Ethnic Cuisine

The term “ethnic” as used in this country generally means not British, and “ethnic cuisine” has become just another way of saying, “foreign food”.

Perhaps it was the industrial revolution that began the process of killing off our native food heritage. As the first industrialised nation, British people, and in particular the English, suffered a divorce from their food culture as the vast industrial conurbations sucked in labour from the countryside. Farming became increasingly mechanised to produce basic foodstuffs to feed the new towns. Industrial processing followed, and by the mid 20th century mass produced ‘bread’, canned and frozen foodstuffs gradually became the mainstay of the British diet.

The Empire too played its part. Returning emigres and new immigrants brought us new foods and flavours eventually leading to the ubiquitous Indian and Chinese restaurants and many more exotic tastes. But as well as exploring these new flavours, something was lost, Whilst sampling peasant cookery from across the world, we forgot our own rich heritage. Other countries slowly incorporate new foods, extending their own cuisine. In the social upheaval of the Industrial Revolution we replaced much of ours. The simple pizza has spread across the world, whilst the Bedfordshire Clanger languishes in obscurity. Scouse, Pan Haggerty, and Pease Pudding seldom feature on menus – although Nottingham Goose Fair always seems to have mushy peas with mint sauce on offer!

I spent most of my life in East Anglia where local dishes include the scrumptious Huntingdon Fidget Pie and that rather curious Bedfordshire clanger. This is a baked suet pudding/pasty with savoury meat and onion at one end, and fruit or jam at the other. It made an easily transportable meal for a man in the fields. It also gave us the expression to “drop a clanger”. If the child carrying them “dropped a clanger” this would be a disaster, as someone would go hungry.

I enjoy a well prepared curry as much as the next man – and Chinese, Thai and Japanese food is great, as are West Indian and a whole host of imported dishes. I love a good French restaurant. and the superb Maison Bleue in Bury St Edmunds remains a particular favourite.

But wouldn’t it be nice if our native cooking was as celebrated as much as that derived from starving French peasants, reduced to grubbing around for snails and frogs? When did last you set out to visit an English restaurant? No. I mean a really English restaurant, without pretensions to be French, Italian, Greek, “Turkish Serbo-Croat fusion” or whatever?

Years ago, when we first moved to Suffolk, Maison Bleue used to be “Mortimer’s Fish bar” – a restaurant serving the very freshest of fresh fish from the coast (cooked on the premises right in front of you if you sat at the eponymous bar). In Abbeygate street we had butcher, fishmonger and game shop where you could even buy a hare and its blood to make Jugged hare. When did you last see that on the menu? At the Green Dragon in Wymondham 1973 in my case).

And it’s not just the absence of good game dealers and so on, English cuisine remains in decline, thanks in part to the ghastly trend of overstating the merits of foreign dishes that began with Elizabeth David after WW2, despite a few brave chefs such as the late Gary Rhodes trying to stem the tide. Now my local shops sell yams, papayas. parrot fish, cous-cous – and strawberries in December. From May to December the finest celery in the world is grown in the fen country around Ely, just up the road. Where do our shops get theirs? Spain. SPAIN!

Of course. there are some things we have to Import such as spices and wines – for all the efforts of our Suffolk vineyards I don’t think the chatelains of the Medoc will be be quaking in their bottes, although to be fair there are a quite a few decent English whltes around these days. Good beers, though, are our real tour de force, with a range of character. strength and flavours to accompany the best English fare.

0K, so where is this leading? This winter I decided to explore traditional English cuisine, our own ‘ethnic dishes’, and try a few recipes suited to season with local ingedients. And here’s one that I prepared for Boxing day to join the cold collation. It’s an interesting variation on the traditional Pork Pie, and it is much closer to the Elizabethan and mediaeval pies of old, which usually contained fruit (apples, raisins and the like) along with the meat. Indeed, as most people know, the traditional mince pies that we eat at Christmas originally contained real minced meat (mutton or tongue, plus suet of course) along with the fruit, alcohol and spices, making a pie that kept well. as well as tasting great. Now we only have the suet left, and sadly that has become so-called ‘vegetable suet’, a vile concoction of palm oil, rice flour and starch – I mean, what’s the point?

So here is my Boxing Day pie – although like any pie, it’s not just for Boxing Day! It hails from the Midlands, Leicestershire to be precise, and got the recipe from my mum’s old cookery book. We all know Melton Mowbray, home of the Melton Mowbray pork pie. This one originated some twenty miles or so south of Melton, and the only cheat is with the stock — I didn’t make the jellied stock from pork bones as a butcher would, because you only need a cupful or so.. I used home made chicken stock that I had in the freezer, but any chicken or pork stock will do with a bit of gelatine as given in the recipe below.

So, here goes – Market Harborough PIe (serves 8) – vegetarians & vegans, look away now.

For the hot water crust pastry

• 450g / 1lb plain flour
• 5ml / 1 tsp salt
• 1 medium egg yolk
• 175g / 6oz lard
• 150ml / 5 fl oz water
• beaten egg for glazing

For the filling

• 1kg / 2¼lb coarsely minced pork
• 450g / 1lb cooking apples peeled, cored and chopped
• 2 medium sized onions, finely chopped
• 50g / 2oz caster sugar
• 2½ ml / ½ tsp dried sage
• 5 ml / 1 tsp salt
• 2½ ml / ½ tsp freshly ground black pepper

For the jellied stock

• 5 ml / 1 tsp gelatine
• 150 ml strong chicken stock

Method

1. to make the pastry, sift the flour and salt into a bowl and make a well in the centre. Drop in the egg yolk and cover with a little of the flour. Cut the lard into chunks and place in a pan with the water. Heat gently until the fat has melted, then bring to the boil and pour into the dry ingredients, mixing with a wooden spoon until the dough is cool enough to handle.
2. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board and knead it until it is smooth and soft and no traces of egg remain. Return it to the warm mixing bowl and cover with a plate. Leave to rest in a warm place for 30 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, mix together the filling ingredients and grease a 15cm / 6″ loose bottomed cake tin.
4. Take three quarters of the warm pastry and roll it out into a 25cm / 10″ round. Fold and lift it into the tin and mould it carefully and evenly to the shape, raising the edges with your fingers until a little above the top of the tin. The pastry should be about 5mm / ¼”. Leave it to set slightly and then pack in the filling, mounding it slightly in the middle.
5. Heat the oven to 230c / 450f / Gas 8 (adjust for fan assisted if necc). Brush the pastry edges with beaten egg and roll out the remaining pastry to make a lid. Place it on the pie, seal the edges and trim neatly. Brush with beaten egg and cut a small hole in the top to let steam escape. Use pastry trimmings to make ‘leaves’ to decorate the top. Position them on the pie and brush with more of the beaten egg.
6. Bake the pie in the hot oven for twenty minutes. Cover the top with foil, lower the heat to 170c / 325f / Gas 3 and bake for a further three hours. Remove and allow the pie to cool in the tin.
7. When the pie is almost cold, warm the stock and dissolve the gelatine in it. Allow it to cool. When the stock has become syrupy, pour it into the pie through the hole in the top, using a small funnel. Refrigerate for a couple of hours until cold. Pop it onto a mug or other support, slide off the cake ring and then gently ease it off the base and onto a plate. Refrigerate for a further 8 – 10 hours. Serve cold.

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