköket, which means ‘Jazz Cuisine’ in English. Tucked away in a hidden courtyard, its open kitchen radiates heat and bonhomie and, typically for Sweden, there are all ages enjoying its eclectic interior design and delicious food.

From the bakery in the cellar comes out superb sourdough and chefs cook with beef from mountain cows, as well as ‘Fangsten’, which means whatever seafood has been caught and brought to them that day.

A bartender making a cocktail in Jazzkoket in Östersund Sweden

A Swedish Hipster?

Across the courtyard is a cellar bar, where the team create esoteric cocktails based on local ingredients and invite guests to choose their own music from a stash of vinyl in the corner.

Having a browse, I find the oeuvre of Saxon features strongly, Swedish men may all look like Hoxton hipsters but they do like ‘the metal’ all the same.

The hip bartender makes up a selection of cocktails for me to try, including a marvellous one made with moss and a food dish whose name is tongue twister, but with its salty fish roe totally blows me away with its depths of flavours and sheer Swedishness.

a dish of salmon, potato, carrot and dill at Lilla Saluhallen

It doesn’t get much more Swedish

Although for a classic Swedish lunch you’d be hard pressed to find better than the salmon, potato, carrot and dill I happily eat at Lilla Saluhallen later, a delicatessen and casual restaurant combined and run by the partner of the man who runs the Jazzkoket bar.

The menu board at Lilla Saluhallen in Sweden

It was all Greek to me

In her well-stocked shop of local produce, I taste some superb cheeses that came from Oviken Ost,a nearby dairy that makes its artisan cheeses from cows and sheep with the milk either from their own herd or sourced locally.

So, good was the cheese that I have to meet the makers, so I drive up to the dairy in blazing sunshine and blue skies that belie the 5C temperature outside.

A cheesemaker in the dairy at Oviken Ost Sweden

Say Cheese

‘We couldn’t get the sheep’s milk we wanted at first,’ I’m told as I am shown around, ‘so we began crossing Nordic ewes with purebred East Friesian dairy rams’. They have over 90 acres and 200 hectares of managed forest around them and the whole dairy here is eco-friendly with heat coming from a wood chip boiler that uses wood from their forest. The cheese they make is so good it’s served at Magnus Faviken’s restaurant not far away, as well as at Noma.

Delicious on crispbread

The milk is left unpasteurised to get every bit of the flavour out and the cheeses, which range from hard to soft, are a real treat. This is how cheese ought to taste all the time.

Pork matters

‘They look like Rastafarian pigs,’ laughs the chef at Slaktarn i Östersund AB, ‘they have long furry coats’. I’m looking down at perhaps the finest pork chop I have ever seen on a plate.

As thick as an old phone book, it’s perfectly cooked and simply served with crisp apple shards and local artisan beers Jämtlands Steamer and Jämtlands India Pale Ale. Here with the latter they know better than to overhop and create refreshing brews that are balanced and very drinkable.

Chop chop

The guys at Slaktarn i Östersund AB are young men driven by a desire for proper meat. The animals come from local farmers who all focus on providing natural lives for their animals, all grown to proper maturity and fed naturally from what the animals themselves choose to eat as they wander about freely.

The soil is monitored for organic quality and slaughter is carried out to the most humane methods, with the meat then aged slowly and carefully. The result is meat selected by all the best shops and restaurants in the area. And yes, that includes that place Faviken again.

Ice age

Nick Harman fishing on a frozen lake in Sweden

The smallest fishing rod ever

Of course, if you really want to get fresh food, you need to catch it yourself. Which is why the next day I find myself lying face down in the snow peering into a metre-deep hole we’ve just drilled through the lake ice.

Just a few more feet to go

A thirty minutes ride as passenger, and for a glorious fifteen minutes as a driver, on a powerful snowmobile with local hotel owner and mountain rescue expert Richard, has brought me out to the middle of a giant lake where the guides brew our coffee on fires made from scavenged wood and proffer slices of cured reindeer to keep us fed until the fish bite.

Not dead, just fishing

The rod is tiny, I look like a garden gnome. I can see the fish when I peer down, but they don’t want to be caught. We pack up and motor to a restaurant a few kilometres away deep in the Sami, the indigenous peoples, land.

The restaurant Hävvi in Glen is part of the Tossåsens Sami village in the Oviken mountains 50 km from Östersund and chef Elaine is married into a Sami family. The Sami people have lived from, and with, nature since time began and sustainability is their natural way of life.

A large bearskin pinned to the ceiling suggests that their attitude to nature is also pragmatic.

