David in the kitchen.

If it’s Thursday evening it must be Beerbods

About a year back someone bought me a subscription to Beerbods. This believe it not is an online beer tasting group. Once a quarter you get sent a case of twelve bottles of different beers. Then every Thursday evening at nine you open one and and as you drink you share your thoughts about the beer on Twitter with the Beerbods community. At first I was a bit wary, the whole thing sounded a bit nerdy. All it took was week ones very good bottle of IPA and I was hooked.

Each case covers the whole spectrum of beer types and while I’m not going to claim to have loved them all, they’ve never been less than interesting.

To be honest the person who bought me the subscription knew that they were on to a winner. I’ve always enjoyed beer and trying different styles and types.

Some of my most memorable weekend breaks and short trips have been to Belgium, particularly to Flemish cities like Brugge, Antwerp or Mechelen. The sights are good, the food wonderful but the beer is out of this world. I genuinely don’t think that there can be a country in the world with a range of beers to match the Belgians. Every taste is catered for from the almost sour Lambic’s to refreshing sharp Wheat beers and rich dark Abbey and Trappists. It’s not just the beers. Every Belgian city I’ve been to seems to be full of fascinating small and independent bars where the beer is always severed at it’s best and the surroundings just make you want to sit, sip and savour.

If I had to pick a favourite Belgian beer it would be Troubadour Obscura. I picked it at random from the beer menu in an Antwerp bar and everything has been compared to it since.

I’d been thinking about how to describe the taste of Obscure to you but then I found this description on the Beermerchants site and I knew I couldn’t improve on it.

https://www.beermerchants.com/troubadour-obscura-33cl-8-5/

All I will say is that if you are lucky enough to find a bottle treat it with care. Like many Belgian beers Obscura is seriously strong stuff.

Another great beer destination is Cologne in Germany. The Germans have laws that date back to the middle ages stipulating the ingredients that can go into their beer. This leads to some of the tastiest and freshest beers you can find. In Cologne the local beer type is Kolsch and I have fond memories of a Saturday afternoon spent in a very crowded brewery bar. We were fascinated by the barmen who circulated the room with crates of full glasses replacing empty ones seemingly without anyone asking. We drained ours, they were replaced and so it went on. Eventually we realised that if you didn’t want a replacement drink you placed a beermat over your empty glass. It took a while to suss this out though and led to a far boozier than anticipated afternoon.

As I’ve been sat here writing the email has come in from Beerbods to say which beer we’ll be trying this evening. It’s called Farmhouse Pale and is made by a brewery called Yonder Brewing and Blending. According to the notes it’s brewed from a rare Norwegian yeast strain, English and European hops and some house lacto bacteria cultures !!

I’ll let you know what it’s like.

If I’ve whetted your appetite for a beer there is more information about Beerbods here. Cheers.

https://beerbods.co.uk/shop/subscribe/

Great British Bake Off Week One

It’s reached that time of year again. That time when despite the first signs of summer coming to an end, things don’t actually feel so bad after all. I’m probably being fanciful but The Great British Bake Off has that affect on me. Yes I know it’s all a bit of a cliche but there is something about a competitive, yet supportive baking group that just draws me in every year.

I didn’t discover Bake Off until season four (that’s the Ruby Tandoh year if you’re a fan) but since then it’s been an annual highlight. I’ve baked along with it, I have various related books on my shelf and I’ve even had a couple of goes at applying to be on it. As I got further on the second application than the first I’m hoping that it’s third time lucky if i try again.

Just in case you haven’t seen the show let me explain the format. There are twelve or thirteen bakers at the start of the season. Each week is themed to a particular bake, for example cake, biscuits, bread. Each show is then split into three bakes, the first is the bakers signature bake, the second a technical challenge and the the third a show stopper. At the end of each show one baker is crowned as that weeks star baker and another is sent home. This process continues until the last three bakers contest the final.

In previous years I’ve been a bit selective on which weeks to bake along with the programme. This year the plan is to have a go at something every week and to share my experiences here.

Week one was cake week. The signature bake was a decorated fruit cake of your choice, the technical challenge was an Angel Cake and the show stopper was to bake the birthday cake that you wish you’d had as a child. As Angel Cake was always a childhood favourite my bake choice was never in doubt. I just needed to buy the pink and yellow food colours as everything else required was already in my pantry.

