Category: Food

It’s been a while since I’ve written and published anything on this site. 2022 ended up being a busy year, balancing two jobs, enjoying the benefits of a renewed post-pandemic social life, all whilst continuing my Italian life experiment living in Bari in Puglia, Southern Italy. I took off for an extended period of travel in late-August, beginning with Vietnam and then moving onto Cambodia, Thailand and Laos, before deciding to fly over to North-East India to spend some time with family on my paternal grandmother’s side in Shillong, Meghalaya. I’ve been here since 24th October and as I’m lucky enough to be able to continue working remotely from here, am likely to remain in India until mid-April 2023.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been ruminating about the significance of the name ‘The 2i’s’ (most familiar in modern pop culture as the name of an influential Soho coffee house-turned-music venue). Below is something of a sprawling, stream-of-consciousness piece of writing that looks back at my experiences over these past three years of living overseas, namely the curious similarities between India and Italy and what I’ve learned from the time I’ve spent in these countries. Much of this article flowed out of me one afternoon over numerous cups of coffee whilst sat on the balcony of Café Shillong in Laitumkhrah, Shillong. I’ve revisited and wordsmithed it a couple of times so hopefully it now resembles something coherent…

1.) The 2i’s. The Soho coffee bar that in the 1950s and ’60s became the birthplace of rock ‘n’ roll and the modern popular music industry as we know it today.

2.) The 2i’s. Italy and India. The two countries where I’ve decided to spend the majority of my time over these past three years.

3.) The 2i’s. The twins representing my astrological sign, Gemini. Geminis are said to have two sides to them but don’t we all? It’s not something I’ve paid a huge amount of attention to in the past but in India where I’m currently residing, people take astrology very seriously and prospective spouses are even matched, based on birth charts and compatibility readings.

**1.) The 2i’s Coffee Bar, Soho, London**

A coffee bar that was located in the basement of 59 Old Compton Street in the heart of London’s Soho, and as the Westminster City Council blue plaque outside it now proclaims, “the birthplace of rock ‘n’ roll’ and the modern popular music industry”. The likes of Cliff Richard, Hank Marvin, Tommy Steele, Adam Faith and Joe Brown were all discovered performing here and despite only having a standing capacity of 20, The 2i’s is arguably the most influential British music venue of the 20^th century.

The bar was the inspiration behind Liverpool’s Casbah Coffee Club, which played a key role in the development of an early line-up of The Beatles, and Bruno Koschmider, the manager of Hamburg’s Kaiserkeller visited the bar in 1960 to scout out British musicians to play at his venue. Derry and The Seniors were one of the groups he spotted and Allan Williams, who looked after them was also the first manager of The Beatles and arranged for them to play a run of shows in Hamburg. The rest is history…

The 2i’s, 59 Old Compton Street. Soho, London.

The 2i’s’ name derived from the surname of its first owners, brothers Freddie and Sammy Irani and although it closed in 1970, the legacy it created lives on. Serendipitously, my final PR Director job before leaving London in 2019 was for a company based at 58 Old Compton Street, opposite the site of The 2i’s (it’s now home to Poppie’s Fish & Chips, although the rock and roll-themed basement seating area pays homage to its musical past). Music was pivotal in my formative years (particularly that of an off-kilter or rebellious nature), gave me an identity and the significance of working so close to a such revered part of pop music heritage was not lost on me.

**2.) The 2i’s; Italy and India**

Some people in life are destined to be seekers. Sal Paradise in Jack Kerouc’s ‘On The Road’ was one (not to mention Kerouac himself), as was Dorothy in ‘The Wizard of Oz’. Some even say that Elvis was a seeker and spent his life searching for a deeper meaning (his former wife Priscilla described him as “a searcher”). According to literary critic Dr A.J. Dranathi, seekers are individuals “questing for love, adventure, redemption and enlightenment” or to quote Holisticism.com, “may be highly-intuitive and feel guided to certain ideas or topics”.

The unlikely trio of Jack Kerouac, The Wizard of Oz’s Dorothy Gale and Elvis Presley.

When I left London three years ago, I was naturally and instinctively drawn to Italy and India. India was the first place I took off to, with my flight to Mumbai touching down in the early hours of 13^th November 2019. Italy was then where I decided to temporarily adopt as home for the next two years, relocating to Bari in the South of the country in early January 2020.

A question I get asked a lot is “why Italy?” or “why India?”. My standard reply is that I have family in India on my grandmother’s side and that Italy was far enough away from Britain for a change but near enough to easily return if I needed to. However, looking a little deeper, the similarities between Italy and India are pronounced.

Firstly, in both countries, food is seen as sacrosanct. Both cultures greet guests with food as a way of expressing warmth and hospitality and meal times are seen as sacred and are not to be interfered with. The concept of grabbing a quick bit to eat for lunch or eating at your desk doesn’t exist in Italy (as is reflected by the 1.30pm – 5pm siesta or pisolino) and in India it’s very much the same. I’ve been scolded by Italians via Instagram for changing an ingredient or improvising on one of their revered traditional dishes and in both countries, each region has its own distinctive food culture, with dishes often being unrecognisable to neighbouring states. For example, Khasi food in Meghalaya tends to be milder than in the rest of India, whilst in Italy, Basilicata and Calabria in the South are the only regions that use chilli in their cooking. Both countries eat dinner late too; in Italy don’t even think about sitting down in a restaurant before 8.30pm and in India I’ve noticed that many families eat late in the evening as their final activity of the day, just prior to going to bed.

An Italian family in the Abruzzo region and an Indian family in West Bengal tucking in for lunch. Meal times are seen as sacred in both countries.

Family and community are also crucial to Indians and Italians too. I’ve written about this before, but in a way that’s very different to modern British and American society, many generations will live together under the same roof, or in the same complex or compound. Children, whilst raised by their parents, will often grow up under the watchful gaze of grandparents, aunts, uncles, great aunts, older cousins and so on. In many respects, it’s a much more natural way to be, with family members freely popping in and out of each other’s homes on a daily basis, rather than planning lengthier overnight, yet more sporadic visits.

I write this from the balcony of Café Shillong in Laitumkhrah, Shillong, whilst an 8,000-person-strong crowd marches along the street below me for the annual Roman Catholic Eucharistic procession. Religion plays a huge role in daily life in both Italy and India and surprisingly to many, the North-East Indian state of Meghalaya where my family resides, is predominantly Christian. Processions, rituals and regular religious holidays are recognised and respected as days of rest, with very few shops open after lunch and Sundays are strictly reserved by many families for church, with the large-scale events and concerts prohibited by the authorities.

The annual Roman Catholic Eucharistic procession (and much of this article coming together), Laitumkhrah, Shillong. November 2022.