We eat Sami appetisers, a platter of smoked and cured reindeer components – heart, tongue, liver, that sort of thing – and then smoked mountain char, sea buckthorn, fried angelica, mayonnaise with apple vinegar, roasted bone marrow, fried fish skin and cloudberries, a plate redolent of this part of Sweden.

Plating up the Elk’s nose

Then it’s tempered suovas with slow baked swede, spring vegetables, blueberries and creamed black chanterelle mushrooms and crispy elknose. Suovas is dry-salted meat smoked by the Sami over an open fire.

Crispy elknose is like pork scratchings, but a great deal tastier and we end with a palate cleansing sorbet made from cloudberries and sea buckthorn. It’s a meal that anywhere else would be served surrounded by pomposity, pretentiousness and with chef posing at the pass. Here Elaine just cooks the food she likes to eat, and it is excellent.

Drinking songs

Snaps

The sound of singing is loud in the basement of the Buustamon hotel and we’ve only had a few drinks. Helan Går, roughly Chug It Down, is one song being belted out and I wish I could join in.

Snapsvisor (drinking songs) are popular with all ages and classes in Sweden and where better to get the tonsils twitching then in a distillery?

The exterior of of the Buustamon hotel Sweden

Where the Spirits live

Snaps is a shot of aquavit, an ingrained part of Swedish culture and in this charming hotel and farm, halfway up Areskutan and accessible only by a bumpy but fun ride in a snowcat, they make their own – all the way from the mash to the bottle labels. Beautiful freshwater, lingonberries, elderflower and all kinds of local herbs and spices are used between spring and autumn, any other time the water is frozen solid, to make their range of snaps – Arevodka, Buustasup, and Hojt.

Snow snacks

It took them a long time to get the distilling permit under Sweden’s somewhat draconian alcohol laws, and rather bizarrely you still can’t actually buy a bottle at the hotel. No matter, I wobble up the stairs to the restaurant to a superb dinner of local produce in the wood heavy dining room.

Jämtland Härjedalen has certainly left me singing inside my head, with its wonderful people, food, drink and of course fabulous scenery. This amazing region is a place I could very happily call home and I can’t wait to come back again.

The foraging chef

Big takt (thanks) to:

The Jämtland Härjedalen Tourist Board

Visit Sweden

www.Jht.se

www.Adventuresweden.com

Buustamon Hotel

Copperhill Mountain Lodge

www.are.se

Wikners i Persåsen Hotel

The Unbeatable Barley of Holkham

Posted on November 16, 2017 by Nick Harman under chefs, Europe, food, food producers, Northern Europe, Restaurants

Barley is indispensable to brewing and for the best brews only the best barley will do. Nick visits the Earl of Leicester’s Holkham Estate to see how they grow the finest barley for the varied beers of Marston’s Brewery.

Holkham Hall. Palladian Perfection

‘We listen out for geese at night, you wake up sweating’. Holkham Farm Manager James Beamish is telling me in his wonderful Norfolk accent how natural predators such as geese can undo months of work. The flying pests can eat a lot of barley and in a very short time.

It’s a natural hazard they have to deal with at Holkham, the massive estate of the Earl of Leicester made up of 10,000 hectares of farmed land of which 1000 acres are are give over to game, pasture and conservation.

Rotating, not standing still

At Holkham they use the crop rotation system created back in the late 18th Century by the Earl’s ancestor Coke of Norfolk, which is basically swapping crop after crop through the year to make best use of the land and naturally increase productivity.

Barely a tiny percent of all the Barley

Back then it was four crops, now it’s six including potatoes, sugar beet and of course barley. Coke’s name by the way is pronounced Cook, ‘so it is!’ says James, who ends most of his statements with this rather charming second-affirmative, presumably a local dialect.

Holkham Farm Manager James Beamish, so it is

Crop rotation, when done properly alongside other organic techniques, reduces the need for artificial fertiliser and pesticides. It feeds the soil and puts it in balance so as to cut disease, build nutrients, and grow yields all in a natural un-forced manner.

As we drink warming mugs of home-made ‘Horlicks’ (made from farm barley) Director of Farming Poul Hoveson explains that when he first arrived on the estate the roads and lanes were swimming in the run off of artificially-applied nitrates, while the soil itself looked barren and sad. Not anymore. Careful, sensitive stewardship of the land has made it very productive and one of their special crops is the Flagon variety of barley.

Bringing in the barley

You never tyre of a good pun

It’s special because here in Norfolk, where frosts are virtually unheard of, they can grow this winter barley ensuring supply to their biggest customer Marston’s Brewery who have been at the brewing game since 1834 and work closely with the barley growers. Malt which comes from barley is indispensable to brewing, the barley is dampened until it begins to produce tiny sprouts then gently kilned for an alluring ‘Horlicks-like flavou.

