Author: Kvik Management

The Australian and Scandinavian landscapes could scarcely be more different. The cultures not necessarily a seamless fit either. So why then did chef Rene Redzepi make the choice relocate Noma to Sydney for a 10-week stint? The answer is both complex; an exploration of one of the food world’s final frontiers and an invigorating challenge for the world’s most lauded and referenced restaurant, and simple, who can resist a relaxing summer in Sydney?

Having followed the progress of the project over a year, and then eaten the final result, I can say that the former proved to be spot on and the latter, not quite so much. The challenges of articulating a mercurial continent, with its bizarre endemic plants, fabled no-where-else wildlife and mish-mash multi-culture, were bigger than I believe anyone at Noma originally anticipated. In other words, in order to deliver the often thought-provoking and always thoughtful ‘Australia on a plate’ (by way of Noma) there was not much time for beers by the beach. Instead of being beaten by the numerous (and often little discussed) challenges that the Australian landscape presents and offering a Noma rehash. The restaurant, so fanatical about ‘Time and Place’ as they are, embraced the daunting scale and mystery of the Australian continent and produced a singular meal that resonated powerfully with those born in the country.

Skye and I were invited by Tourism Australia to experience Noma, an opportunity we both leapt at. As ex-pats who have a particular kind of romanticism for our country it was always going to be fascinating to see another’s perspective. Unencumbered as it is by stereotypes, history and culture. From the moment we knew the project was happening we began a conversation about what is Australian food culture, where are the true strengths (and weaknesses) and challenging what we thought we knew about what it is to be from the ‘big brown land’. And there were revelations in the meal: no bread, no red, mostly wild, natives from desert to tropical, seafood and barely any meat. With the exception of seafood, these are not the elements that were accepted as the strengths.

We’re continuing the conversation below, between ourselves and perhaps a wider one has begun in Australia itself? When this Noma adventure was initially announced I oscillated between thinking it was a wildly naive venture and that perhaps that they would help allow Australians to see what was in their own backyard. In this instance the latter is the case.

Below is a dish-by-dish conversation between Skye and myself that we hope takes you through the experience in some way.

Unripe macadamia and spanner crab

Skye: First of all, what really struck me was the addition of the rose. I thought that was amazing with the crab, and surprising. And funnily enough, I’ve come back to Spring since I’ve been away and on the ice cream menu we’ve got a macadamia and rose ice cream.

David: I thought it was the unripe quality of the macadamia that was most interesting, because it has a different flavour to that kind of rich, buttery, macadamia that we know. It’s an interesting thing to start with macadamia too – macadamia being the only Australian ingredient, aside than say certain types of seafood, that has been really exportable. I thought that was a smart thing because certainly a big part of the conversation around what they are doing there is about investigating new ingredients.

Skye: Interesting to start with the crab too, and paired with the macadamia it gave a kind of snappy, sweet, almost coconut-y flavour.

David: Funnily enough, René said he felt this dish was like walking on the first frost. It’s the snap – the unripe macadamias really snapped in your mouth.

Skye: It was so pretty and feminine, almost ethereal. The rose in there gave a softness and the crab, a kind of cleanness. It was such a clean, clear, soft dish.

Wild seasonal berries flavoured with gubinge

David: The next dish, although it looked very pretty, you would never describe as feminine in terms of it’s flavour profile – that was the wild berries with gubinge.

Skye: I found it quite an unusual choice because texturally, it wasn’t a huge contrast to the first dish, but flavour-wise it couldn’t have been more different.

David: Remember the lillypilly, and muntries, and Kakadu plum in there? It was astringent, and bitter. Exactly the flavours I expected and had come accustomed to tasting Australian ingredients. Those little antioxidant hits, so small and so powerful. You just feel as if they are from the desert.

Skye: And I think the first dish was multicultural in many ways – bringing in the rose, which is very middle eastern – and then this dish was very Australian in a kind of indigenous way. You couldn’t see any cultural interference even though obviously René had stepped in.

David: It did look like a Noma dish. Berries and eathernware etc. But seeing the brilliantly bright magenta lillypilly in that dish was startling because it was lillypilly season, so all of the suburban hedges around the suburbs of Australia were full of them. Then, on the plate there were little clusters of berries that underscored an interesting aspect of the whole meal – that René and his team found the edible landscape in that very Noma way. In terms of finding the ingredients, you expect that. It was more the cultural references that I thought were interesting and fun.

Skye: It’s the image I have of his cooking which is so firm in my mind. After the first time I went to Noma, I thought and thought about it. It was like where the sea meets the sky and there is that fine blue line where you almost can’t tell – almost like a Rothko painting – and on that line he stitches so much intricacy. They definitely hava a tone, and there is just so much complexity within that. Do you know what I mean by that?

David: I do, but I don’t agree with you – particularly with the wild berries dish. I found it the most challenging in terms of its intensity. It wasn’t easy eating in the sense of taking a bite and thinking “Oh, that’s delicious!” Instead it almost took the moisture out of your mouth in a powerful way.

Skye: The wood spoon really helped that dish as well. I adored the wood spoon with everything, it was so beautiful to put in your mouth.

David: And with the wild berries it was really effective because there’s such strong, sour notes in the berries, so you had that soft wood, which felt very nice to put in your mouth, with those powerful, astringent flavours.

