Food & Drink

Have a nutty New Year

MANY of you will be reading this before the big day, so may I wish you a Happy Christmas and I hope you are looking forward to the year ahead. Two of this With KATY BEAUCHAMP month’s “dishes” use up any Christmas nuts you may have left over; the other is a rich, tasty pork pie . . . but not as you know it!

NUT CRACKERS

METHOD Put the nuts in the blender with the pepper, rosemary and salt (if your nuts aren’t already salted!). Blitz until fine and tip into a bowl, mix in the beaten egg (you may not need it all) and use your hands to form a “dough”. Wrap it in a sheet of Nut crackers served with garlic cheese and a beetroot pickle greaseproof paper and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes. Using another

INGREDIENTS (Makes approx. 16 crackers, depending on size) 225g mixed nuts (salted roasted ones are best) 1 small egg, beaten piece of greaseproof paper, roll out the dough sandwiched between the pieces to about 2mm thick. Use a knife to cut into squares or triangles

Black pepper and then slide them on 1 teaspoon rosemary the paper to a baking

Salt (if using unsalted tray. Bake them for nuts) 15/20 mins on 160°C. 30g mixed seeds for the top (optional) You can top them with melted butter and a sprinkle of seeds. I served mine with a soft garlic cheese and a beetroot pickle.

A TWIST ON A PORK PIE

A pulled pork pie

METHOD Mix together the INGREDIENTS mustard, honey, one (Serves five) teaspoon garlic granules 5 pork shoulder chops (or garlic), salt and 1 heaped tablespoon pepper and smother the mustard (any you fancy) pork chops with the 1 heaped tablespoon honey mixture. Lay them in a 2 heaped tablespoons garlic pie dish, overlapping granules or fresh garlic them, cover with foil ½ onion and bake in the oven for 5 large potatoes two hours at 160°C. 100gms butter

Meanwhile fry the 2 teaspoons dried tarragon onions in 50g of butter and boil the potatoes until tender and mash with 50g butter, add in the onions and tarragon, a tsp of garlic granules (or garlic) and salt and pepper.

Shred the pork in the dish, top with the mashed potato mix and bake in the oven until hot and browned (approx 20 mins at 180°C). Serve with vegetables of your choice.

These bars quickly disappear at home when the boys are around

HEALTHY FRUIT AND NUT BARS

METHOD Put all the ingredients into a blender and blitz until a clumpy paste. If if you think it’s a bit crumbly, add some honey and blitz again.

Press the mixture into a suitable tray. If you’re using the mixed seeds, sprinkle them on top and press them in lightly.

Chill in the fridge until set (one hour) and cut into whatever size bars you like. I wrap mine individually in greaseproof paper and keep in the fridge (my boys manage to eat them in a day, and they don’t even live at home!) INGREDIENTS (Makes 10-12 bars) 250g mixed fruit and nuts 200g dried pitted dates Two tablespoons coconut oil Honey (only if the mixture is a little crumbly) Mixed seeds (optional)

Have a “graze” night at the Tucker’s Grave Inn

THE team at the Tucker’s Grave Inn have enjoyed such amazing feedback from their first “Tucker’s Graze” nights that they are adding extra dates throughout January. A graze platter offers a selection of outstanding produce, sourced as locally as possible, served in the fantastic surroundings of the Old Parlour – they offer a takeaway service also – which must be booked in advance

Graze nights take place on Wednesdays and Thursdays and comprise proper Somerset grub such as pork pies and scotch eggs from Witham Friary to Wyke Farm cheese, all served with Bay Tree chutney, fresh bread, crackers and nibbles.

On Friday nights, why not try one of campsite manager Prem’s delicious Nepalese curries, whilst there is also a Saturday night winter warmer, which might be a home cooked pork and cider – naturally – stew or chilli con carne?

For details, visit: www.tuckersgraveinn.co.uk

New Thatchers cider

THEapples for Thatchers Cider’s newest blend all come from one single orchard, its Classics Orchard, and are part of research being undertaken by the cider maker to find the best way of planting orchards for the tastiest fruit.

The Classics is a full bodied, rich, golden cider at 8.4%, crafted from a blend of 26 different traditional apple varieties. The bittersweet and bittersharp apples are part of a trial being undertaken by Thatchers that sees these heritage apple varieties grown for the first time along wires to increase the levels of sunlight received on the fruit.

Richard Johnson, Thatchers head cider maker, said: “Apples gathered from the Classics Orchard are a true window on the rich variety of cider’s heritage.

“With apples from our Classics Orchard raised within a few miles of Myrtle Farm, blended and packaged here at our mill, this is a cider that reflects the very heart of Somerset cider making.”

Thatchers The Classics is available price £2.35 per 500ml bottle, from Thatchers Cider Shop at Myrtle Farm, Sandford.

