Sun, sea and sustainability in Ibiza

Posted on June 11, 2018 by Nick Harman under chefs, Europe, food, food producers, Southern Europe

Known for its club culture, there’s also a different beat in Ibiza, one that’s all about sustainability, Zero Kilometre sourcing and the rise of the female chef.

A wild and lonely place

‘Skreeeeek, skreeek, skreeek’, I’m watching a man laboriously pull in his fishing net by hand. His small ancient local boat, called a Llaut, is bobbing about on the water between Ibiza and its smaller neighbour, Formentera. The net, all 5km of it is being slowly retrieved using a large wheel as a capstan. It’s badly in need of some WD40, hence the ‘fingernails down blackboard’ noise it’s making.

Not a large catch

Every now and then the fisherman bends down to retrieve a fish from his net. If it’s too small, it goes back over the side otherwise it goes into the cold box. His nets are only left out for an hour each time to avoid any chance of the fish being crushed to death when the haul is good.

As a method of fishing it’s old and ineffective, but that’s the point. The fishermen of Ibiza have embraced the need for sustainability.

You can fish over there!

On our boat, Pere Valera who heads the Ibizan Fishermen Guild, pulls out a chart and shows me where in the local waters large scale trawl fishing can take place, where it has to be done only in this old style and where it is totally banned so that the fish can breed in peace. This last area is Es Freus Marine Reserve of Ibiza and Formentera, which was set up in 1999.

It takes in the far south of Ibiza, the north, the west coast of Formentera and the space that separates them with a total area of 13,617 marine hectares, making it the second largest protected marine area in the Spanish Mediterranean.

Back on shore, at the Guild headquarters where all fish are processed, he shows me some more of how the system works. The fisherman all signed up in 2008 to an initiative called Peix Nostrum – Our Fish.

Bagged and tagged

Under this ‘brand’ bright yellow tags are clipped to each fish and lobster and these must remain attached all the way to the market, and the fish must arrive within four hours of being caught.

The tag gives information on where the fish was caught, precisely when it was caught and by whom, as well as guaranteeing it has been processed correctly.

Bullet de Peix

This means that every restaurant on the island can be confident its fish has been supplied in a sustainable manner. And that matters, both to the chefs and to their customers. Everyone loves the local fish stew Bullit de Peix and they want to know it’s been made with care.

‘None of the fishermen in Peix Nostrum wants to empty the sea,’ Pere says, waving a fish about. ‘We want fishing to continue for our children and grandchildren, so we only catch reasonable amounts of fish and shellfish. And it works. We’re the only part of the Mediterranean where the lobster is not disappearing, for example.

Eco and very friendly

Back on dry land to the west of the town of Santa Eulalia Del Rio, is Can Musón. Founder and driving force María Marí Colomar was about to retire from her work as a fashion designer when she was horrified to find a local child, when asked to draw a chicken, drew a box instead.

So, she picked up a spade and not a pen and created a wonderful place to teach the upcoming generations the importance of sustainability of local produce and of rare breeds.

Mari

Here on her 65,000 sq. eco farm she grows organic fruit and vegetables in profusion, as well as many herbs too. She also raises rabbits, pigs and goats, most of them local breeds that need protecting from dying out.

The produce is all sold out the front from a large market stall, as well as served in the simple but delicious cafe. This area is discreetly wealthy with plenty of expat and second-home Brits around. They have a very Notting Hill vibe about them, with the women drifting about in floaty boho dresses and hats, all topped off with subtle designer sunglasses.

They help keep the farm paid for, its main purpose being to educate the children who come out on regular trips to the farm school – S’al lot Verd (it means ‘the green youngster’ in Catalan), to see where food comes from and to be schooled in the need for sustainability.

A digestif

Mari puts me to work making a bottle of Hierbas, the local post-meal stomach calmer. Into a bottle of spirit go 21 fresh herbs from the farm, these will then steep for as long as possible to bring all manner of complex flavours and remedial qualities to the drink.

I screw the top on tight and hope baggage handling doesn’t turn the Hierbas into a big mess in my suitcase. That would really give me an upset stomach.

Zero Km sourcing is big with Ibizan restaurants. The closer the produce is to the plate, the better. Not just for the taste of course, but also for the freshness and the fact that no transport but Shank’s Pony is needed, which cuts helps pollution on the White Island.

People who cook in glass houses

At Can Domo restaurant, a beautiful Agroturismo hotel and restaurant created from a 17th Century hilltop farm by a husband and wife team and located up an axle-breaking dirt road in the north of the island, 18 km from Ibiza town, they have over 600 olive trees surrounding them. Arbequina olive trees and Picual olive trees are all tended organically to produce the award-winning fruity, floral oils they use to cook with and also sell.

A chef and his produce

They also have a vegetable plot that produces almost all chef Pau Barba needs to create his stunning dishes for his farm-to-table restaurant located in a glass-walled room across from his semi open-air kitchen. He cooks and his wife takes care of the design and running of the hotel with its 8 rustic-chic individually decorated rooms in whitewashed stone outbuildings

The wine served is from Ibiza; ‘of course’ you might say, but in fact it’s something you’d not have said twenty or so years ago because Ibiza just didn’t make wine then. Today though the island has around seven wine producers and one of the most successful is Can Rich.

