Miss Foodwise

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‘The Downton Abbey Christmas Cookbook’ my new book

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Copyright Greetje Van Buggenhout

I’m happy to announce the publication of my new book: ‘The Official Downton Abbey Christmas Cookbook’!<
(Scroll down for the reference list which wasn’t printed in the book because of the page count limit)

For this book I jumped into my collection of cookery books of not only the early 20th century in which Downton is set but also the Victorian era when our most beloved cook Mrs Patmore was training as a chef. I made a little excursion into the oldest cookery book in the English language for the first festive recipe for goose and witnessed the curiosity for continental cooking around the late 1920’s….

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Burleigh Pottery x Regula Ysewijn Competition

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I am a huge Burleigh Pottery fan, as you will know if you have been following me on this website and my Instagram. I have used almost exclusively British pottery in my cookbooks Pride and Pudding and Oats in the North, Wheat in the South and a lot of that is Burleigh ware. That’s why Burleigh Pottery and I thought it was a super idea to team up to celebrate British pottery and my latest book on British baking! As an extra treat I’m finally sharing the pictures I took at Middleport Pottery many years ago, scroll down to find a reportage.

On to the giveaway! The winner will receive my book Oats in the North, Wheat in the South and Burleigh Pottery are offering this amazing Blue Calico (my favourite!) set worth over £250 consisting of:
A Blue Calico Teapot
A small milk jug
A sugar bowl
A large cake plate
2 dessert plates
2 teacups and saucers

All you need to do to be in the running to win is follow @burleighpottery and me @missfoodwise on Instagram and comment telling us why you’d love to win this incredible set of British pottery! You will have extra bonus entries if you share the competition page from @burleighpottery in an Instagram story, or if you bake my Treacle pumpkin tart recipe on the Burleigh website and share a picture of it on Instagram tagging us both (so we can see it and share!). Competition ends 31 oktober!

Burleigh ware is made by hand at the iconic Middleport Pottery in Stoke On Trent, it is the last working Victorian pottery in England. Burgess & Leigh was established in 1851. “Burleigh” is a combination of the two names William Leigh and Frederick Rathbone Burgess who were the founders. In my book Oats in the North, Wheat from the South’ which tells the history of British bakes and how the diverse climate of the British Isles influenced the growth of cereal crops and the development of a rich regional baking identity, you’ll read the story of the staple food of the pottery workers in the North of England and how these bakes are a fantastic relevant and healthy breakfast or lunch option today….

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Oats in the North, Wheat from the South – Introducing my new baking book

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In my new book ’Oats in the North, Wheat from the South’ I’m showing the reader how the diverse climate of the British Isles influenced the growth of cereal crops and the development of a rich regional baking identity with it. Imports of spices, sugar, treacle, fortified wines
and citrus added flavour, colour and warmth to a baking culture much adored and replicated all over the world.

With the help of historical cookbooks, diaries and newspaper archives, I have given the most traditional recipe of a bake – which means, how it usually appears in old cookbooks – but often also a more recent version of that recipe to show how recipes evolve through a change of taste, economy and fashion.

With a foreword by food historian Dr. Annie Gray.

The book was nominated for the André Simon Award and included in ‘The best cookbooks of 2020’ list by BBC Radio 4’s The Food Program and The New Yorker magazine.

Erratum

There are two errors in Oats in the North: When halving the recipe for Flapjacks the butter wasn’t halved, use 100g instead of 200g. For the Bannocks the same thing happened; use 225 ml of buttermilk instead of 450 ml. Mea culpa!

Praise for Oats in the North, Wheat from the South:

”An excellent and diligently written book celebrating some super-tasty British treats”
—  JAMIE OLIVER

A feast for the eyes, as well as the stomach, meticulously researched and beautifully photographed, this is a true love letter to the food Britain does best. One to savour, and treasure, but most of all, one to bake from!’
—  FELICITY CLOAKE, THE GUARDIAN

”While this is a book that you just long to bake from instantly, it is also one to be read, and savoured, as it brings alive the link between culture, climate and cuisine.”
—  NIGELLA LAWSON

“It’s a love letter to British baking and all that that implies. It brings together buns and bakes that you’ll find in every local shop, and cakes and breads that have long since disappeared. Here you’ll find recipes both old and new, resurrected for the future, together with the stories that make them such a window onto both the past and the present. The joy of Regula’s writing is that through it all, we realise that it takes an outsider looking in to show us who we truly are.This is a beautiful book. It is a lyrical book. It is a book full of good things, modern and old, with a multitude of real heritage and imagined tradition behind them. Enjoy.
 — Dr Annie Gray, food historian

‘Regula – who is Belgian – has an obsession with Britain, not just its food but its literature, landscape and architecture, and we’re lucky to have such an enthusiast looking in from the outside. As well as recipes, she writes about the connections between bakes and ingredients – it’s often difficult to unravel the threads that link foods – and tells stories. A book to read as well as to cook from and an absolute gift for the curious baker.’
— Diana Henry

Virtual Book Tour!

