Early Spring Supper with Celia
Prawn Head Bisque, Pork Belly, Creme Caramel with Magnolia
I would like to write a little about food and love. To me, they are the same. It’s when I’m tired that I hunger for love the most. For my grandma, for that stroke of divine intervention that mystically strikes and tethers you to another, for simple, quiet company, for a beautiful meal. My medicines are to cook, read, sing, walk and write. I know that food, love and movement are always the answer.
If I’m going to write about food and love, let’s concentrate on grandma a while. This substack is named after her. Celia. I press my thumb against her little emerald ring that sits on my middle finger as if to let her know, wherever she is, that she was very much loved and still is.
Celia was a kind of foodie. A cook, I would say, rather than a chef. She was proud to have her certificates from City and Guilds. Her skills were fairly typical of that time: thrifty, full of goodness, shifting around the corners when the war and rationing came, continuing that spirit into the decades ahead but with a not-so-secret adoration of butter.
Have you ever been asked who you would most like to have dinner with - alive, dead, or famous? My answer is always Celia. To have dinner as an adult woman with my grandma. I’ve decided to start cooking for her, though the dishes (as usual) will likely end up with my neighbours Jennifer, Terry, and Alun because, you know, they’re actually alive.
On this first occasion, I got a tad carried away with a full menu. I wanted to touch upon some of the foods that Celia loved, but also weave in my own. It grew to be somewhat wanky (I guess I am trying to impress a dead person after all).
The prawn bisque was a nod to her love of fish paste on toast, and a bowl of soup served without spoons. Soup spoons and spoon etiquette were a big deal for Celia and we would have countless tiffs at the dinner table over how to drink soup correctly. I can be quite contrary when being told what to do so we would often admit defeat and drink straight from the bowl, glowering at each other. These days though, if anyone serves soup with anything but a proper soup spoon, I can feel Celia’s discontent stirring in my bones and I’ll just lift the bowl straight to my lips. If there is a soup spoon, I’ll drink every last drop properly in homage - a sort of loving spite in absence of her motherly witness.
For the main, I was gunning for a pork chop from Snoad Farm in Faversham because Julie’s pigs are reared in so careful a way as to create a really beautiful, thick layer of fat. Alas, they had sold out in the first hour of hitting the block, so I opted for some chonks of pork belly instead, fat being the key factor here. Celia loved the fat on chops and the like, and I’d slide mine over the table towards her. These days I love the fat too, so I ate it for both of us.
The celeriac puree is an echo of the bickering we’d have over mash. She elected me as chief mash maker whenever we would eat it and always had firm feedback if I had left a lump or two. I would get around this by adding lashings of milk and butter and would beat it furiously until it was very smooth. If there happened to be a rogue lump still, I’d make sure grandma would get it. That’s the thing about real love… you can be a bit of a dick to each other. Anyhow, I concluded upon a puree because it would be silky smooth and I was feeling generous; no lumps for Grandma. Wilted mustard leaves were added to cut through the rich flavours of the dish and for a show of colour.
Coming to the creme caramel, this may have been the dish she loved the very most. Celia just liked hers plain and we would often eat it still warm. I so wanted to like it as much as she did but it smelled like farts to me and my childish palate found the dark caramel too bitter. I would always try to bear a little, to please this old, excited lady, turning out her creation onto the plate, visibly delighted by the eggy, wobbly mound shimmering in a puddle. I like to think this perseverance set me up for pursuing other foods I wasn’t fond of in later life. There’s a very fine love between love and hate. I should know, as someone who now gets her rocks off over cabbage. CABBAGE. The younger version of me did not see that coming.
As an extra touch, I added some rhubarb poached in magnolia syrup, the latter most recently made from the tree outside the window. This article documents the culinary usage of this incredible flower, but the easiest and most versatile way to start is with a simple syrup that can be added in all sorts of places. It has a gingery-perfume flavour to it… a real tasty of beauty. As I ate the creme caramel (my first ever attempt at making one), I was frustrated by how light the caramel turned out (some serious caramel practice needed) and that the custard was only just set. The texture and flavour were sublime though and I could feel Grandma nodding in approval, eyes widening in delight as the magnolia taste spread across her palate like the flowers in bloom.
For the cheese course, a little Saint-Maure de Touraine was served - a nod to Celia’s love of France and cheese. This one is a lovely, soft goat’s cheese covered in ash from Patrick at the market.
My uncle bought an incredible little flat by the sea in Dinard in the 90s that has marvellous faded grandeur about it and the kind of wallpaper and windows you see in your dreams (if indeed you do dream about wallpaper and windows). I love to visit and almost pretend they are both just in the other room, Grandma Celia and Uncle Paul. This special place just feels like love because both of these beautiful family souls of mine shared so many times there together. No doubt with plenty of cheese and countless bottles of muscadet.
Now, Grandma was more of a sherry woman, but since I made a kumquat-sweet violet-limoncello in her old sugar jar, it felt fitting that she try some. I love this old glass. She used to keep it in the back of her wardrobe, filled with wrapped sugar cubes that one of her many brothers collected for her on his wordly travels. Edith had had seven children before her longed-for Celia. First, a stillborn girl, after which she was firmly instructed not to have more children, and then Arthur, George, Frank, Bert, Jim and Eddie came along. I’m unsure which brother was the sugar cube collector but I was a naughty thing with a sweet tooth and I would climb into the bottom of the wardrobe, pull the doors closer towards me and quietly prise the lid away from the jar. Selecting the best looking cube I could find that day, I would spend a while studying the paper wrapper in the half light while I nibbled on my sugary loot.
How I wish I still had those sugar cubes. How I wish cafes and hotels still went to lengths to wrap them! Luckily, I do still have the jar, which sees good use. There was no reason behind the kumquat-sweet violet-limoncello. I just had a glut of kumquats and lemon rinds, plus a couple of scant handfuls of sweet violet flowers from a walk so I threw them all in with a bottle of vodka and plenty of sugar, twirling the concoction with the end of Grandma’s old wooden spoon, leaving it to rest for five weeks.
I served it cold, with a few cubes of lemon Turkish delight on the table because I hadn't been able to resist it at the market (another of Celia’s favourite things) and thus, this long supper and labour of love was complete. Throwing my napkin on the table, I retreated to the sofa, willing the washing up away, and fell into a long nap, dreaming of love and of Grandma. Of course there was some fabulous wallpaper in the background, windows thrown wide open to the elements, and plenty of glasses of cold white wine.
Everything about this post is just delicious