In a previous post I wrote about shop bought versus homemade cakes. Prior to this week Angel Cake for me had always been in the shop bought category. Three layers of light sponge sandwiching sweet butter cream. The layers of sponge coloured pink. yellow and white. I’d never made one before but on the face of it looked like a relatively straight forward bake. In reality I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The cake recipe required a genoise sponge. I have made one of these before but never found it easy. The problem comes with trying to keep the air in the whisked eggs and sugar as you fold in the other ingredients. A problem compounded with this cake because you are splitting the batter into three different bowls to account for the different colours.

Because of this at one point I was looking at three bowls each of cake batter, flour and melted butter and wandering ‘ why am I doing this’. Factor in three baking tins, a food mixer bowl as well and there was not an inch of empty work top in the kitchen.

Once that stage was over it was on to making an Italian meringue buttercream for the filling. A more straight forward stage that still managed to add another three bowls to the already daunting mountain of washing up.

So that’s the first week done. Did I enjoy the bake? Yes I did. Would I bake an Angel Cake again? I’m not sure I would. This one did perhaps feel as if it should have been left as that childhood memory.

Lessons learned from Bake Off week one

Don’t be afraid of food colours. I’d never used them before and was a bit tentative this time. The result was a slightly pastel coloured cake
Read the recipe thoroughly before you start. I didn’t and it resulted in me having to throw away my first batch of buttercream. A schoolboy error I know.

If anyone fancies having a go the link to the recipe I used is below. For any American readers I think that this is a very different recipe to what you know as an Angel Cake.

https://thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk/angel-slices/

Next time it’s biscuit week.

A few of my favourite things

One of the many and various food magazines that find their way into this house recently had an article where a selection of chefs and foodie people listed their favourite ingredient. That one thing they use regularly to turn a simple dish into something special. Some of them were quite straight forward, for example Jack Monroe listed sage and onion stuffing. Whereas some of them were much more left field, Monica Galetti picked charcoal and Alison Roman went for a Japanese fermented chilli paste called Yuzo Kosho.

The article got me to thinking about what some of my favourite ingredients are

Fennel Seeds

These are definitely my go to on the herb rack. A delicate hint of aniseed that I find works in both savoury and sweet dishes. I always add them when making a tomato sauce for pasta, but they are equally at home in any apple or fruit based cake. One of my favourite cake recipes is an apple loaf with flecks of chocolate and lemon that has half a tea spoon of fennel seeds added to the batter. If you do use fennel seeds I recommend lightly toasting them and then grinding in a pestle and mortar. It enhances the flavour and the scent released when you grind them is wonderful.

Spelt Flour

When I first started baking I just had plain and self raising in the pantry. Over time the flour shelf has expanded so that now there are regularly at least ten different packets to choose from. Of the new discoveries its Spelt that I use most and would recommend anyone to try. Spelt is a very old grain, apparently it’s use can be traced back to the middle ages. I like it because of the slightly sweet, slightly nutty taste that it brings to baking. Most bread recipes for Spelt mix it with at least one other flour type, but I make an 100% Spelt loaf that is probably the favourite bread in this house.

Dried Ancho Chillies

As a chilli lover who lives in a house where the others aren’t quite so keen there has long been a battle about how I introduce some heat and warmth into cooking. Dried Ancho Chillies seem to be the answer. Ancho are one of the milder chillies but they more than make up for that with their sweetness and depth of flavour. Breaking up one of the dried husks and putting it into casseroles or sauces right from the start of cooking means that they will flavour the dish and be fully rehydrated by the time you serve. If you want that extra bit of heat make sure that you leave the seeds in.

Dark Muscovado Sugar

I’ve been using this sugar more since I discovered Natural Baking by Carolin Strothe, one of my favourite cookbooks of the last 12 months. In all of Carolin’s recipes she uses Muscovado rather than Caster sugar. This is partly due to the fact that it is less processed but also for the caramel and treacle flavours in brings to cakes. It really is like as secret ingredient and well worth trying.

As with all lists like this nothing is set in stone and I’m sure I’ll revisit it with other recommendations. Maybe by then I’ll have managed to track down some Yuzo Kosho.

If you’ve got a favourite ingredient I’d love to hear about it.

Bread Source

Sat in a coffeeshop yesterday morning with a notebook and pen I was feeling quaintly old fashioned as I started to write this. I wasn’t the only writer there but I was the only one who hadn’t had to ask for the wi-fi password.

I was in the new Bread Source cafe on Bridewell Alley in Norwich. The bakery part of the operation has been open for a couple of weeks now but the cafe only opened yesterday and apparently I missed out by one on being the first customer in there.

