The Borough Market Guide to the Queen’s Jubilee

1952-2022 / 70 YEARS

JUBILEE

The Borough Market Guide to the Queen’s Jubilee boroughmarket.org.uk/jubilee

SEVEN DECADES, SEVEN RECIPES ANGELA CLUTTON LEADS A WALK THROUGH THE REIGN

Jubilee opening times Thursday 2nd June 10am – 5pm Friday 3rd June 10am – 5pm Saturday 4th June 8am – 5pm Sunday 5th June 10am – 3pm Monday 6th June Closed Tuesday 7th June Closed

1970s CHERRY SORBET

WITH CHERRY SAUCE INSPIRED BY JANE GRIGSON

2000s SALMON & ROASTED VEG TRAY-BAKE INSPIRED BY JAMIE OLIVER

1950s QUICHE

LORRAINE INSPIRED BY PATIENCE GRAY

1960s BRAISED PIGEON

WITH ASPARAGUS & CARROTS INSPIRED BY MARGUERITE PATTEN

1980s SOOKHI URID

DAL WITH CRISPED ONIONS INSPIRED BY MADHUR JAFFREY

1990s MUSSEL SOUP

WITH SAFFRON INSPIRED BY ALASTAIR LITTLE

2010s ROASTED

CAULIFLOWER WITH SPICED CHICKPEAS & TAHINI INSPIRED BY YOTAM OTTOLENGHI

1952-2022 / 70 YEARS

ROYAL RUMBLES Borough Market’s centuries-old royal connections

Borough Market and the royal family go back a long way. A very long way.

During the medieval period, when Southwark was a town in its own right and London was a walled city on the other side of the river, the land at the southern foot of London Bridge where traders gathered a few times a week to sell their wares was owned and administered by the King’s household.

The competition these Bankside food sellers presented to London’s own marketplaces (and hence the revenues of their administrators) annoyed the City of London authorities considerably. In the 1270s, citizens of the capital were banned from crossing over to Borough to buy “corn, cattle, or other merchandise”, and for a good couple of centuries the status of Southwark and its markets remained a source of contention in the ongoing power struggle between a cash-rich, strategically vital City and an unsteady, consistently skint monarchy.

The City won, of course. Under the terms of a 1406 settlement, revenues previously accrued by “the clerk of the market of the King’s household” from Borough Market began making their way into London’s coffers, and in April 1550, for a price of just over £1,000 (£647 for the land, £333 for the liberties and £25 for expenses), Edward VI sold the whole of Southwark to the City.

Borough Market was no longer a royal concern.

That was kind of it for the next 400 years or so, but in recent decades, as Borough Market has become both a cultural landmark and a beacon for alternative modes of food production, the royal family’s interest has been piqued once again, but for reasons of affinity rather than finance.

Prince Charles, in particular – a man whose passion for food, and for traditional, sustainable British farming methods, is well known – has been a keen supporter of the Market, both privately and publicly. He and the Duchess of Cornwall were the perfect guests of honour in February 2013 when the magnificent new Three Crown Square trading hall was opened, marking the end of several years of disruption caused by interminable building work on the overhead viaduct. Over the many hours they spent here that day, shaking hands and tasting eagerly presented samples, there was clearly nothing cursory or staged about the royal couple’s interest in the traders, their stories and their products.

The same was true of Prince Harry, who came here in June 2017 in an act of solidarity after the terrorist attack and impressed everyone with his warmth and approachability. He was followed a few months later by another visit from Charles and Camilla, who were accompanied by the Archbishop of Canterbury and again immersed themselves fully in the experience.

The Queen hasn’t been, as far as we’re aware. Or if she has, it’s been an incognito affair. There are rumours of a familiar-looking nonagenarian with a cut-glass accent and big dark glasses regularly joining the queue for Bread Ahead’s bread and butter pudding – but they are only rumours.

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Borough Market 8 Southwark Street London SE1 1TL Website boroughmarket.org.uk Twitter @boroughmarket Instagram @boroughmarket Facebook /boroughmarket

2013

In 2013, Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall were the guests of honour for the official reopening of Borough Market’s Three Crown Square. Above, they’re seen enjoying a conversation with Ratan Mondal of Tea2You, purveyor of the finest Darjeeling teas

2017

Prince Harry made a long and highly convivial visit to the Market in June 2017. Here, he’s chatting with the team at Bread Ahead, including owner Matthew Jones (second left)

1952-2022 / 70 YEARS

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1953

Families gather for a street party in Walworth, Southwark, not far from Borough Market, to celebrate the Queen’s coronation on 2nd June 1953, a year after her ascension to the throne.

This was categorically not the lunch for the high and mighty at which coronation chicken was first served, but we like the picture!

CROWNING GLORY Mark Riddaway, author of Borough Market: Edible Histories, tells the story of coronation chicken Image: Alamy When Edward VII came to the throne in 1902, a Lincolnshire farmer decided to honour the new monarch by giving his name to a new breed of potato – the King Edward – which went on to become one of the great staples of the British roast dinner. Fifty-nine years ago, Queen Elizabeth II had a similarly indirect influence upon British cuisine when her coronation inspired the creation of one of the nation’s most misunderstood sandwich fillings: coronation chicken.

That such an auspicious occasion should result in so seemingly prosaic a dish was, in a way, rather fitting. The Queen’s coronation took place on 2nd June 1953, one year after she’d ascended the throne (a suitable mourning period was required), and despite being a triumphant affair, the events of the day were imbued with a significant element of post-war austerity. The official banquet at Buckingham Palace involved a restrained four-course meal: a starter of chicken consommé, a main course of filet de boeuf mascotte (fillet of beef with artichokes, cocotte potatoes and truffle), a salad, and a simple dessert of mango ice cream.

