Читать книгу Wild Garlic, Gooseberries and Me: A chef’s stories and recipes from the land - Denis Cotter - Страница 14

I spent ten days in late spring minding the house of friends who had gone off to France in a camper van that I didn’t expect to make it off the ferry. Oh well, to each their own sense of adventure. Mine was to live alone for ten days in their lovely old farmhouse with an acre or so of garden near the coast in West Cork. ‘Garden’ might be a bit of an understatement. It is more an exquisite arrangement of plants, the edible and the purely aesthetic, blended together in deliberate patterns but not fussily pristine. Parts of it are handsomely geometric, but look as though it might have happened by happy chaos, that it is simply the inherent beauty of nature that has caused it to fall together so perfectly. I know how much work goes into achieving that look. I say that as someone who fusses over plates and the appearance of food, and who likes the result to look as if it fell on to the plate in a pleasing but slightly off-centre sort of way.

Up at the very top of the garden, in the pink and purple area (yes, indeed) was a chard plant almost 1.8 metres (6 feet) tall, flanked by two purple-tinted kales, slightly shorter. All three were the previous season’s crop, which were allowed to carry on growing for their statuesque beauty and fabulous colours. In fact, the stem and leaf stalks of the chard were close to a screaming shade of red, with just enough hint of pink to qualify for the theme of the area. (This is one of chard’s great qualities as a garden vegetable. It is very beautiful, especially if you grow varieties with different-coloured stalks.) Elsewhere in the garden there was a patch of the more sedate but classic white-stemmed chard, and in another corner still a scattering of what is known as a ‘rainbow mix’, with yellow, orange, white and pink chards mingling vividly. And all this beauty provides such good, and easy, food.

I was in the house for the peaceful environment and to find the time that I had been wilfully wasting in the city, for writing and reading. But this was to be a mutually beneficial arrangement, so I had chores as well. Two duties mainly: the cats and the garden. The cats were easy. I moved them out of the house, lecturing them on the potential joys of getting in touch with their inner tiger. The catflap, their portal between wild nature and indoor pampering, was temporarily sealed. Not wanting to be totally heartless, I gave them access to a tiny hallway where there would be mats to sleep on, and food to eat, albeit smaller rations than they were used to. Well, I reckoned, quickly getting up to speed on cat evolution, a fat lazy cat has no chance of finding that tiger. She needs some hunger motivation. Some great wise (and probably very rich) old man is bound to have said that.

The garden was another matter. I don’t garden. I admire and love those who do, and I know a lot of the theory, but I’ve never really got my hands dirty in one. Not the best person to leave in charge, then. I can do chores, if they are clearly laid out. So I did what I do in the restaurant kitchen – made a checklist for every day, with space to tick off jobs as they were completed: watering, ventilating the greenhouse, moving plants here and there for light and shade, covering and uncovering new plantings depending on weather, recording temperature and rainfall levels. (Golden rule: never go to bed with an unfinished checklist.) Yes, that’s right: I was Met Man for West Cork briefly.

The first night, it lashed down, heavy rain falling in bucketfuls. The wind whipped around the house and every door latch twitched noisily all night. In my few fitful snatches of sleep, I imagined it was the cats coming for me, all tigered up. In my more frequent wide-awake state, I felt a tiny bit sorry for them. Next morning, there was more water in the rain collection jar than had fallen in the entire previous month. The cats were alive and dry, if a little sorry for themselves. I took a ramble round the garden, trying to be masterly but not really knowing what I was looking for. I mean, in the city I would have been looking for roof tiles and broken downpipes, maybe glass everywhere. So, to my untrained eye, it all looked fine, a bit windswept maybe, but fine, until I came to the chard. One entire plant had fallen over. It wasn’t broken, more like it had stood up to the wind and rain for a long time, then gradually tilted sideways until it lay flat on the ground, dejectedly unable to fight any more, yet relieved that the battle was over. It reminded me of seeing Spencer Tracy in The Old Man and the Sea, putting a gloomy downer on one Christmas holiday afternoon in my youth. Watching the film, you cheer him on for an hour or so, but then, seeing that he is dying a slow death, you just want it over and done with. I did the only thing a self-respecting cook could do – snipped off a handful of leaves for lunch (just a simple dish of wilted chard flavoured with lemon and pine nuts). Two days later when the plant had made no recovery, I took the best of the rest and made a very tasty gratin.

Chard grows willingly and can be harvested by taking a few leaves at a time. It will kindly go on producing more. It has never made much of an impact as a commercial crop, except in farmers’ markets to a small extent. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It really does need to be used very fresh. This is true of the softer greens in general, but especially of chard because the stalks start to become tough and stringy in a day or so after picking, and the leaves lose their sweetness. It’s worth mentioning too that while the coloured chards will add to the beauty of your garden, their stalks are thinner and tougher than the white variety. I rarely cook the coloured stalks at all.

Spinach is a good starting reference point for what to do with chard, though the leaves are coarser and hold their texture and substance better than spinach. This makes chard leaves really good in tarts, frittata, stews, soups and pancakes, and as a wrapping for ‘parcels’ like dolmas and timbales. The flavour also has a stronger, earthier element than spinach.

Chard stalks are a vegetable in their own right, and it is worth thinking of them as such once the stalk is about 3cm (1 1/4 in) wide below the leaf. If the stalks seem stringy, it is possible to peel away the thin layer of stringy film. At that size and beyond, I like to trim the leaves off and braise the stalks by slicing them across 2cm (3/4 in) thick, then putting them in a heavy pan with olive oil, white wine and stock to barely cover, and cooking over a low heat with the lid on until the stalks are soft and succulent. In soups or stews, the stalks don’t need to be cooked separately, of course, but just added earlier than the leaves.

Chard, whether using leaves, stalks or both, is wonderful with eggs, tomatoes, earthy Puy lentils, olive oil and spices, and with almost all cheeses from strong blues to feta, and from hard, aged cheeses to soft fresh ones. It is also great in any variation of hearty Italian soups and stews, rich as they are with olive oil and herbs, and often laced with lemon juice.

Back at the farmhouse, there was one other chore, which I never managed to tick off. (So much for the golden rule of the checklist.) I was to kill snails and slugs at dusk, the scissors method being optional. I tried it the first evening, bolstered by a few glasses of wine. But I managed to fool myself that I couldn’t find more than a half dozen of the enemy, that the problem was exaggerated, and I admit to simply chucking those few over the fence. I went on fooling myself on that one for the rest of the tour of duty. At least I was honest enough not to tick the checklist.