If you’re a local reader then I’m sure you already know Bread Source from St Giles Street, Norwich Market or their shop in Aylsham. If you don’t know them then let me tell you that they were recently listed in Sarah Guy’s book Europe’s Best Bakeries: Over 130 of the Finest Bakeries, Cafes and Patisseries Across Great Britain and the Continent.

I’ve long been a fan. Last year I did a one day sourdough baking course in their St Giles shop The day was full of great hands on experience. We all got to take home the three loaves we produced ( white, wholemeal and beetroot ) and also some white and wholemeal sourdough starter. I did have some doubts about being able to keep the starters alive but last time I checked in the fridge they were both doing fine. If you enjoy baking bread a thoroughly recommend this course.

During last summers heatwave the courtyard at the back of the St Giles shop was a sheltered oasis and I spent many hours there with a coffee , a book and one of their sweet pastries. The new venture also has an alfresco option as there are tables in the churchyard just across Bridewell Alley. The indoor area is spacious and if yesterdays John Lee Hooker soundtrack is anything to go by is also going to feature some very good music.

The shop offers a great rage of artisan breads and all of the pastries are available to take away as well.

I loved the whole thing and will be back there very soon.

Coffee with a view. Summer fruit brioche and a black Americano.

History may not repeat itself, but it does get quite close.

I recently took a creative writing course in Norwich based on memoirs and life experiences. This week I was going through some of the work that I produced on the course and decided to share this one. I know that the link to what is supposed to be a food blog is a bit tenuous but it does include the childhood memories of a bottle of dandelion and burdock. To anyone who’s not heard of that i assure you that it’s a fizzy soda drink and not something that witches brew up in their cauldron.

History may not repeat itself, but it does get quite close. Or at least that’s how it felt to me when I took my dad and my uncle to the football last season.

It was over forty years ago since they’d first taken me, we’d just moved back from Malta and were living with my grandparents while my dad looked for a job.

To the eleven year old me everything felt a bit strange and confusing. Having spent most of my childhood on a mediterranean island south Yorkshire was taking some getting used to. Strangest of all was starting a new school. I’d taken my 11 plus exam in Malta but we’d left before I’d had a chance to move up to the senior school with my friends. I was now at Dinnington High and everyone seemed to know everyone, except for me who knew no one. That feeling of isolation wasn’t helped by the fact that I was the only person in the school without a Yorkshire accent. I was desperate to fit in and according to my mother i managed to pick up a semblance of that accent in record time.

The trip to the football was on the opening day of the season. That game was Rotherham United versus Bury. These days I always feel that August is far too early for a football season to be starting but then it was the most exciting thing ever. Dad had taken me to a local game in Malta but this was my first time inside an English ground. It must have made a big impression because to this day Rotherham’s is always the score i look for first when checking the results.

Looking back i don’t think the crowd can have been that large but at the time it was the biggest group of people i’d ever been part of, it felt massive.

Dad has only ever had a passing interest in football but uncle Terry was a season ticket holder and to me seemed like the font of all knowledge.

“Do you want a programme?”

“Yes please”

I didn’t really know what a programme was, but I’m glad i said yes as i still have it to this day.

Terry seemed to be on first name terms with everyone stood around us and the whole thing felt like a wonderfully grown up experience.

Half time brought further thrills with a bottle of dandelion and burdock. Dandelion and burdock is one of those childhood memories that I wouldn’t dare try know for fear of discovering that I didn’t like it anymore.

Full time brought a Rotherham win and rounded off a great day.

It also made a big difference on Monday morning. When playground talk turned to football I could suddenly talk like a local.

Now it’s 2019 and for the first time in years Norwich City & Rotherham are in the same league. Dad lives in Cambridge and Terry in Ely, so after much planning and co-ordination I’ve managed to get them both to Carrow Road so that we can relive that day at the football. It’s a different dynamic now though.

Back then they were worrying about a young boy getting lost.

“Hold my hand”

“Don’t run off”

Now it’s me worrying about two eighty year olds.

“Don’t forget your stick”

“Are you warm enough?”

History may not repeat itself, but it does get quite close. Except for the fact that Rotherham didn’t win this time.

One of the things that prompted me to share this piece was reading in the paper that Bury football club are on the verge of bankruptcy and may go out of business within the next few days. As someone who has been a football follower his whole life I sincerely hope that doesn’t happen. The smaller clubs in football, like Rotherham and Bury, are integral parts of their local communities and would be sorely missed if not there. If there hadn’t have been a Bury football club I may not have had these memories.