Details: www.thatcherscider.co.uk

Open 2-11pm (Mon-urs), midday-11pm (Fri & Sat). midday-10pm (Sun)

Tucker’s Grave Inn, Faukland, Radstock, BA3 5XF. T: 01225 962669 E: info@tuckersgraveinn.co.uk W: www.tuckersgraveinn.co.uk

Tucker’s Grave Inn – past, present and future!

We have had such amazing feedback from our Tucker’s Graze nights that we have now added extra dates through to the end of January!

It’s a great way to socialise with friends and family while enjoying our delicious platters – from handmade scotch eggs and pork pies to our cheese feast!

A takeaway option and vouchers are also available

You can book online https://www.tuckersgraveinn.co.uk/vac or call 07882 771183 or 07976 897743

WILD FOOD First and last time

With ADRIAN BOOTS

YOUmay have noticed I love wild food. But there is one wild fruit of which, shall we say, I’m just not that fond: Guelder Rose berries. Innocuous enough isn’t it? Guelder Rose, hmm sounds like a light fragrance or a rare flower found in an overly tended formal garden. If a name could be any more misleading as a guide to the taste experience of its fruit then this

would be it.

You know when your mother said “never eat red berries”? Well, this is one of those berries. Not because it’s poisonous, it isn’t, but you would be justified in thinking it was put on this earth to ruin your life chances –it tastes so bad. The reason for all this drama is one simple thing: BITTERNESS.

Guelder Rose (Viburnum opulus) is a shrub up to 4m in height found in hedgerows. Leaves have three to five divisions of the leaf lobes with irregular edges. The flowers appear in June and July and have flat top heads with the creamy inner flowers being smaller than the whiter outer flowers. The red berries appear in the autumn and can last a mild winter.

So how do you deal with all that bitterness and I’m not talking about going to a counselling session. Well, I wish this was the fix for all life’s ills and it probably could be if one tried it, but it turns out that being sweet is the key.

Away from the metaphor, sugar and a seriously long train of wagons loaded with the stuff is the solution. From one extreme to another. So if all that bitterness doesn’t put you off the subsequent trips to the dentist to treat the cavities caused by the voluminous amounts of sugar most certainly will. I would do as the Austrians, Danes and Germans do and make Rumtopf – a mix of soft fruit fed with sugar and lots of booze, leave it alone and finally one fine day it will be ready for consumption. Either that or it will be left at the back of the cupboard through fear of the memory of trying Guelder Rose berries for the first and last time. So I have a New Year’s resolution for you: Try something else. Here’s looking forward to a happy and healthy New Year!

Adrian Boots is a Landscape Ecologist, Wild Food Forager and Adventure Activity provider. You can visit his website: www.gowildactivities.co.uk to learn more about wild food foraging and activities you can do with him on the Mendip Hills.

GARDEN FOOD Perfect dessert

With JAKE WHITSON

LASTyear was not a great one for our cobnuts, but we still had a few hundred grams from our trees. The key factor in their fruiting (or should that be nutting?) seems to be the weather in late winter and early spring, when the catkins and inconspicuous female flowers are out. If it’s too cold or the winds too strong, you’ll get few nuts and lots of empty

shells.

Cobnuts are largely self-sterile so you either need a few different varieties for pollination or wild hazels in nearby hedgerows (which we have in abundance). Cobnuts are quite fast to come into production and you should get your first few nuts within a few years of planting.

The flavour is much more pronounced and sweeter than the nuts you buy in the shops, however home-grown nuts often dry slightly shrivelled due to their lower oil content (caused by our cooler summers).

To my mind a classic hazelnut dacquoise is just about as perfect a dessert as it gets – I’ve adapted this one from a Rick Stein recipe. To make it, first gently toast 50g hazelnuts in a medium oven until golden brown, then tip them into a tea towel and rub off the skins (I must admit this doesn’t work so well with my home-grown nuts, but I just do what I can). Chop the nuts very finely. Next, whisk four egg whites to stiff peaks, then gradually whisk in 200g caster sugar until you have a thick glossy meringue. Fold all but a tablespoon of the nuts, divide the mixture into thirds, and spread the thirds into three 20cm circles on baking parchment.

Sprinkle the reserved nuts over one of the meringues (this will be the top one later on). Bake in a low oven for about two hours, then turn the oven off and leave them to completely dry out inside (sometimes I do meringues in my dehydrator instead which results in a completely crisp and white meringue like you’d buy in the shops).

To assemble, melt 100g dark chocolate, then fold in 150ml creme fraiche and 150ml double cream which has been whipped until just slightly thickened. Spread this mixture onto two of the meringues and top with the third. Allow to sit for an hour or two for the meringues to soften, then serve. Absolutely delicious.

Jacob Whitson is a chef, food writer and smallholder –he divides his time between the Mendips and Pembrokeshire.

A tr-eat for Street!

STREET hosted its first proper eat:Festivals event with dozens of traders running stalls inside and outside the Crispin Shopping Centre.