The role that religion plays in providing a sense of community cannot be underestimated. On my tiny street in the Madonnella quarter of Bari, a shrine to Saint Antonio of Padua is lovingly cared-for and provides a focal point for the street’s residents, old and young alike. On various saint days, neighbours will gather next to the statuette for small services, saying prayers and singing hymns. Notably, many of the residents who take part in these ceremonies are elderly widows, emphasising the importance of the community aspect.

It’s not always as wholesome though; last summer the shrine provided me with one of the most enduring depictions of daily existence in inner city Bari. On a Saturday afternoon, one of the flats on the street was busted in a drug raid. As the plain clothes undercover police and their trusty Alsatian ransacked the building, the elderly ladies on the other side of the street were quietly beginning their service in reverence to Saint Antonio. The image of the raid and the service taking place simultaneously and metres away from each other entirely sums up my experience of life in Southern Italy. Religion and criminality co-existing side-by-side with nonnas and clan foot soldiers going about their daily business but with a mutual respect and understanding.

The shrine to Saint Antonio at various points throughout the year (Madonnella, Bari). In the final photo, if you squint through the balcony railings, you can just about see the police raid taking place to the right, whilst the Saint Antonio’s devotees prepare for their ceremony to the left.

Religion aside, both countries seems to be a lot less “I”-focussed than some of the more overtly capitalistic countries and despite the right-wing governments currently in power, at a personal level, the wider community is more important than the individual. News travels fast and births, deaths and marriages are celebrated and commemorated by the whole community. In Bari, I witnessed my entire street clapping and shouting neighbourly cries of “ciao!” as an elderly lady was loaded into an ambulance by boiler-suited paramedics during the peak of the first Covid crisis. Luckily, she survived and returned to the street a few weeks later. Italian births are celebrated by the placement of coloured ribbons on the front door of the family home and deaths are marked equally publically with large billboard-style posters (often with photo) being put up outside the home of the deceased or in the town square.

In Shillong, a few weeks ago, I attended a funereal gathering at the home of a Khasi lady who had recently passed away. I’m not exaggerating when I say that there were hundreds paying their respects. Whilst respectful, the mood wasn’t entirely sombre either with plates of Khasi food being served up by helpful neighbours, the younger members of the family of the deceased running around tirelessly serving tea and biscuits, not to mention the large groups of local men who had gathered, smoking cigarettes and chewing kwai (betel nut).

Apparently in Shillong, it’s customary to hold large gatherings like this after a death, and for three days after the passing, the family feel it is their duty to open the doors of their home to whoever wishes to pay their respects. Only a few days ago, I attended the funeral of a much-loved teacher and college owner in the town of Nongpoh, 50 kilometres away from Shillong. The service was attended by hundreds and lasted for nearly five hours with several eulogies from friends, family members and colleagues, biblical readings and songs. In some ways, funerals here are less formal affairs than in Europe and whoever would like to say a few words about the deceased is strongly encouraged to, regardless of whether they are on the official order-of-ceremony or not.

I gave myself two years (and extended it to three years, due to Covid) for this period of ever-so-slightly transient, soul-searching travel to last for. Whatever this next chapter holds, the impact of living in Italy and spending an extended period of time in India will stay with me a very long time, in particular the emphasis both cultures place on community and family.

**3.) The 2i’s; the supposed split personality of a Gemini**

This talk of religion and the holistic benefits of community leads me nicely to a word about spirituality.

Astrology is something I’ve always taken with a pinch of salt, however in some Indian cultures it’s taken extremely seriously indeed. I had the realisation a few months ago in Italy, that ‘The 2i’s’ were quite literally the symbol of my star sign; the twins of Gemini. It is said that Geminis have two markedly different sides to them and that the twins represent this. I would argue that most people do, however, I have realised that whilst I’m naturally open and extrovert and am someone who enjoys chatting to strangers and gets energy from being with others, there is also another side of me that is introspective, looking for meaning or significance in everything and is actually quite shy in certain situations. With friends (or strangers) in a pub or a café I can be a picture of sociability but put me in an institutionalised setting like the staffroom or a networking event and sometimes I can clam up and will want to get out of there as soon as politely possible.

Whatever our thoughts about astrology, a tradition that really stood out to me in Vietnam was the worship of ancestors. In many Vietnamese homes and offices, a simple shrine will be made with photos of deceased loved ones and often some burning incense and candles, as well as gifts of fruit and sweets. Whilst rooted in ancient folk beliefs, the tradition almost seems devoid of organised religion and leaning more to humanism and the worship of nature (in many ways, humans being no different to other animals, eventually returning to nature and the earth). The practice of ancestor worship is grounded in the Vietnamese beliefs that the past and present exist simultaneously and that the actions in our lives will directly affects the lives of our future descendants.

The twins of Gemini depicted in the 14th century Arabic astrological ‘Book of Wonders’, a typical ancestral shrine in Hanoi, Vietnam and Acharn Helen Jandamit.

In October in Bangkok, Thailand I spent 10 hours in the company of Helen Jandamit, a Vipassana meditation (or “insight meditation”) acharn at her home in the Chatuchak district of the city. Helen was originally raised in Wimbledon, South London but moved to Bangkok to settle with her late Thai husband Vorasak. She had unknowingly started practising meditation aged five, whilst sitting under a folding table in her family home and focusing her attention intensely on a crack of sunlight, shining through a gap between the pieces of wood. For the past 40 years, Helen has dedicated her life to teaching Vipassana meditation, was ordained by the Mook Rim Society (Korean Zen) for 11 years and has worked with both the Young Buddhists Association of Thailand and the Mahachulalongkorn Buddhist University.

Helen taught me the main core principles of Buddhism’s ‘Middle Way’ or ‘Noble Eightfold Path’ and tellingly, explained that practising Buddhists are encouraged to teach others about what they have learned on their journey and that this is one of the core foundations of the religion. We then spent some time practising Vipassana walking and sitting meditation.

*An overview of ‘The Middle Way’. Interestingly, having the ‘right livelihood’ (i.e. a job that is ethical and makes a difference to society) is a key belief for practising Buddhists.*

It took some time for us to warm up, but eventually Helen and I were chatting away about her journey, what had brought me to South-East Asia and her firm opinion that many educational organisations around the world today are failing students by neglecting to teach them about looking after their mental health and wellbeing. “Too many of us are sleepwalking through our lives”, she went onto explain.

The meditation itself was a challenge, particularly at the beginning (the walking meditation with the exaggerated foot movements and “intention statements” was hard to get used to). However, towards the end of the day, things got a little easier and during the seated meditation practice (during which the words “rising” and “falling” are repeated silently in your mind), I began to see closed-eye patterns and blue-tinted visuals and emerged from the sessions feeling refreshed.

Helen explained that 30 minutes of focused meditation is apparently worth the equivalent of three hours’ sleep, in terms of its restorative effects. She also seemed strangely touched when I asked her what emotions or sensations she had felt during our meditation session. “Nobody’s ever asked me that before”, she remarked. Helen runs the House of Dhamma meditation and healing centre in Chatuchak, Bangkok and more information is available here.