For the love of cookbooks

Someone asked me last week why I prefer cookbooks to looking online for recipes.

The question got me thinking as it’s not something that I’ve really thought about before.

The quick and obvious answer is that nothing beats the look and feel of a book. The opening of a new cover, the turning of the pages, the tactile feel of the book in your hand. Like many people I have a kindle and I’ll happily admit that in the days when I was regularly commuting it was so much easier than taking an actual book with me. But I don’t commute anymore and to be honest I’m not even sure if the kindle is charged.

In the case of cookbooks though I think there is more to it than just real book versus ebook.

A well used cookbook carries memories that the online option is never going to have. Towards the top of the pile in the photo below there is a thoroughly dog eared copy of Rachel Khoo’s Little Paris Kitchen. The state of the book has nothing to do with a lack of care and attention, it’s all down to the fact that the book is loved and very well used. It was one of the first that i bought and is still a regular go to. The page with the Croque Madame muffins recipe has been made so many times it nearly falls open on it’s own. The recipe for the savoury picnic loaf has tell tale stains where I’ve checked cooking times just after chopping chorizo. The book is an old friend and for all it’s blemishes I wouldn’t want it any other way.

A good cookbook is so much more that just recipes. Dianna Henry’s How To Eat a Peach is a collection that is seasonal and themed. It’s as much about the memories and places that the dishes evoke as it is the actual cooking of them. It’s wonderful writing that could almost sit as easily on a travel shelf as it does cookery. If you’re wondering about the books title it results from Dianna watching someone is a restaurant as they are served a peach which is then halved, pitted and sliced before being dropped into glasses of chilled moscato.

The Bread Exchange probably has an even bigger claim to the travel shelf than Dianna Henry does. In this book Malin Elmlid travels around the world exchanging her homemade breads and recipes for those of people that she meets. Its a fascinating story and as much a book to sit down and read as it is to cook from.

I’m sure that the recipes from Dianna’s and Malin’s books are available online somewhere but I doubt very much if the back stories are.

Huckleberry is the cookbook from a bakery in Santa Monica. I’ve never been, quite probably never will, but by tracking down this book and having it on my shelf it feels as if a little bit of Californian baking magic has come to me.

The photo is a fairly small part of my collection, some are used more than others and there may even be one or two still waiting to have something cooked from them. It’s my cooking library, a world I can happily get lost in for hours.

Homemade versus shop bought

Just because I’m a relatively recent convert to the joys of baking it doesn’t mean that I haven’t always enjoyed cake and baked things in general. Back then they were either shop bought or baked by someone else in the house.

My Mum loved to bake and I have many childhood memories of being in the kitchen with her. She would make tangy lemon meringue pies, rich chocolate cakes with vanilla cream, or fruit cakes laden with sultanas and raisins. Whatever the bake was there was always a final treat of being allowed to get a spoon and scrape any remaining batter from the bowl after the rest was in the tin and safely in the oven. I hope Mum would approve that I still maintain that baking tradition to this day.

Shop bought cakes were a whole different world. The only ones that I remember Mum bringing home were either Angel Cakes or Battenberg’s. These were very occasional treats, but with their highly coloured cake and super sweet icing they made a big impression on a young boy.

Ever since I’ve been baking I’ve tended to keep that homemade versus shop bought idea in my mind, but that might all be about to change.

This weeks #twitterbakealong challenge was to bake Devon spilts. Don’t worry if you not sure what they are, I had to google it. It turns out that Devon splits are the buns that were always my childhood first choice if we were having a cake out. A slightly sweetened dough filled with jam and cream, an extra blob of jam on top and the whole thing then sprinkled with icing sugar.

On the face of it a relatively straight forward bake, but with so many memories I was actually quite nervous to make them. Wondering if they would taste like those shop bought ones.

Well I did make them but of course they didn’t taste like they used to. These were a grown up version. The dough had just a hint of butter and sugar added to it. The cream was whipped thick and actually tasted of cream. The jam was homemade and tasted of the fruit in it.

As always with my Sunday baking I posted a picture on Twitter and I’ve never had the level of response that these buns generated. So many people from the UK getting in touch with their memories and so many people outside of the UK wanting to know more about them. It was wonderful to spend so much time chatting with people about baking.

Now that I’ve broken that barrier and baked shop cakes at home it can’t be long until there are grown up Angel Cake and Battenberg in the kitchen.

