This morning’s hard frost came as quite a surprise. The mild, damp weather of the last two months has lulled us into a sense of false security. No snow, no frozen water troughs or icy farmyard. No heaving of water buckets from the stream to quench the thirst of chilly livestock. No throbbing, freezy fingers, no numb toes paralyzed with cold inside unrelenting wellies, no scarlet, stinging nose poking out of balaclava, whipped numb by the east wind; well, not yet anyway.

The grass continues to grow, spring bulbs push up through mud, snowdrops promise another avalanche of white, while camellias take enormous risks bursting into a profusion of pinks, forgetting completely the perils of early morning sun on icy petals. Even roses continue to produce funny ragged little flowers. It can’t last. A cold snap is bound to arrive but for now the garden seems to think spring is already on its way; I wish!

Fat ewes munch happily in the rain. The wethers, growing fast, race up to me each morning. Bucket tame, they jostle for their breakfast. Last year’s ewe lambs, round and fat now, graze quietly on the top field we call “Dainty” after a naughty erstwhile pony.

As for the pigs they are getting so big. To quote Hugh Fearnly-Wittingstall’s description of his porkers in his wonderful “River Cottage Meat Book”:  they arrived as fat puppies and now resemble small hippos.  Little hippos they are indeed, I’m learning why it is that so many people love pigs; they are so intelligent, so entertaining. They just make me smile! But sadly it is also becoming clear to me why they are the most abused of farm animals. They require such different husbandry than sheep and cattle. We are fortunate in the UK that new legislation forbids the use of sow crates. UK pigs must have a minimum space in which to exist; still not so great but much, much better than overseas. Sadly this has led to a rise in price in UK pork which in turn means that cheap foreign meat which comes nowhere near our welfare standards, is flooding the market and severely threatening our pig farmers.

Pigs need regular feeding and attention twice a day. Since the dreadful Foot and Mouth outbreak ten years ago strict laws are in place in this country controlling their diet; no more kitchen scraps or “pig swill”. We must feed only certified pig nuts. Pigs eat neither grass nor straw but love to rootle round in search of tasty morsels in the ground, truffles if possible! Such enthusiasm leads to large holes and much mud but despite this fun they are extraordinarily clean, keeping their sleeping quarters immaculate and pooing only in one designated place. The defamatory “Living like Pigs” is, without doubt, a reflection not of the creatures themselves but of their human captors. My weaners demand and deserve respect and care during their short lives and they will reward that care and attention with wonderful pork.

No pigs to be seen at this year’s Dartmouth Fat Stock Show. There were sheep, all breeds and sizes, cattle, massive, large and small and yards and yards of ready dressed turkeys. The beautifully restored and refurbished Market Place was filled once more with livestock, as it has been every December over so many years. All the local farming community, young and old, were there for this historic annual meet. Rain, sleet and sunshine took turns with an icy wind which curled around the market walls.

Jilly’s Best in Show bullock and our prize White Face Dartmoor Sheep

The Dartmouth Market we know today was built in 1823. In the 12^th century Dartmouth was the fourth most important town in Devon. It was already meeting the needs of commercial shipping. Smith Street, Higher Street and Lower Street formed the town centre on the water’s edge; merchant houses and warehouses backed onto the river making it easy to load and unload cargoes straight from ships. Boats lay alongside for repairs and the quay side was a thriving marketplace, the earliest recorded in 1231. It was a popular place with brewers and vintners! In 1364 it received the Charter of Merchant Vintners increasing trade in cloth and herring as well as wine. Everything arrived by river.

It is so hard to imagine Victoria Road under water until the beginning of the 19th Century. No wheeled vehicle, neither cart nor carriage, could get down the steep hill into the town. The only land access was on horseback and the only carriers were pack ponies. It was not until the Improvement Act of Parliament in 1815 that drainage and land reclamation began in earnest.  The crossing places at North Ford and South Ford, uniting the two small towns of Hardness and Clifton, became dry land at last.