The sugars of the barley feed the yeast that creates the alcohol in the beer, as well as delivering the flavours. It’s a massive operation with the barley stored in huge hangars after harvest. The unwanted parts of the plant are fed into two giant anaerobic digesters, ‘basically enormous cows’ stomachs,’ says Paul, that convert it all into methane gas which is sold to the national grid. All very green.

The estate he’s in

Green Is Good

Management of the estate in an ecologically sound way is important to the 4th Earl who pops up, rather like Ralph from the Fast Show, in videos playing in the fascinating Farm to Fork exhibition at his ancestral home Holkham Hall, a beautiful mansion at Wells Next The Sea.

Much of the land on the estate is set aside for wild growth to encourage birds, insects and small creatures who all help defend against pests. Larger animals such as cows are chosen by breed to graze on suitable land for their needs and the sheep are also the ‘Golden Hoof’ of ancient times; their movement, and their bowel movements, all helping to naturally till the earth and fertilise it. And when the mechanical plough is needed, it digs very shallowly to preserve the soil structure.

Shooting off to lunch

It’s all rather fascinating but what about some beer? We head off to an old shooting lodge called The Temple in the Holkham woods near to the Hall to have a spot of lunch and some liquid refreshment as Marston’s brewer Callum Turner has turned up with a lot of samples.

Pie eyed, not legless

Two small batch beers from the Marston’s DE14 nano brew kit are served up with Chef Michael Chamberlain from The Victoria Inn’s venison sausage and pigeon pie in front of a toasty-warm wood burner. Freekeh and pomegranate molasses beer is an interesting one, freekeh being an ancient form of grain picked while still green. The molasses adds a sweetness that works with the game meat.

Not your everyday beer

Similarly effective is a second beer made from smoked wheat and honey, which tastes rather like mead. Neither perhaps will ever get to mass-market, but are examples of Marston’s constant desire to experiment and innovate in order to excite the nation’s beer enthusiasts.

Sand and sea

We decamp to beautiful Holkham Beach, where Gwyneth Paltrow once ambled in the film Shakespeare In Love and where locals hint that you can occasionally see Her Other Majesty, Elizabeth II, walking the dogs. It’s stunning and kept that way by the Holkham Estate’s careful management so that it’s a paradise for dog walkers, birds and for bird watchers or twitchers as they’re known.

Wide skied and not legless

I’m a bit twitchy myself, thirsting for some more Marston’s, so we crack some bottles of Marston’s EPA (English Pale Ale) a light, citrusy, beer that’s very refreshing, although perhaps not best drunk in the freezing dusk wind that’s now storming inland. We head back to the nearby Victoria Inn for some cold beer in a warm bar with a beer-matched dinner to follow.

Naturally Chilled

The Victoria Inn sits just at the gates of Holkham Nature Reserve and the beach, a perfect place to stay any time of year. Inside it’s all roaring fires and classic country hotel charm largely unchanged in feel since it was built in 1837. The window in my room looked like it was still the Victorian original.

In the kitchen Chef Michael uses fish and shellfish from the north Norfolk coast, beef from Holkham farms, lamb and pork from farm tenants, wild game from the family shoot, and today venison from the estate’s herd of Fallow Deer.

We start with a pike terrine with fennel, warm potato salad with winter barley-malt bread and chef’s Honey beer bread, all with that other Norfolk famous product, mustard.

Don’t tell ’em Pike!

I’ve always found pike to be a terribly bony fish, as well as a rather terrifying one, but this dish shows its solid, meaty, side. It’s paired with more of that hoppy Marston’s EPA, English hops, by the way, so that’s good for a post Brexit pint, and Marston’s 61 Deep which uses American and Australian hops.

The 61 Deep gets its name from the depth of the well at the Marston Brewery; it’s fruity and floral and works best when drunk after a forkful of food laden with that fiery mustard dressing. A beer to drink with anything spicy – Mexican Indian, Thai, you know the drill.

Second up are Marston’s Pedigree and Marston’s Old Empire IPA . Most beer drinkers know Pedigree, it’s sold on draft all over the place, but the Old Empire may be new. It is actually very old recipe, the beer that fuelled the Empire now faithfully recreated for the modern world where Britannia no longer rules the waves.

Deer but not Dear

Both beers went well with roasted loin and braised haunch of venison, turnip dauphinoise, kale and redcurrant jus, the loin well cooked, i.e. pretty rare. I preferred the IPA for its complexity, Pedigree is fine by the pint but for me it’s not a dining beer.

And so to dessert with the barley appearing in a barley pudding with along with a ginger malt crunch biscuit, doughnut muffin and a malt milkshake. This was washed down with Marston’s Pearl Jet Stout, and Marston’s Cherry Head.

