Regula

Summer Pudding

17th August 2017 by Regula 10 Comments

There’s a lot going on in life but I wanted to share this recipe with you because I find when things get too busy or too complicated, an easy yet satisfying pudding can work like a drink of ice cold water on a scorching hot day. What also prompted me was something my friend Sarah (you might remember her from the pies she made for my launch) showed me online, a link to the making of a summer pudding which created outrage and disgust in the comments section. Foreigners (non-Brits) didn’t understand why you would eat soggy bread with fruit, and the video that came with it made even my stomach turn…

But the fact is that Summer Pudding is one of life’s great things. Bread soaked in fruit juice takes me right back to my childhood. I was a very picky eater but you could always feed me bread topped with mashed up strawberries, the deep red juices seeping into the bread making it hard to get it to your mouth in one piece. It was messy eating but really the only thing I enjoyed to eat.

But what is this heavenly thing you ask if you aren’t British or a pudding nut like I am?

A summer pudding is a delightfully light pudding which is made by lining a pudding basin or charlotte mould with stale white bread slices, then filling it up with lightly stewed summer fruits and topping it off with a juice-soaked bread lid. I always enjoy unmoulding this pudding, to see how the white slices of bread have been tinted by the deep crimson juice. It looks like a fresh red wine stain on a crisp white tablecloth. When ready to indulge, serve with cream, or ice cream, whichever you prefer….

Renaissance Tarts – Cooking Class & Talk

24th July 2017 by Regula 6 Comments

Clara Peeters, Antwerp, 1611

New date for this workshop:
Friday 28 july 2017 – 14h – in the Historical Kitchen of Port Eliot House, St-Germans, Cornwall UK.
Learn about these intricately decorated tarts and their meaning, see how they were made using the original tools.

Growing up in Flanders, Belgium, it feels as if still life paintings have always been a big part of my life. My entire childhood I’ve sat at the dinner table at my parents house, gazing at a dark still life painting with a pumpkin which hung on the wall on the other side of the room. Nothing makes sense in the image, why has the pumpkin such a prominent place on this formal dining table, and why is it on a formal table with china cups in the first place. A pumpkin like this would be more at home in a kitchen scene, on a bare wooden table, ready to be cut, its pips taken out, and the flesh diced for soup or stew.

Mysteries like these in food paintings have always intrigued me. One of my first books was a shabby old artbook with renaissance still life paintings by the Dutch and Flemish masters. All the food in the paintings had such carefully thought out symbolism. Bread indicates humility and catholic faith, a peach means truth and oysters mean lust. A glass of wine with little liquid in it symbolises the fragile nature of life but also wealth. In combination certain fruits and foods can tell a story. A paining with peaches and a butterfly mean hope and faith. Oysters or oyster shells in the vicinity of a woman in a painting means that the woman is promiscuous. If a bun of bread is near, it means she has lost her humility and has given in to the desires of the flesh. Heavy stuff no? An abundance of fish symbolises the catholic faith, but a cat near the fish means doubt, the painting could mean a warning not to take everything for granted when it comes to faith (big lessons to learn here)….

Big companies are buying organic, but are they selling the real thing

25th June 2017 by Regula 12 Comments

Vegetable display at Borough Market, London

Amazon just bid nearly 14 billion to buy Wholefoods…

There is something about the organic & health food narrative that is increasingly starting to worry me. A couple of years ago you had to go to small often obscure shops for organic food, natural products and local produce, but recently we’ve started to see a lot of mainstream supermarkets jumping onto the bandwagon, introducing a dedicated spot in their shop to organic vegetables and fruit. A great evolution I thought at first. In Belgium a supermarket chain even decided to launch an organic version of their store. They now have 25 large stores and 80 pick-up points, in a country with about 11 million inhabitants this is huge. It sends out the right signal that more people want to make a more conscious choice when it comes to food. In the UK and US we’ve known Wholefoods for some time now but todays news that Wholefoods has been bought up by the big giant Amazon got me feeling more puzzled than excited…