By the 1820’s Foss Street was dry land too, leading to the newly built Market Place. At the same time as the construction of the market, the engineer, James Rendall, was working on the New Road to Townstall which would enable horse drawn carriages to join the Turnpike to Kingsbridge and Modbury. For the first time in Dartmouth’s history wheeled vehicles were able to travel to and from the town. Local trade increased dramatically. Farmers were able to bring more produce down to market; no longer were the people solely dependent on the river for food and trade. The New Road was renamed Victoria Road at Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. I wonder where Queen Elizabeth Road will be!

And today the Market is still thriving, restored and modernised once again with plate glass and stainless steel, it houses even more businesses than ever, while still remaining true to its roots. Weekly markets and the Farmers Market flourish and of course the wonderful annual Fat Stock Show each December which still brings livestock into town.

Foss Street shows little evidence of its watery past. Bedecked with flowers in summer it gives us such treasures as Simon Drew and Coombe Farm Gallery. Pat Candy’s Kitchen Shop is one of my favourites. I have to own I find kitchen shops irresistible anywhere and everywhere in the world. I even found one in Soeul in Korea this September; quite marvellous, piled high with unrecognisable kitchen utensils that fortunately wouldn’t fit into my suitcase.

The Seoul Kitchen Shop

But back to Dartmouth; here on our doorstep we find a local market selling wonderful local produce and right round the corner one of the best suppliers of the were-with-all to transform it into something special. Not only is Pat Candy a retailer with years of experience, a huge knowledge of her merchandise and a fantastic flair for presentation, but, she is a cook! It is this, above all else, which gives the Kitchen Shop it’s edge.

Pat Candy’s Kitchen Shop in Dartmouth

So with my kitchen equipped by Pat and my freezer filled with my own lamb and vegetables, local beef from Farmer Phil Bond, Mark Lobb’s wonderful fish and another delicious Oakcroft chicken from Mr Roger’s of  Beaworthy, my own pork soon too, winter suppers are looking promising

But first I need a warming Vegetable Soup for a quick lunch. There’s nothing as comforting as a big bowl of homemade soup when dogs and I have been blown home from the farmyard by a sharp south easterly.

I choose the ingredients for soup according to the sort of stock I have in the freezer. This time it’s ham. Onions or shallots are a must and peas go so well with ham but the other ingredients just happen to be in the fridge; the last piece of a large pumpkin, a potato, a couple of large shallots, two big garlic cloves, some parsley stalks, a little salt (ham stock can be salty) and pepper.

The principle is the same for most soup; sweat the chopped shallots or onions, garlic too if you like. Add a peeled diced potato; this will act as the thickening agent. Add diced pumpkin, carrot or other root vegetable but keep the balance of flavour in mind. Remember for example that parsnips, though delicious, are much more dominating than a carrot, pumpkin is mild but will enhance texture and so on. Once your chosen veg are sweated, i.e. softened in their own steam and a little oil in a pan with a heavy lid, you can stir in the stock; simmer gently for about twenty minutes, taste and season. To liquidise or not to liquidise is a matter of taste. Do you like your soup smooth or with bits!

Serve with hot crusty bread and good slightly salted butter.

December 2011

As I write, sitting warm and snug by the fire in the study, a tremendous gale is lashing South Devon. When the dogs and I set off for the farmyard in drizzle and semi-darkness this morning, the sky was slate grey and the air damp and misty. It never really got light all day. Now as evening falls, a huge storm rages on the hills above; the wind is so strong dogs and I could barely struggle against it as we climbed the vertiginous slopes of Steep Field into the wind swept top fields to check the flock. Rain swept sideways in a great curtain across the hills driven by the south westerly gale. Dartmoor was swallowed in cloud and the river below me barely visible.  Old ewes, driven by the ancient instinct of their moorland forbears, sheltered in the hedge safe from the onslaught. Down the hill to the farmyard again the wind threatened to make our descent air born. Dogs raced ahead, the wind in their tales. We fed donkeys and pigs, collected eggs and shut  chickens up for the night. Soggily we squelched home through the driving rain as the light faded. What a contrast to this time last year when all was still, silent, white and frozen.

Autumn glowed gentle and golden right into November this year. Sunny days outnumbered rainy one. Roses flowered into December and the nights were frost free until last week. I threw myself into the garden joyfully replanning and replanting for next summer.

