A Garden of Vegetables

by Helen Gaffney

The British and their vegetables can sometimes be something of a puzzle. At flower shows and country fêtes you can marvel at the delicate tints and perfect flesh of rosy carrots, silvery leeks, snow-white cauliflowers, tomatoes glowing with health, green peas in matchless pods, broad beans and lettuces, radishes and cabbages all bursting with freshness and variety. Then we find, all too often in British kitchens, particularly those of restaurants, the saddest, sorriest apologies for vegetables that can be seen anywhere in the world.

For centuries British vegetables have been the subject of ridicule amongst the better-educated of other nations. An eighteenth century foreign visitor observed that the Englishman's meat was normally accompanied by "a few cabbage leaves boiled in plain water over which they pour a sauce made of flour and butter; the usual method of dressing vegetables in England." Another remarked that the excessive eating of these uninspiring greens "made the Englishman a dull animal."

However, not all early writers despised vegetables. It was in 1808 that 'A Lady' - Maria Rundell - gave the following advice for boiling vegetables green in her Book of Cooking for Private Families:

"Be sure the water boils when you put them in. Make them boil fast. Don't cover, but watch them and if the water has not slackened you may be sure they are done when they begin to sink. Then take them out immediately or the colour will change. If over-boiled they lose their beauty and their crispness."

Good advice and still well worth following, especially if you also remember to drain the vegetables thoroughly and then toss them with a nut of butter before serving.

Fresh or frozen, there is one sure way of serving wretched vegetables and that is to overcook them. Basically they should only be cooked until just tender - their own heat will continue to cook them even after they are drained.

When you choose fresh vegetables, take those that have a just-gathered freshness about them, as their fine flavour is gradually lost with the passing of the hours; just picked vegetables have a very special creaminess of texture too, which is lost even more quickly.

To preserve their freshness after being picked or brought home from the shops, it was once advised to lay vegetables out of the draught on a stone flagged floor. Now they can go into the compartment designed for their storage in the refrigerator, or, if this is full, can be wrapped in polythene and placed on the lowest shelf.

When it comes to cooking, Countess Morphy, one of Britain's more distinguished cookery writers of the past, remarked rather chillingly, "There are no distinctive ways of preparing vegetables in England."

However, most lovers of good food now recognise that really young tender summer vegetables need very little more than butter or cream (if that) to enhance them.

In the winter, certain of the root vegetables can be dressed up to make more interesting alternatives to the eternal boiled cabbage to which, in the past, the British have been inclined. One foreign writer observed in the nineteenth century that, "The English have but three vegetables, of which two are cabbage."

It is a moot point perhaps today as to whether it is cabbage - which can be splendid if cooked correctly - or the frozen pea that takes second place as the English favourite in the vegetable stakes. However, our favourite vegetable, winter or summer, is the potato - so it might be as well to offer a few suggestions for dealing with it.

Firstly, unblemished potatoes are quite delicious, old or new, when boiled in their skins and this also retains all their nutritious elements, which are evidently most highly concentrated just under their skins, in the bit that is normally peeled off and thrown in the bin.

Secondly, mashed potatoes are best made by mashing well-drained boiled potatoes, dry, until they are light and fluffy before the addition of butter (use plenty), milk, salt and freshly ground pepper. They are not good made with waxy potatoes as they become sticky. Choose floury varieties such as King Edward, Duke of York or Golden Wonder for perfect mashed potatoes.

Waxy potatoes, such as the Charlotte variety, make the best salads. Salads have always played quite a large part in English diet. In the sixteenth century it was thought that the best salads had the most ingredients. A typical Salmagundi, or Salamagundy, at that time included cold roast chicken, anchovies and many kinds of meat in the centre and ring upon ring of different coloured flowers, seeds, fruits, herbs and nuts lapping outwards towards the edges of the dish. You might find capers, pickled broom buds, olives, pickled oysters, lemon, orange, almonds, blue figs and sweet potatoes. The whole thing would be dressed with chopped onion and tarragon, plus of course parsley and chives, useful for enhancing all vegetables, whether hot or cold.