Just Desserts

The latter’s label promises a cherry stout with hints of chocolate malt and Black Forest gateau and there was definitely cherry there, but it wasn’t to my taste. The pearl jet stout was more my thing, a bitter-sweet experience that helped the sugars go down a treat.

And what a treat it was to sample Marston’s Beers at the place their barley comes from and see how modern farming needn’t be destructive or unsustainable, just as long as you listen out for the honking of geese.

Thanks to:
The Holkham Estate www.holkham.co.uk

Marston’s Brewery www.marstons.co.uk

The Victoria Inn, Holkham, Wells-next-the-Sea

Get ready for the Guernsey Food Festival

Posted on August 23, 2017 by Nick Harman under cheese, Europe, food, food producers, Northern Europe, Restaurants

Proud and passionate, the Guernsey people have more than a beautiful island to showcase. The ten-day festival in September is one any keen foodie should be heading out to. Nick gets a preview.

Rock Samphire. Free food

It’s salty and citrusy, juicy and crunchy, it’s plentiful and it’s free. I’m eating a handful of rock samphire that I’ve plucked from the ground not twenty feet from the road and it’s delicious.

The sea is the larder

Unlike the samphire you find in the fishmongers, this Guernsey rock samphire is much fresher and almost needs no cooking at all.

I stick some in my pocket to nibble on as I watch the local kestrels hovering effortlessly on the wind, keenly scanning the ground for their own free food to appear.

As the car weaves inland through the narrow lanes on this small island, toward a goat farm I’m off to visit, another form of foraged food reveals itself, the Hedge Veg. Continue reading →

Balearic Eats

Posted on August 5, 2017 by Nick Harman under cheese, chefs, Europe, food, food producers, Restaurants, Southern Europe

Time to go raving in Ibiza, raving over the food that is.

The view from Hotel Torre del Mar

A large poster catches my eye on the way in from the airport, it’s of Fat Boy Slim heavily photoshopped to be both very fat and very slim at the same time. He’s looking his age either way, which is in fact my age. That he can get a massive room full of people to wave their hands in the air is quite remarkable, as is the massive fee he reportedly gets for doing it.

Ibiza is of course well known as clubbers’ island; posters for the various venues are more numerous than posters advertising cars, washing powders or indeed anything else. My plane had boasted plenty of stags and hens already deep in the party spirit, while the despairing cabin staff tried to keep order. Ordering a drunk man dressed as a giant chicken to sit down is never easy.

The inner beauty of Ibiza

There is more to Ibiza than drink and dancing though. It’s a beautiful place once you get away from the epicentres of E consumption, with lots of hidden, quiet beaches and small inland villages. Continue reading →

Abruzzo. The Italian region ready to be revealed

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Nick Harman under cheese, Europe, food, food producers, Restaurants, Southern Europe, wine

Nun’s naughty bits, a wine that’s not a cheese, wine boxes that aren’t square and vino that flows from a drinking fountain, Nick finds Abruzzo is an Italian region that’s full of surprises.

A lovely bun

“They’re called ‘Nun’s’ Breasts’, “Sise delle Monache” in Italian, says Valentina di Camillo unveiling a tray of freshly made pastries in the garden overlooking her family’s glorious vineyards. The origins of the pastry’s name are vague, they were first called ‘Three Mountains’ owing to their triple peaks but the new name came about when a nun… well, let’s leave it there.

Liver sausage, goes great with red wine.

They are delicious, soft as can be and stuffed to bursting with sinful crème patissiere. One of these and a black coffee and your morning is off to a good start. Personally I am eating them just after an al fresco breakfast consisting of superb cured meats, pungent cheeses and a fair few glasses of Valentina’s lovely wines, so I am using the coffee and sugar to offset the alcohol I’ve knocked back. Continue reading →

Go Dutch for great food at sea.

Posted on June 16, 2016 by Nick Harman under cruises, Europe, food, Northern Europe, Restaurants

Today’s cruisers attach massive importance to the quality and variety of food on board. Nick Harman sees what Holland America’s newest ship has on the menu.

home-bg Holland America is one of the most venerable of cruise lines, but perhaps not the best known in the UK. Founded in 1873 for many years it ran regular passenger sailings from Holland to New York.

In fact when Rotterdam was the gateway to a new and better life for European emigrants in the early part of the last century, it was mostly on Holland America ships that they sailed.

I was invited to Rotterdam to sail and eat on the ms Koningsdam, the newest addition to the Holland America Pinnacle-class cruising fleet, and the largest as well. It was about to be dedicated by Queen Maxima of the Netherlands before we sailed to Amsterdam overnight.

All aboard for ‘free’ food Continue reading →

The Culinary Traveller