But my main job for the last three months has been Number One Farmer! I have made the transition from Farmer’s Wife and Farming Assistant to being The One, not, of course, the boss, you understand, but the One Who Does The farming! Paul, at last, has had the long awaited complete knee replacement. He went into hospital in October shortly after our Japan Adventure. It all went wonderfully well but as he makes a steady excellent recovery animals must be cared for and farming jobs done so I must step “into the breach/up to the plate” etc.

It has been such a wonderful autumn for everything including apples and yet, with so much extra to do, cider and apple juice was simply beyond me. What else to do with all these lovely apples, I pondered as I walked up to the yard every morning? Piggies, of course!

In all the eighteen years of Mondays that Stephen has been working with us,  we’ve said to each other year after year, one of these days we‘ll get some pigs. Then suddenly this autumn we made a plan. Paul, with time on his hands, studied the Internet, made phone calls, found weaners and did research. Stephen and I drove across the county to fetch the little chaps,  three Berkshires and three Middle Whites.

We bought them from Ian Todd; a champion breeder near Honiton who not only sold them to us but also gave us a thorough piggy tutorial. I can speak pretty fluent “sheep”, in fact we’ve just won second prize for our Whiteface Dartmoor breeding ewes at the Flock Competition this autumn against the really professional “big boys” on the Moor; no mean feat! But my pig knowledge is on a steep learning curve. Thankfully Stephen has a little more experience.

Last week I visited champion pig breeder, Sue Fildes, on her farm near here. She also shows winners and bought her first Berkshires form Ian Todd too. Little did he know all those years ago that she would be bitten by the piggy bug and become his competitor at Shows! Her pigs, like his, are superb, living out on the hill in a piggy paradise.

Sue’s Showgirl

It was so good to talk to her and she, like him, was so generous with her huge knowledge and expertise. I came away feeling that we were definitely on  the right track with our boys.

Our Boys

I have been amused at the reaction of friends and neighbours at my new venture. I can hear them thinking “at your age” although too polite to say. And then the question “And what will you do with them?” inevitably follows that first unspoken thought!

“Well, eat them of course” I reply. A horrified “Eat them!” follows if they are not of the farming or foodie fraternity or, worse still and a real faux pas on my part, vegetarians!  “My, they’ll taste good!” say the others

I smile to myself and think of Fergus Henderson’s wonderful book “ Nose to Tail Eating” (Bloomsbury 1999) I was even lucky enough to meet him briefly when he was in the Cookery Theatre where I was helping  at the Dartmouth Food Festival in October this year. www.dartmouthfoodfestival.com/blog

James Brown,  Gina Carter and Pig Breeder Lesley Goodman with Fergus Henderson at Dartmouth Food festival 2011

I’m dreaming of curing and salting , of hams and  brawn, terrines and big roasts. How heartless am I, I hear you ask. But no. I have a much more serious ulterior motive. Yes I do want to cook and eat good quality pork and yes, I am fed up with the nasty stuff imported into this country masquerading as the real thing. Here we have  legislation  for the humane treatment of pigs. In Britain it is illegal to use sow stalls, sometimes known as gestation crates which prevent the pregnant sow from any movement. The majority of sows live outside in this country and have access to straw bedding and freedom of movement.  It is also illegal to castrate young males, a practice widely used abroad without aesthetic.

These are but two examples of better animal husbandry in the UK which, in turn, inevitably makes our pork more expensive.  So many supermarkets are importing vast quantities of cheap pork raised in countries without humane animal welfare legislation where pigs are bred and raised in appalling conditions . This has of course led to a reduction in UK pig farming.

If you want to learn more go to www.pigworld.co.uk/ or www.wspa.org.uk and if that’s not enough to convince you to buy British pork then look up, if you can bear it, pig welfare on  www.compassioninworldfarming.co.uk . And if British pork is more expensive, why not eat less meat and eat better. Support British farmers and  high animal welfare standards.

So my first weaners will have a short but happy life. They will be well cared for and well fed. Stephen and I enjoy them hugely and with the help of other pig farmers, our excellent local abattoir and butcher we, and our friends, will enjoy some really good old fashioned pork in the New Year.