Skye: That was almost where Noma met Australia so incredibly on that second dish.

Porridge of golden and desert oak wattleseed with saltbush

David: The next dish I was fascinated by. It’s the one that I thought the most about afterwards, because I kept on seeing it, and that was the porridge of golden desert oak wattleseed with saltbush.

Skye: I immediately thought these looked and kind of tasted like dolmades, but in place of an unctuous vine leaf there was saltbush and inside where there would be rice, it was full of wattleseed and a very slight acidity.

David: Wattleseed was something that I expected to see on the menu too, but this was done in a very different way.

Skye: Aesthetically, it was absolutely exquisite. The colour was faultlessly beautiful.

David: The green, the chlorophyll of those saltbush leaves was beautiful, and I think they were very young and very specifically grown. So many Australian ingredients are foraged or found, or have unreliable lines of ordering for restaurants so it can be really challenging. If you have saltbush that’s a little older, it would be really intense, too intense frankly, but, the saltbush at Noma was just vaguely salty. I’m so interested to see if the market opens up for an ingredient like that.

Skye: It was very mellow and balanced.

David: It reminded me of the ants in North Queensland that stitch a leaf together to make their home and protect themselves from torrential downpours. The little wattle seeds looked like ants in there. For me, that touched a Queensland note. Does that sound bizarre?

Skye: I thought that was beautifully placed within the composition of the whole meal. It really cleansed the palate before the seafood platter and crocodile fat, which was such a rich dish.

Seafood platter and crocodile fat

David: There was a lot on the plate for this one. Five or six kinds of mollusks – pippies, strawberry clams, those big, fleshy oysters – and then the crocodile fat over it.

Skye: The crocodile fat gave it a musty, almost Marmitey flavour. It was the most confronting of all the dishes, to me.

David: I’ve eaten crocodile a couple of times, and it seems to be the ultimate challenge to make it delicious and for me, it has never truly been that. It’s interesting that they paired it with the seafood, which is probably the most accessible side of Australian ingredients. The vast majority of Australians would not be confronted by eating an oyster, a pippie, a clam, but with the crocodile fat on it, it takes it to a different place; whereas the next dish was really about leaving the product alone. My friend called it Lardo di Kakadu, which I thought was hilarious.

WA deep-sea snow crab with cured egg yolk

Skye: The snow crab with cured egg yolk was such an elegant dish.

David: It was extraordinary. It was a mound of the most beautiful picked snow crab from Western Australian, then very vaguely enriched by cured egg yolk.

Skye: You just put it in your mouth and it was a complete sense of pleasure and satisfaction. I found it so round, so full, and yet so balanced and restrained at the same time.

David: With the note of kangaroo in there and fermented egg yolk, it really felt like it was the richest, most indulgent crab you’d ever tasted.

Pie: dried scallops and lantana flowers

David: The next one was the pie with dried scallops.

Skye: For me there was a real reference to urban Australia here. Meat pies were an Australian institution, certainly in the ’70s, and even early ’80s, and lantana was in everybody’s back garden, and is actually poisonous but has a very beautiful flower.

David: The lantana threw me at first, because it just has such resonance, a particular generation hate that plant – it’s like poison ivy in your back garden, but it is actually very beautiful. I think it was an ingredient, along with the crocodile, that was included to provoke thought; and certainly they did but will I crave lantana, no.

BBQ’d milk “dumpling”, marron and magpie goose

Skye: I thought the next dish was extraordinarily successful – the barbecued milk dumpling.

David: It was almost like an Australian taco.

Skye: That was burned milk, the skin. To me, that felt very Scandinavian – an influence from that part of the world.

David: But, the taste for me was all about the the rich meat – the maron meat, which is so delicious, and then I didn’t get so much of the magpie goose, but there was a meatiness in there too.

Sea urchin and tomato dried with pepperberries

Skye: Then we had the breather, with the sea urchin with the barely dried tomatoes from Tasmania, and the pepperberries that were very sweet, almost like soft blankets. It was an incredibly, rich yet gentle dish.

David: It was so intensely flavored and beautiful.

Skye: And another one without too much interference, that took indigenous ingredients and let you see what they can do on their own.

Abalone schnitzel and bush condiments

David: Then there was something that I really loved about the abalone schnitzel, with that half torpedo of finger lime.

Skye: The abalone was deliciously tender, it came piping hot, which I adored – schnitzel should always be served hot. It might have even been one of the most delicious dishes on the menu, but it didn’t get me thinking like some of the others.

David: It was like the ultimate schnitzel. I thought it was a really fun moment. This was more a dish that you just enjoyed, and I think that’s great. What about all the other condiments?

Skye: There was a charming irony to that dish.

Rum lamington

David: The other ironic dish – and we knew there would be something along these lines – was the rum lamington. But for me it was too boozy.

Skye: That was probably the hardest dish, because they probably felt, for so many reasons, they had to include it, and yet you can’t really improve on it.

David: Lamingtons are so iconic in Australia, they’re like the Sydney Opera House of food.

Skye: I actually always think of mangos as something that is so Australian to me, which was gorgeous in the marinated fruit.

Marinated fresh fruit

David: It was almost like a fruit platter, and the mango was almost over-ripe. Then in order to get that mango slightly underipe tang back, they used the green ants, which have that explosion of acidic quality, which was briliant.

