Local Find: The Farmers Market!

According to a website that has been consistently out-of-date, there was a farmers market last Thursday at Spon Street. I awoke hopeful, but dubious. Spon Street is very pretty, where they relocated all of Coventry’s remaining medieval buildings after the severe bombing during World War II. It’s now home to a few fine-dining restaurants and generally working-class pubs with convenient access to the nearby clubbing district. I haven’t seen much of it during the day, but it doesn’t get much foot traffic. Sure enough, when I showed up at 9:30, I found no farmers market.

Fortunately I’d been informed that there was a weekly “French market” in Kenilworth, and as the day looked pretty, and Kenilworth is always scenic, decided to go check it out. But if there had been a market, surely it hadn’t just disappeared, right? Any smart organization would have at least tried a better location. So I headed for the upper precinct. It may be a bit of a detour, but the window shopping is nice.


I got just past the library, almost to the fountain in the middle, when a glorious sight appeared: Pavilions, tables in front, striped awning fabric behind. I could see tomatoes. And bread! There was a farmer’s market after all! Of course I’d forgotten my camera, and I’ve been meaning to introduce more photojournalism to this little blog. So I turned around and hot-footed it to the flat, and made it back, camera in hand.
There was plenty of good stuff: crates and crates of eggs: chicken and duck, produce covering the ubiquitous spring onions, cauliflower, spring cabbage, tomatoes, strawberries, red currants and raspberries, sausages, smoked and cured meats from Tamworth pigs, lamb, pork and beef, artisan beers, ciders, fruit wines and cordials, bread, and the sign that excited me the most: cheese.


Sure, we had cheese at home. But it wasn’t farm-made. I got some traditional Warwickshire Truckley, smoked. It’s great, even if the smoke is unnecessary: pungent and chalky, just a touch flaky. I’m only sad that I didn’t buy the walnut bread to go with it.
I also got some spring cabbage, the closest-looking thing to collards. Hopefully since they’re both Brassicas, the flavour will be similar. And a giant smoked ham hock. I’m going somewhere with this, in case you haven’t picked up on it, and I’m trying to convince myself that it’s not worth going back for some of that artisan beer or cider. And next time, I’m trying the blue cheese.
I picked up a flier too, which seeks to convince the customer of the special nature of the products: all are produced within 30 miles, unless they’re a value-added product like honey, cider, bread or sausage: then the producers can come from up to 50 miles away. A producer (farmer, butcher, cider-maker or brewer) has to staff the booth to answer customers’ questions.
I don’t often write about the actual argument for local food: Honey and I debate it regularly, and it comes down to finding value in products that are grown or made near to you, in being able to talk to a farmer about his or her practices and products, and in believing that the symbolic statement of buying at a market like this outweighs the economic statement of buying from a chain supermarket.
I obviously find value in these points. An item’s place of production affects its flavour. It’s why I’ve bought Spanish olive oil for years, why I like South American wines, and why, after years of buying local Southern produce, I got really interested in Southern food.
Now that I’m somewhere unfamiliar, I seek to understand it through the food. I think that if I eat enough of these emulsified sausages, grassy onions, soft breads and sharp cheeses, I’ll come to understand what makes West Midlanders feel comforted and at home, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll come to have the same sentiments.

BOOKS

All of mine (save The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook) are on the slow boat to England, along with everything else that I though I could go six weeks without. And I'm still unemployed. So what's a cook to do?

Why, hit the library of course. I have to limit what I check out, as I have a near-pathological problem with turning in books on time, but my new routine is to come in, grab three books, open up the laptop and take notes. Unfortunately, the library has wireless, and I have no discipline. So while I've been trying to get my reader to below 1000 stories, my three books have mostly sat unread.

But I did allow myself to check out Elizabeth David's French Country Cooking yesterday, and it lives up to its reputation. It even made me, the avid fish-avoider, walk to the market to see what comes out of these cold waters. The answer: after 2:30 on a Thursday nothing. The market closes early.

Today I'm sharing my little table with: Le Cordon Bleu's Complete Cooking Techniques, The Taste of Britain, and Complete Italian Cookery Course by Ursula Ferigno.

I've been pleasantly surprised by the selection at the Coventry library. Last week I got to cozy up to The River Cottage Meat Book, and I keep finding slim little surprises, like French Country Cooking, tucked away between the tomes that everyone wants (Larousse Gastronomique, I'm looking at you here).