As the Covid19 Pandemic hit right in the week of my book launch we had to cancel all events in the UK and the US and do as much virtually as we could. Here is a great selection of podcasts and interviews!

BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour – Last guest that episode, find it here >

Olive Magazine Podcast – find it here >

Tea & Tattle Podcast – find it here >

Cooking with an Italian Accent podcast – find it here >

Borough Market‘s Borough talks – find it here >

Sunday Post interview – find it here >

At the Sauce Podcast – Find it here >

Good Food Hour – KSRO Radio Sonoma County US – Find it here >

 

Further listening:

Gastro Podcast, The Great Pudding Off (2019) – Find it here >

 

 

Book reviews that could be helpful:

Nigella Lawson’s Cookbook Corner >

Shiny New Book’s Review >

Desperate Reader’s Review >

My Custard Pie’s Review >

Extract on the Telegraph >

Article on Otago Daily Times (New Zealand) >

Try a few recipes

Belgian Buns over on the Telegraph >

Carrot cake with cashew topping on the Telegraph >

Chelsea Buns over on The Sunday Times >

3 recipes on the Otago Daily Times NZ >

COVID19 measures: Large outlets will send even outside the UK, for local delivery the independent book stores mentioned below have stock and are happy to send to you.

For sale at

Amazon UK and Waterstones UK

And Indie bookstores with in particular the following stores:

In the UK

Cookbookbake in Brighton (also shipping to you)

Warwick Books in Warwick (also shipping to you)

Toppings & Company in Edinburgh, Ely and Bath (also shipping to you)

Browsers Bookshop in Woodbury (delivers locally)

In Australia

Dymocks (@dymocksbooks:https://bit.ly/2REYCok
Readings (@readingsbooks) :https://bit.ly/34EU6LL
Booktopia (@booktopiabooks) :https://bit.ly/2K9rZuH

In United States

’Oats in the North, Wheat from the South’ Published with Murdoch books in Britain, Australia and New Zealand in April and the US later this year (with a different title: ‘The British Baking Book” and cover) with Weldon Owen.

San Fransisco: Omnivore Books @OmnivoreBooks

Los Angeles: Now Serving @nowservingla

Barnes & Noble

Lebanon

Papercup bookstore, Beirut

Selling the Dutch edition in Belgium

Luddites, Antwerpen (selling both EN and NL)

Boekhandel Novelle, Kortrijk

Paard Van Troje, Gent

Standaard Boekhandel

Fnac

 

A remedy for a dry throat: Papo Secos and Port

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Not long ago I travelled to the incredible Douro Valley in Portugal where I was a guest of the Symington family, a family business who owns several port and wine vineyards or ‘quinta’ in the region. Our focus this time was on Graham’s port, for whom I also hosted an event in my house this month.

We arrived in Porto at the location where all the barrels and bottels are resting. An impressive cellar with barrels and tall ‘foedre’ as far as the eye can see, on the side wall there are barred cells with vintage ports that date back to the early decades of the last century. In the air there is the smell of ageing wood, must and a deep dark scent of port wine.

After lunch and on our way to the Douro valley, we make a stop to experience the delights of the traditional ‘pastel de nata’ or custard tart paired with a 10 year old port. My travel companion, prolific pastry chef and chocolatier Joost Arijs and I are glued to the glass window that separates us from the pastel bakery. There is no way to keep someone with his profile and a Bake Off judge and author of several books on baking away from where the action is. We walk the steep streets of Porto slightly tipsy, the delayed flight and boozy lunch with port pairing certainly got to our heads, but since all of us have had busy lives at home, it is a welcome opportunity to unwind.