To put this in context, at James II’s coronation in 1685 the first course alone consisted of 46 dishes, brought into Westminster Hall by a procession of 73 people, including three on horseback.

At Henry VI’s coronation in 1429, the menu included boars’ heads “in castles armed with gold”, a roasted peacock that had been painstakingly stuffed back into its own skin and feathers, a fritter “like the sun”, and a jelly illustrated with “the writing and musical notation of Te Deum Laudamus”. Henry himself was still a month short of his eighth

birthday and would probably have been perfectly happy with just a nice cake.

Coronation chicken was invented for a lunchtime function attended by several hundred foreign dignitaries.

The dish is often attributed to the celebrity florist, interior designer and general domestic goddess Constance Spry, who was responsible for the flower arrangements at the coronation, and its recipe was published for the first time in 1956 in The Constance Spry Cookery Book – a vast, 1,000-plus-page masterpiece of 1950s home economics.

In reality, coronation chicken (like most of the dishes in Spry’s book) was created by her friend and collaborator Rosemary Hume, a respected chef who had founded the L’Ecole du Petit Cordon Bleu cookery school in Victoria in 1933. In 1946 Hume and Spry joined forces to open a domestic science school in Winkfield Place, Berkshire, and when the college’s students were asked to cater for the coronation lunch, Hume set about inventing a new dish for them to serve.

These days, most people expect coronation chicken to be a vivid yellow gloop, sweet with sultanas and lumps of fruit and spicy with curry sauce. Hume’s original dish, as is to be expected from a woman who trained in Paris under the classical culinary master Henri-Paul Pellaprat, was very different – a subtle, creamy concoction, delicate in flavour and created with not a single sultana in sight. It was designed to be served with a rice salad rather than splodged between slices of bread.

Most of what you need to recreate Hume’s version can be bought at Borough Market.

It all begins with the chicken, of course, which back in the 1950s was still considered a luxury meat, largely reserved for the tables of the wealthy. You’ll be able to buy suitably regal, slow-growing breeds at any of the Market’s butchers, all of them packed with the deep flavours such birds were valued for in the days before battery cages, high-protein feeds and intensive drug regimes turned chicken into a cheap, bland and ethically questionable staple.

Exactly what the Queen makes of coronation chicken is not a matter of public record. One thing is certain, though: it’s a far easier dish to produce at home than re-stuffed peacock.

PROPER CORONATION CHICKEN SERVES 6-8

For the chicken: — 2 small chickens — 100ml white wine — 1 carrot, chopped — 1 bouquet garni — 4 black peppercorns For the sauce: — 1 onion, finely chopped — 1 tbsp curry powder — 1 tsp tomato puree — 125ml red wine — 1 bay leaf — 1 tsp sugar — 1 lemon — 2 tbsp apricot puree or jam — 400ml mayonnaise — 3 tbsp cream, lightly whipped Place the whole chickens in a large pot, pour in the wine and enough water to cover the birds.

Add the carrot, bouquet garni, peppercorns and a few pinches of salt, then gently poach for 50 mins, making sure that the liquid doesn’t boil too rapidly. If the liquid reduces below the top of the chickens, top up with more water.

Remove the pan from the heat but leave the chickens in their cooking liquor until cool enough to handle. Drain, discard the aromatics, but keep all that flavoursome stock for future use. Joint the chickens. Discard the skin, remove the meat from the bones and cut into bite-sized chunks.

To make the sauce, gently fry the chopped onion in 1 tbsp olive oil until soft and translucent.

Add the curry powder and fry for 3 mins more.

Add the tomato puree, wine and bay leaf, plus 125ml water. Add the sugar, a squeeze of lemon and a touch of seasoning. Simmer for 10 mins to reduce the sauce. Strain, then leave to cool.

Add the mayonnaise and apricot puree or jam to the sauce, season again with salt and black pepper, then finish with the whipped cream.

Generously coat the chicken with the sauce, but make sure it’s not too sloppy. Garnish with lemon slices and serve with a herby rice salad.

1952-2022 / 70 YEARS

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FIT FOR A QUEEN Which item from their stall would our traders offer as a gift to the monarch?

Interviews: Viel Richardson Images: Red Agency, Orlando Gili WILD-GROWN ASPARAGUS CHARLES AT TURNIPS

I would give the Queen some of our asparagus, from Roudham Farm in Norfolk.

We think that this is the very best asparagus you can buy in England. We’ve been buying asparagus for 25 years and every year we’ve carried out a blind taste test; this has won every year except for three, when it came second. It’s an incredible seasonal product that truly is fit for a Queen.

CLOTTED CREAM FUDGE JOHN AT WHIRLD

Our clotted cream fudge is the most classically British fudge we make, which I think is appropriate. To people all over the planet, it’s something that screams ‘British’.

We have visitors coming to Borough Market from every corner of the world, and I can just imagine some of them joining in with the Jubilee celebrations with a bag of our clotted cream fudge.

COBNUT OIL CHARLES AT FOOD AND FOREST

I would give the Queen some cobnut oil.

It is a speciality of the UK, something she can be proud of as the British monarch. It is also very good for you in many ways. It would hopefully help keep her in good health so that she gets to send herself a telegram.

CHAMPAGNE TRUFFLES HAYLEIGH AT SO CHOCOLICIOUS

It would have to be some champagne truffles – a very elegant chocolate for a very elegant lady. Champagne and chocolate; two wonderful things to help any celebration.