In the meantime I am still reading up on all that curing and salting, sausages, hams! Watch this space…..

Slow Roast Pork

Ideally, if you have time, stuff a boned shoulder of pork with apples and celery, onion and breadcrumbs, sage and lemon, all bound together with soft butter and a beaten egg; salt and pepper of course.

But if you’re in a hurry, on the way to work or taking the children to school, leave out the stuffing or cook it later separately. Score the pork skin with a sharp knife and  rub in plenty of oil and salt. You can do this the evening  before and leave it in the fridge overnight. In the morning shove it into a hot oven as you grab a coffee, read e mails and make the pack lunches. But do remember to turn the oven down after 30 minutes to a low temperature ; 140 C/ Gas mark 1. Pour over a glass of cider and a little water and leave it alone for  4 or 5 hours. The bottom oven of a range is ideal here.

About an hour before supper turn up the oven to crisp the crackling on the pork. Cook the apple and celery stuffing  separately in a dish beside the pork. Keep an eye on the meat while you peel, cook and  mash potatoes. Sauté cabbage, carrots or leeks to go with the meat. Take the pork out of the oven and allow to rest. This is essential to allow the juices to soak back into the meat. Meanwhile finish the vegetables and make gravy in the roasting dish deglazing the residue with the vegetable water or a little stock, if you have it,  and thickening with a little slaked corn flour. Taste it and add salt and pepper too.

To serve cut the crackling from the meat and break into crisp pieces. Tear the meat into shreds and serve with stuffing , gravy, mashed potatoes and vegetables. Ideal comforting food for a cold December evening with good friends.

****************************

And finally a wonderful quote, so close to my heart,  from Fergus Henderson’s superb “ Nose to Tail Eating”

“Do not be afraid of cooking, as your ingredients will know, and misbehave. Enjoy your cooking and the food will behave: moreover it will pass your pleasure on to those who eat it”

Happy Christmas!

Japan and Korea seem a long way away, memories already in danger of becoming blurred. I’m so pleased I kept my little scribbled diary to help me hold the detail. We arrived in Tokyo at the end of August. A wall of sweltering heat hit us as we got off the plane; 34 degrees and 85% humidity, so very different to our damp Devon valley!
After two days relaxing with our family, nursing jet lag, walking in the park, listening to the cacophony of cicadas and cawing black crows, watching turtles playing in the pond, we were back on a plane heading for Korea. I’m not sure what I expected but Seoul was a surprise; a huge, noisy city dominated by skyscrapers reaching to heaven, roaring traffic, bustle, colour, strange smells of food and drains!

We walked through a maze of crowded narrow streets hung with huge banners, filled with street traders selling everything we could imagine and much we could not; strange street food, cheap shoes, stockings, trousers, shirts, vast quantities of peach coloured underwear, suitcases, electrical goods and much, much, more all piled high on huggermugger stalls. Suddenly the market ended and huge designer stores rose up before us; all the familiar Haute Couture of Paris, London, Milan, New York. Contrast everywhere and so much noisier than Tokyo, more colourful too.
We ate in a “barbeque” restaurant, the meat cooked on a fire at our table, a strange python-like extractor taking away the smoke and fumes. With it came a green vegetable a bit like spinach, bean sprouts, mushrooms, pancakes and, of course kimchi.

This was our first encounter with the famous staple of Korea; cabbage stuffed with dried shrimps, mustard greens, onion, radish and, most important of all, red hot chilli powder. The cabbage parcels are pickled in salt to remove the water before being stored in huge earthenware pots some three feet tall. Every region, indeed family have their own special method. It is rumoured that Korean kitchens have created more than a hundred different kimchi recipes. November is the Kimchi making season. It takes place between Ipong, the first day of winter and Sosol, the day of the first snowfall. Markets are taken over by a frenzy of “kimjang ch’ol”, people greet each other with “ are you ready for kimjang” so vital a winter staple is it. Survival depended on this humble dish for hundreds of years. Time was when it made up a half the daily diet. Unfortunately for me at least, it turned out to be something I could happily live without which, were I Korean, would amount to no less than heresy!! The Koreans love their Kimchi so much, even now few can imagine a kimchi-free day! I can.