If anyone fancies having a go at Devon splits the details are below. As I keep getting told that I’m baking too much sweet stuff I made six and have listed the ingredients accordingly. However if you want to double up and indulge in a dozen please do.

Ingredients

250g strong white bread flour

1tsp salt

20g caster sugar

7g instant yeast

20g unsalted butter – softened & diced

75ml milk

75ml water

Filling

100ml double cream

50g strawberry jam

icing sugar to dust

Method

Put the flour, salt sugar and yeast in a bowl. Add the butter, milk and 75% of the water. Mix gently by hand.

Add the remaining water a little at a time until you have incorporated all of the flour into a soft sticky dough.

Turn out the dough and knead for five minutes until it is no longer sticky. Put the dough back in the bowl and leave to rise for one hour.

After an hour knock the air from the risen dough. Then split the dough into 6. Roll the dough into balls and place on a lined baking tray. Leave to rise for a further 40 minutes.

Heat the oven to gas 7.

Bake the rolls for 10 to 12 minutes. They should be golden and sound hollow when tapped underneath. Leave to cool.

Cut the rolls ( I found it best to not to cut them completely in half ). Spread jam on each half then fill with whipped cream. Dot some more jam on the cream and sprinkle with icing sugar.

Sunday afternoon baking

Sunday afternoon in the kitchen just might be my favourite time of the week. A time when I can completely immerse myself in baking. That’s not to say that I don’t bake at other times of the week, just that Sunday is the time when I really indulge. I’m in my own little world and for a few hours the bakery that I dream about is actually happening.

The day starts with a trawl through my ever expanding cookery book library as I decide what’s on the menu. After that it’s a shopping expedition for anything not already in the larder. Then the rest of the day is mine.

Ideally I like to bake at least three things and part of the enjoyment is working out the timings and schedule of what I’ll be doing. For someone who is quite chaotic in the rest of his life this sense of organisation is quite an unusual experience.

One of the things on my Sunday menu is usually prompted by whatever that weeks #twitterbakealong challenge is. This weekly challenge is posted on Twitter every Tuesday and covers virtually every type of baking. You have a week to bake something connected to it and then to post a photo on Twitter. If you enjoy baking and are looking for some new ideas I would encourage you to get involved. It’s a hashtag with an ever expanding community and I’ve made lots of baking friends and contacts through it.

This weeks #twitterbakealong challenge was for savoury muffins. I opted for a combination of pea, bacon & cheese and I’m rather chuffed to say that my bake was picked as the winner.

If anyone is interested in having a go at making some of them I’ve put the recipe below.

There will always be a cake on the menu as Sunday evening just isn’t the same without one.

For this weeks I made an oatcake with blueberries and raspberries. In this bake the oats are soaked in milk before you bake with them. This produces quite a heavy cake, almost with the consistency of bread pudding. However with the fruit on top it still had a summery feel and was a big hit.

The recipe for this came from Natural Baking by Carolin Strothe & Sebastain Keite. This is a fascinating cookbook that has introduced me to a number of interesting new ingredients and techniques. Much of their baking is given a very distinctive flavour by using dark muscovado sugar in place of castor and by using einkorn or spelt flour.

I rounded off the weekends baking with a chicken, pale ale and chicory pie. Chicken and chicory in a creamy beer infused sauce under crispy puff pastry. As with all good Sunday pies there was some left over for Monday lunch as well. The recipe for this can be found in Ruby Tandoh’s Crumbs cookbook. Ruby was a Great British Bakeoff finalist a few years ago and my copy of her book is one of the most used on my shelf.

A full Sunday afternoon and I’m already looking forward to the next one.

Pea, bacon & cheese muffins

makes 12

100g frozen peas

300g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

Pinch of dry mustard powder

Sea salt & black pepper

2 tsp chopped chives

1 egg

100g soft goats cheese

200ml whole milk

50g cooked bacon

75g Comte or Cheddar cheese

Pre heat oven to gas 4 , butter a 12 hole muffin tin

Blanche the peas for 2 minutes in boiling water. Drain and refresh under cold water.

Sift the flour, baking powder and mustard powder into a mixing bowl then add salt pepper and chives.

In a separate bowl, lightly beat the egg with an electric whisk. Add the goats cheese and continue whisking until it has broken up and combined with the egg. Whisk in the milk and then stir in the peas and bacon. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, mix quickly and lightly to combine. Spoon the mixture into the muffin tray and sprinkle the Comte or Cheddar on top. Bake for 20 minutes. The muffins should be golden and firm to the touch. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

Eating alone

I quite enjoy eating alone in cafes and restaurants. Its not that I’m antisocial and don’t want company, just that when the chance arrises to eat on my own I’m happy to do it. My partner has gone off to Cambridge for the day with a friend so it’s been lunch for one.