There is just a sigh of light left in the Douro Valley when we arrive at the calm riverside village. Dinner is traditional dried salted cod and the Symington family’s wines to go with it. On the table I spot the bread basket, something that makes me weak in the knees when done well. There are a couple of huge breads in there, looking like a baby’s bum. I stare at them but am so full with the late lunch, custard tarts and salted cod that I can’t even fit dessert in, let alone a baby’s bum sized bun.

The next morning I wake up from the light peeping through the shutters of my room in one of the Symington’s family homes. Opening the shutters on an early morning in a quiet house where everyone is still asleep, letting in the crisp air is like breathing in life itself and with the view over the vineyard that greeted me I had to stop and take it all in. Downstairs breakfast waited for us, with juice made from the oranges growing in the garden and a basket of buns to make me weak at the knees again. On my plate, a large baby’s bum bun, I tear the two halves apart and smear the crusty bread with butter… few things are better than the simple delight of good bread and good butter….

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The Great Prison Bake Off

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When in Bruges… (scroll down for Dutch)

A usual trip to Bruges would mean a walk by the romantic canals and then a beer and a plate of endives wrapped in ham in one of Belgium’s oldest traditional cafés.

But not on Tuesday, Tuesday my co-judge Herman Van Dender and our host Wim Opbrouck from Bake Off Flanders and I were invited by the inmates from the Drug-free wing of the prison of Bruges. Drug-free means these inmates have a history with drugs and want to stay clean, others just want to sit out their sentence in a drug-free environment, because the rest of the prison is full of drugs. Sadly there isn’t much that the prison can do about that, the drugs comes in with the visitors and there is no legal way of checking those who visit for carrying hidden drugs. Furthermore checking inmates is not without rules, regular urine checks or full naked body checks aren’t legal. Even though some of the inhabitants have done serious crimes, this doesn’t mean they are stripped of their human rights.

But at the drug-free wing where we were a guest last night, the prison is allowed to do regular checks because the inmates welcome it. The waiting list to get into this wing is long. Inmates who stay clean, get privileges and one of these privileges is that they are allowed to organise things together. Last week they did an Italian food competition, this week we are here to judge their baking skills.

The three of us are checked rigorously, it takes a while before I get through the metal detector since my hair contains about a hundred bobby pins. We then go on a photo for our badge and are walked to the drug-free wing by the prison’s psychologist Maarten; a cheerful tattoo covered guy in his twenties. I jokingly ask him if he used to be an inmate here, making fun of the prejudice that comes with peeps with tats….

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Victoria’s sandwich finger cakes for Marie Curie

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This week was Queen Victoria’s 200th birthday and in honour of her and to raise funds for charity, major kitchen brand Franke has asked me to create a cake for their Blooming Great Tea Party. The charity Marie Curie offers vital support to people suffering with cancer and Franke want to support the work they do by generating vital funds for them as well as awareness of the work they do. Cancer is the disease that has touched everyone in some way and while cancer research is of paramount importance, so is the care for those who suffer from it or are trying to recover.

In my Victorian cookbooks I noticed the first Sandwich cakes were made into individual finger portions so that’s what we chose for this charity tea party. What you can do is visit a Franke retailer near you which is hosting a Blooming Great Tea Party and have a nice finger sponge cake with a cuppa! You can find out which retailers are taking part by visiting www.franke.co.uk/charity.
If you can not make it to a tea party you can easily donate through this page www.justgiving.com/fundraising/frankeuk2019-mariecurie

For 32 small Victoria sponge finger cakes (recipe can be halved)

Needed: 1 or 2 non-stick baking tray size 39 x 27 cm

For the Cake

  • 4 eggs, weighed in their shell
  • same weight of: soft butter, caster sugar, self-raising flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tablespoon milk
  • butter for greasing
  • flower to dust
  • 2-3 tbsp raspberry or strawberry jam
  • 200 g double cream, whipped
  • fine white sugar, for sprinkling

For the filling

  • 100 g powdered sugar
  • 1 tbsp or 12 g custard powder (pudding powder)
  • 50 g of butter
  • 1 teaspoon milk, warm (or water)

Method

Make the filling by mixing powdered sugar, pudding powder, butter, milk or water and salt in the food processor until you get a cream. If it is much too dry, then add milk or water per ¼ teaspoon. Let the filling rest covered.

Preheat your oven to 180 ° C

Weigh the eggs in the shells to determine the quantities of butter, sugar and flour.

