What's in a name?

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Mmmm well does it? We rarely stop to think about the names of plants and vegetables, but browsing in a French market last week I became intrigued by the impact of different words for familiar produce. The French call potatoes pommes de terres – apples of the earth, cauliflower – chou fleur, leeks – poireau. Is it because the French have a more gastronomic tradition than us that it all sounds so much more …well poetic. Us British like calling a spade a spade and a potato a spud - take beans for instance – there are broad beans – presumably because they are umm … broad, runner beans because they grow on runners … and I wonder what they call French beans in France? Of course most of the words for basic produce are retained from the Anglo Saxon – with the fancy schmancy language of cooking coming in after the Norman Conquest in 1066. For instance the Anglo Saxon word ‘cow’ when appearing on a menu becomes beef from the French word boeuf. When we want to do something posh with potatoes we do Dauphinoises or Boulangere and often peas magically become petit pois.

Well on the allotment the crop tous jours is guess what ‘purple sprouting broccoli’ – mmm I wonder why they called it that maybe because it’s purple, it’s sprouting and …well it’s broccoli. Good thinking – presumably our forbears thought we’d be stumbling around our vegetable plot not recognizing our crops without these blindingly obvious names.

Now we all know that purple sprouting is delicious just lightly boiled or steamed and served with butter, but with such an abundant crop I decided to search for a different way of cooking it. The Italians have a much loved recipe for this. It’s traditionally made with a pasta called orriechette which translates as little ears and its shape is just right for capturing all the delicious, tangy sauce. Oh and when you deliver it to your expectant family don’t say it’s sprouting broccoli say it’s Cima di Rapa – it does sound good in Italian!

Cima di Rapa with Orriechette Pasta

This is a recipe for four

500 g cima di rapa or purple sprouting broccoli

4-5 tablespoons of oil

1 red onion sliced

2 cloves of garlic,sliced

3 anchovies, roughly chopped

1 glass of white wine

1-2 dried chillies

seasoning

500 g orecchiette pasta  (or you can use other shapes)

a knob of butter

freshly grated Parmesan

Cook the broccoli in slightly salted water. Drain and reserve the cooking water for cooking the pasta.

Saute the onion, garlic and anchovies in the oil. Then turn up the heat and pour in the white wine. Mix in the broccoli and add more oil if it looks dry. Crumble in the dried chillies. Lower the heat and keep warm on a low flame.

Meanwhile bring the reserved water to the boil, cook the pasta and then drain. Add the butter and stir in the sauce. Check the seasoning. Serve with grated Parmesan. 

 

 

Adopt the pace of nature

‘April is the Cruellest Month’ said T.S. Eliot in his poem ‘The Wasteland’. Now a lot of scholars have debated his meaning, but I think I know exactly what he was talking about. Look out of the window on an April morning and see the sun shining brightly. How wonderful you think as you set off in a carefree manner dressed only in the merest whisper of a cardigan. But here’s the thing, a few paces away from the house and you are assailed by spears of icy wind. Oh yes, April is a cruel month tantalizing the impatient with the promise of warm days and long nights, but then teasingly holding back that little bit longer.

Ah but gardeners know this, they are not fooled by false promises, patience is a hard won virtue for horticulturalists . Cultivating anything – whether flowers, fruit or veg – means much waiting. From planting a seed to the flowering or harvesting stage usually takes months with the wise gardener just letting nature takes its course – helping it gently on its way – weeding a bit, feeding a bit and often just watching the sky wishing for sun or rain. It’s no wonder then that gardening is not a hobby taken up by the young; for teenagers instant gratification is just not speedy enough.

I thought about this as I drove to our local nursery to collect asparagus crowns. It’s been a long held ambition to plant an asparagus bed – how wonderful it would be to have fresh spears that can be picked and quickly cooked before the texture and flavour starts depreciating. I exclaim to the helpful man at the garden centre that it was hard to believe that these brown spidery lifeless roots would sprout and grow into flourishing, leafy plants producing such a great delicacy. ‘Hmm’, he says scratching his head laconically, ‘of course you won’t get any this year, only a few not worth mentioning next year – you’ll have to wait for the year after that for your first real crop! Whaat! Is he really saying I’m going to have to wait until 2012 before dribbling butter on to my very own freshly cooked asparagus. Ah well as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ‘Adopt the pace of nature:  her secret is patience’.