Beautiful words, beautiful food - Nigel

"Early spring, Kamakura, and a small basket appears at my table and a tiny dish of salt. In it, a single whisp of new season's bracken in tempura batter, the fern caught in the process of slowly unfurling." Nigel Slater

Looking for inspiration again - it's an everyday thing. I couldn't get excited about the cuisine of El Salvador or smoked fish canapés (my next first recipe - maybe tomorrow), and so I decided to have another look at Nigel Slater's beautiful book of small written pieces - A Thousand Feasts - no pictures, just words - which sits on my desk littered with yellow post-it notes denoting words that might start a blog.

Each section of the book is broken into very short essays and one tiny memory or thought. In his Introduction he tells us they are:

"a written recod of the good things, memories of meals shared or eaten alone, of journeys and places, events and happenings, small things that have given pleasure before they disappeared. Each one is, I suppose, a short story to remind me of something, ordinary or extraordinary, that I felt worth chronicling. They are almost without exception, moments of quiet jubilation: a ripe mango eaten in a rainstorm; the smell of incense in a temple or the sound of footsteps on the stone floor of an abbey."

We should all do that, even if we cannot describe them as beautifully. For our memories are not good enough to remember them all. We remember some, but there were of course many more and those moments of joy are those which enable us to continue in a world beset by distant horrors and close sadness. Like today's blue sky and its gleamingly white and bubbly clouds, the cockatoos grubbing for food, and the indefatigable mynahs constantly piping away out there. Or maybe a gingernut dipped in a cup of black coffee, to bring back memories of youthful days when the world was luring us on to love and adventure.

And so today I lighted upon that opening quote although I wasn't at all sure where I would go from there. First of all I had to find a suitable picture to illustrate Nigel's words, and the one at the top of the page is the best I could find - I did not find any so delicate and just 'one whisp' (shouldn't that be 'wisp' Nigel or is 'whisp' more poetic?). Later in the afternoon, however, I found this which is not the right vegetable - more on that to come - but I suspect that it may be where Nigel was presented with his 'fern caught in the process of slowly unfurling' - a well-known restaurant called Oishi, which apparently means delicious and can be found in the town of Kamakura, which is a little south of Yokohama on the coast and the train line between Tokyo and Yokohama. A tourist town with beaches, views, and an enormous Buddha, as well as these cute little statues of something. It's where Nigel ate his fern.

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And whilst we are on the beauty of that dish - as I was searching I found this and could not resist showing it because it was so very Japanese in its attention to the detail of the plating, and the presentation. It's a tempura fig - also not a common thing to receive the tempura treatment but which kamiisushi - the Instagram member whose photo this is, described as:

"Crisp on the outside, sweet and tender within — Ichijiku Tempura brings a surprising twist to traditional age mono. The natural sweetness of fresh fig, wrapped in delicate tempura batter, captures the fleeting beauty of the season."

Which neatly brings us back to the dish that Nigel was describing, because Kogomi - or fiddle-head ferns, are just one of the sansai - mountain spring vegetables - that are celebrated in Japan, like the cherry blossom - and which have a really fleeting season. On a website called Hiro and Noki Adventure Tours I found a pretty complete description of kogomi, including how to find it and how to cook it. It's called Fiddle-head or Ostrich fern and: "Its curled shape resembles a human bending over." And you have to break off the shoots when very young.

That's because virtually all of these sansai are bitter, and the longer you leave them the bitterer and less tasty they become. And yet they are nutritious as well.

Another website called Teha/Nagase Foods had a lot more information about the chemical qualities of them all:

"Why do humans desire such diverse "bitterness" in the first place? Humans can discern "bitterness" primarily because their tongue receptors are exceptionally developed. The number of taste buds related to bitterness on the human tongue is significantly higher compared to those for sweetness or umami. This ability has evolved over time to enable humans to easily detect toxins in food. ... a small amount of poison can also be medicinal."

And it is true is it not that we do like bitter things - marmalade, radicchio, lemons, chocolate, coffee ...

Apparently there are similar ferns in Australia but you need to know what you are eating. In Japan they used to grow wild, but they are now grown commercially because they are so popular. So popular there is a festival.

At this point I decided to see if I could find any recipes for leafy tempura - well tempura in general and found that the main thing that was unique to tempura batter was its delicacy - very thin - and also that tempura should be eaten straight from the pan. I did find one rather nice little fact however - the name 'tempura' comes from the Portuguese, who used to trade with Japan - 'tempuras' which means 'ember days' - also somewhat poetic.

Here I offer two sites that will take you through the tempura process - Felicity Cloake and her Perfect tempura and Nagi Maaehashi's Japanese mum who has her own Recipe Tin Japan website where she 'does' Tempura

People don't seem to fiddle with tempura all that much. Once you've mastered the batter and the technique it seems you can apply the principles to almost everything. Even Ottolenghi merely adds a few chilli flakes, and reserves his innovations to the dipping sauce. Chef Alex Page offered Ramp and fiddlehead tempura with spicy yoghurt and Nigel himself gives us Deep-fried vegetables, ricotta and basil

So here I will end with another passage from Nigel - this time on The Guardian website, where he describes yet another meal of tempura in Japan. He loves Japan and goes there at least once a year. The picture is from the Treha/Nagase Foods site.

"it was the little package of young mountain shoots that wowed me most of all: an unfurling frond of warabi – the wild fiddle-shaped bracken – a shoot of hillside asparagus and another of tight fuki buds served with brilliant scarlet blossoms on a bare, grey twig that finally brought a hush to the table. Probably the most hauntingly beautiful thing I have eaten for years, the very first of the season's sansai, the young, wild shoots just emerging into the chilly spring sun."

More trendily ordinary stuff from the New York Times - yesterday's offering

YEARS GONE BY

October 29

2024 - Cookies are NOT good for you

2023 - Solving the leftover problem - 1

2022 - Salmagundi

2021 - Dinner when the power goes out

2020 - Missing

2019 - Lobster or crayfish?

2018 - A jar of red cabbage and bacon chops - what a coincidence - I'm tackling a similar set of leftovers tonight - my leftover red cabbage stew which is going to become soup.

2017 - Nothing

2016 - Small happinesses - another coincidence, although with a different slant