Boermans - Deja Food

We all need to be able to provide food for ourselves and also, at some point, for others, too. It is a life skill that, personally, I value as much as being able to swim, but one which seems to have slipped from importance in the age of convenience foods. Whatever advantages such foods may possess in terms of speed and simplicity of preparation are, for me, far outweighed by their disadvantages: namely their cost, the quality of their ingredients and the additives used to prolong their shelf lives.

I firmly believe that traditional British food, refined over centuries from local and seasonal produce, can be tastier, healthier, more exciting and easier to prepare than anything mass produced. Moreover, by following this cumulative culinary wisdom we can both save money and drastically reduce the food wastage that has become such a problem in the twenty-first century. Its a concept that I like to think of as Deja Food, and it encompasses tradition, recipes, ingredients and a whole philosophy of cooking and eating.

Simply put, Deja Food is the return to our tables of food we have served before, whether it be the remains of the Sunday roast, our grandmothers favourite pie or some toothsome recipe from further back in time. Its how we used to eat, making use of the whole animal and not just the prime cuts, being creative with the less expensive pieces of meat, making the most of fresh, local, seasonal ingredients served simply in ways we used to enjoy but have forgotten over the passage of time. Its frugal, but full of flavour, deliciously different, yet proudly traditional.

In the latter half of the twentieth century the reputation of British food suffered greatly; years of rationing after the war saw both quality and quantity diminish. I have the dubious honour of having grown up just 15 miles from the restaurant in which Elizabeth David was famously served the dreary post-war fare that would ultimately inspire her to write her iconic book, Mediterranean Food .

It wasnt always thus. The recipes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, for example, reveal a delightful complexity, juxtaposing sweet and savoury elements and surprisingly sophisticated sauces. Long before Moroccan tagines were fashionable in the UK, our ancestors were enjoying a whole range of spiced meat-and-fruit dishes such as plum pottage and mince pies with a sprinkling of actual meat, which were so beloved that they became feast-day treats. We still enjoy their greatly redacted descendants today, but how much more enjoyable would it be to savour the originals?

The iconic image of a sumptuous British Sunday lunch invariably includes a joint or poultry, resplendent amid a veritable cornucopia of vegetables and accompaniments. Enticing as this image is, it comes at a price which can, for prime roasting joints, be budget-bustingly expensive. However, a grand Sunday lunch is still affordable if we only take a little more care selecting the meat, choosing from the cheaper cuts, which can be both better value and just as enjoyable, and treating them with care and attention. As a general rule, the best cuts come from the upper hindquarters of an animal. The forequarters (lamb/pork shoulder, beef brisket, beef flank) are usually cheaper because they are either not as tender or fattier, or both. However, this makes them ideal for long, slow roasting and braising, the fat slowly melting and basting the meat so that they become incredibly flavourful and tender.

It isnt just the meat dishes of yesteryear that can offer tasty and economical recipes to delight our tables. A whole host of vegetables were enjoyed in different ways, and much use was made of items that we no longer regard as deserving a special place on the dinner table. Onions, celery, mushrooms and lettuces are nowadays seen mainly as accompaniments or garnishes, whereas in times gone by they were greatly relished and recognised as part of the regular vegetable course in their own right. Stewed Lettuce and Peas () is a meal in itself when paired with some fresh, crusty bread.

And so to those leftovers, which can also be Deja Food. Centuries ago, many classic dishes utilised not only our British forte of big lumps of meat in the oven (which, incidentally, earned us the grudging admiration of many other countries, including France), but any surplus was also used to create the now long-forgotten fricassees, hashes, ragoos and la mode delights that once populated our culinary repertoire. The cooks of previous centuries saw no lessening in the quality of food just because it had been previously cooked; old recipe books are full of dishes that begin with instructions to Take a fillet of beef half roasted, Take some under-dressed [rare] mutton, Take some cold, boiled potatoes, and so on.

This thrifty and practical approach has resulted in some of the tastiest and most iconic British dishes, such as cottage pie (made with beef) and shepherds pie (lamb), both of which emerged as recognisable recipes in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Properly made, from the surplus Sunday roast trimmed of all fat, skin and sinew, generously moistened with gravy and meat juices and topped with feathery mashed potato, they are dishes sublime.

The richness of flavour from meat that has previously been baked for hours in its own juices cannot be replicated in any other way.

In this book I apply the lessons from the past to the needs of the present. The reader will find that some great British dishes, such as the traditional Sunday roast, are not only the perfect way to make the most of fresh ingredients, but can also provide the basis for a range of fabulous family meals for later in the week. Also included are some long-forgotten recipes for the cheaper cuts of meat and less popular vegetables that are not only packed with flavour, but economical, too.

I hope that enjoying the delightful old recipes in this book will prove the inspiration to return to this way of cooking and eating, thereby helping to preserve the culinary wisdom of centuries past through simple enjoyment of all that this land has to offer.

In all ranks, and at every table, one important art in housekeeping is to make what remains over from one days entertainment contribute to the elegance or plenty of the next days repasts. This is a principle understood by persons in the very highest ranks of society, and who maintain the most splendid and expensive establishments. Their great town-dinners usually follow in rapid succession, one banquet forming, if not the basis, a useful auxiliary to the next entertainment. But as this has been elsewhere recommended to the attention of the reader, it is almost unnecessary to repeat here, that vegetables, ragouts, and soups, may be rewarmed; and jellies and blancmanges remoulded, with no deterioration of their qualities. Savoury or sweet patties, potted meats, croquets, rissoles, vol-au-vents, fritters, tartlets, &c., may be served almost without cost, where cookery is going forward on a large scale.

Christian Isobel Johnstone, Scottish journalist, editor and author, 1828

The motivation for this book came from my dual interests of cooking and history. In the UK we have only been recording the food that we enjoy preparing and eating for just over 600 years, beginning with The Forme of Cury , a parchment scroll of dishes compiled by the Master Cooks of Richard II around the year 1400.

The history of the British Isles can be written in food. Over the last 2,000 years, immigrants and invaders have brought with them not only their recipes, but also the ingredients with which to make them, and all have been absorbed into the food canon of these isles with open arms. Without the constant stream of visitors to these shores, wed be stuck munching on indigenous onions and a few berries. A surprising number of domesticated livestock, fruits and vegetables now so familiar to us as to be thought of as British were brought, in the first instance, by the occupying armies of Rome. Invading Saxons and Vikings brought their methods of fish preservation, the echoes of which are still with us a thousand years later in the smokehouses and fisheries of the east coast of Scotland. The Normans brought spices and wine while the bounty of conquered and plundered countries during the age of exploration reached these shores in the form of exotic spices, fruits and nuts.