Skye: Also the watermelon was kind of compressed, so it tasted like a watermelon, but it didn’t quite have the texture.

Peanut milk and freekeh “Baytime”

David: What about the “Baytime”? When I first bit into it, it had the same sensation as a really healthful dessert, something from one of those Paleo cafes. And naturally I wasn’t so sure about it but then I mulled on it for a second and wanted more. Then I couldn’t stop.

Skye: I’ve thought about that dish for ages, and the brilliance of taking burnt freekah, which is just on the border of what bitter chocolate could be, in terms of smokiness. Then the kind of nuttiness of the peanut ice cream, which became more intense, more rich in the centre. It was an elegant dish – not sweet, yet a completely satisfying dessert. I think it finished the meal off so beautifully. It was a perfect combination between Noma and Australia, the two cultures meeting.

The Noma Australia experience

Skye: Do you remember we talked so much before about where Noma would end and Australia begin? In the end, you couldn’t separate it, could you?

David: No. When you have such a point of view, it becomes Noma’s take on Australia. It’s not “here is Australia on a plate.” It’s “here is Australia by way of Copenhagen”. Some of it can always seem slightly lost in translation but it wasn’t earnestness, it was fun and so that made it all the more endearing.

Skye: It was so unforced. There was nothing serious about the meal for me. It was like the best of any meal, not just on deliciousness, but the whole thought made me smile.

David: I really like that René said honestly to me that part of the reason he wanted to go to Australia was so his kids could have an Australian summer and to get away from the cold for a bit. In some ways, it’s a very Australian thing to be so honest about that. Other people would say, “I’m going because it’s the next food frontier.” Of course, that’s part of the reason, but it’s not the only one and that’s what made it sophisticated. It was fun; they weren’t trying to sell an agenda. It felt very celebratory.

Skye: They weren’t looking for the next great accolade – it didn’t feel like that kind of meal. There’s a real confidence in that.

David: An extension on that point, is that the Noma service style is a very Scandinavian kind of open-faced, happy service, which is very Australian as well. They’re very unpretentious, they’re very welcoming. It’s not a kind of helicopter, obsequious service. It’s casual, but professional and proud.

Skye: The other thing that was amazing about that service, which I kept thinking about after we left, was how energized it was. I loved the food, but it’s like when I went to Noma the first time, I just loved being there. I loved the energy. The whole experience made me feel happy.

David: There’s definitely something within the Noma family, a sort of mode that they work in internally and externally.

kye: They bring it onto the floor in such a wonderful way. It almost felt like an extended fun dinner party. That was maybe the most Australian aspect of all.

Every family is unique. Often scattered across the globe, cousins might be familiar but diverse branches are made up of entirely distinct members. Complex and informed by long histories it is often difficult to determine how they evolve into the way that they are. And it is a phenomenon as true for people as it is for plants.

“Wherever citrus trees are gathered together, whether in open ground or in the shelter of a limonaia, they cross pollinate and over time varieties develop that are peculiar to their setting’ writes the Helena Attlee in her book The Land Where Lemons Grow (2014). Attlee, an expert on grand Italian gardens, wrote the book after decades of studying the curious biodiversity of the citrus family on the Italian peninsula. Although it may seem as though Italy is citrus’ spiritual home, the family originally hails not from Amalfi or Sicily but Asia. No one historian or botanist can pinpoint its exact roots but it seems wherever citrus finds favourable conditions, it flourishes.

Last month members of the extended Spring family took a trip to Sicily, staying amongst an immense grove of lemons at the foot of Mt Etna. It was the first trip to the island for many and all were struck by the availability and variety of citrus. Even in summer the trees were thick with fruit and abundant in the market. For instance, what appeared to be a gnarled large lemon was instead a small cedro, a variety that is typically candied but with its sweet, fragrant juice instead added a surprising new note to dishes. Come winter, as the rest of Europe freezes, in Sicily, it is the moment that blood oranges, mandarins and clementines arrive. And we, by extension, are able to enjoy that jolting, zesty gift of vitamin-c to sustain through the cold.

Over time citrus have a way of taking on a regional identity, perhaps more than any other fruiting botanical family. Across the straights of Messina in Calabria the slopes of the Aspromonte Mountains are perfumed by prized bergamot, further up the coast Amalfi is festooned by its signature lemon and even beyond in Liguria, the slopes of the Cinque Terra are planted with the tiny bitter orange chinotto. However it is not only Italy where citrus has settled and integrated itself into the landscape and daily life. What would the nuance of Thai cuisine be without the robust Kaffir lime, Japanese without delicate Yuzu, the hybrid cuisine of California without the sweet Meyer lemon?

Beyond orange juice concentrate and the waxed-to-shine lemon of our supermarkets there still remains a world of citrus to discover. Seeking out and buying unconventional citrus is a joy and each brings something new. The curiosities of pixie tangerines, wonderfully weird Buddha’s hands and Australian indigenous finger limes are all enjoying a moment of rediscovery. One citrus may have tart juice, particularly potent rind or scented leaves but yet with all members of the family their enlivening pucker is constant.

In a first for Scroll we’ve included two recipes from the Spring family, the first Skye’s take on limoncello and Head Pastry Chef Sarah Johnson’s sublime lemon ice cream.