I started to dawn on me that in one of those big superstores organic isle I spotted potatoes from Egypt and pears from Mexico…

I want everyone to eat organic so that more farmers can survive growing organic or biodynamic fruit and veg in a way the land is nourished instead of raped. I want people to eat far less meat but buy more ethically reared meat. Meat from animals reared in good conditions, outdoors on grass instead of concrete, it doesn’t even have to be organic (getting certified organic is very troublesome for animal farms in many countries), kindness in this case is good enough for me. We can no longer tolerate factory meat farms and need to go back to the ancient method of crop rotation. …

Borough Market – not just a food market

13th June 2017 by Regula 1 Comment

I’ve been planning to write about Borough Market for a very long time, the draft has been in my folder waiting for the right moment, and now the time couldn’t be more poignant. After last weeks terrible events where the market was the victim of a senseless attack I knew I had to write this. Now over a week later, the market is finally opening again and now more than ever the market traders and surrounding restaurants and bars need your support.

Most of the traders are very small often family owned businesses. Loosing a week of custom, and getting over the fact that this beautiful multicultural market was soiled with violence is tough. We all know the way forward it to ‘keep calm and carry on’ so please if you are in London, take the tube to London Bridge Station and do your shopping at Borough Market. Meet there for lunch or dinner or after-work-drinks. It’s safe, probably safer than it has ever been. But mostly, it is a statement, that we will not let terrorism dictate our lives.

On my first ever visit to Borough Market 7 years ago, I never thought that today I would be working for them and writing for their mag and website. Now nearly two years ago I became a photographer for the Borough Market magazine called ‘Market Life’. It is beautifully produced and jam-packed with interesting content. Stories about the market traders and their lives, the produce, the provenance and the events at the market which have become plentiful over the years. There are panel talks, tastings, cookery demonstrations and there even is a Cookbook Club. It is such a community. I’ve worked with many of the market traders, sourcing produce for shoots, they’ve been generous with advise and for some shoots they’ve even been on hand to help me. That is why I was especially shaken by the sadness that happened last week. My first thoughts were with the traders and the people who work tirelessly behind the scenes in the Borough Market office. The people I love to work with.

Borough Market is life, it is hope. It is a place where gender, sexual orientation, colour, religion or political preference doesn’t matter. It’s food, only food. That what keeps us alive, that what we live for, that what brings people together. The market sent out a statement and I want to share with you:

Now more than ever, we need to remind ourselves that what we do here matters. A food market has nothing to do with hate. A food market is about sustenance and wellbeing, pleasure and sharing, companionship and family. That’s why it’s important.

This post was supposed to be about the history of Borough Market, but for now, it is about the present and the future……

Jumbles on the battlefield

21st April 2017 by Regula 5 Comments

It has been a busy few months, flying from photography assignments and meetings in London to Latvia for research, London again, then to New York, two days after to Milan, then London again, then Milan again a few days ago. I have been spreading myself too thin, so over the Easter weekend, my first weekend home since somewhere in februari, I barricaded myself onto the sofa between stacks of pillows and two sleepy cats.

We are talking Jumbles today and I don’t mean gibberish.

I was following ‘A History of Royal Food and Feasting’, a fun free online course from the University of reading and Historic Royal Palaces with a lot of interesting historical information about food. A lot of the information I already knew but I did manage to learn a few things, plus it was just great fun to do and force myself to take some rest while still being productive. One of the dishes that were recommended to try on the course were Jumbles, a biscuit I had been meaning to bake but haven’t had the time in my mad schedule. When the Learning and Engagement department got in touch to check if I wanted to get involved to spread the word about the course I of course said yes because I enjoyed it. So Jumbles it was!

Jumbles were knot shaped biscuits that first appeared in the wonderful book The good Huswifes Jewell by Thomas Dawson, dating to 1585. But legend places this biscuit right at the heart of The War of the Roses a century before Dawson’s recipe.