But this is an apprentice cook's blog, and when an apprentice cook is unemployed, I feel that it's only seemly to keep up the learnin'. Here's why I chose to invite these books to my table today, and what I'm learning from them:

LCB Complete Cooking Techniques: I need to buy a technique book, really I do. I've been told somewhere close to a thousand times, and I know that it's true, but these things tend to be huge and expensive, and there were always other things (food) that my meager salary went toward. Now that there's no salary, it's a lot harder to justify spending 30 quid on a technique book. But I only worked my way up to fry station at Woodfire, and I've got to get comfortable with cooking fish and meat at the restaurant level. So today I'm refreshing my memory on how to clean and fillet fish and how to cook meat and fish. I like this book. It's not huge, it's got lots of good information, and it 17 pounds instead of 30, though it takes a typically British indifferent attitude to meat temperatures, and don't ask about fish. I should really buy one of these...

The Taste of Britain: I should not be reading this today. I already looked at it last week. But it's SO GOOD. There's professional organizations, resources for cheese, local specialties, all the sorts of things that make cooking locally exciting. I have limited time, but darnit, I want to read this sucker cover to cover. And it's beautiful too, complete with the embossed hardcover and ribbon to mark one's place. Unfortunately, it's expensive, so here it stays. Maybe I'll buy it for myself for Christmas.

Complete Italian Cookery Course: I have an interview at an Italian restaurant tonight, so I'm trying to bone up on my Italian cooking. And I'm surprised by what I remember: how to make risotto and gnocchi, pizza dough, some basic pasta sauces. I've got my fingers crossed and have found myself muttering to the universe all day: "Please don't let this place suck." This book, for practical reasons, may come home with me.

And damnit, now I'm hungry.

Good Things to Eat in England:

Strawberries: The weather is cool and wet here, so strawberry season lasts and lasts here, a nice contrast to Georgia, where the strawberries show up for oh, five minutes. They're aromatic, sweet, and definitely live up to their reputations.

Sausages: I'm used to simple country-style sausages with a coarse textures, but the English-style sausages tend to be emulsified, and far less seasoned. The flavor is deliciously porky and smooth. And they serve them with gravy, like they know what I like.

Mature Cheddar: We picked the cheapest one (that still met my high standards, admittedly) off the shelf at Tesco, and I feel like we cheated somewhere. It's amazing. I've been making more grilled cheese sandwiches than can possibly be healthy. Chop up some spring onions, melt them with the cheese, and I'm in my own special version of heaven. This cheese is sharp, crumbly, and still melts beautifully.

Mustard: I have not seen near enough mustard in British food here, which is a damn shame. The stuff is thick, dark brown-yellow, just like the crayon in the big 64-pack (we didn't have any high-falutin' 96-packs when I was a kid. You used your imagination.) and it's got a heat that might give wasabi a run for its money. I first got the idea of its greatness when we were eating at the cheap pub nightly, and I put the stuff, straight from a Heinz packet, on my burger. I was shocked at how fresh it tasted. Now I've got my own little jar of Colman's, the good stuff, and it makes me weep tears of joy. And pain.

Beer: Go ahead, tell me beer's not a food. Just try it, punk. Most real ales here are called bitters, and they're hand-pumped: work in a good pub for awhile and you'll have one normal arm, and one Popeye arm from pouring the stuff. No, it's not always ice-cold. It's not meant to be. But it's delicious. Thick, flavorful and mellow, even the IPAs. I tried a ginger beer in April that was subtle and lovely, and I can only hope they carry it at our local during the fall beer festival.

There's so much that I haven't yet tried properly: the beef, the lamb, a cheese called Hereford hops that's a creamy cow's milk cheese coated in (of course) hops. I hear cherries are coming into season, as are tomatoes, and I intend to see how tomatoes do without some serious heat. And I saw something called Spring Cabbage the other day that looks suspiciously like collards.

My culinary coup thus far has been, of all things, a salad. I didn't have much for it, but I made a mustardy vinaigrette, crumbled some cheddar on chopped Little Gem lettuce, and lo and behold, a triumph.

And hey, I found buttermilk after all. Now I just need a soft wheat flour...