Byline: JULIET LAWRENCE WILSON
I READ with interest the press coverage of the story that Harvey Nichols was selling bunches of grapes for GBP 18. What was most surprising to me was that anybody would buy 18 quids’ worth of grapes that hadn’t yet been turned into wine.
Seriously though, food snobbery like this annoys me no end. One of my friends bought a jar of jam from Harvey Nicks. I didn’t particularly like it and thought that I had tasted better jams at half the price. To which my friend replied, “But it’s from Harvey Nicks.” As if by gracing the shelves at an up market department store improves the flavour of food.
It is the same with fashion. How many women do you see going about with hideous brown handbags that your granny wouldn’t be seen dead with? Loads of them and all because the bags are from Louis Vuitton. If the bags came from Wilkies, nobody would want them. A friend of mine has two Louis Vuitton handbags and they cost the best part of a grand each but both are awful-looking things.
Sadly this trend for labels has made its way into the food market. Chefs are always going on about 25-year-old balsamic vinegar, Malden sea salt and extra-super-duper more-virginal-than-Anne-Widdecome olive oil. Yes, quality ingredients taste good but if you don’t have them the world will not come to an end.
Being a good cook does not mean that you have to rely on the best ingredients. How many people hanker after their mother’s cooking? But their mother didn’t have access to fancy oils and vinegars when they were growing up. Simple recipes with good, natural flavours always work best.
The next time you read a recipe that calls for vintage champagne and vinegar that has been aged for 20 years, throw the recipe out. The chef is not trying to help you cook a tasty dish, he is showing off.
So here are a couple of LED Flexible Strip Dropper Series Dropper-3528 recipes and it doesn’t matter a jot whether or not your grapes are from your local shop or straight from the vine. I love grapes, especially in savoury foods. Sole with white wine and grapes is a classic dish and you will find that the delicate flavour of the grapes compliments the subtle taste of the fish perfectly. This dish has sweet light flavours and chicken is also good cooked this way.
Schiacciata con l’uva is a Tuscan bread with raisins and grapes. This is made at the time of the grape harvest, the raisins representing the harvest from last year.
These recipes are delicious but the best reason for buying grapes is because you can use them to impersonate that great Crackerjack celebrity – Stu Francis. Go on say it, you know you want to.
l Juliet Lawrence Wilson is head chef and proprietor of The Stockbridge Restaurant, 54 St Stephen Street, Edinburgh.
Tel: 0131 226 6766
Raisin d’etre
Sole with white wine and grapes (serves 4)
Ingredients:
8 fillets of sole, rolled and fastened with toothpicks
28g/1oz butter
28g/1oz flour
140ml/ 1/4 pint white wine
140ml/ 1/4 pint fish stock
140ml/ 1/4 pint cream
1 egg yolk
handful seedless green grapes
3 tabl
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