Three years ago, whilst staying at The Kokum Tree in Lonere, Maharashtra, I learned the basics of yoga one early morning with its co-owners Anuja and Sneha (two cousins who had left the corporate world of Mumbai to start an experiential homestay on their grandmother’s farm). Today there aren’t many days on which I don’t do my regular morning practice (although, in fairness, there isn’t a lot of stillness and it’s more of a workout / stretching exercise) and I’m eternally grateful to Anuja and Sneer for introducing me to yoga. Incorporating meditation into daily life has been more of a challenge since my time with Helen though. The ‘lizard’ part of my brain always seems to be naturally more inclined to fill moments of stillness with seven-minute workouts, responding to WhatsApp messages or emails or just doing something. It’s as if I’m fighting a sense of guilt for being lazy or not doing something. However, I am persevering.

The Kokum Tree homestay in Lonere, Maharashtra and its owners Anuja and Sneha with grandmother Aaji and Dr. Gabor Maté and his latest book, ‘The Myth of Normal’.

I’ve been listening to, and reading a lot of physician and renowned author Dr. Gabor Maté’s work recently and particularly, his pioneering work on childhood trauma, addiction and self-worth. Maté believes that up to 90 percent of us are addicts, as a result of the unhealed trauma wounds that we carry with us from our early development years (not just the big ‘T’ traumas such as abuse, neglect and death of a loved one but also the smaller ‘T’ traumas such as stress at home, bullying from peers and repeated harsh comments by well-meaning but emotionally blunt teachers). Whilst alcohol, drugs, gambling and sex are the obvious addictions, Maté claims that perfectionism, workaholicism and a “compulsion to do” are also hidden addictions and can often be just as damaging to our mental and physical health. This has only been exacerbated by the prevalence of smartphones and our age of increased hyper-connectivity.

Perhaps incorporating more time for stillness and as Helen Jandamit describes it, “bare awareness” is something to make a priority.

A final word from Kevin Parker

I first remember hearing Tame Impala’s ‘The Moment’ whilst driving a white Jeep Cherokee along Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles with my good mate Anna as company in August 2015. The song was a progression from the Australian band’s psychedelic garage rock roots and sounded both reflective and futuristic, with an echoed chorus refrain of “it’s getting closer”. The track immediately stood out to me and seven years on, the song still kept rearing its head at various moments during my recent jaunt around Vietnam.

Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker later explained that he wrote ‘The Moment’ and the whole of the ‘Currents’ album whilst he was experiencing his ‘Saturn Return‘, a period of significant life transition that is said to occur around the ages of 29, 58 and 84 (the same time it takes for the planet to orbit the sun – every 29.5 years). Parker was resolute in his belief that this astrological phenomenon was one of the underlying reasons for the period of major change in his life and the resulting reflective nature of his work around this time.

After these three years overseas, am I any clearer about my purpose and the life I want to live in the future? It’s getting closer…

Plastic garden chairs; this season’s must-have dining room accessory

30 October 2021

Clive Drew

Alternative City Guide Food Living in Italy Travel No Comments

Whilst polished concrete, artfully distressed interiors and industrial chic are all the rage in London and New York, there is only really one de rigueur fixture that I’ve noticed in many of the best eateries in Southern Italy; white plastic garden chairs and tables. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that there appears to be a direct correlation between the restaurants that have these in their dining area and the tastiness of their food.

Pizzeria dei Platani, Laureto

In mid-September I was staying at the Masseria Fragnale in the hamlet of Laureto, just outside Fasano. The masseria is over 100 years old, was extensively renovated and extended in 2006, and is now run by a local family who have filled the place with tasteful antique furniture, including unusual four-poster beds, carved in India.

It was a few days of rest and relaxation ahead of the start of the school term; daily morning swims in the outdoor pool, taking my time absorbing Big Joanie frontwoman Stephanie Phillips’ book Why Solange Matters and then spending the afternoon driving through the more remote parts of the Pugliese countryside, stopping off at whichever cove happened to look particularly alluring.

After spending my first night exploring the delights of Fasano (the nearest reasonably-sized town to Masseria Fragnale), on the second evening I chose to stay local and see what Laureto had to offer. There was a rough and ready-looking braceria (barbeque joint) that I decided to swerve, before taking a punt on the unassuming Pizzeria dei Platani.

Pizzeria dei Platani’s non-nonsense dining area and a typical evening there.

You had to place your order through a service hatch leading directly into the kitchen and the menu immediately piqued my interest. Alongside the usual Margherita, Diavola, Capricciosa offerings was the ‘Leeds United’. For context; Laureto is 60 km south of Bari, 500 km from Rome and over 2,000 km from Leeds, West Yorkshire. I asked the chap serving me about the origins of this strangely-named pizza and he explained that his father spent some time living and working in Leeds (I’m guessing perhaps during Don Revie’s ‘Golden Years’) and that this pizza had been created to honour him. For some reason, I was wearing my Taranto FC 1927 / Birra Raffo shirt (a risky move in Barese / Leccese territory) and this led to us having a decent chat about football. Strangely, it turned out that FC Taranto’s current manager Davide Pedone is actually from Laureto.

I paid the princely sum of €6 for the pizza and a cold Peroni and when it arrived it did not disappoint. The pizza came topped with burrata, crushed pistachios and red onions and was incredibly moist and succulent. The guy who served me even came over to make sure it was ok; this was a place that clearly took pride in their food. Not the healthiest of dinner choices but then again, the kilometre I was swimming every morning in the masseria’s piscina probably just about worked off the calories.

Masseria Fragnale. Laureto, Puglia.

Pizzeria dei Platani’s dining area was covered but with open sides and the ubiquitous TVs dotted around showing the Netherlands vs Turkey World Cup Qualifier game (even the higher end restaurants in Italy have TVs mounted on the walls). There was a large Italian family next to me with everyone from grandma right through the toddlers sat together enjoying their pizza. The seats? You’ve guessed it, white plastic chairs and tables throughout the restaurant.

The menu at Pizzeria dei Platani (clearly this photo was taken before the addition of the ‘Leeds United’ pizza).

When your pizza was ready, it was placed on a plastic tray on top of a piece of paper and then you collected it from the service hatch yourself. Disposable napkins were retrieved from a dispenser in the middle of your table. Once you were finished, you simply threw the paper into the recycling bin and placed the tray on the pile to be cleaned. A highly efficient, no-fuss system that reminded me of another legendary and wallet-friendly (£3.95 a pizza anyone?) pizzeria; Icco on Goodge Street in Fitzrovia, London. Icco was the site of many post-work pizzas back in the early 2010s.