We visited the restored Royal Gyeongbokgung Palace silhouetted against the mountain range which harbour’s the border between North and South Korea, a very chilling and poignant reminder of what lies beyond; a sight which helped me put the frenzied consumerism of Seoul into perspective.
We watched the changing of the guard inside the palace grounds. Men in vibrantly coloured robes and fantastic black hats marched two and fro waving bright flags, playing exotic musical instruments and banging enormous drums. We went to the Folk museum and learnt about hat making, basket weaving, more of kimchi, furniture, pottery, lacquer work. The latter took me back to childhood and my Edwardian grandmother’s drawing room. How she loved what she thought of as “Chinoiserie”, how she would have loved this museum, loved Korea.
Senses reeling after three hectic days, we found ourselves on the plane heading back to Tokyo. Meguro-Ku seemed so peaceful after the hubbub of Seoul! Then just as we began to relax we were on the move again just two days later; this time south to the island of Shikoku and the Inland Sea. We took the Shinkansen to Okayama then caught the local train across the bridge to Takamatsu. Here we hired a car and drove into the mountains to the tiny town of Kamiyama where a very interesting project is taking shape. In the last few years young people have flocked to the cities from small towns, villages and rural areas all across Japan leaving behind a dwindling, ageing population. Shops close, houses fall empty and communities fail.

Kamiyama is trying to address the problem by developing ways to encourage young talent to return. Old houses are rented back from families’ who no longer use them. The buildings are restored and refurbished in traditional style then rented on to those returning to work in the town.

The results are astonishing; there are artists in residence, filmmakers, a noodles shop, holiday complex, a flourishing rice crop, a school and a large grant to restore the theatre Above all there is a new energy.
For more information about the wonderful Kamiyama go to www.loopto.co/magazine/bluebearoffices scroll down and click on “Green Valley”
We left lovely Kamiyama and headed back to Takamatsu, onto the ferry and over to the tiny island of Shodoshima.

We stayed in a little traditional hotel Moriguchiya overlooking the water. We ate the best sashimi I have ever tasted; fish must have landed straight into Mrs Moriguchi’s kitchen!

She had never had Gaijin guests before and her anxiety to look after us properly was really touching. And, oh my, did she succeed! We felt like Royalty!

We visited the Soy Sauce maker,

a magnificent olive grove twinned with Greece, herb gardens, a Kabuki rehearsal, rice fields recently visited by the Emperor; we spoke to wild monkeys by the roadside, drove through the mountains, ate huge bowls of noodles.

And then the rain started.Relieved at first by the falling temperature we set off to the ferry leaving plenty of time to negotiate our tickets in our limited Japanese. How strange we thought that the ferry terminal doors are all taped up and piled high with sandbags.
Our tickets secured, we drove aboard, settled ourselves down below with a fine view of the Inland Sea ahead. How strange, we thought, to see so very many ships anchored in the bay and fishing boats too, firmly tied up alongside the harbour walls.

The ferry trundled across the flat water. Slower and slower it went, until we hardly made headway, wind on the bow holding us back. We crawled into Takamatsu and drove off the boat with some relief. Car safely returned to hire company, we walked to the railway station to await our little train across the water back to Okayama. As we waited we laughed as we watched umbrellas turning inside out.
Once on the train we congratulated ourselves for finding the right seats in the right carriage of the right train; no mean feat in Japan. The train left on time as all Japanese trains do and we reminded each other we had just twelve minutes to find and board the Shinkansen in Okayama. We sat back.
First station and the train stopped. We waited, nothing. We looked at our watches, we’d missed our connection. Announcements were made. We didn’t understand. Then a man beside me explained in English we could go no further. The train could not cross the bridge.
I went to the front to the driver’s cabin to see if I could glean anymore information when a little voice behind me spoke in English. I spun round to see a young woman clutching a suitcase and smiling. “I’ll find out what’s happening” she said “stay near me” We will, I thought and we did.
The train returned to Takamatsu, off we all got and Winnie led us to the ticket office where, to our amazement we were all given all our money back; quite simple, no train, no journey, so refund.
The typhoon was at its height by now; wind and rain lashing the pavements, trees bending double in the middle of the street. “We need a hotel” said Winnie ushering us into a taxi. The airport was shut, bridges closed; there was no way off Shikoku. We simply had to wait.
Next morning at breakfast Winnie had a plan. It was Saturday. She had to be back at work in Seoul on Monday and we too were due to fly out of Japan then too. So she hailed another taxi and asked the driver if there was a bridge open anywhere. He thought the bridge to Hiroshima right down south might be open, maybe.
In driving rain and howling wind we crawled through suburb after suburb, all expressways closed. For three and a half hours we drove round the edge of the storm praying all the time that the southernmost hashi would indeed be open.
“Look for trucks” said the taxi driver “if they’re coming towards us the bridge is open”
Suddenly there it was. “Hashi, hashi” we all shouted. We crossed not one but four bridges from island to island until at last we were on Honshu.