Skye’s Limoncello 

In Sicily they traditionally make limoncello with the first harvest of the year – small, pale lemons with a deeply perfumed skin.

10 unwaxed, organic lemons

1 bottle of vodka

750g caster sugar

700ml boiling water

Wash the lemons and pat dry. Zest using the finest grater possible.

Place the zest in a sterilised jar and pour over the spirit. Seal the jar tightly and keep in a cool, dark place for 10 days. Shake the jar each day.

Place the sugar and water in a heavy based pan over a low heat, once the sugar has dissolved raise the heat to a boil and cook for a few minutes. Allow the sugar syrup to cool then add to the spirit and zest. Stir well to combine then return to a cool, dark place for a further week.

Strain and store in sterilised jars.

Sarah’s Lemon Ice-Cream

A Spring favorite. Sarah’s ice cream marries a pure lemon flavour with the richness of a traditional ice cream.

Makes almost 1L ice cream base

250ml milk

250ml double cream

Zest of 4 lemons

170g sugar

5 egg yolks

180ml lemon juice (4 lemons)

Combine the milk, cream and lemon zest into a pot over medium heat and bring to a simmer. Remove from the heat and allow to infuse for 15 minutes.

In a medium bowl, whisk the yolks and sugar until combined. Slowly pour the warm cream mixture over the yolks while whisking constantly. Return the custard to the pot and place over a low heat. Continuously stir until the custard begins to thicken slightly. Immediately remove from the heat and strain through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl. Allow to cool then cover and place in the fridge overnight.

When you are ready to churn the ice cream, remove the custard from the fridge and stir in the lemon juice. Churn in an ice cream machine according to the manufactures instructions. Enjoy the ice cream soft out of the machine, or transfer to an airtight container and store in the freezer.

N.B. Top Image, Eric Wolfinger for Manresa: An Edible Reflection

‘We’re getting married,’ begins Jane Scotter, as she explains the new partnership between her farm, Fern Verrow, and Spring. She doesn’t say it flippantly; instead, almost solemnly with a hint of nerves yet excitement in her voice. Scotter has real reason for mixed feelings and heightened emotions. For almost 20 years at Fern Verrow, she and her partner, Harry Astley, have had fidelity, only to growing superlative fruits and vegetables. And it is that uncompromising dedication to the quality of their produce that has continued to build their singular reputation with the passage of each season.

Many Londoners know the duo from their stall at Spa Terminus, where each week, until recently, they displayed the best of their harvest from the 300 varieties grown on the 16-acre farm in Herefordshire. It is a farm stall that stood out in the city. Produce with roots bared and stalks in tact, sometimes with blemishes and often irregularities. Picked in exactly the right moment, at Fern Verrow something might appear one week then disappear next, perhaps to reemerge the following year but perhaps not. Dictated not by demand but the seasons, taste and Mother Nature, it was a challenging but beguiling destination for chefs and cooks alike. It was this approach that first attracted Skye and the Spring team to the farmers.

‘In the summer of 2014, just prior to the restaurant I went to work at Chez Panisse,’ says Skye. ‘I was always curious about their exclusive relationship with Cannard Farm and I wanted to know how it really worked.’ In a time when California was not the idyll of organic and local agriculture that it has become, Chez Panisse chef/owner Alice Waters struggled to find truly seasonal fruits and vegetables that were full of flavour to serve at her fledgling restaurant. The struggle in the early days to grow the kind of ingredients she had fallen in love with in France was genuine, even leading to a period of time where Waters dug up her own backyard to plant lettuces to serve in what would become the restaurant’s hallmark salads. That naive approach was never going to be sustainable beyond a few years. It was her businessman father, concerned more with financial security and a supply chain than taste, who first suggested that the restaurant find one farm that could grow the bulk of what they needed. ‘He was insistent that we find a farm that we could grow together with, one that would be reliable in supplying us,’ says Waters. ‘And of course, I was more taken with the romance of Chez Panisse having its own farm than the realities of what that would mean.’

There were reasons that restaurants had either abandoned exclusive connections with particular farms or had placed it in the too-hard basket. Beyond disease, drought, blight, floods and other natural phenomena, there was also the cost. ‘The first thing that people say to me when they hear that we have our own farm is, “You must save so much money,”’ David Kinch says mockingly in reference to his restaurant Manresa’s famously symbiotic relationship with Love Apple Farms in Santa Cruz. ‘If only! Truly, I think it costs us three times as much,’ he adds. ‘When you come into this type of arrangement, you aren’t just buying the best of the harvest, you are taking it all, and I mean everything and everyone associated with the entire operation.’ However, Kinch isn’t griping – he wouldn’t have it any other way. ‘We aren’t making a statement about local, it is about taste and creating food that tastes of where we are in the world, something that we hope is truly special,’ he says pointedly. Over time, he and farmer Cynthia Sandberg have forged a working relationship that is at times fraught and yet has become tremendously fruitful. Manresa has become famous, arguably because of its relationship with the farm – a creative gauntlet run that has seen them come out the other side together and praised as helping to redefine California cuisine. Speaking at the international food symposium MAD 2013, Sandberg and Kinch talked openly about the ups and downs of the partnership, its very real financial implications and often intractable obstacles, and even of divorce. ‘We were having a tomato dinner in a few days and then the crop gets wiped out. At that point I was nearly done,’ says Kinch. However they continued to work through the challenges and ups and downs even through the fire that closed the restaurant for a length of time.