Via Plebiscito (aka ‘Meat Street’), Catania

In September 2020, I spent 10 days on an impromptu roadtrip travelling around Sicily. My final stop was Catania, Sicily’s second biggest city that sits in the ominous shadow of Mount Etna, Europe’s largest active volcano. Most of the city’s buildings are characteristically dark as they have been built with volcanic rock. I very nearly moved to Catania instead of Bari earlier that year and thoroughly enjoyed my time in the city, finding it a little less hectic and more manageable than Palermo, its counterpart on the other side of the island.

One afternoon, I decided to get out of the city centre and find a braceria that specialised in hearty, no-frills, Sicilian street food such as grilled meat and bacon (or intestines if you prefer) wrapped around spring onions, cooked over charcoal. I was recommended a number of places on Via Plebiscito, a thoroughfare leading away from the city centre to the north-west. The street was a little rough around the edges but lined with a number of cafes, restaurants and street food stalls, all specialising in barbequed meat. Macelleria d’Antone, Dal Tenerissimo, Trattoria Achille, Trattoria Il Principe – take your pick. The locals apparently describe the area as “arrusti e mangia“ – “roast and eat”. They’re not wrong.

The various meaty delights of Via Plebiscito, Catania.

I had lunch at Dal Tenerissimo and then returned on another evening to check out what Macelleria d’Antone had to offer in the way of street food. Via Plebiscito was pretty relaxed around lunchtime and I had a piece of breaded pork, served in a bun and curiously, a mousse of soft cheese and crushed pistachios. However, at night the street was an entirely different proposition. It was dimly-lit, heaving with local Catanians and the smoke from the various barbeques and grills placed on the street gave it an almost-medieval air. The smell of meat being cooked was pungent and the neon red sign of Trattoria Achille made it look like a place that would be at home on Hamburg’s Reeperbahn. The atmosphere was ever so slightly anarchic and felt very authentically Sicilian.

At Macelleria d’Antone, the service was brusque but efficient and I sampled a paper plate of the bacon wrapped around spring onions, a coarse sausage and a cutlet of what I imagine was horse meat (it’s very popular in Sicily). It’s not something I would want to eat every day but the bacon and spring onions in particular, were great. Both restaurants had white plastic chairs and tables throughout; as we now know, a firm barometer of quality in Southern Italy…

Bacon (or intestines) wrapped around whole spring onions. An acquired taste but actually a delicious snack alongside an ice-cold beer.

There are a number of other restaurants in the region that fit into this category; several of the more casual pizzerias and rosticcerias in Bari, Ricciolandia near Torre Canne (where the late Anthony Bourdain stopped for lunch in his series Parts Unknown) and most of the eateries in the bustling La Vucciria market in Palermo. Dining in Italy can be a very regimented, formal affair if you want it to be and for many Italians eating is sacred. Don’t even attempt to suggest having lunch at midday or dinner at 7pm, and alter an ingredient in a traditional recipe at your peril. However, on other occasions, keeping it simple is king and what the plastic chairs and tables represent is that sometimes people just want to go somewhere they feel comfortable and relaxed, and to eat some honest comfort food.

Where possible, I’ve included hyperlinks to all of the eateries I’ve talked about in the article above.

Anthony Bourdain dining at Ricciolandia, Torre Cane (Parts Unknown, Season 10, Episode 9) and the lively La Vucciria night market, Palermo.

Ricotta forte; the strongest cheese on earth?

15 July 2021

Clive Drew

Food Living in Italy 2 Comments

One of the joys of living in Italy – even during the periods of lockdown – has been discovering local ingredients that are specific to particular regions. Edible weeds such as cicoria, cima di rapa and puntarelle in Puglia and the Salento; ‘nduja, soppressata and Tropea onions in Calabria and the crispy red peperoni cruschi of the Basilicata region, to name just a few.

A few weeks ago, I popped my head into my local casa vinicola, Vecchio Feudo on Corso Sidney Sonnino in Bari to pick up some essentials (well, olives, taralli and white wine), when a product I hadn’t seen before caught my eye as I was paying at the counter. A small glass jar in the chiller filled with a white paste was labelled ‘Ricotta forte’ (‘strong ricotta’). My interest was piqued and at €2.50 it was cheap enough to take a punt on.

A typical jar of Pugliese ricotta forte and Vecchio Feudo on Corso Sidney Sonnino in Madonnella, Bari.

I took the jar back to my flat, unscrewed the lid and a smell unlike anything else I can remember immediately hit me. It was pungent to say the least and made gorgonzola seem like Dairylea in comparison. I tentatively scraped a tiny amount onto a cracker and the sheer strength and bitterness of this spreadable cheese took the roof off my mouth. What on earth had I bought?

After some research, I found out that ricotta forte is a Pugliese speciality which is also popular in the neighbouring region of Basilicata. Its origins date back nearly one thousand years to when local shepherds would create their own unique version of the soft cheese ricotta (used in a variety of Italian sweet and savoury dishes) by placing it into wooden, glass or ceramic containers, adding salt and then storing in a dark, damp place to encourage the growth of mould. Traditionally covered with fig leaves, the cheese would be opened and stirred every week but overall, the fermentation process would take around three months. The fungus that grew gave the cheese its distinctive spicy flavour and one of the reasons the shepherds preferred this potent variety of ricotta was the fact it would keep for so long (it is said that ricotta forte never really ‘goes off’).

Ricotta forte being produced in the traditional way and served on crostini with anchovies.

The cheese soon became a local speciality and Pugliese families would often make it at home, placing the jars under the kitchen sink or in cool cantine (cellars) to ferment. It is often eaten served on crackers or crostini with anchovies or tomatoes or with sweeter ingredients such as grapes or drizzled honey. Even though I’m a big fan of strong blue cheeses, spreading ricotta forte on crostini is not for the faint-hearted. I actually found that stirring a teaspoon (yes, a teaspoon is all you need) into a pasta dish or a tomato sauce works better and adds a spiciness and piquant flavour. I also used a little in a mousse and served this with roasted fennel – the recipe courtesy of A Taste For Travel can be found here.

A Taste for Travel’s recipe for Fennel au gratin with ricotta forte mousse.

Ricotta forte has been recognised by the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies as a typical food of Puglia and Basilicata and has been awarded PAT (prodotto agroalimentare tradizionale) status. Incredibly, the Campania region alone has 515 of these. The Slow Food organisation has also sung the cheese’s praises and in particular its time-honoured production method and long shelf life. In line with the current craze for fermented food such as kimchi and sauerkraut, ricotta forte is also said to have numerous health properties including aiding digestion, boosting gut bacteria and even killing off worms. Good to know.

One jar of ricotta forte is likely to last you the best part of a year (you could even consider it an investment, of sorts) and it really does have a taste unlike any other cheese. You could do worse than picking up a jar of the stuff when you next visit Italy or a well-stocked Italian deli in the UK. You never know, it might even come in handy if you are planning on organising a stag do or a sports team initiation ritual in the near future too.