LA REGINA ROBIOLA GERMANIA AT GASTRONOMICA

This is the season for robiola, a fresh cheese from the Piedmont reason of Italy. We have one called Corona, which means crown, so that might seem appropriate, but I would give her the La Regina variety, which is made of a combination of cow and goat milk. Often this style of cheese is made just with goat’s milk, but we specialise in mixed-milk robiola. It’s a very delicate, well-balanced cheese with a lovely flavour. I heard that the Queen likes salmon, and this goes very well with that. It also pairs beautifully with lavender honey.

BEEF MARROWBONES DOMINIC AT NORTHFIELD FARM

I think the Queen could do with a couple of nice big marrowbones. For a start, marrow is really delicious – as Fergus Henderson has shown at his St John restaurant. It is also incredibly nutritious, so will help keep her hale and hearty. Finally, once the marrow is finished, her staff can cut the bones for the corgis – I’m sure they’d love it too.

BELUGA CAVIAR MAX AT FURNESS FISH MARKETS

I would give the Queen some of our beluga caviar. Beluga is the very best caviar you can get, and we’ve managed to find a trustworthy, sustainable source for ours. Our suppliers

1952-2022 / 70 YEARS WHAT DOES THE QUEEN ACTUALLY ENJOY EATING? So, what does the Queen actually enjoy eating? Most of what we know comes from one enjoyably talkative former royal chef by the name of Darren McGrady, who has dispensed with the tight-lipped sense of propriety usually displayed by those who’ve shared Her Majesty’s orbit, and has instead parlayed his inside knowledge into a popular YouTube channel and hefty media profile.

Thanks to him, we know that Elizabeth II is not the most adventurous of eaters. She “eats to live; she doesn’t live to eat”. We know that, like many of her generation, she insists on her meat being well done. A succession of royal chefs must have stood utterly heartbroken as the fibres of the most exquisite dry-aged beef gradually hardened and dried in the pan, but none have yet convinced her to enjoy it pink, and she’s unlikely to be changing her mind any time soon.

Like others of her era, she’s also strongly averse to even a hint of garlic, a flavouring once derided on these shores for being intolerably smelly and worryingly French.

Despite these lapses in accepted good taste, the Queen does clearly have an affinity with the approach to food promoted by Borough Market’s traders. She likes to eat seasonally, using vegetables grown on her estates. Not for her any long, opaque supply chains or unnecessary food miles. She also loves lashings of proper butter, cream and cheese of the type sold at our many dairy stalls.

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According to McGrady, the Queen is a massive fan of Morecambe Bay potted shrimp, a speciality of Cumbria and Lancashire made from tiny brown shrimps, which are cleaned and peeled (a fiddly process), boiled in gently spiced butter, then sealed in pots under a plug of hardened butter. Some of the country’s best potted shrimp can be found at Borough Market: Furness Fish Markets, based in Cumbria, was founded by the late Les Salisbury, who as a young boy used to go out on a horse and cart to fish for shrimp in the bay; now run

by Les’s children, the business is still a major producer of this regional delicacy, which is best enjoyed slathered thickly over a slice of toast.

Her Majesty is also a big lover of venison (albeit slightly overcooked), a ready supply of which can be found on her beautiful Balmoral estate in Scotland. If you don’t happen to have herds of magnificent deer roaming in your own back yard, Shellseekers Fish & Game could be the place for you. Not only is eating venison an ethical option (deer, which have no wild predators, will always have to be culled to prevent populations running out of control, so it seems only respectful to utilise their meat), but it couldn’t be further in character from the bland, intensively farmed meat often found in the supermarket. Shot in Dorset by the stall’s owner Darren Brown and brought to Borough fresh and whole, the deer are butchered on site, meaning all cuts are available. “It makes for great theatre,” says Darren, “but it also helps people to think about where their food comes from. That’s what we’re here for.”

Dorset venison at Borough’s Shellseekers Fish & Game stall

have their own well-run sturgeon farms in Iran, and the production and transport of the caviar is very transparent. We buy it directly from him, so when it arrives it’s in peak condition, reasonably priced and, most importantly, we know it’s not putting any pressure on wild sturgeon populations.

STRAWBERRY AND CHAMPAGNE PRESERVE DAWN AT PIMENTO HILL

I know she has a real soft spot for the Caribbean, so I would give her some of our strawberry and champagne preserve from Jamaica. Jamaica has only recently started growing strawberries at a commercial scale – the growers there have found some areas of the island with a perfect microclimate, and what they’re producing is wonderful.

Of course, there’s some champagne in there too. Because who wouldn’t want some champagne for a celebration?

SUMMER TRUFFLE SLICES CARLA AT TARTUFAIA

Having talked it over, Mario and I think that the summer truffle slices would be the perfect gift from our stall. Summer truffle is delicious with scrambled eggs. We’ve read that the Queen sometimes likes to start the day with scrambled eggs and salmon, and as eggs are the perfect ingredient to bring out the very best in truffles, these would be the perfect accompaniment for her celebratory breakfast.

Clockwise from top left: Germana at Gastronomica, Dominic at Northfield Farm, rose Turkish delight from The Turkish Deli, asparagus at Turnips, Philip at The Parma Ham and Mozzarella Stand.

Dawn at Pimento Hill

ROSE TURKISH DELIGHT GRAHAM AT THE TURKISH DELI

I would offer Her Majesty some of our rose Turkish delight. Firstly, because they’re delicious. Also, rose is one of the symbols of England, while Turkey is a major producer of roses and the world’s biggest producer of rose oil. That’s not the only connection – the mythology says that it was an unknown Englishman who took a liking to these Turkish sweet treats and first brought boxes of what he called ‘Turkish delights’ to London, thereby introducing them to the western world.