Earthy goodness

Since starting up in 1997, Can Rich now produce only organic wines, and were one of the first people to make wine in Ibiza since the Phoenicians left about 2000 years ago.

Can Rich, like all Ibizan wines, differs from other Spanish wines. The almost non-stop continual sunshine of Ibiza means the red Monastrell grapes can be harvested earlier and so escape the full blasting heat of summer, and there are minerals in the grapes unique to the island, all characteristics which come out on the nose and the palate.

Monastrell produces a very earthy, vegetal smelling wine. I thought my wine was corked when first served it, but soon grew to love it and drank little else after.

Chef Sílvia Anglada

The sun is beating down at Club Nautic Sant Antoni and Ibiza Sabor 2018 is under way and packed with chefs, trainee chefs, suppliers and press. I can see Pere who waves cheerfully as well various other chefs I’ve met over the past few days.

A beetroot donut

It’s very much focused on sustainability and has a focus too on female chefs. Sílvia Anglada of restaurant Es Tast de na Sílvia, in Ciutadella, Minorca runs her restaurant on strict eco lines and demonstrates one of her signature dishes, a kind of cheese doughnut with a beetroot jam

Coca bread topped with roasted tomatoes

She’s followed by Marga Coll from restaurant Miceli, in Majorca who tells us her restaurant never has a fixed menu and is driven entirely by what she finds in the morning market. As she talks she creates a dish of coca bread topped with roasted tomatoes, dried fish and cheese from Can Caus an artisan producer.

Not your average Mr Whippy

Alejandra Rivas runs Gelateria Rocambolesc, a project of the Roca brothers of El Celler de Can Roca fame, and she is married to Jordi Roca. Her demonstration of novel ways with ice-cream, both sweet and salty, was refreshing and it’s easy to see why she now has four gelaterias in Spain.

Paella all round

Lunch, of 12 courses, each prepared by one of the chefs, was a triumphant celebration of the Balearic produce, the passion for sustainability and the talent of the islands’ chefs. The giant paella finally served was the icing on the cake,

If you’ve been putting off going to Ibiza because you don’t dance that much anymore, think again. That side of the island is one very small part of what it does, so pack a knife and fork and leave the glowsticks at home.

Our thanks to my hosts Ibiza Travel and to all the marvellous chefs and producers of the White Island who work so hard every day.

Can Domo images sourced from their website

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

Getting the gins in with Hayman’s

Posted on March 25, 2018 by Nick Harman under Europe, gin

There are plenty of ex City boys making trendy versions of gin, but the real deal is out there too. Nick went to meet the Haymans, who’ve been keeping gin in the family since 1863

Line them up barman

You’d never guess there was now a gin distillery in Balham, South West London, and, if you didn’t know where to look it’s unlikely you’d find it if you did. I went past the rather secret entrance a few times.

I rather expected something Victorian, Dickensian even, but no. The converted industrial unit is shining bright and beautifully fitted out inside. You know Grand Designs? Or as we call it in my home ‘Better Houses Than Yours’? Well this is the kind of thing that gets Kevin all excited. Continue reading →

Lemons over the Atlantic

Posted on March 12, 2018 by Nick Harman under Europe, food, food producers

With the Beast From The East arriving imminently, Nick probably didn’t pick the best night to go to New Covent Garden Market to see how top restaurants get their fresh veg every day.

“It’s called the ‘Flash’,” one of the market traders tells me, almost invisible under his layers and layers of warm clothing on this freezing night in Vauxhall.

He’s talking about the beautiful display of fresh veg outside his unit on Buyers’ Row at New Covent Garden Market. Boxes and boxes of vegetables and fruits, from the exotic to the everyday, all painstakingly assembled into an eye-catching tribute to the freshest produce money can buy. Continue reading →

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 Your Modena Running

Posted on October 18, 2017 by Nick Harman under Europe, food producers, Southern Europe, vinegar

Fast cars, fat singers, fine food and fizzy Lambrusco, in Modena you get to experience it all.

Man and Machine

‘Push! Push! Push!’, cries the man in the passenger seat and so I obligingly push down hard on the accelerator. The bright red Ferrari California makes a noise like Pavarotti getting his fingers caught in a door and £160,000 worth of supercar hurls itself forward as I frantically work the paddle gear change to keep up. The speedo needle rushes toward the motorway limit and then past it, but it isn’t even a fifth of the way around its elegant dial yet.

‘Piano, piano,’ ‘gently, gently’, advises my Italian co-pilot as the rear of a giant lorry suddenly fills the windscreen, so I let off the pedal, dab the brakes and the car majestically slows down as if a giant hand has grasped it. Continue reading →

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 →

The Culinary Traveller

A food writer on the road around the world

Sun, sea and sustainability in Ibiza

Known for its club culture, there’s also a different beat in Ibiza, one that’s all about sustainability, Zero Kilometre sourcing and the rise of the female chef.

Delta Force

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.

Tack For The Memory. Sweden On A Plate