Springtime is nearly here...

The snowbells are brightening the dullest of grass-strewn pavements and the daffodils are waiting to flower. I love this time of year. I have started to use my bicycle again after the harsh winter. I find it a wonderful way to pick up fresh vegetables from the Covered Market in my basket, and I also love the fresh air as it gives me new ideas for poems. I spent the weekend away from my student house in Bath, to go back to my hometown in Oxford. I love exploring the city centre and taking pictures. I hope you like this picture of the Radcliffe Camera, part of the Bodleian Library. The sunlight was beautiful that day.

Ideas about Connections...

I have recently been thinking what would interest readers about the connection between Food and Poetry. I began to look deeply into the structure of how a recipe and a poem can talk to each other. It's interesting to think of each ingredient to be like each line of a poem. Each ingredient is just as important as the next and if you don't include it, there is a chance that the recipe, and therefore the overall dish, may falter. It's exactly the same as a poem; if you don't secure the exact words in correct order in the exact line then the poem will struggle to be concise and therefore the poetry you write will suffer. This sounds very broad thinking, but it has made me understand how intricate the art of poetry is. It has made me realise that each word and each beat in music of poem, must be in tune with the rest; each line must sing to every other line. I've been told this by many of my poetry tutors but I have never truly understood what they meant. I love discovering new connections with poetry, and especially if food has helped me discover it.

I have perfected my Mum's Stew, dauphonoise potatoes, hollandaise sauce, a poached egg and many more since I started to cook at twelve. Now, I can see how each of these recipes can represent the form of a poem and how long it takes to perfect, and what it needs is practise, practise, and more practise.

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March Food Poetry Competition!

Welcome to another month of the competition!  There has been a new addition and you can now recieve cash rewards for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place! See below for all the information you need:

The Cuisine of Poetry presents:

The NEW March Food Poetry Competition!

Prizes: 1^st: £20

              2^nd: £10

             3^rd: £5

March’s entry requirements:

• 40 lines max
• Theme: ‘Food and the Senses’.
• Maximum of 4 poems.
• Entry Fee: FREE!
• Send to: zara.preston@bathspa.org
• PLEASE SEND YOUR ADDRESS IN THE EMAIL SO IF REWARDS ARE WON, THEY CAN BE SENT. THANK YOU.

CLOSING DATE: 5^th March 2011.

BLOG PUBLISHING DATE: 10^th March 2011

The Winners of February's Food Poetry Competition!

Congratulations to Kate Silvester, Tom Stone (twice monthly winner!) and an anonymous entry. Please read the following and enjoy!

February's Theme: Vegetables

Italy

Sliced beefsteak tomatoes

on a bed of crisp spinach.

A sprinkle of fresh basil

and a dribble of extra virgin olive oil.

Add generous slabs of buffalo mozzarella

and a sheen of balsamic vinegar.

A thin, crisp dough base

covered in freshly beaten tomatoes.

Crushed garlic cloves, just picked oregano.

Slices of local goats cheese melt

accompanied by a helping of aged prosciutto.

Add rocket tossed in olive oil once cooked

for a tingle on your taste buds.

Linguine pasta, freshly made,

bubbling for five minutes.

Add some salt and pepper,

some crushed tomatoes.

Introduce clams, prawns, tuna

and lashings of garlic.

Flavours exploding; your perfect pasta dish.

Kate Silvester

THE VEGETABLE

Sharpened Carrots

Frozen Peas

All my favourite

Edible weapons

Clara won’t

Eat her vegetables

So now she must die

Before she gets fat

She'll be picked on at school

I can't let that happen

So I'm going to kill her

Frozen peas to the forehead

Should do it

Oh dear

I’ve dropped one of

the carrots

It’s sticking out of my knee

Along with

Lots of blood

Ouch

I can’t walk

Oh the irony

For now I am

The vegetable

Tom Stone

The Onion

I usually halve it,

cut it through the root

and roughly chop:

It could get tossed in a salad,

fried with bangers and mash

or thrown in a cheese roll –

but when I cook for you,

I take my time;

I leave the root whole

and slice slowly,

each piece exactly even,

then add to a stew

and leave it to simmer.

Anon

Please look out for March's Competition with the new Monthly theme.

Wine, wine, glorious wine!

As experiments go, this one has been one of my favourites. I have been trying out wine in a few recipes and each one has gone down extremely well. I picked up a few old cookery books in my local antique centre and found a few poems inside them. Just my sort of book! I found this inside:

There's nothing like the blood of grapes
To give escapes
From care's infesting festering apes,
To set the wit upon probation,
To give an edge to conversation,
To make a friend of a relation;
There's nothing like the blood of grapes.