Eating alone changes so much about the experience. The normal what to eat and what to drink still comes into play but with subtle differences. There’s not going to be any sharing so you can be completely self indulgent. Your not going to be asked to finish someones glass of wine for them. So a lunchtime pint is fine. The menu is all yours.

An important consideration for the lone eater is what to read. Some interesting reading matter is a must. Newspapers or magazine are probably best for this but I wouldn’t rule out a good book. Just bare in mind that there may be a few sticky finger prints on the pages by the end of the meal. If your solo dining experience is going to be in the evening then there is also the concern of making sure that your table has adequate light for reading. I used to travel a lot with work and often ate on my own in the evenings. Some of the quickest meals I’ve ever eaten were at tables where I didn’t have enough light to be able to read as I ate.

Another thing to think about is where the table is situated. I know that this can come into play when you have company, but alone the requirements are completely different. It’s all about the people watching. Something that might get you told off if you’re with company becomes integral when on your own. If pushed I’ll opt for a window seat so that if the restaurant isn’t interesting I can still watch the world passing by.

Then there is the music. Something that can seem intrusive if you are with someone is going to be something that you actually listen to when solo. Picking a place with a good soundtrack is important.

For me one of the biggest difference comes at the end. I live with someone who doesn’t drink coffee, probably a good thing as I drink enough for two, so rather than the “should we or shouldn’t we” that normally happens I can dive straight in with a “yes” when the waiter asks. This is the time to finish off the article or the chapter that you have been reading.

So if you do see me eating alone you’re welcome to come and join me, but please don’t feel obliged to.

Sautéed wild mushroom & tarragon on sourdough with a poached egg. Franks Bar in Norwich this lunchtime. A great place to eat whether solo or in company.

A hungry boy in Malta

I spent much of my childhood in Malta, a small Mediterranean island that sits roughly mid way between the toe of Italy and the north coast of Africa. My Dad took a job out there and we moved to a life that felt like summer for twelve months of every year.

It’s only looking back on it that I’ve come to realise that much of my interests and tastes in food stem from this period.

It helped that Mum was an adventurous cook but in Malta there always seemed to be interesting and unusual things to eat when we were out of the house as well.

I’m pretty sure that it was during this time that I first tried octopus. I have very clear memories of watching them being caught and I’m sure that I remember the saltiness of their taste and the chewiness of the texture. Swordfish and shellfish were also local delicacies that we were encouraged to try.

Maltese bread looked so daunting when we first saw it. Unlike the homogenised loafs that we were used to it was dense, crusty and no two looked the same. The crusts may have made it difficult to break into but when you did it definitely rewarded the effort. One of my abiding memories is the bread tasting of the oils and rich pasta sauces that it had been dunked in.

There are some things that I had in Malta that i’ve never eaten again since we left the island. Pastizzi is one of these. We used to refer to them as Maltese cheesecakes and in my mind they will always be a childhood treat. Crisp flaky parcels of hot cheese, the perfect comfort food. Some recent investigations have told me that they can also contain chicken or peas but I only remember the cheese ones. Those same investigations have unearthed pastizzi recipes so maybe i will get to try them again after all.

There is always a concern that making something that you haven’t tried for so long might spoil the memory, but in the case of pastizzi I think it’s a risk worth taking.

Like many Catholic countries Malta has multiple religious festivals throughout the year. My memories of these are of fireworks that seemed all about the noise rather than the colours and of Maltese nougat. Nougat, or qubbajt in Maltese, seemed to be everywhere, a soft sweet confection filled with hazelnuts and almonds. We also went to quite a few weddings during our time on the island and there were plates of nougat at these as well, along with small bags of it to take away as a gift at the end.

As Malta was my childhood it would be wrong to say that everything I tried then is necessarily something that i would relish now. 7Up floats seemed wonderful but I’m not sure that a mixture of lemonade and ice cream would be quite so enticing now. Heinz tinned gnocchi is another and also a bit of a mystery. I have clear memories of my mother opening tins of this but I’ve never seen it since and Google finds no trace of it. Either I’m imagining it or Heinz have erased all records. I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.

I recently inherited my Mum’s Maltese cookbook. Bought at a time when you could get a book for two shillings and sixpence according to the cover. I haven’t cooked from it yet but when I do I will share the experience in future posts.