FIRST-FLUSH DARJEELING RATAN AT TEA2YOU

First-flush Darjeeling tea is the perfect drink to celebrate such a special occasion. It has a green character with notes of lemon and honey. It is made with leaves gathered from only the first couple of inches of the tea bush. Good quality first flush is actually very difficult to find. Every year I taste 400 to 500 first-flush teas and only bring two or three back for my Borough Mark stall.

CULATELLO DI ZIBELLO PHILIP AT THE PARMA HAM AND MOZZARELLA STAND

I would give the Queen some lovely slices of culatello di Zibello, a cured meat from a little village by the river Po in the Emilia region of northern Italy. I would give her that because we know how much Prince Charles likes it! He’s been to visit one of the producers who we’ve bought from in the past – if you go into their curing rooms, they have a ham curing there with the label ‘Principe Carlo’, which is Italian for Prince Charles.

1952-2022 / 70 YEARS

A WALK THROUGH THE REIGN

Across the seven decades of Elizabeth II’s reign, Britain’s food culture has been on an exhilarating ride. Angela Clutton, food writer and host of the Borough Market Cookbook Club, takes a decade-by-decade tour of the nation’s attitudes towards cooking and eating, and shares a recipe inspired by the defining cookbook of each era Words: Angela Clutton Images: Joe Woodhouse

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SEVEN DECADES, SEVEN RECIPES

1950s QUICHE LORRAINE INSPIRED BY PATIENCE GRAY 1960s BRAISED PIGEON WITH ASPARAGUS & CARROTS INSPIRED BY MARGUERITE PATTEN 1970s CHERRY SORBET WITH CHERRY SAUCE INSPIRED BY JANE GRIGSON 1980s SOOKHI URID DAL WITH CRISPED ONIONS INSPIRED BY MADHUR JAFFREY 1990s MUSSEL SOUP WITH SAFFRON INSPIRED BY ALASTAIR LITTLE 2000s SALMON & ROASTED VEG TRAY-BAKE INSPIRED BY JAMIE OLIVER 2010s ROASTED CAULIFLOWER WITH SPICED CHICKPEAS & TAHINI INSPIRED BY YOTAM OTTOLENGHI

1952-2022 / 70 YEARS

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1950s QUICHE LORRAINE

1952-2022 / 70 YEARS 1960s BRAISED PIGEON WITH ASPARAGUS & CARROTS

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1952-2022 / 70 YEARS

1950s Try to imagine – although it’s pretty much impossible – what it might have felt like to make it through World War II, with all its deprivations, get to the hope a new decade brings, and then find that Britain’s food – much of it still rationed – was worse on the whole than it had been during the war years. That was the reality at the start of the 1950s for a nation struggling to get back on its feet.

What came next was a series of seismic changes to the way we feed ourselves. Kitchens slowly became more streamlined and electric – hello, fridges and electric cookers. Small local stores gave way to larger retailers, and the old routines of chatting with the shopkeeper were replaced with more impersonal transactions. Food production was increasingly industrialised, with a focus on standardisation and storability, causing the loss of many glorious varieties of apple, pig and so much more.

If you read that and sigh, it’s only because hindsight lets us see the negative impacts of all that change. The upside for those who lived through it was that food became cheaper and more accessible. Post-war austerity gave way to late-50s prosperity.

Food writer Patience Gray latched onto that hope of better times. In her bestselling 1957 book Plats du Jour (written with Primrose Boyd), she encouraged a store cupboard filled not with canned foods but with spices, herbs and oils.

Her ideal meal was a main (the plat du jour) served with “green salad, respectable cheese, fruit in season and, where possible, a bottle of wine”.

Take heed of that for serving this quiche Lorraine – a dish that would become almost laughable, but in the 1950s could be enjoyed for its rustic, delicious simplicity.

As Cary Grant says in the 1955 film To Catch a Thief: “It’s quiche Lorraine – I think you’ll like it.”

QUICHE LORRAINE INSPIRED BY PATIENCE GRAY SERVES 6-8 — 300g plain flour, sifted — 150g cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes — 1 large egg yolk, beaten — 250g smoked bacon rashers — 5 00ml double cream — 4 large eggs — Nutmeg — A large knob of butter

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Start by making the quiche’s pastry base. Put the flour into a mixing bowl, then use your fingers to rub in the butter until it feels like breadcrumbs. Add the beaten egg yolk and a pinch of salt and bring together into a smooth dough.

(You might need to add some cold water, but use as little as you can get away with.) Shape into a disc, wrap and chill for 30 mins.

Grease a 24cm-diameter tin with a little extra butter. Roll out the pastry between two pieces of greaseproof paper until the thickness of a pound coin and large enough for lining your quiche tin.

Carefully lift one edge of the pastry over the rolling pin and use that to lift it onto the tin. Treat the pastry gently as you smooth it inside the case. Let the pastry overhang, as it will shrink as it cooks. Chill for 30 mins.

Heat the oven to 180C. Prick the chilled pastry base with a fork in several places. Line with baking paper, fill with baking beans (or rice) and bake for 15 mins. Remove the paper and the beans or rice, then return the tin to the oven for a further 5 mins. Sit the tin on a wire rack to cool but don’t yet trim the pastry edges. This stage can be done a day ahead of time.

To make the filling, heat the oven to 180C. Lightly whisk together the cream and eggs in a jug or mixing bowl. Season and add a few good gratings of nutmeg.