‘Coming into this agreement with Skye and Spring requires a great deal of trust on both sides,’ says Harry Astley of Fern Verrow. ‘We could only work with someone who really appreciated and respected what we help to coax out of the ground. Skye has that.’

From this month, after a year of flirtation and courtship, Fern Verrow will grow for Spring exclusively. ‘It is a dream for farmers to know what we grow will be bought and transformed in a beautiful way,’ says Scotter. Spring will come to rely nearly entirely on the work of Jane, Harry and Mother Nature. But still the question remains: why jump in feet-first and take what seems like a giant risk with so many uncontrollable and challenging variables? ‘It is a leap of faith, that’s true,’ says Skye, ‘but for the kitchen to have the ability to collaborate on what is grown on the farm and to really play a part in the provenance of the food, that is actually more control and a beautiful opportunity.’

There is no textbook or manual on how to negotiate how a farm and restaurant enter into this kind of relationship. Like a marriage, it is about the two coming together around a mutual goal. It is certain, however, that there would be no Chez Panisse without the marriage of Alice Waters and Bob Cannard, nor a Manresa without Love Apple. While a farm and restaurant exclusive relationship has yet to be achieved in the UK, the hope is that Fern Verrow and Spring become a true partnership, bringing to life the subtle nuances of growing potential and giving one another security and inspiration. As they say: for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do them part. Amen to that.

When we eat something remarkable all of our senses are engaged, when that taste occurs in a distinct place and time of our lives the memory of that food and the feelings it conjures becomes imprinted on our DNA. It is a universal phenomenon yet it is unique to every human being.

This second issue of Scroll explores the extraordinary poetry and visceral power of the memory of taste. Ask anyone to recall their most vivid food recollection and guaranteed it will provide insight into who they are and where they come from. So on that note, we have asked a collection of the most intriguing people we know, from all over the world and from various walks of life, to share their most vivid food memory. We gave no constraints but curiously each writer recalled their childhood and each a simple taste sensation.

As a food writer, my bread and butter is recalling in detail what I ate and so it was a delight to ask others to do the same. Skye and I are both so honoured that each of these individuals took the time to share with us a memory that has stayed with them and become part of their extraordinary lives.

Enjoy.

David Prior

Gilbert Pilgram – Chef and co-owner of Zuni Café, San Francisco

As gifted a raconteur as he is restaurateur, in recent years the charismatic co-owner of Zuni Café has admirably steered the San Franciso institution through the keenly felt passing of its beloved chef Judy Rodgers with his optimism, wicked humor and singular style. They are traits that he was already developing as a boy in the markets of Mexico City…

Lilia, my grandmother, was an extraordinary cook. My passion for cooking came from her. She was also an avid shopper. My passion for shopping came from her too.

I grew up in Mexico City. In the mid-’60s, farmers’ markets sprouted all over the city. Looking back, this was clearly a homegrown response to the supermercados.My grandmother could not accept the new order. Supermarkets were not her thing. I remember being a bit embarrassed that we would shop at the tianguis, as the farmers’ markets are called in Mexico. Once I was of a porter’s age, she would always bring me to carry the bolsas del mercado. Lilia knew all the vendors by name and that every farmer had a specialty – nopales from a lady on Fridays, chickens from a handsome butcher in Coyoacán, and bolillos after 4.30pm. This is how I fell in love with mangoes – still my favourite fruit.

Americans love peaches because they have not had a good mango. Once you do, you are hooked. Mangoes introduced me to the seasons. I could only get mangoes in spring and summer. At the tianguis, you could buy them skewered on a wooden stick and topped with salt, chilli and freshly squeezed lime juice.

Mango farmers had different specialities. Manila and petacon being the predominant varieties. I liked petacon. Being able to say its name made me feel grown-up. Petacon is slang for big buttocks in Mexican Spanish. It gave me giggly pleasure to be able to order a mango petacon. I could say that forbidden word without a reprimand and be rewarded with a big mango that I could eat – slobbering it all over myself – and then gladly carry 10 more kilos home to enjoy. Lilia caught on to this. She could shop to her heart’s content and load her personal Sherpa with all she wanted, as long as she bribed me with a juicy, big-ass mango!

Anjelica Huston – Oscar winning actress, fashion model-muse and author

When we talk about extraordinary lives it almost goes without saying that few have lived a more remarkable one than Anjelica. Instantly recognizable the world over, she has lived her entire life under the pressure of the public spotlight and in the company of outsized personalities yet she has always remained a total original. Here the oscar winning actress and muse to many celebrates the bounty of her Irish upbringing.

In Clarinbridge, a small coastal village on the west coast of Ireland, some 20 kilometers from where I grew up, the oysters were picked from the sea outside the back door of Paddy Burke’s bar and lounge. Beginning in September, any month with an ‘r’ was open oyster season, and whenever Dad would come home for vacations from his work abroad as a film director, there were excursions to Paddy Burke’s, which lasted well throughout April. Visitors and houseguests, alighting from several cars and station wagons, entered through a red door on the bayside of the old bridge, where the ice-cold Atlantic lapped at the limestone, the limpets sticking fast to the rocks buried in brown seaweed.

