Alison Walker - The Essential Cook’s Kitchen: Traditional culinary skills, from breadmaking and dairy to preserving and curing

TRADITIONAL CULINARY SKILLS, FROM BREADMAKING AND DAIRY TO PRESERVING AND CURING

Alison Walker
Additional recipes by Shona Crawford Poole
Photography byTara Fisher

Think of a traditional country kitchen and what comes to mind? A worn flagstone floor, an old-fashioned Windsor chair sitting snugly next to the warm, welcoming range cooker My first thought is of a well-scrubbed, wooden farmhouse table laid out for tea, with feather-light scones, freshly churned butter, soft, creamy cheeses, glistening jars of jam made with berries from the garden and all homemade, of course.

The kitchen skills needed to make this simple country fare are something our grandmothers and great-grandmothers would have taken for granted, family recipes passed down through generations of women who honed the dishes to perfection. As a child I loved to watch my grandmother making pies: she didnt own a pair of measuring scales or any fancy gadgets, everything was done by touch and experience. And, inevitably, those pies were perfect every time. Sadly, those kinds of skills have now been largely forgotten or fallen out of use, because, really, who has the time? Who needs such things in a modern world where grabbing an expensive ready-meal for supper is the norm? Thats understandable; of course were too busy to churn butter or make our own cheese and why should we when we can pick up perfectly acceptable examples at the local shops? But wheres the pleasure in that?

Every now and then, its good to slow down and reconnect with Natures bounty, enjoy the transformation of raw ingredients into an enticing plate of biscuits or mouth-watering sponge cake. I will happily spend many an hour turning a crop of just picked raspberries or a basket of hedgerow fruit into rows of jams and jellies to stock the pantry for the winter months, or turn out batches of fresh, meaty sausages for a Sunday cooked breakfast complete with a fruity chutney.

By using modern technology the old-fashioned techniques are easier to revive than you may think. Im not asking you to laboriously make butter by hand in an antique butter churn (use a food mixer and it takes a fraction of the time) or keep your own pigs in the garden (find a good local butcher instead); rather simply to enjoy some of the processes involved in making good food as well as the delicious end result. After all, what Victorian cook would have used a wooden spoon to make a sponge if shed had access to electric hand-beaters! Its simple to incorporate country cooking into your life: you could bake a batch of bread for the week, then stock up the freezer with the surplus, while a country walk could turn into a forage for sloes to make a liqueur to give at Christmas.

Country cooking is close to my heart, the food I most like to prepare and share with family and friends. At its best, its simple, hearty, thrifty, honest food that is a pleasure to create and a joy to eat. It enables you to cook amazing meals with cheaper ingredients, cope with garden gluts and, most importantly, know exactly the integrity of the food you are serving. With this in mind, I have covered everything I think the aspiring country cook needs to know, from the perhaps unfamiliar traditional skills of curing, bottling and cheese making, to more familiar old favourites like making cakes, bread and pastry. Apart from a few recipes, very little specialist equipment is required. Step shots helpfully illustrate some of the trickier skills and each chapter covers in detail the equipment, ingredients and techniques you might need. My hope is that you will be tempted to delve in from time to time to make a chutney or cake, or to begin to adapt the skills of country cooking to fit your own lifestyle, even if its only at weekends. Before long, you, too, can know the pleasure and benefits of eating your own bread, cheese or smoked fish

Baking is surely at the heart of any country kitchen and gives the good cook a chance to shine, even with the simplest of recipes. Who can resist a batch of freshly baked scones warm from the oven? The comforting crunch of a homemade biscuit, a simple supper of fresh bread and cheese or a Victoria sponge filled with tangy raspberry jam is far superior to any shop-bought confection. They are a pleasure to make as well as eat, but the secret to success is to remember that baking is an exact science.