You can find a video showing the traditional production process of ricotta forte courtesy of Maria Rosa Pinto below:

There is also an English-speaking ricotta forte taste test here.

The Calabrian Red Gold

28 May 2021

Clive Drew

Food Living in Italy Travel No Comments

The famous onions of Tropea

Calabria is the rugged, sparsely-populated and partly mountainous region that begins south of Naples and extends down into the “toe” of Italy’s “boot”, towards Sicily. As well, as the notorious ‘Ndrangheta criminal syndicate, Calabria is famous for the spicy spreadable salami ‘Nduja, the Calabrese soppressata dry sausage, peperoncino (red chilli peppers – Calabrian cuisine is notably hotter than in the rest of Italy) and the distinctive Tropea red onions. They grow between April and October and the most famous and revered variety cipolla da serbo are in season in May and June.

They resemble giant spring onions but with a bright red bulb and they are renowned for their sweet and more delicate taste. In fact, Calabrians claim that when a Tropea onion is ripe, it should be able to be “eaten just like an apple”. Having bought some of these prized onions for the first time earlier this week, I can concur that they certainly are sweeter than their brown and white cousins and were equally at home being finely chopped raw into a salad and also, cooked and softened over a heat to form the base of a casserole. This versatility means that Tropea onions are frequently served in Italy as part of antipasti cold cut spreads, as a panini filling, as pizza toppings, in pasta dishes and even grilled or barbequed whole (in Catania in Sicily I saw a variation of this where the whole onions had bacon or in some cases, intestines wrapped around them and they were then cooked outside over charcoal).

*Red Tropea onions hanging alongside peperoncino di Calabria (photo: Caterina Policaro).*

Tropea onions have been awarded PGI status (Protected Geographical Indication) and are known locally as the “red gold”. That said, I’ve noticed that Italians do seem to have a particular penchant for referring to edible items as “gold” – peperoni crusci (dried sweet peppers) is known as “the red gold of Basilicata” and the residents of Bronte in Sicily, a town renowned all over Italy for its high-quality pistachios talk about the humble nut as its “green gold”.

The origins of these Tropea onions have been disputed but it’s now widely agreed that they were most likely introduced to Calabria by the Greeks and Phoenicians from present-day Lebanon around 3,000 years ago. Tropea’s sandy soil, proximity to the coast and more moderate climate meant that the conditions were ideal for these unusual onions to flourish and eventually become one of the region’s best-known culinary exports. The reason for their sweetness is due to a lower level of pyruvic acid than normal brown onions and this makes them less pungent and harsh – also less likely to induce tears as you slice them.

Red Onions “Cipolle di Tropea” (photo: Martin Mboesch), my own purchases and a wholewheat lampascioni and wholewheat pasta I made with them.

The cipolla da serbo also reputedly has numerous health benefits and the Roman author, naturalist and philosopher Pliny the Elder (his first solo album went massively under-the-radar) detailed the 30 ailments which can be treated by these particular onions in his then-groundbreaking encyclopaedia “Naturalis Historia”. Pliny also pointed out that any dishes containing onions are curative as well as more nourishing. Good to know…

Just a few examples of the different landscapes Calabria has to offer; Tropea, Belvedere Marittimo, Condofuri and Scalea.

I have been to Calabria twice; a week before the first Covid lockdown when I stayed in the coastal villages of Belvedere Marittimo, Diamante and Scalea and then last September, when I spent several hours winding my way through its mountainous landscapes on my way to Villa San Giovanni, to then take the short ferry hop over to Messina, Sicily (and then all the way back again). The ‘vibe’ is noticeably different to that in Puglia; the scenery is more varied (craggy mountains, hilltops towns, scenic coasts and then fertile plains), the people slightly less open and welcoming and overall, it seems more wild and remote. Puglia is by no means a developed region – apart from the bigger towns and cities, a lot of its rural areas appear to be just row upon row of olive trees and vines. However, parts of Calabria feel a long way from civilisation. Having said that; I was still pleasantly surprised by the fare available in the various Calabrian service stations I stopped at; ‘Ndjuja and mozzarella panini were the order of the day (historically, the region’s hot and humid climate led to food preservation techniques being key and cured meat and salsiccia are popular staples here).

To find out more about Tropea’s unique red onions, you can watch the video below (it’s in Italian but English subtitles are provided):

Some Tropea onion recipes for inspiration:

Calabrian omelette with Tropea onions

Salt-baked Tropea onions

Spaghetti with Tropea onions

Calabrian red onion tart

Tropea onion jam

‘Il Pasqualino’; Alberobello’s famous sandwich

23 April 2021

Clive Drew

Food Living in Italy Travel 4 Comments

We are all going to die. Unfortunately, this is an inconvenient, unavoidable fact of life. However, once you have passed onto the next world, how would you like to be remembered? A quaint wooden bench in a public park dedicated to your memory? Your ashes placed in an attractive urn overlooking the family dining table so that you can watch over them as they eat? Or perhaps you would like a distinctive tree planted in your honour? Or you could have an item of food or even better, a panino named after you so that your essence can live on every time someone takes a bite of an unusual, yet delicious sandwich? Well, that is exactly what happened with Pasquale Dell’Erba from Alberobello and ‘Il Pasqualino’.

Pasquale’s views on life after death are not well-documented but one thing is clear; he made a bloody good sandwich (or panino in Italian). He owned and ran a delicatessen on the corner of Corso Vittorio Emanuele and Via Cesare Battisti in the Pugliese town of Alberobello – famous internationally for its white, conically-shaped dwellings known as trulli. His trademark sandwich started to attract attention in the town during the mid-1960s after he began rustling it up for a small group of three or four of his close friends who would meet regularly in front of his shop.

La Pagnottella’s version of ‘Il Pasqualino’

The ingredients varied a little from time to time and depending what was available in his deli, but usually the panino consisted of tuna, capers, salami and provolone cheese. Always in that order and served in either turtle bread (pane tartaruga) or rosetta bread (rosette di pane). It may not initially sound that appetising but the combination worked very well and soon its popularity caught on. The sandwich became a hit with students from several local schools in the area who loved the fact that it was not only good value but also substantial and made using an unusual mix of hearty ingredients.

Soon, Pasquale’s deli couldn’t keep up with the demand and they began pre-making a batch of panini first thing in the morning and then refrigerating them so that they would be instantly ready as customers arrived throughout the course of the day. The term Il Pasqualino (‘The Pasqualino’) was born. Over the next coming decades other bakeries in Alberobello started to serve their own version of the Pasqualino too, sometimes adding ingredients such as marinated mushrooms, pickles or other cold cuts of meat. However, by the 1990s, these bakeries’ tradition of keeping a chest of readymade Pasqualinos in their shops began to fade and it became something of a well-kept local secret. Pasquale’s memory lived on but only amongst those in the know in Alberobello.