For those who are unfamiliar with English history The Wars of the Roses were a series of battles fought in the period of 1455 to 1485 between two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet, the House of York and the house of Lancaster – both sporting a rose in their heraldic emblem. Both made a claim for the throne of England. They were a result from the social and financial problems following the Hundred Years’ War. The Lancastrian claimant, Henry Tudor defeated the last king of the House of York, Richard III at Bosworth Field, near Market Bosworth, a market town in Leicestershire. He then married Edward IV’s daughter, Elizabeth of York, to unite the two houses.

And it is precisely on this last battlefield that a new legend was born, at least a few centuries later……

Francatelli’s Queen Victoria and Albert Pudding

20th February 2017 by Regula 8 Comments

Although spring is in the air at times and daffodils are showing their sunny faces hear and there, some days are still reminding us it is still winter. On cold grey days like these the central heating never seems to give enough warmth although the thermometer says otherwise. Baking seems to be the only antidote to dreary weather and puddings might just be the most fitting with their warming and filling character.

Puddings it is and although I have just published a 378 page book on the history of pudding… which was recently shortlisted for a prestigious André Simon Award (still pinching myself, and although I didn’t win, I am still chuffed to bits!), there are still so many pudding recipes left to boil, bake, steam, fry or freeze. Today I’m taking you to the Victorian era, when puddings were at the height of their splendour.

During Queen Victoria’s reign Britain was going through a period of industrial evolution and urbanisation. It was also a period of peace and stability. The 19th century saw the birth of the rail network with the steam locomotive as the greatest invention. This made for an enormous change in farming as food could now be transported to the towns more quickly and efficiently. On the land a lot of jobs had been replaced by new farming machines, techniques changed, unemployment and poverty rose as the population almost doubled. With more people moving to cities in search for work, demand for produce was high.

The contrast between the lives of the working class and the splendour in which the Queen lived was enormous. Victoria became queen in 1837 at the age of 18 but before that she lived in Kensington Palace which was at that time in quite a state of disrepair.

We know her mostly from her iconic photograph, in profile, dressed in black mourning clothes, looking stern and cold. She is the matriarch, the embodiment of a strong and powerful woman. But in reality she mourned the death of Prince Albert for the rest of her life and found it hard without him.

To know the story behind the portrait, the story of the woman, the queen and the widow, we were treated to an historical drama titled simply ‘Victoria’ recently. And this is the reason for this posting today. ‘Victoria’ is airing in America in March and that is why for the launch TV station KCTS9 and author Laurel Nattress asked me to recreate a pudding for Victoria and her husband Albert from a recipe by the queen’s then chef Charles Elmé Francatelli….

Three Acres Creative Gathering – April 2017

6th February 2017 by Regula Leave a Comment

If you’ve been reading, you will have noticed the recap of our autumn creative gathering last week. So as promised this week we can bring you the schedule! We will visit the local market and an artisanal butcher to buy produce, we will then cook with Giulia in her beautiful Tuscan home and studio. We’ll walk around San Gimignano by night and have dinner there, explore Sienna, visit a working farm, learn about sourdough baking, and table arrangements to go home as a perfect host. We will eat, drink and have fun, but we will also learn. There is an introduction to Lightroom if you are interested to participate, there is a talk on food writing, and Sarka, Giulia and I will talk you through how we photograph. We will also talk about how we got where we are today.

The event will be one day longer as our previous guests gave us the feedback they would have loved an extra day. This edition it is also a possibility to choose a single room, and there is an option to stay longer as on tuesday after the gathering there will be a big garden party in Giulia’s garden.

What is Three Acres Greative Gathering

For five years now we have been growing creatively together and while we struggled to find a work/life balance, especially in the process of writing books! We always managed to find new strength by arranging creative get togethers where we laugh, cook, eat, drink and most importantly learn from each other. We have now joined forces under ‘Three Acres’ to create this get together in beautiful places so you too can join in the conversation, the learning, the cooking and the eating. We will take photo’s though you don’t have to be a professional or even hobby photographer, just capture the moment with whatever camera you got. From a smart phone to a proper shooter, all is welcome.

Email to book your Spot!