Heat a medium frying pan over a medium heat. Cut the bacon into 2.5cm lengths and lay the slices into the pan to crisp up and render their fat. Use a slotted spoon to lift the bacon out of the fat, then arrange in a layer on the pastry base. Pour over the egg and cream mix, dot with small pieces of butter, then bake for around 30 mins – it’s done when the filling is gloriously golden and bouncy and just about set. Let the quiche cool for 10 mins before serving, leaving time to dress a salad and open the wine.

1960s They say that if you remember the 1960s you weren’t really there. This possibly doesn’t hold true when it comes to the decade’s food, though – to have lived through that is surely to be marked forever by memories of rice moulds, piped mash potatoes, and meats and vegetables set in aspic.

Fancy some deep-friend chicken and banana (together, of course)? Or cubed lamb set in mint jelly? That’s what you might have been cooking if armed with Marguerite Patten’s eradefining 1961 cookbook Cookery in Colour. It sold millions of copies, feeling like a bright burst of something new after years of the same-old black and white cookbooks. Its timing couldn’t have been better: that same year, the Beatles made their debut at the Cavern Club, and the lights were being switched back on across so many areas of life – music, fashion, art.

This was the decade that colour came to TV too. Families would spend more and more time gathered around a screen, and ‘TV dinners’ were born.

A whole chapter in Cookery in Colour is given over to those.

As Marguerite puts it: “The advent of television has changed eating habits in many homes.

Instead of an evening meal the family enjoy a substantial snack while watching their favourite programmes. Choose food that is easy to serve and eat on a tray.”

The death-knell was being rung for families eating together around a dining table.

There was, however, still an appetite for good, simple cookery, featuring produce – like pigeon or rabbit – that was considered more everyday then than it is today. This recipe for braised pigeon is inspired by one from Cookery in Colour, but benefits from a few additional ingredients such as yoghurt and garlic that, from the 1960s onwards, began to be kitchen staples thanks to increased travel and immigration influencing the ingredients accessible to the home cook.

BRAISED PIGEON WITH ASPARAGUS & CARROTS INSPIRED BY MARGUERITE PATTEN SERVES 4 — 4 wood pigeons — 2 medium onions, peeled and cut into chunks — 1 bunch of carrots with green tops — 4 cloves of garlic — 5 00ml chicken stock — 2 bundles of asparagus — 3 tbsp plain yoghurt Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large sauté pan or sauté dish over a medium heat. Brown the pigeons on one side, then keep turning them until gently browned all over. Lift out with tongs or a slotted spoon and set aside.

Add the onions to the oil. Cut the green tops off the carrots (but keep the tops for later). Cut the carrots into lengths 1cm wide and 10cm long. Add those to the oil too. Tuck in the unpeeled garlic cloves, toss round, season, then pour over the stock. Sit the pigeons on top of the vegetables, cover and cook for 30 mins over a medium heat.

Snap the woody ends off the asparagus spears. Add the asparagus to the cooking dish, cover again, and cook for a further 10 mins.

Remove the pigeons and set aside to rest. Use a slotted spoon to lift the vegetables onto a serving platter. Squeeze the tender garlic flesh out of the skins and into the cooking juices. Turn the heat up and reduce the liquid to around 200ml – this will take about 5-10 mins. Stir in the yoghurt and spoon the sauce over the vegetables.

Finely chop a handful of the reserved carrot tops. Scatter over the vegetables and nestle the pigeons on top. Serve with buttered new potatoes.

1970s Ah, the 1970s. The decade of black forest gateau, prawn cocktail, and the raging heat of the 1976 summer heatwave.

What do all those things have in common? Freezers.

The nation’s supermarkets through the 1970s became fixated by their freezer aisles. Without them the aforementioned classics just wouldn’t have taken hold at all.

The prospect of having to do nothing more than defrost such fancy foods proved irresistible to all those in thrall to the decade’s move towards convenience.

These freezers were packed too with the ready meals that became increasingly popular as more and more women went out to work. Fridges and freezers meant mealtimes were distinctly quicker and easier to manage, and the food shopping needed to be done less regularly too.

Also changing was how people spent their leisure time.

Eating out became more of a reality for more people, as did foreign travel. Spain was the decade’s favourite holiday spot, and holidaymakers brought back not just sombreros and sunburn but an interest in the flavours and ingredients

1952-2022 / 70 YEARS they’d encountered. The door was opened for cooks like Claudia Roden to capitalise on that burgeoning interest in cosmopolitan culinary ideas.

Her food often featured vegetables as the stars of the meal and (a real shocker this, to generations brought up on overcooked veg) were not always boiled but sometimes steamed, roasted or raw. It’s maybe no surprise that vegetarianism was also on the rise through the 1970s.

This is all sounding rather marvellous, isn’t it? A decade in which women were no longer shackled to frequent shopping and cooking, where there was more travel, more vegetarianism.

But there was a flipside, too.

The loser was seasonality.

Freezing meant you could have anything, any time. We began to lose touch not just with cooking skills but with what was in season.

Legendary food writer Jane Grigson did her level best to ensure her 1970s audience didn’t lose sight of those things completely. Writing in The Observer and over many cookbooks, she was a voice for tradition and, well, actual cooking – not cooking fancy food, but cooking good food.

This recipe for cherry sorbet is based on one of hers, as is the accompanying cherry sauce. It’s up to you whether you do as Jane suggests and serve with a swirl of whipped cream – or even a grating of chocolate if you really want to evoke the flavours of black forest gateau. It’s just the kind of ice that many a home freezer in 1976 would have been thankful for, even if a wedge of Neapolitan ice-cream was more likely to be found in there!