When you entered Paddy Burke’s, the light shifted to darkness and amber under a low ceiling. A red curtain that divided the bar from the kitchen was drawn to one side, as Paddy Burke himself emerged from the background into the lounge, laughing and telling jokes and flattering my father. Then my brother Tony and I would go to the bar to watch Johnny shuck oysters. He was supposed to be the fastest oyster shucker in the world, and had won trophies in America. But I was six years old and didn’t really understand oysters. They were supposed to be alive, and at Paddy Burke’s, the oysters actually wriggled when you squeezed lemon on them, which worried me no end.

But what was best of all at Paddy Burke’s was the smoked salmon; fresh from Lough Corrib, deep pink and sliced like tissue paper, with capers on sliced soda bread made with whole wheat and buttermilk, lightly toasted and dripping with fresh Irish-creamery butter.

Robert Fox – Legendary British theatre and film producer

Bob is the very best of eating companions. Not only does he order well, he’s also generous conversationalist who is content to let others tell their stories. That shouldn’t come as a surprise having helped bring to life some of the greatest storytelling of our age including many of David Hare’s plays and films The Hours, Notes on a Scandal and Iris. Here he tells the tale of his favourite jam roly-poly boiled pudding.

My family were lucky in that we had two wonderful sisters who worked for us – Alice, who was our cook, and Edie, her sister, who did all our washing and mending and the such. But it was Edie who made my favourite jam roly-poly boiled pudding better than Alice. I remember them both being very competitive as to who made it best, but when it came to the crunch, it was Edie. When she pulled the pudding out of the boiling pan – in its white cloth, tied at both ends with string – it would roll out with none of the suet sticking to the side. I would be there with my bowl and spoon ready for the first slice, which I would cover with fresh cream from the dairy in our village, owned by Mr Gubbins. Heaven.

David Pocock – Rugby Union player, former Captain of the Australian Wallabies and activist

David Pocock is full of surprises, a star rugby player who is also an unlikely champion of the environment and social justice. Not content to revel in sporting adulation, Pocock uses his powerful platform to upend stereotypes and provoke discussion in the most articulate, steady and thoughtful way. Here he also reveals a talent for food writing, illuminating below the diversity of mangoes in his childhood home of Zimbabwe.

November in Zimbabwe and the first mangoes of the season on my grandfather’s nearby citrus farm were always greeted with a lot of excitement. We farmed about five hours away on a mixed-crop farm, but were often at my grandfather’s for holidays, or they would send boxes of mangoes and other citrus to us.

The first mangoes to ripen were the Haden – its deep-yellow with red-crimson blush signalling the start of mango season. Then the sort-of-Haden-but-not-quite-as-nice Zill and Tommy Atkins would start to ripen in December. Then, in January, when we were back on the farm and back at school, boxes of huge, green-turning-yellow Kent would arrive. The Kent always looked like too much until you started eating it and then it definitely was not. Looking back, it was a great lesson in seasonality. By spring we couldn’t wait for mangoes, and very specifically we couldn’t wait for Hadens.

As a 10-year-old, with the vast array of mangoes that were a part of my life – growing, picking, processing, boxing – I knew a mango wasn’t just a mango. Each variety seemed so different, so unique, so special. Though you’d never eat a Tommy Atkins if there were any other mangoes around, in its favour, it stored for longer than the others, so was better to take home from the citrus farm for the weeks ahead.

The taste of looming summer will now forever be marked for me by the memory of those first tastes of the almighty Haden – and no other mango will ever quite hit the spot.

Mary McCartney – Photographer

A gifted photographer with an eye for the beauty of the everyday, Mary McCartney inherited more than just her talent from her famous parents Paul and Linda, she also adopted a food philosophy that was before its time. From a family of vegetarians, here she shares the promise of a decadent cheese soufflé rising in the oven and almost ready to be shared.

If my mum and I could sit down now and say what was our favourite dish of all time, it would almost certainly be a cheese soufflé. She used to make it for me, I used to make it for her. It’s super impressive with massive taste and satisfaction factor but, actually, is far simpler to make than you would ever think. To this day, when I look through the oven door, hoping that the soufflé is doing what I want it to do, there is always a smile on my face as those memories of my mum come flooding back.

Jane Scotter – Author and co-founder of biodynamic farm Fern Verrow

Those familiar with the food of Spring are also familiar with the produce of the pioneering biodynamic farmer, Jane Scotter. She coaxes the very best of the English growing seasons on her farm Fern Verrow for the kitchen to work with each day. Here she reflects on a red pan that has travelled with her through life and its many meals.

There is a red, heavy-based pan in my kitchen. I use it nearly every day. It is older than I am. It is the pan that my parents always took on our annual family camping holidays through France and Italy. My father and mother loved good food, not only to eat, but as a hobby. We would shop at markets every day. I remember staring at the women at the stalls, in their colourful Provençal tabliers, their weather-beaten faces reflecting the tales of their toil. The vegetables and fruit glowed with vigour and true quality. With heavy bags we returned to our campsite and cooked our lunch and supper in the red pan.

I know what a fresh courgette should look like, and from the gloss and smell of its skin, I know what it will taste like. The memories of those markets, the people selling their food those 40-plus years ago, that is me now! I am your contemporary peasant farmer. The red pan in my kitchen is a reminder of what I am striving to achieve in my growing, in partnership with my farm, the soil and the elements.