In the summer eat:Festivals, the food festival organisers, had received support from Mendip District Council to run a “Little Eat” festival in the High Street in Street as part of the pandemic business recovery initiative. Similar events were also held in Wells and Shepton Mallet.

Father Christmas and Bubbles Sugarplum with cidermaker Todd Studley

Shoppers and stallholders said the shopping centre made an ideal indoor market venue Laura Wolfers, chair of Street Parish Council, with eat:Festivals organisers Bev (left) and Sarah Milner-Simonds

Father Christmas joins Harry Calvert on his preserves stall

Victoria Stent ensured dogs were not left out

Unfair to doctors

Dear Mendip Times, Reading his letter in December’s Mendip Times, I was astonished and disturbed by Duncan Massey’s response to Dr Phil Hammond’s recent MT comments on the welldocumented extreme strains on GPs and Primary Care.

And, as he is a “volunteer community first responder”, I am even more astonished by his clear ignorance of the current circumstances during the pandemic. Mr Massey scurrilously suggests that GPs are lazy because they are “rewarded financially by the size of their patient list, not by the number of patients they actually treat”.

But what he conveniently forgets to mention is that the annual per-capita sum paid to each practice does not reflect the number of actual consultations or advice given for each patient, regardless of their individual needs. GP practices are paid around £93 per patient per year.

For this the patient gets full access to their surgery Monday to Friday, 8am to 6.30pm, with no limit on the number of consultations they receive throughout the year. There are also additional provisions offering extended hours such as weekend appointments and even home visits for patients with chronic diseases.

Even when all these diverse services are provided, the total annual income per patient (including all vaccinations for Covid and ‘flu) is still only around £150 per year – just about £3 per week. When compared to the average monthly Netflix or Sky payments, GPs are hardly getting rich on their laziness as Mr Massey suggests.

Covid has impacted on services across the NHS as referral times into hospitals have doubled from 26 to 52 weeks. This causes an increase in local pressure as patients turn to their GPs for help to manage their conditions while they wait. There is also a massive demand from patients with mental health issues.

Consequently, referrals to these services have also grown causing many to seek urgent GP support whilst in crisis. So there has been an overall workload increase of around 20 per cent on the previous year (excluding Covid vaccinations).

And this is before the normal winter pressures are experienced with a possible additional rise in Covid-related illness. Clinicians are now operating at capacity, with most working many more than their contractual hours.

Mr Massey also deliberately mis-attributes Dr Hammond’s use of “the grizzly expression ‘the bodies are still piling up’.” But Hammond was simply quoting an already widely circulated direct remark from the Prime Minister.

Furthermore, his description of Dr Hammond’s forthright and truthful account of all aspects of the overstretched NHS as a “politically motivated rant” is an insult not just to Dr Hammond but, by extension, to any other health professional whose opinion differs from his.

By doing so he cruelly undermines the well-earned and well-deserved trust that we all have in our NHS. Rather than criticise, unless Mr Massey has a previously undiscovered alternative solution to our current national health crisis, surely it is he who should be accused of a politically motivated rant.

But Mr Massey saves the worst of his insults to last when he claims that Dr Hammond is himself in some way part of the fact that “the current state of Primary Care is dangerous and a disgrace. You should be ashamed of your actions and not politically grandstanding about pay and conditions.”

Rather than blame the messenger – hard-working dedicated professionals like Dr Hammond – perhaps Mr Massey should ask who has been in charge for the last 11 years during which time the NHS has been comprehensibly, systematically (and some might even say deliberately) underfunded?

Dear Mendip Times, Are you fed up with being confined to home? Do you want exercise, fresh air, excitement and some mental stimulation? Then why not go wild.

The Avalon Marshes are famous nationally and internationally (RSPB West Sedgemoor is a RAMSAR site protected by international law) but strangely almost unknown in places like Bath.

The marshes are the best place in Britain for herons and egrets, there are cranes (as tall as a human and with an eightfoot wing span), deer, otters badgers, marsh frogs, marsh harriers, the biggest starling murmuration in the country and miles of pathways to explore.

To give some idea of the size of the reserves RSPB Ham Wall is over four square miles and the adjacent Shapwick (Natural England) is over seven square miles.

Each has lakes, reed beds, woods and footpaths. The best bit is that these are only two of many reserves with Westhay, Grey Lake, Steart (two reserves), Ebbor Gorge and Swells Wood just a few of the others.

A bit of advice about the murmuration, go midweek because at weekends humans can try to outnumber the birds. Okay, a little exaggeration because there are about 250,000 birds with the numbers still rising. West Sedgemoor can only be visited by pre-booking but most of the others are free.

This wealth of local wildlife has helped the Bath and District RSPB Group to be one of the oldest (over 50 years) and most successful in the country, helped by its wildlife talks, car, bus and boat trips, and free beginners’ classes. All are welcome so to learn more go to www.rspb.org.uk/groups/Bath

Ian Pitch North Somerset

John Yates Bath