CHERRY SORBET WITH CHERRY SAUCE INSPIRED BY JANE GRIGSON MAKES 500ML For the sorbet: — 100g caster sugar — 1 lemon — 1 bay leaf — 6 00g fresh cherries — 75ml kirsch cherry liqueur — Vanilla extract For the sauce: — 250g fresh cherries — 75g caster sugar — 5 0ml kirsch cherry liqueur To serve: — Mint or basil leaves — Whipped cream — Dark chocolate To make the sorbet, put the sugar into a small saucepan with the peel

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from half the lemon and 100ml water. Add the bay leaf. Heat until the sugar dissolves, then set aside to let the flavours infuse while you remove the stones from the cherries.

Remove the lemon peel and bay leaf from the syrup. Blitz the syrup and pitted cherries in a blender until smooth, adding 1 tsp of lemon juice, the kirsch and a few drops of vanilla extract. Churn according to your ice cream maker’s instructions, transfer to a container and freeze.

For the cherry sauce, remove the stones from the cherries.

Heat the sugar and 150ml water in a medium saucepan, add the cherries and cook over a high heat until collapsed. Press the cherries through a sieve to create a sauce.

If it needs thickening, return the sauce to the heat to reduce a little.

Chill until needed.

Serve scoops of sorbet with a drizzle of sauce and a couple of herb leaves, with whipped cream and grated chocolate as optional extras.

1980s Are you a foodie? Are your friends foodies? Do you hate the word ‘foodie’? If the answer to any of those is ‘yes’ you have the 1980s to thank for gifting us the word. ‘Foodie’ was first used right at the start of the decade in a New York magazine article, its birth testament to how food in the 80s was gaining cultural significance.

Or at least, restaurant food was. For this was the time of nouvelle cuisine – those teenytiny plates of food that left you somehow hungrier than when you started. But what about home cooking? By the 1980s Britain had got itself in a bit of a pickle on that front. The previous decade’s focus on frozen foods, convenience and ready meals meant that the 1980s home cook had become rather dissociated from actual cooking. Skills were under threat, and the basics seemed a mystery for many.

A saviour arrived in the form of Delia Smith – safe, reliable, relatable Delia, who showed a generation of homemakers how simple and satisfying home cooking could be. On the face of it there was nothing edgy about Delia’s food, and yet she nudged our national culinary sensibilities forward, gently embracing the foods of cultures

such as Greece, France, Italy, China and Thailand.

Delia’s TV cooking show was joined by those of international chefs such Ken Hom (who made having a wok a British kitchen essential) and Madhur Jaffrey.

Madhur took to cooking after she arrived in London to train as an actress, was appalled at the state of the food here, and asked her mother to send recipes so she might be able to cook the dishes she missed. Her shows and books brought colour, flavour, freshness and spice into kitchens across the country, while challenging perceptions of what Indian food might mean.

This recipe for dal with crisped onions is heavily based on ones featuring in her book Indian Cookery, which accompanied her 1980s TV series. I have swapped her moong dal for urid dal, but otherwise the flavours and techniques are all Madhur’s. Serve as part of a medley of Indian dishes or simply with an Indian bread.

SOOKHI URID DAL WITH CRISPED ONIONS INSPIRED BY MADHUR JAFFREY SERVES 4-6 For the dal: — 2 00g urid dal — 1 tsp ground coriander seeds — 1 tsp ground cumin seeds — 1 tsp ground turmeric — A pinch of cayenne pepper — 200g onions — 6 00ml vegetable oil To serve: — 2 tbsp ghee — ½ tsp cumin seeds — 1 hot red chilli Rinse the dal then soak for 3 hours in plenty of cold water. Drain and rinse again.

Mix the spices in a cup. Add 1 tbsp water and stir to a paste. Heat 2 tbsp vegetable oil in a medium saucepan over a medium heat. Add the spice paste, stir, then quickly add the dal. Stir, add ½ tsp salt, cover with 225ml water and bring to a simmer. Put a lid partially over the pan and let the dal cook for about 20 mins, until tender. Most of the liquid in the pan will disappear.

Use that time to peel the onions and slice into very fine half-moons.

Pour the oil into a deep pan approximately 22cm wide. When the oil is so hot it is spitting a little, carefully lift in the onions. Watch carefully as they turn a light brown – they can change quickly from browned to burnt. Lift the onions out with a slotted spoon, drain on

BOROUGH MARKET COOKBOOK CLUB Angela Clutton is the host of the Borough Market Cookbook Club, a club for anyone who loves good food, good cookery books and good company. If that’s you, then sign up (for free) and you’ll be eligible to come along to our small, friendly Cookbook Club events.

Each event has a landmark cookery book chosen as its theme. Angela will give some background and insight into the book and its writer. Club members are asked to come to the event ready to share their thoughts on any dishes they might have made, or just to share their thoughts about the book and its themes in general.