Solange Azagury-Partridge – Jeweller

As vibrant, vivid and worldly as her idiosyncratic jewellery, the celebrated designer recalls her Moroccan heritage, the visceral fragrance of cooked orange and quite literally growing up in the kitchen.

My grandmother came to live with us when I was a little girl. We only had two bedrooms, so my father built me a tiny room in the corner of the kitchen. It was big enough for my bed and not much else. And I loved it. There was a little window that overlooked the top of the fridge and the kitchen sink.

My grandmother, who I was named after and who I loved more than anyone, was always cooking.

I used to love it when she made confit oranges – a real Moroccan speciality and something we always had at Passover. We still do. I would help her scrape and scour the oranges – through my window, of course – and as I got older she let me cut the orange sections. We’d fill the pan with water, pour in the bags of sugar and the cinnamon sticks, and start boiling it all up. She’d hold me up and let me stir the pot. It would take hours to reduce and caramelise.

Finally, we’d take the oranges out and flatten them onto a plate. Once they’d cooled down, she would cut me the first piece. Sometimes we’d dip them in chocolate. Also, she was deaf and used to call me Zorange. So oranges, the smell and flavour, fresh or confit, are inextricably linked to my kind and beautiful grandma.

Skye Gyngell – Chef and owner of Spring

Those that know Skye and her cooking know that it is layered with the experiences of her life. In the composition of her food, Skye’s rule breaking ‘Australianess’ is never far from the surface, so too the influences she has taken from time in Italy and France and then of course her total embrace of England and its produce. Skye remembers the abundance of her grandparent’s tree and her subsequent lifelong pursuit of the mercurial mulberry.

My grandparents lived in a pale-grey weatherboard house in Hunters Hill, Sydney. The front of the house facing the street always felt gloomy, like most of the rooms inside the small home, where my father was raised. The back of the house, in stark contrast, with its large, scruffy lawn, was always bathed in light and warm sunshine. There was a big verandah encased in a fly screen that housed an old cane sofa and a couple of tatty armchairs – the part of the house I remember most vividly – where we would sit with our grandparents, drinking lemonade, when we came to visit. I loved both my grandparents, but my grandmother was rather stern and imperious, with a large beak for a nose and delusions of grandeur. I was always slightly wary of her. My grandfather, in contrast, was small, soft, quiet, and known as papa Gyngell. As children, we loved spending time with him in the garden.

At the end of the garden, by the old garage, was a large and very old mulberry tree. During the summer months, when the tree was heavy and laden with fruit – the grass black underneath its feet – we used to collect the ripe, plump, inky fruit and eat them in handfuls, sitting beneath its boughs. In the winter, we kept silkworms in shoeboxes studded with holes, and fed them mulberry leaves. That mulberry tree is probably one of my most vivid memories of my grandparents’ place. That and Sunday-night supper, which was always the same: a leg of lamb and roasted pumpkin over cooked peas, and a pavlova to finish, smothered in fresh passionfruit, achingly sweet and sharp at the same time.

Over the years, more memories of mulberries have been added too. Picking them from the top of a friend’s tree one summer’s evening, with Rose Gray swinging from the very top of a ladder. They completed perfectly a simple meal of clams with courgettes and wild fennel leaves – a very happy night surrounded by good friends and happy children. Or the tree we planted ceremoniously one year at Petersham Nurseries with great excitement and hope for the ice-cream that we dreamed of making, only to discover that we had bought the variety that didn’t bear fruit!!

Each year, I still look forward to the arrival of mulberries, which are almost impossible to buy from any supplier, as they are too delicate to be purchased commercially. I must seek out a generous friend in order to get any supply at all – often meagre – but find them I must, for I am inextricably drawn to them, their flavour so bound up in memories of happy days past!

Welcome to Scroll – a monthly missive from the world of Spring, written by David Prior, my friend and now my collaborator. David and I met at the first Ballymaloe Literary Festival several years ago. Soon after he wrote a number of magazine and newspaper pieces about the long road that led to the opening of the restaurant and I immediately loved and admired his taste and strong voice.

However, in the time that we have known each other, we have realised that we share more than just having both grown up in Australia. (Although it must be said that this is an important bond, swooning as we do in unison, ‘Mangoes at Christmas!’) More than that, we both share a vision; one that sees food as central to our culture and identity, and the issues that surround its production and consumption as being vital to the planet’s future.

Put simply, we believe that food matters matter. It is our belief that chefs and restaurateurs, as custodians of produce have an opportunity, perhaps even a responsibility, to feed people food and ideas. In opening Spring, my greatest hope is that the restaurant’s world might extend beyond the walls of our home at Somerset House. That there might be a way to inspire, delight, fascinate and nourish inside the dining room and out.

As we have now arrived in spring, our namesake season, we thought it fitting to launch Scroll as a first step towards sharing our ideas, loves and philosophy with you. Given our neighbours at Somerset House are galleries, arts companies and theatres, we thought it apt that the first issue explores the rarely considered role of food in a cultural institution. I hope you enjoy Scroll as much as David and I enjoy dreaming it up each month.