Today, you can go into any deli, bakery or café in Alberobello, ask for “un Pasqualino, per favore” and they will know exactly what to make, even though very often it will not be listed anywhere on the menu, or on the board outside. When I visited Alberobello last summer, I avoided the overpriced cafes on the main tourist drag near the ‘trulli zone’ and instead popped into La Pagnottella (Piazza Plebiscito, 10B) around the corner from Chiesa di San Lucia and the popular viewing platform next to it. It is actually quite an upmarket deli that also serves an array of pastries and cakes (sadly I don’t have much of a sweet tooth so give me a sandwich laden with capers and cured meat and fish any day), as well as cheese and fresh pasta.

The lady behind the counter was very friendly and humoured my basic cod-Italian and quickly made me a Pasqualino from scratch – from what I could see, sticking to the traditional ingredients but with the addition of some pickles and a drizzle of olive oil. It was delicious and actually went down very well with an iced coffee on a sweltering summer’s day; the acidity of the capers and pickles cutting through the meat and cheese. The only word of warning is that there was a lot of olive oil – it’s definitely worth picking up an extra napkin or two before you leave the shop.

*Signor Pasquale Dell’Erba, the creator of ‘The Pasqualino’ (photo: Alberobello.com).*

A word about Alberobello

Alberobello is a UNESCO World Heritage site, having been recognised in 1996 and is one of the most famous tourist destinations in Puglia. The town is renowned for having the largest concentration of trulli (the plural form of ‘trullo’) anywhere in the world. These conical, low-level, whitewashed buildings are particular to Puglia and they actually can’t be found anywhere else outside of Southern Italy. There is also some debate about whether the author J.R.R. Tolkien ever visited Puglia and if the trulli served as the real-life inspiration for his novel The Hobbit and the fictional world of Middle-earth and the region where the hobbits lived called The Shire.

One of the main concentrations of trulli in Alberobello.

Trullis can be found dotted all over Puglia. Whilst many of them are still private residential dwellings, a lot of them have now been converted into holiday homes, agriturismos, shops and restaurants. The story of the trulli begins in the 14^th century. The ruling Aquaviva family was keen to avoid paying high property taxes to the Kingdom of Naples, so ordered local peasants to build homes that could be easily taken down, in the event on an inspection. Using the ancient drywall (mortarless) building technique and locally-sourced limestone boulders, the trullis started to appear all over Puglia and became a symbol of the region. Centuries later, many new homes were built in this style, partly as an act of defiance to the ruling family.

Whilst I was keen to visit Alberobello at some stage whilst living in Bari, it wasn’t at the top of my list. I prioritised the baroque and culinary delights of Lecce and the coastal towns Santa Maria di Leuca and Gallipoli first. I actually only stopped off Alberobello for a couple of nights as I was going to the pared-down Locus Festival in nearby Locorotondo and accommodation there was completely fully-booked.

The Comet is Coming at Locus Festival. 14th August 2020.

Locus Festival happens every summer in Puglia and in previous years has attracted the likes of David Byrne, Esperanza Spalding, Four Tet, Floating Points, Lauryn Hill, Theo Parrish, Sly & Robbie and Kamasi Washington to the picturesque town of Locorotondo. Pre-Covid, Locus 2020 had announced a stellar line-up featuring The Pixies, Little Simz, Paul Weller and Kokoroko but sadly the event had to be completely scaled back and most of the acts were unable to play. However, miraculously, some (socially-distanced) gigs were still able to go ahead in the grounds of the Masseria Ferragnano and I saw saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings’ experimental jazz outfit The Comet Is Coming play there. I had seen Shabaka and the band several times in London and at Green Man Festival, so it was a strange experience seeing them playing a gig in the south of Italy during a pandemic year, but a great show all the same.

The following morning, I woke up at 6am and found myself unable to go back to sleep; partly due to the sunlight pouring into my room through a broken blind. It was actually a blessing in disguise as after a typically unsatisfying Italian breakfast of biscuits, pastries and coffee, I was able to explore the trullis of Alberobello without the hordes of tourists and with the August temperatures yet to reach their peak.

The streets and trullis of Alberobello at 7am on a Saturday morning.

There really is no other place in the world like it and the town took on an otherworldly feel at 7am when the streets were quiet apart from a few local businesses opening up for the day. This would be my tip for anyone visiting Alberobello; get up very early and explore the streets without the crowds. Find somewhere for a lunchtime Pasqualino and then have an afternoon pisolino afterwards, if you need it. By 11am, the place was already swarming with selfie-stick wielding tourists and later that evening a bar tried to charge me €9 for a 330cl beer. Needless to say, after speaking to the waiter, I did not pay this.

Salvation was found in the excellent Ristorante La Nicchia though. Now, it did involve a slightly hazardous 15-minute walk (or five minutes if you are driving) along a busy (and dark) main road to get there but it was absolutely worth it. Housed in a complex of trulli 1.5km outside of Alberobello, you immediately got the impression that this was where the locals ate. Great Pugliese fare, a huge wine selection and wallet-friendly prices.

*The food at La Nicchia; Ravioli with almonds, lampascioni and burrata.*

For more background reading on Alberobello’s famous Pasqualino panino, head to the Il Panino Italiano Magazine website (yes, there really is a magazine dedicated to the art of the Italian sandwich).

Tomato, lentil, courgette and chicken curry

9 February 2021

Clive Drew

Food Recipe 1 Comment

In my last post, I shared some musings about ‘curry’; touching upon its origins and how its popularity increased in Britain during the Victorian era and then more rapidly in the mid-20^th century. I also talked about how food is so often tied-up with memories and recalled some stories involving friends and family, as well as some of the more interesting Indian restaurants I’ve had the pleasure of visiting.

I wrote previously about how the process of making a curry is one that I find incredibly satisfying and therapeutic. Coming up with my own variations is also a lot of fun too and below is a recipe I recently came up with for a fresh-tasting, zingy and healthy curry. Perfect for a cold winter evening and even tastier heated up the next day!

Tomato, lentil, courgette and shredded chicken curry // Turmeric rice with peas

4 x servings

What you need

For the curry

4 x medium chicken breasts
1 x white onion, finely chopped
4 x garlic cloves, crushed and finely chopped
1 x 500g canned tomatoes (I used Mutti tomatoes but any brand will do)
1 x 500g canned lentils, drained
2 x medium courgettes, halved and then cut into 1 cm cubes
4 x dried red chillis, chopped (fresh chillis are fine but the curry will be more fiery)
1 x cinnamon stick
1 x whole nutmeg
1 x teaspoon cayenne chilli powder
1 x teaspoon ground turmeric
1 x teaspoon fennel seeds
1 x teaspoon cumin seeds
1 x teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 x teaspoon coriander
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
Sea salt and black pepper, to taste

For the rice

360g of basmati or pilau rice (enough for 4 x servings so adjust your portion sizes depending on how much you usually eat!)
3-4 tablespoons of peas (I use jarred peas but frozen would be ok)
1 x vegetable stock cube
1 x teaspoon of turmeric
Sea salt and black pepper, to taste

Steps

The curry

1.) Add the chopped chillis, cayenne powder, fennel seeds, cumin seeds, turmeric, ginger and coriander to a pestle and mortar. Grind to release the flavour and crush the fennel and cumin seeds. Set aside.