From One Thousand and One Nights
Powys Mathers


There's also nothing like the blood of grapes to help flavour your food! I used it last night in a sausage casserole with my flatmate and it was amazing. I threw everything into my pan and let it simmer away for 45 minutes. Try it, it was so easy:


Venison Sausage Casserole with Butter Beans

Ingredients

6 pack of Sausages, each sausage cut into thirds. (can be whatever you fancy but I found the vension sausages on offer and wanted to try something new. Make sure they are more than 70% meat.)
1 large onion, diced.
Knob of Butter
Few Bay leaves
Glass of Red Wine (good quality- wine you would drink!)
Thyme, chopped.
Peppers, diced. (or whatever vegetables you have left over and want to throw in)
Small tin of Butter Beans
Few cherry tomatoes, quartered.
Beef Stock
Any Chutneys in the fridge that would sweeten it up (i.e tomato chutney, caramelised red onion chutney)
Salt and Pepper

1. Add knob of butter to pan and then throw in onions. Fry off for about 10 minutes until soft.
2. Add the glass of red wine and leave to reduce with the onions until nearly gone.
3. Next, fry off sausages for a few minutes to brown with the onions.
4. Scatter bay leaves on top.
5. Add the stock and turn down to low.
6. Now add in all the vegetable (in my case, peppers, butter beans and tomatoes).
7. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and thyme.
8. Add any chutneys you have lying around, even mustard if you wish.
9. Simmer for half an hour until the wine and stock and thickened and serve with buttery mashed potatoes.
10. Serve with the rest of your red wine and enjoy!

Join the Fish Fight!

Recently, in the media, there has been a lot of attention on the type of fish that we are eating. A third of the fish we eat are either Salmon, Prawns or Tuna. This needs to change to keep the fishing levels afloat. We need to explore our supermarket providers and local markets to find different fish we have not tried before. This way we can give the popular fish a break, and allow them to flourish in the sea again, otherwise our supply of them will run out. So buy some new fish this weekend and save the sea!

Please spend a few moments by signing up on this link and support Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's campaign in this international food fight. An EU law keeps the fishermen throwing dead fish (that we can eat) back into the sea. Please help to change this law and save the fish!

Do your bit by stopping to buy the common fish and go for something different. I picked up a fillet of Whiting at my local deli counter for £1 a fillet: a cheap and easy meal. Being a member of the Gadidae family, which also includes the Cod, Whiting is widely underused. Cod is being over fished in our seas (mainly due to the Fish 'n' Chip shops) so by picking a similar fish in the same family, I hoped it would be just as flaky and delicious, but also trying to be resourceful.


Even Mr. Swift himself was fond of delicate seafood:


Oysters

Charming Oysters I cry,
My Masters come buy,
So plump and so fresh,
So sweet is their Flesh,
    No Colchester Oyster
    Is sweeter and moyster,
    Your Stomach they settle,
    And rouse up your Mettle,
    They'll make you a Dad
    Of a Lass or a Lad;
    And, Madam your Wife
    They'll please to the Life;
Be she barren, be she old,
Be she Slut, or be she Scold,
Eat my Oysters, and lye near her,
She'll be fruitful, never fear her.

Jonathon Swift




Not everyone can afford Oysters for supper so my recipe below is one of my quick, cheap and satisfying dinners that can be adapted with any white fish.


Fish and Cream Sauce

White Fish (try Whiting, Pollock, Hake, Coley or ask your fishmonger or deli for what they have)
Butter
Shallot or small onion
Dash od white wine
Soft Herbs (Parsley, chives, tarragon and chervil work well here but choose any two you like)
Flour to dust fish
Salt and Pepper
Double Cream
Lemon

1. Start by getting a medium frying pan medium-hot.
2. Season the fillet with salt and pepper. Dust with flour and pat the excess off.
3. Drop a tablespoon of butter into the pan and once foaming, place the fish skin side down.
4. Fry for a few minutes until golden and turn off the heat. Flip the fish over and the remaining heat in the pan will cook the fish.
5. Whilst the fish is finishing off, slice one shallot/onion and a handful of your two herbs.
6. Remove the fish and wrap in foil to keep warm (it might fall apart like my one below but don't worry!)
7.  Add the shallot/onions to the used frying pan and cook until opaque.
8. Add the dash of white wine (half a glass) and sweat off until only a slight amount remains.
9. Add cream (200ml per person) and allow to bubble and thicken for a minute or so.
10. Add chopped herbs, lemon (this will thin it slightly) and salt and pepper to finish off the sauce.
11. Serve with mashed sweet potato, a green vegetable and a glass of white!
12. Enjoy and feel good for helping our fish!

Ancient Food Poetry

What else still exists from 500 BC? Not a lot but this does...


To roast some beef, to carve a joint with neatness,
To boil up sauces, and to blow the fire,
Is anybody's task; he who does this
Is but a seasoner and broth-maker;
A cook is quite another thing. His mind
Must comprehend all facts and circumstances;
Where is the place, and what the time of supper;
Who are the guests, and who the entertainer;
What fish he ought to buy and where to buy it.


Quoted by Athenaeus
From Dionysius