Put the eggs in a large mixing bowl, add soft butter, sugar, milk, self-raising flour and baking powder. Mix the batter until it is smooth.

Scoop the batter into the baking tray(s) and neatly smooth out using a scraper or spatula.

Place the tray in the center of your oven for 18-20 minutes. Leave to rest for 5 minutes, remove from the tray and allow to cool on a rack.

When making one tray, cut the cake with a serrated knife into eight, then cut each piece into 4 finger cakes and halve them so that the filling can be sandwiched in between.

When making two trays, simply cut the whole cake into fingers or for a quick method top the whole cake with jam and cream and then cut into fingers.

For creating individual fingers smear the bottom finger cake with jam, pipe or smear the cream on top and put the top cake on top.

During strawberry season it’s delicious to add slices of fresh strawberries to the filling.

Sprinkle with fine sugar.

A weekend in Malmö

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**In payed collaboration with Malmö town.

The city of Malmö kindly invited my husband and me to come and explore the town for 2,5 days. I had visited before because I have friends in town who persuaded me to come over to Parabere Forum, a conference for women in gastronomy whose aim it is to fight for gender equality, that is if you get in because although I was invited to join the conference as press last year, this year suddenly my application to join – yes you’re reading this well, you have to apply to be allowed to pay to come to this conference – was turned down… so far for equality.

Back to Malmö a town where equality is also important, yet it is less about gender and more about general equality which I think is incredibly important as a first step. Malmö used to have a bad reputation, it stood in the shadow of bright and buzzing Copenhagen which is only 30 minutes across the Øresund bridge – known from the tv series – from Malmö. I’ve visited Copenhagen just for one day but can firmly say I prefer Malmö because it is smaller and more quaint.

You arrive in Malmö by the train station and walk across the river with the majestic Savoy hotel towering over you. A small street takes you to one of the most beautiful large town squares of Malmö. The first thing I notice is the cool advertising on the side of the building of an old apothecary, a well restored ghost sign you’ll see a couple more of around town. Malmö is calm, there aren’t many cars and the locals are incredibly chill and friendly. I think you would have a hard time upsetting a Malmonian….

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Sea Buckthorn Berries and Various ways with them in the Kitchen

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I first came into contact with these bright orange berries on one of my trips to Sweden last year. We visited a pick your own farm where the hedges of Sea buckthorn were plenty and laden with fruit. I wondered where these rough looking shrubs with their vicious thorns as dangerous as barb wire normally grow. Sea Buckthorn grows in coastal areas in Europe and Asia, in dunes and on moors. Their Flemish name translates to ‘Dune thorn’, other names are Sand Thorn and Siberian pineapple. Their roughness reflects the landscape in which they thrive. Brisk winds and cold, draught, desolate plains. Their root system is invasive, but improves marginal soil. In some areas the bushes have even been used for soil erosion control and land reclamation projects. It sort off feels like their thorns tell us to let them be, so that they can do good for the surrounding earth, the wildlife and to bring a highly healthy berry to the people that live around them. Birds can nest in the branches, benefiting from the piercing thorns as protection agains predators.

The oval berries are tart, bitter and have little sweetness to them. They have been used for medicinal purposes for centuries, they are full of anti-oxidants, beta-carotene, vitamine C, A and E and they battle inflammation. A concentrated puree from the berries can be used to relief sunburn and some say it could be good for some skin conditions. You could call them a super food, but lets forget about that horrible hipster term shall we? The young leaves can be used for tea because of their amino-acids, fatty acids, minerals and ability to boosting the immune system. An oil is made from the berries and seeds and used for all kinds of ails. In a nutshell, the berries are good for you and the shrub is a good one to have around.

I enjoy the flavour, the mild tartness, their lack of sweetness. I bought a jar of Sea Buckthorn jam on my last trip to Sweden when I visited an apple orchard by the Baltic Sea. Of course because of their location they must have had a lot of Sea Buckthorn bushes around and in their shop they sold a jam called “Marmalat” which was more compote textured than jammy because they added a small amount of apple to the Sea Buckthorn. The jam was spread on toast and the jar empty much too soon so I started to look forward to the new Sea Buckthorn season and searched for a farm that grows the trees.