Details

Siena countryside, Tuscany
20-23 april
Nearest airport: Florence or Pisa
You can also arrive in Rome and take a train to Florence.
Max 6 participants…

Three Acres Creative Gathering – New dates and a Recap

26th January 2017 by Regula Leave a Comment

New Dates april 20-23 2017

In october my friends Giulia and Sarka and I hosted our first Three Acres Creative Gathering. An event born out of our own habit of meeting up several times a year to cook, eat, drink together, laugh and inspire each other. We each live in different countries so gatherings are always planned ahead. This made us think…

On a crisp and unusually sunny first of januari Giulia and I sat by the fire in her Tuscan family home, sipping fennel tea and talking about creativity. We wondered if we could create an event to include others in our usually quite private meet-ups. And so on our next get-together – in London this time – Sarka and Giulia and I decided to make it happen. A creative gathering in the rolling Sienese countryside, catching the very end of summer as a preparation for the cold and dark months ahead.

Our guests came not only from Italy but also from The Netherlands, Ecuador and the USA. A diverse bunch of women, all creative and eager to spend a few days with other creative people. We visited an organic sheep cheese farm situated in a rough rural landscape with the most exquisite view. We tasted the different cheeses with the farms thick fig compote made from their own precious few figs and slices of new season pears in an unusually warm autumn sun outside. The red wine served from a large glass carafe into lemonade glasses tasted like a rich grape juice, we all knew that back home it was already winter and savoured every moment.

…

Prague – Reliving my early childhood travels

11th January 2017 by Regula 12 Comments

In the late 1980’s when I was just a little girl, my parents and I traveled around Hungary and Czechoslovakia just like so many other Belgians did during that time. It was affordable, it was different and there were Balkan travel clubs with meetings where you could get your information much like we get it from Google today. We had the ‘Balkan Club’ bumper sticker and from time to time would bump into people on the road with the same sticker stuck to their car. Travel advise was then exchanged and we would part saying we might meet each other on one of the Balkan Club slideshow evenings. This was pre-internet socializing, using the sticker meant you were from the same group, it opened the door to a conversation….

Galette Des Rois and other food celebrations

6th January 2017 by Regula 7 Comments

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas if you celebrated it, and I wish you a smashing new year! There are lots of exciting things to come of which I will tell you more very soon but until then…

Since in the previous years I told you about English Epiphany or Twelfth Day celebrations, I thought I’d share the tradition of my side of the English channel with you today.
Like the Twelfth cake of which I wrote two years ago (see the post here), in my region we also have a cake, or tart with a hidden bean, coin or trinket.

It is called a ‘Three Kings Tart’ or ‘Driekoningentaart’, a puff pastry pie filled with the most satisfying almond filling which is when made well – addictive. If you find the bean or trinket in your piece of tart you are king for the day and the crown is all yours. To my regret I never found a bean in my piece of tart until two years ago. Oh the disappointment when I was a little girl, the frustration that it was always one of the adults who got the crown! I mean, they should have hidden it in my piece, shouldn’t they?? Traditionally the children would go out to sing from door to door for sweets and money, dressed up like the three kings.

We sadly haven’t got a traditional drink like the Lambswool (see that post here) which comes with the beautiful tradition of ‘wassailing’ which means to feast and run around the orchards to chase away evil spirits and wake up the trees.

I can’t tell you how much I adore this tart and the sight of bakery shop windows filled with ‘Galette Des Rois’ all topped with a festive golden paper crown. It reminds me of the stories I read about children gathering outside the bakery’s shop window to see the magnificent Twelfth Cakes over a century ago. The seasonal bakes that appear in bakeries always make my heart skip a beat. I walk passed Antwerp’s oldest bakery just to see the window display: the large speculoos figurines around Saint Nickolas, the chocolate eggs around Easter, the prune tarts when it’s Ash Wednesday and these terrific ‘Three Kings Tarts’ which the French and our French speaking Belgians call ‘Galette Des Rois’. In France the tarts are also known as Pithiviers, named after the town in the Loiret in the south of Paris, where they allegedly originated from….

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