At the railway station, our Guardian Angel, Winnie, left us to go south to catch her plane. We boarded the Shinkansen going north for the four hour trek back to Tokyo, through the typhoon once more. Just after Okayama the great train suddenly slowed. We held our breath as slowly, slowly we crawled past swollen rivers, flooded fields, wind lashed towns and villages. We drew into Kobe then onwards to Osaka. Gradually we picked up speed around Kyoto and sped with relief through Nagoya to Yokohama finally stopping in Shinagawa. Our son met us trying to hide any anxiety. “Glad to see you” he said “just heard on my car radio on the way here, 20,000 people have just been evacuated from Okayama”. A very strange forty fifth wedding anniversary indeed!
And I just can’t stop wondering if Winnie is, in fact, an angel.

But if you’re in a hurry, on the way to work or taking the children to school, leave out the stuffing or cook it later separately. Score the pork skin with a sharp knife and  rub in plenty of oil and salt. You can do this the evening  before and leave it in the fridge overnight. In the morning shove it into a hot oven as you grab a coffee, read e mails and make the pack lunches. But do remember to turn the oven down after 30 minutes to a low temperature ; 140 C/ Gas mark 1. Pour over a glass of cider and a little water and leave it alone for  4 or 5 hours. The bottom oven of a range is ideal here.

About an hour before supper turn up the oven to crisp the crackling on the pork. Cook the apple and celery stuffing  separately in a dish beside the pork. Keep an eye on the meat while you peel, cook and  mash potatoes. Sauté cabbage, carrots or leeks to go with the meat. Take the pork out of the oven and allow to rest. This is essential to allow the juices to soak back into the meat. Meanwhile finish the vegetables and make gravy in the roasting dish deglazing the residue with the vegetable water or a little stock, if you have it,  and thickening with a little slaked corn flour. Taste it and add salt and pepper too.

To serve cut the crackling from the meat and break into crisp pieces. Tear the meat into shreds and serve with stuffing , gravy, mashed potatoes and vegetables. Ideal comforting food for a cold December evening with good friends.

I choose the ingredients for soup according to the sort of stock I have in the freezer.(see Making Stock below) This time it’s ham. Onions or shallots are a must and peas go so well with ham but the other ingredients just happen to be in the fridge; the last piece of a large pumpkin, a potato, a couple of large shallots, two big garlic cloves, some parsley stalks, a little salt (ham stock can be salty) and pepper.

The principle is the same for most soup; sweat the chopped shallots or onions, garlic too if you like. Add a peeled diced potato; this will act as the thickening agent. Add diced pumpkin, carrot or other root vegetable but keep the balance of flavour in mind. Remember for example that parsnips, though delicious, are much more dominating than a carrot, pumpkin is mild but will enhance texture and so on. Once your chosen veg are sweated, i.e. softened in their own steam and a little oil in a pan with a heavy lid, you can stir in the stock; simmer gently for about twenty minutes, taste and season. To liquidise or not to liquidise is a matter of taste. Do you like your soup smooth or with bits!

Serve with hot crusty bread and good slightly salted butter.

Untitled from Paul Vincent on Vimeo.