2.) Finely chop the onions. Crush the garlic with the back of a large knife and then also chop.

3.) Cut the chicken into large chunks and brown in a large saucepan with a small amount of oil over a medium-high heat until sealed.

4.) Transfer the chicken to a plate and ‘shred’ with a knife and fork. Cover with foil and set to one side.

4.) Heat a tablespoon of oil in the saucepan over a medium heat and add the onion and garlic. Cook for 4-5 minutes until softened and golden.

5.) Add the ground spice mixture to the pan and combine with the onion and garlic, stir constantly, not allowing it to burn.

6.) Add the drained lentils and cubed courgette to the pan. Stir occasionally and cook for a further 5 minutes.

7.) Add the canned tomatoes to the pan, as well as the cinnamon stick and nutmeg. Add a little water if the mixture appears too dry. Bring to the boil.

8.) Once the mixture in the pan has boiled, reduce to a low heat, return the shredded chicken to the pan and gently simmer for 40 minutes. Stir occasionally.

9.) Taste the curry mixture after 30 minutes and add a tablespoon of white wine vinegar to bring out the acidity in the dish. Add extra salt and pepper, according to your own personal taste.

10.) Serve alongside the turmeric rice and vegetables of your choice.

Rice

1.) Cook the rice, according to the instructions on the packet. Add the vegetable stock cube to the pan and the turmeric.

2.) Halfway through cooking, add the peas.

3.) Drain well and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Serve with the curry.

Serving suggestion

I found this dish works very well served in bowls. You can serve the curry on a bed of rice in a bowl or alternatively, alongside it on a plate. The vegetable accompaniments are up to you but on this occasion, I roasted some chickpeas and spinach in the oven for 15 minutes with some olive oil, thyme and salt and pepper.

The ongoing search for the perfect ‘curry’

8 February 2021

Clive Drew

Food London Travel 2 Comments

‘Curry‘
Noun: “A dish of meat, vegetables, etc., cooked in an Indian-style sauce of hot-tasting spices and typically served with rice.”
Verb: “To prepare or flavour (food) with a sauce of hot-tasting spices.”

(definition from Oxford Languages)

Origins: “Curry is an anglicised form of the Tamil word ‘kari’ meaning ‘sauce’ or ‘relish for rice’ that uses the leaves of the curry tree (Murraya koenigii). The word kari is also used in other Dravidian languages, namely in Malayalam, Kannada and Kodava with the meaning of ‘vegetables (or meat) of any kind (raw or boiled), curry’”.
(A Dravidian Etymological Dictionary)

*Chicken patiala at the Dakshin Bar & Grill, Mumbai. Contender for the perfect curry? I think so…*

As with so many other things in modern popular culture, the word ‘curry’ is a bastardised English umbrella term. One that was created to describe all manner of distinctly different types of cuisine from the Indian subcontinent. Or to quote food historian Lizzie Collingham and the author of the definitive tome ‘Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors’; “most likely an English bastardisation of a Portuguese bastardisation of the Tamil world ‘kari’ – which was used to describe spices or seasoning.” So, there you go.

In Britain, ‘curry’ grew vastly in popularity during the Victorian era and Queen Victoria was said to be a great lover of spiced dishes. In fact, she even employed two Indian chefs to prepare her curried lunches especially. The ‘classic’ British buffet dish and sandwich-filler; Coronation Chicken stems from this royal association after it was created for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation banquet in 1953. It is thought that it was directly inspired by the Jubilee Chicken dish which was created for George V’s silver jubilee in 1935 and also contained cold cuts of chicken, curry powder and mayonnaise. Creative cookery at its most innovative.

The number of ‘curry houses’ or more upmarket ‘Indian restaurants‘ started to increase in the 1950s and 1960s before reaching a peak in the 1970s. Part of the success of these new curry houses was down to the fact that they still served alcohol well into the early hours of the morning at a time when most pubs would stop serving at 11pm. In 1983, there were over 3,500 Indian restaurants open in the UK and today Bangladeshis still run approximately 85-90 percent of these eateries.

*The famous ‘Curry Mile’ of Indian restaurants. Rusholme, Manchester.*

However, the food in the majority of Indian restaurants has been anglicised and tailored for British palates and you would struggle to find a lot of the dishes on the menu in India. For example, Chicken Tikka Masala is thought to have been invented in Britain and directly derived from the Northern Indian dish Butter Chicken, whilst the British Indian variation of Vindaloo is much spicier than the original which was a key component of Goan cuisine and was created especially for curry houses, with the addition of potatoes and chilli peppers. The Balti on the other hand makes no secret of its humble origins, being introduced to menus in Birmingham in the early 1970s (although it may have been inspired by Northern Pakistani cuisine).

I’m going to contradict myself now and will talk about ‘curry’ or ‘curries’ for the rest of this article. I personally find that there is nothing more satisfying to cook than a curry. From softening the onions and garlic and then adding the spices to form the base, to browning the meat or adding vegetarian substitutes such as chickpeas or lentils, to adding tomatoes or stock and gently simmering the stew, the whole process is incredibly therapeutic.

The food we eat is intrinsically tied up with memories too. Whenever we would visit my paternal grandmother who was half-Indian and raised in Meghalaya, a curry or dhal would inevitably be on the stove and the fragrant smell would hit you as soon as you walked into the house. My dad was delighted when I started cooking and bringing home curries in Food Technology classes at school and we discovered that cardamom pods were a fine addition to a Chicken Madras – although there is some dispute about whether the dish actually originated in Madras (now Chennai) or once again, in the British curry houses of the 1960s. My dad had rarely eaten cardamom pods as a youngster because it turned out that Grandma didn’t like them! Although initially wary of hot food, my mum also became partial to milder curries after meeting my dad and she would often make tasty meals for us like the sweet and sour Hawaiian Chicken on a Friday or Saturday night – learning many of the recipes from her Indian mother-in-law.

I remember experiencing a proper high-end Indian restaurant for the first time whilst studying in Cardiff too. My sister Rachel and brother-in-law Stuart had visited me for the weekend in March 2006 and after a day of sinking pints and watching the Six Nations rugby in various pubs on the side roads off St Mary’s Street, they treated me to a slap-up meal at the city’s Spice Quarter, located on the site of the former Brain’s Brewery. The uber-attentive service and having the table tended to by three or four waiters at any one time gave me an idea of what to expect when I eventually visited India some 13 years later.