On an evening in late august my husband and I set out to visit a man with a passion for peculiar and otherwise difficult to find fruit bushes. Together we spent nearly half an hour harvesting just 500 grams of berries. The cruel thorns make harvesting very troublesome and the tree doesn’t like to let go of its berries very easily. The best method to harvest these berries and to prevent cuts in your hands from the thorns is to prune the bushes – that need a lot of pruning anyway – and freeze the branches whole. When frozen the berries are suddenly incredibly easy to pick and most just fall from the branches.

I wanted to make the jam and at the same time make as much of the fruit as I could. The jam was made by boiling the fruit, then straining the pulp. The pulp just keeps on giving, to the pulp of 500 g berries I added 1 liter of boiling water and left it to brew for half an hour. The juice that is left can be consumed as tea or juice and it is also makes a very good aperitif mixed with sparkling wine. My favourite thing to do with the juice however is to make a sorbet out of it. I’m not an ice cream lover because I’m not too fond of its sweetness but since these berries aren’t really sweet it makes for a perfect sorbet for me. Just freeze the juice in a shallow container and stir every 30 minutes until ready – or use a machine if you have one. Come to think of it, a slushy would work great too!…

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Buns for Saint Hubert: Mastellen from Ghent

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The city of Ghent ’s most famous bake is called ‘Mastel’ and it is a soft bun flavoured with cinnamon shaped into a round with a dimple in the middle made by pressing down four fingers in the dough. The name Mastel comes from ‘masteluin’ a bread mixture made with wheat and rye flour, it was an old practice to grow the two grains mixed on one single field to improve yield. Since medieval times the bun was consecrated by a priest and eaten as a preventative against hydrophobia or rabies on the feast of St Hubert on 3 november. Today the bun is often blessed on the 3rd of november but no one really believes it will protect them from hydrophobia or rage.

Mastellen are also sold dried to use for making a pudding called ‘Aalsterse Vlaai’ and the dried out bun was also often soaked in buttermilk to eat as a gruel. A custom that is in decline is that of the ‘ironed mastel’ where a mastel bun is sliced in two and spread with butter and a generous topping of brown sugar. The bun is then crushed under the weight and heat of an old fashioned heavy cast iron well eh – iron. The kind that used to be kept on the stove. The result is a crisp biscuit that resembles a Lackman waffle. Truly delicious. This ironing of the mastel is popular on the first weekend of august in the Ghent area called Patershol during the Patershol feasts, a jolly folk festival in one of Ghent’s most culturally diverse area, it is therefore also called Coté Culture. (Patersholfeesten are his weekend if you’re in the area! Also check previous post on where to go and eat in Ghent – I will be adding to this post over time.)

The custom of eating consecrated bread on St Huberts day comes from the story that the saint cured a man of rabies by giving him bread to eat. St Hubert was the Bishop of Liege and the patron saint of hunters, on the 3rd of november an event takes place in Liege where the hunting hounds, masters and staff are blessed by a priest. This date also marks the start of the hunting season….

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Ghent, the rock ‘n’ roll alternative to Bruges in Belgium

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Nearly everyone I know abroad who visited Belgium tells me they only went to Bruges… Such a shame! I usually exclaim because Ghent is just as beautiful! Don’t get me wrong, I love Bruges but Ghent is Bruges rock’n’roll sister, the badass of the family, full of subcultures, underground music scenes and home to ‘Vooruit’ one of the most incredible music halls located in an old socialist arts centre – the place where I saw my first show at 16. On top of that, Ghent has all Bruges has to offer architecture-wise minus the annoying hordes of tourists and unimaginative souvenirs shops selling lace from anywhere but Flanders.

Ghent is constantly reinventing itself, people are friendly and the atmosphere is relaxed. You can have a good glass of Belgian beer on nearly every street corner but the last few years exciting new places have been opening all over the town. Ghent has been reputed being the vegetarian capital of Europe and that is something I had to be told by a friend who is vegan and visited Ghent a few months ago.

Ghent has been our nearest town for the last 12 years and with our move a few months ago we hardly ever visited because life has just been to busy and we no longer live a 20 minute drive away. But I find I look at Ghent with different eyes now when we do manage to carve out some time to travel there. We no longer pop over for lunch at our favourite Italian (Trattoria Della Mamma), but venture further into the city to try other things, stay longer to have dessert or afternoon tea (Huset), or an ice cold glass of Belgian style.

If shopping is what you are after, Ghent has it all. You have your highstreet chains in de Veldstraat but if small independent shops is your thing – it sure is for me – you have an array of little shops dotted around town.…

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