Anyone is welcome to join and events are open to all, whether you are starting your cookbook collection, or have shelves and shelves given over to cookery writers; whether you’re an experienced cook, or just starting out. boroughmarket.org.uk/cookbook-club

• CLUB •

1952-2022 / 70 YEARS

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1980s SOOKHI URID DAL WITH CRISPED ONIONS

1952-2022 / 70 YEARS 1990s MUSSEL SOUP WITH SAFFRON

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1952-2022 / 70 YEARS WHERE TO BUY 1950s QUICHE LORRAINE — Smoked bacon rashers The French Comte — Butter Le Marché du Quartier — Eggs Wild Beef 1960s BRAISED PIGEON WITH ASPARAGUS & CARROTS — Wood pigeon Wyndham House Poultry — Aspagagus Turnips — Yoghurt Kappacasein 1970s CHERRY SORBET WITH CHERRY SAUCE — Cherries Ted’s Veg — Lemon Stark’s Fruiterers — Dark chocolate So Chocolicious 1980s SOOKHI URID DAL WITH CRISPED ONIONS — Urid dal Spice Mountain — Onions Elsey & Bent — Ghee Hook & Son 1990s MUSSEL SOUP WITH SAFFRON — Mussels Shellseekers Fish & Game — White wine Borough Wines — Saffron Brindisa 2000s SALMON & ROASTED VEG TRAY-BAKE — Salmon Furness Fish Markets — Black olives Borough Olives — Capers Gastronomica 2010s ROASTED CAULIFLOWER WITH SPICED CHICKPEAS & TAHINI — Chickpeas Oliveology — Tahini The Turkish Deli — Pomegranate molasses Arabica

Borough Market Online goodsixty.co.uk/boroughmarket

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kitchen paper, and leave them to crisp and cool.

Just before you serve the dal, heat the ghee in a small pan. Add the cumin seeds, then the whole chilli.

The chilli will puff up a little in the hot oil. Pour the chilli, toasted cumin and ghee over the dal, and serve with the crisped onions alongside or on top.

1990s Was it even possible to eat out in the 1990s without having sun-dried tomatoes or balsamic vinegar? I’m not sure it was.

And often they’d turn up in dishes they really had no place to be. Such was the allure of food fashion as the millennium approached, with shoppers becoming more interested in what they were buying, how it was made and where it was coming from.

Words like ‘organic’ were being used more. ‘Local’ started to mean something again. Farm shops opened to sell directly to the consumer, and farmers’ markets flourished. Borough Market was both a leader and a beneficiary of these shifts.

Traders such as Neal’s Yard Dairy, Brindisa and Turnips – all still held dear by shoppers today – were among the first to open retail units in the Market’s empty warehouses. In 1998 some of the top food producers in the country gathered at Borough for a Food Lovers’ Fair. The rest is history.

That growth of interest in food was in part driven by a growing cultural fixation with high-end restaurants and chefs.

As the 1990s came round, chefs became celebrities, courted by magazines and TV shows.

If eating out was the new rock and roll, as so many journalists were so keen to write, many chefs were happy to take on the badboy mantle (they were, after all, mainly men). A few others took the opportunity to step out of the restaurant kitchen and into our homes as a way of spreading their love of good food. Alastair Little was one of those.

In the 1980s Alastair had made his name as head chef at L’Escargot, before opening his eponymous restaurant in Soho to huge acclaim. In the 90s, he published Keep it Simple, a cookbook aiming to be “a fresh look at classic cooking”. Typical of the time, its recipes are a little cheffy but also achievable for

the ambitious home cook who wanted to have a go at the kind of techniques they’d read about chefs using. This mussel soup with saffron is based on one from that book.

MUSSEL SOUP WITH SAFFRON INSPIRED BY ALASTAIR LITTLE SERVES 4 — 1kg mussels — 175ml white wine — 1 leek — 1 celery stalk — 2 cloves of garlic — 50g butter — 750ml fish stock — ¼ tsp saffron threads — 2 tbsp tomato puree — 2 tbsp double cream Rinse the mussels in cold water.

Discard any that are broken, or any that are open and won’t snap shut when tapped. Pull away any of the stringy beards attached. Heat the wine in a large saucepan, add the mussels, cover with a lid and leave to cook for 3 mins until the mussels have opened up.

Drain the mussels, being sure to keep the cooking liquid. Throw away any mussels that wouldn’t open. Choose 12 beauties to keep in their shells for garnishing and remove the mussel meat from the shells of the rest. Set aside. eel, trim and finely chop the P leek. Dice the celery and chop the garlic. Heat the butter and 1 tbsp olive oil in a large saucepan, add the vegetables, cover and cook on a medium heat for 5 mins. Add the stock, the cooking liquor, the saffron threads and tomato puree.

Cover and simmer for 20 mins. Let it cool a little, then blitz until smooth.

Return the soup to the pan, add the mussel meat to gently reheat, then ladle into bowls. Give each serving a swirl of cream, sit the reserved mussels in their shells on top, grind over black pepper and serve.

2000s How would our food culture rise to meet the hopes and expectations of a new millennium? What new voice would break through to epitomise the changing times?

Who would guide us into the next stage of our culinary evolution? The answer would be found in the kitchens of the famous River Cafe, cooking away with a “bish, bash, bosh” attitude and a scruffy haircut.

I mean Jamie Oliver, of course. Who else? First spotted while a documentary was being made about the River Café, before weaving his moped through the heady days of late 90s laddism in The Naked Chef, Jamie went on to achieve huge success and make a genuine difference to how Britain eats.

His appeal was rooted in the accessibility of both his personality and his food. He’d grown up in pub restaurants, worked under Antonio Carluccio and Gennaro Contaldo before reaching River Cafe, and every step of his culinary heritage showed in the food.

British classics were not so much re-invented as re-loved, with a fair dash of European influence thrown in too.

Jamie made it seem cool and aspirational to be on first-name terms with your fishmonger and greengrocer. Consumers who for decades had become increasingly disengaged from the provenance of food, were persuaded to care about the impact our food choices can have on animal welfare, our own health and the environment.

Jamie Oliver is the inspiration behind this traybake of salmon fillets with vegetables. Lovely jubbly – as the man himself might once have said.