Skye

The Art of Eating

‘Cultural institutions are sites of incredible freedom in our society. They offer one of the few places where we can come together and disagree. Similarly, the cooking and effort put into making food is a gesture of generosity and hospitality; it amplifies social relations – intimate as well as global. We should think of the food that we enjoy in a cultural institution with the same attention that we think of the great works of art within its halls.’
Olafur Eliasson

Each day in the Berlin studio of the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, his entire team of 90 artists, architects, craftsmen and art historians sit down to a generous shared lunch. Everything is made from scratch and in-house, and the long table where the group sits takes pride of place in the centre of the space. The buzz of the open kitchen integrates seamlessly into the hum of life at the studio, and the cooks’ work is almost interchangeable with the artists’.

The daily meal at Studio Eliasson has become more than just a moment to eat; over time evolving into a forum where ideas are discussed, advanced and subsequently brought to life. The lunch and the rituals that surround it are fuel to their creative fire. Like artists across many disciplines, Eliasson understands that the act of eating together is a powerful expression of culture and connection. However, somewhat ironically, his holistic approach to food is rarely emulated in the institutions where his dramatic and life-affirming works are installed.

Typically, the most forgettable element of a visit to any given gallery, theatre or cultural landmark has been the food experience. A utilitarian cafeteria hidden away in the basement, a snack bar serving junk in the corner or even a neon-lit, fast-food outlet are the options that have been most widely available. Not limited to one particular institution, city or country, it is standard worldwide. Ironically, in the places that celebrate the beauty and diversity of our culture, food is often, at best, a mediocre afterthought, and at worst, a cynical, fast-food cash cow.

It is hard to pinpoint exactly why this has occurred. Is it a government mandate that they should aim to please all (in reality pleasing no one)? Or perhaps cash-strapped arts organisations see the promise of high returns from large, generic outfits as a way to bolster their coffers? Either way, the lack of curation by cultural institutions when it comes to catering has, however obliquely, sent the message that food experience is entirely removed from their artistic aspirations and mission of excellence.

Crucially, it now also has the effect of driving people away from spending more time in the spaces, as well as, more damagingly, telling us that food is unimportant to culture. This is a topic rarely considered, but it is one worth contemplating and one that is only now beginning to be recognised as a problem and future challenge for cultural institutions around the world.

We only need to look below the Louvre to witness how drastic the contradiction can be. Right there at the historic nexus of art and gastronomy, where once there could have been a food offering that celebrated the richness of French culture – perhaps a range from haute cuisine to democratic crepes – there is instead Starbucks and McDonald’s. The values of the institution eroded from within.

‘I wanted to plant a vegetable garden in the Tuileries,’ says Alice Waters of her ill-fated proposal in the ’90s to open a restaurant at the Louvre. It is little known, but Waters, of California’s seminal Chez Panisse, was invited to propose a restaurant in the most iconic of all iconic institutions. Her expansive vision was to create ‘a platform, an exhibit, a conservatory and a laboratory that would connect visitors to real, simple food’. It would be an installation in the form of a restaurant that breathed new life into the underutilised public space and provided a venue for patrons from all walks of life to continue the cultural conversation around the table. Put simply, she hoped the restaurant would ‘curate food like the gallery curated art’.

It was never to be, and Waters is not alone among chefs and restaurateurs whose ambitions to revolutionise food in a cultural institution have been stymied. Many have either been defeated by restrictions or seen their projects fail before they even began. ‘Arts administrators have been historically unwilling to take the same calculated risks with food that they take on their stages and on their walls’ says Waters.

While their main responsibility should always be to support their art and artists first, cultural institutions are now missing an opportunity for a deeper, more meaningful engagement by not integrating food offerings that are complementary to their spaces and programming.

At this moment in time, people are craving a connection beyond the digital, and more and more we make up for that by eating in restaurants and gathering together around food. This generation of younger diners now go out for a meal like the generation before them went to the movies or to see a show. And in just about every vibrant neighbourhood in every city, the focus of life is now engaged around little restaurants, markets, coffee carts and small bars. It is a phenomenon that has been bypassing our great public spaces, but by supporting and even subsidising venues that allow for people to gather to meet, linger, contemplate, argue and dream, then the institution, and our culture, is enriched.

However, there are signs that this cultural contradiction has begun to be corrected. There are few restaurant spaces anywhere that warrant the overused description ‘iconic’, but Bennelong at the Sydney Opera House is one of them. A miniature of the larger building, the space is not only one of the prime viewing platforms of the concrete ribs, towering blades and slanted windows of Jørn Utzon’s design, but also of Sydney itself. However, it is also a room that has proven notoriously challenging for both the administrators responsible with overseeing it and the restaurateurs charged with breathing life into it.

Early in 2014, the Sydney Opera House announced a tender process for the Bennelong space. The process divided Sydney, recriminations abounded and opinions were weighed in from every quarter. A process that was mishandled in the most public way nevertheless prompted important and, until now, rare discussion about what is indeed the role of food in a cultural institution.

Fate intervened on the first tender and forced the Sydney Opera House Board to rethink what this space could and should be. The answer was clear: a restaurant in the symbol of modern Australia, at the heart and inside the belly of its culture, should be a stage for the best of its food culture too. What will eventually go into that space is not precisely clear just now, but that the important question has been asked is an important step.

Perhaps it’s worth asking too if the often empty, glorious forecourt of Somerset House might one day play host to the best of not only the English fashion seasons, but the country’s best seasonal produce too. A weekly Somerset House Farmer’s Market? Now there is some food for thought.

David Prior