Taste the seasons

FOR some, it’s that first taste of British asparagus, sliced from the crown mere hours before, swiftly steamed and lavished with butter. The very quintessence of late spring. For others, roast grouse, sweet and heather-scented, a sign that summer’s fading and autumn’s marching in. Or native oysters, at the start of September, back after a four-month break. That’s the joy of British seasonal eating—food devoured at its peak.

Once its time is over, it exits, stage right, to be replaced by something new. The sadness of parting is soothed by the knowledge that it will return again next year, as it always does. The eternal consolation of continuity. Sure, in this modern, global age, we can eat strawberries at Christmas, blackberries in spring and tomatoes on the chilliest of February days. If that’s what you want to do, then fine —dogma and finger wagging should have no place when it comes to eating.

I, however, love the changing larder as much as I adore spring shaking off the rags of winter and summer mellowing into autumn. Despite being a small country, we have huge regional variation. Asparagus is available from Cornwall as early as April and I was still eating peas fresh from the pod in Aberdeenshire at the start of September. The ‘What’s in season’ section I have written for each month here offers only the most general of guides.

The natural rhythm of the seasons dictates our ever-changing menu, ensuring things stay fresh. It keeps the cook eternally inspired; the eater will never grow bored. It also means we’re supporting British farming, cutting food miles and know exactly where our meals come from. We have some of the best produce in the world, so why not delight in it? Not to the point of myopic flag waving, of course, where all imports are banned. How dull would life be without pepper and ginger, olive oil and coffee, mangoes, avocados and lemons? The arrival of January oranges, both blood and Seville, is every bit as exciting as gull’s eggs in April.

Yet knowing your seasons and what’s best when is essential not only to a deeper understanding of agriculture, but of pleasure, too. ‘A thriving household depends on the use of seasonal produce and the application of common sense,’ wrote French agriculturist Oliver de Serres in the 1600s. Eating well—and wisely —means not only following the ever-changing seasons, but embracing them, too.

January

I LOVE January for its bleak, but pleasing purity, when Christmas excess is swept out with those last pine needles and common sense rules once more. Oh, and the joys of a virgin diary, the pages still blissfully unsullied. The first month of the year is not so much rebirth as reset, a moment of fresh optimism before those resolutions crumble like a pinch of Demerara sugar.

January is not glum or parsimonious, rather brisk, no nonsense and to the point—with cooking to match. It’s a time for comfort: stews, braises and slow-cooked succour. Although the booze consumption may sink to more sensible levels (or even to nothing at all), now is not the time to embark on some pious detox diet. As for ‘clean eating’… this hateful term should be banished to bad-taste hell forever, never to be spoken of again. Sanctimony is antithetical to the enjoyment of food. Winter is all about warmth.

The brassicas are still out in full force and very lovely they are, too. We should also remember that a Brussels sprout is not just for Christmas. In fact, I’d happily munch them all year round, sliced into rounds and fried in butter, with a splash of stock, a squeeze of lemon and a scattering of thyme. Throw in some crisp bacon to make the sort of lunch that warms both heart and gut. Cabbage is packed full of goodness, either steamed and drowned in pepper and butter or thrown into a sizzling hot wok with a few chopped garlic cloves and a lusty glug of fish sauce. Even kale, once thought fit only for fodder, is wonderful when sautéed with garlic and chilli or deep fried, so it crisps and resembles that addictive ‘seaweed’ from the local Chinese takeaway.

Game is in abundance, even if the season is drawing to a close, and I always find this a good month to go through the freezer. Be brutal! Partridge are usually scarce by now, but pheasant—of which there always seems to be a deep-frozen glut—are either slipped into a Fergus Henderson pie (cleaved in half and cooked with pigs’ trotters, a bottle of red, bacon, chicken stock and all manner of aromatics) or cured in salt and juniper, then thinly sliced to make a rather fine pheasant ham. Anything left over after that goes into the stockpot, but do beware old grouse. They tend to dominate an otherwise subtle broth.

Quite why we don’t eat more venison, I’ll never know. Lean, ethical in all the right ways and with a flavour ranging from the delicate to the bold, it never ceases to satisfy. Slice thinly into carpaccio or into tiny cubes, with salt and juniper berries, for an easy tartare. Or roast a great haunch and feast like Henry VIII.

‘Sanctimony is antithetical to the enjoyment of food. Winter is about warmth’

Then, there’s the Seville orange. Not exactly British, but a seasonal treat to relish all the same. I would love to say that my marmalade is a legendary Dalemain champion, but, after too many years spent turning the kitchen floor into a human fly trap (that sugar solution seems to get everywhere), I now leave it to the experts. Nothing, however, beats the bitter tang of the best homemade. And, on the subject of citrus, don’t forget the blood orange, which is the star of the recipe here. It may be born under bluer skies than our own, but, for me, it’s as much a part of January as kale, cabbage or swede—a much-needed ray of Mediterranean sun to pierce through those drab winter days.

What's in season?

Beetroot; blood orange; cabbage; cauliflower; clams; clementine; cockles; forced rhubarb; goose; horseradish; Jerusalem artichoke; kale; leeks; mallard; mussels; mutton; oyster; partridge; parsnip; pheasant; purple-sprouting broccoli; radicchio; salsify; satsuma; Seville orange; swede; truffles (black); turnip; venison

Recipe of the month Blood-orange sorbet

Makes about 1 litre

A sorbet? In January? Have you gone stark raving mad? Absolutely not! Jacob Kennedy's bracing blood-orange sorbet is a masterpiece of its form: sweet, sharp and a touch bitter. ‘The fruits were a staple to get us through the darkest months,' he writes in Gelupo Gelato. Amen to that.

Ingredients

For the sorbet syrup (yields 400ml)

125g granulated or caster sugar
Stabiliser: 1 level tspn locust-bean gum powder or 2tbspn starch (arrowroot or cornflour)
225ml water
50g glucose (also known as dextrose) syrup or powder, or light runny honey

For the blood-orange ‘gelato’

600ml blood-orange juice (about 1½kg oranges, depending on juiciness)

Method

To make the sorbet syrup

In a small bowl,