SALMON & ROASTED VEG TRAY-BAKE INSPIRED BY JAMIE OLIVER SERVES 4 — 4 salmon fillets — 500g courgettes — 300g tomatoes — 1 bulb of garlic — 5 0g pitted black olives — 3 bay leaves — 150ml olive oil — 1 tbsp capers, rinsed — A handful of basil and mint leaves Heat the oven to 220C. Sit the salmon fillets in a roasting tin skin-side up. Cut the courgettes into chunks and scatter around the salmon. Depending on their size, cut the tomatoes into halves or quarters, or leave whole. Add to the dish. Pull the garlic bulb into its cloves and tuck those in, unpeeled, along with the olives and the bay leaves.

Pour over the olive oil and scatter over plenty of salt. Bake for 20-30 mins. Halfway through, toss the vegetables and scatter over the capers. It’s ready when the salmon skin is crisped and the vegetables tender and gently charring. inish with the herbs and a F grinding of black pepper.

1952-2022 / 70 YEARS

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2000s SALMON & ROASTED VEG TRAY-BAKE

2010s ROASTED CAULIFLOWER WITH SPICED CHICKPEAS & TAHINI BOOK REFERENCE?

1952-2022 / 70 YEARS

2010s Who among us could have imagined the cultural impact of some amateur cooks gathering in a bunting-strewn tent for a baking competition? Certainly not me. You could have knocked me over with a Victoria sponge when The Great British Bake Off landed on our screens in 2010 and became a huge hit. I was surprised – pleasantly so – that something so simple and wholesome could be so popular.

The zeitgeist was well and truly hit. Bake Off offered comfort, something unchallenging to unwind to amid the very challenging economic picture faced by Britain in the wake of the 2008 global economic crash. It is often said that while people might watch a lot of TV cooking programmes, that doesn’t mean they necessarily get into the kitchen and actually cook.

But there can be no doubting the impact of Bake Off – baking took off in a big way.

Perhaps that’s in part why the big blousy meringues piled up in a small shop window in Notting Hill so captivated London’s food trendsetters. They were helped along by the huge platters of beautiful vegetables and grains alongside that had been dressed into heavenly flavour balance with za’atar, sumac, rosewater, pomegranate molasses and more.

I’m talking about Ottolenghi, if you haven’t already guessed – helmed by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi, and responsible for changing significantly how we cook and eat.

That is no throwaway exaggeration. I’ve already mentioned a few of the ingredients that Ottolenghi made mainstream. Perhaps the most 2010s of them all is tahini, a glorious sesame seed paste that became pretty much essential to have in the fridge. It could bring even the staidest of ingredients to life, and in the case of cauliflower it absolutely did.

Pre-Ottolenghi, British cauliflower was boiled into submission or baked with a cheese sauce, neither iteration covering us in much culinary glory. Post-Ottolenghi, cauliflowers were being roasted whole or as florets, with tahini and other Ottolenghi ingredients doing all they could to change hearts and minds upon this notmuch-loved vegetable. It worked, of course. Where Ottolenghi goes we all follow.

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Cheeky bunting at the Cider House stall during the previous Jubilee, 2012

ROASTED CAULIFLOWER WITH SPICED CHICKPEAS & TAHINI INSPIRED BY YOTAM OTTOLENGHI SERVES 4 — 100g dried chickpeas — 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda — 1 cauliflower, approximately 600g — 8 0g light tahini paste — 70g Greek yoghurt — 25ml lemon juice — 1½ tsp ground allspice — 1 tsp ground cumin — ½ tsp ground cinnamon — A small handful of mint leaves, chopped — 1 spring onion, cut into long and very fine slices — 1 tsp pomegranate molasses Soak the chickpeas overnight in plenty of cold water and the bicarbonate of soda. Next day, drain and simmer in a large pan of water for about an hour or until tender. Drain and set aside.

Heat the oven to 220C. Break the cauliflower into florets. Arrange in a single layer on a roasting try, toss in 3 tbsp olive oil, season and roast for around 25 mins until the cauliflower is tender and charring in places.

Use that time to prepare the tahini and chickpeas. In a large bowl, mix together the tahini paste, yoghurt and lemon juice with salt and pepper. Add just enough water to make the paste pourable. Set aside.

Mix the ground spices, season with salt, then mix into the drained chickpeas. Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a medium frying pan over a medium heat. Gently fry the chickpeas for 2 mins. Set aside and keep warm.

Spoon the roasted cauliflower into a bowl, making sure all the oil goes in too. Add the spiced chickpeas. Stir through the tahini sauce and the mint. Serve with the pomegranate molasses and the spring onion over the top.

JUBILEE CROSSWORD Across 8 Umbles (5) 9 British bivalve with a king and queen (7) 10 Her Maj (9) 11 London bobbies, New York gallery (3) 12 Brown, spider, king (4) 13 Italian almond biscuits (8) 15 Critic (8) 18 Maritime booze (4) 19 Coffee vessel (3) 21 Bury (9) 23 Bonnie Prince (7) 24 Royal topping (5) 1

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Down 1 Old-school cookery lessons (4,9) 2 Effectiveness (8) 3 Appeal (4) 4 Admiration (6) 5 Unit of bacon (6) 6 Fruit named after great-greatgrandmother of 10 across (4) 7 1980s satire, in which 10 across featured prominently (8,5) 14 Colourful Asian root (8) 16 Greek god, London venue (6) 17 Fifth prime number (6) 20 Chickpea flour (4) 22 Aerate with a fork (4)

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Food Fit For A Queen

2−5 JUNE To find out what’s on head to:

BOROUGHMARKET.ORG.UK/JUBILEE

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