Talking of university, there was also the much-loved but at times slightly questionable Kismet. Located on the rough and ready Cardiff thoroughfare City Road, Kismet became the venue of choice for various friends’ birthday celebrations each year. Unbelievably cheap even for a student’s budget, a main course would set you back in the region of £3.50, plus a pound for a naan or rice. Once my friend Emily and I ordered a bottle of red wine to share and two arrived on our table. We apologised and sent one back, only to be told that it was buy one, get one free on bottles of wine that evening. Of course. At £5 per bottle, we were not complaining. Kismet also specialised in takeaway ‘doggy bags’ as their portions were rather on the large side. I can still visualise my old housemate Rhys running into the restaurant’s kitchen after a poor waiter, convinced that he was about to throw his leftover food away and not into the prerequisite doggy bag. How the bars or clubs we went to afterwards felt about having to contend with a cloakroom full of takeaway curry bags remains uncertain. Kismet has since closed and is no longer a fixture of student life in Cardiff.

*The much-missed Kismet restaurant. City Road, Cardiff.*

During the London years, going ‘for a curry’ became a regular part of post-work socialising. I was once chuffed to find myself dining next to former Yardbirds guitarist and ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’ singer Jeff Beck at the famous Gaylord Restaurant on Mortimer Street. The restaurant opened its doors in 1966, was a one-time favourite of The Beatles and even in 2015 it was old-school in every detail – the food and service was excellent though. Sadly Gaylord shut its doors in 2019 after 53 years of serving “upscale Mughlai cuisine” originating from North India.

*The former Gaylord Restaurant, Fitzrovia, London. A one-time favourite of The Beatles (and Jeff Beck).*

Other notable London curry houses included the huge, raucous and noisy Pakistani eatery Tayyabs in Whitechapel; a place that was as much renowned for its beer as its food (you could order it by the crate if you were celebrating) and the quaint, charming Agra Restaurant on Whitfield Street in Fitzrovia. Opened in 1954, the place is like stepping back in time and is still run by members of the same family today. The Indian Veg (or Indian Veg Bhelpoori House in full) on Chapel Market in Islington specialised in no-frills, yet tasty all-you-can-eat vegetarian fare for £6.50 – its walls covered with pro-vegetarianism slogans and propaganda posters. Its proximity to The Lexington venue made it an ideal pre-gig fuelling station of choice.

Clockwise (from top left); 1.) The queue for Tayyabs in Whitechapel. 2.) The Agra Restaurant on Whitfield Street, London. 3.) The one-in-a-kind Indian Veg, Islington, London. 4.) The Indian Veg’s propaganda-laden interior.

Then there were the two restaurants that also offered rooms for the night as well; the Indian YMCA on Fitzroy Square (I worked around the corner from here for a couple of years so it became a favourite spot for lunch) and The India Club on The Strand. Both are long-standing London institutions serving hearty and wallet-friendly Indian food. Situated up an unassuming staircase at 143 Strand, the latter was launched in 1951 by The Indo League with the aim of “furthering Indo-British friendship in the post-independence era” and as with the Agra Restaurant, it is like stepping into a time capsule. Given its history, I have often found myself wondering if my grandparents would have visited The India Club in the 1950s. Let’s hope that all of these well-loved London institutions can survive the current hospitality industry crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Clockwise (from top left); 1.) The bar at The India Club, 143 Strand, London. 2.) The India Club’s dining room – practically unchanged since 1951. 3.) The canteen at The Indian YMCA, Fitzroy Square, Central London.

On my trip to India at the end of 2019, it would be an understatement to say that I ate well. However, I often didn’t eat at fancy places, instead preferring local recommendations or low-key, hidden-away gems. The food I ate with my relatives in Shillong was delicious and included regional specialities such as Doh khleh (a sort-of salad made with parts of the pig’s head) and Doh sniang nei iong – pork cooked with sesame. However, the food in Meghalaya was actually milder and not as spicy as in the rest of India. In Kerala in the south, a lot of the dishes were lighter and more fragrant, perhaps as a result of using coconut oil rather than ghee, whereas in Goa fish and more Portuguese-influenced fare reigned supreme. Mumbai and Pune were culinary melting pots, as with any other metropolis, whilst in Chennai there were numerous options when it came to street food, as well as fiery appetisers like the city’s signature Chicken 65 (invented by the Head Chef at the Buhari Hotel and allegedly containing 65 chillis per kilogramme of chicken).

Just a snapshot of some of the dishes I had the privilege of trying during my visit to India.

However, the distinction of being the tastiest dish I sampled was reserved for the Dakshin Bar & Kitchen; a simple Punjabi restaurant off a busy main road in the Fort district of Mumbai that had the Indian Super League playing on big screens on the wall. I ordered Chicken Patiala one evening without thinking too much about it and it was one of the best things I ate during my time in India. It was unusual too; a thin egg omelette prepared and then cooked in the highly-spiced rich, creamy chicken curry. All washed down with an ice-cold Kingfisher, of course.

*The Dakshin Bar & Grill, Fort, Mumbai.*

Over these past 18 months both in India and now in Italy, some of my favourite discoveries have been places that I’ve stumbled upon by chance or that have been a word-of-mouth recommendation from a local. The delicious Chicken Patiala at Dakshin was no exception.

To find out how to make the dish, check out the short video below courtesy of Chef Smita at Get Curried. In my next post, I’ll be sharing a recipe of my own!

The Joys of Medu Vada

14 January 2021

Clive Drew

Food No Comments

It was whilst stood on the platform at Madgaon train station in South Goa waiting for an early morning train to Hospet, a city near the ancient civilisation of Hampi that it suddenly dawned on me. Medu Vada, the delicious, donut-shaped South Indian savoury snack is the perfect breakfast. Tasty, nutritious and conveniently served in a disposable tiny foil dish; these vadas set me up nicely for the eight-hour train journey I had ahead of me – most of which I spent sharing a bench with a rather rotund Indian gentleman.

Made primarily from black lentils and spices, these fritters were served from a stand on the platform on top of a hot sambar (a lentil-based vegetable stew) and all for the princely sum of 30 rupees (about 30 pence). I had been introduced to the joys of medu vada a few weeks earlier in the Poornima café in Mumbai’s Fort district, courtesy of my friends at India Someday. As we tasted numerous other Indian street food delights, it was explained to me that vadas are usually eaten for breakfast or for brunch and originated in the Southern states of India (most likely Karnataka, according to the writer and broadcaster Vir Sanghvi) and in Tamil cuisine. Idli, were another breakfast staple I sampled, particularly during my time in Kerala – rice cakes steamed in a fermented lentil batter and again, served with a spicy sambar.

*Poornima*. 29 Tamarind Lane, Fort, Mumbai.

Before leaving India just over a year ago, I spent several hours traipsing around the streets near Park Street (coincidentally also where my Dad and grandma once lived) in Kolkata and the city’s New Market, retrieving various gifts for family. I couldn’t resist picking up a bag of Urad Dal Flour or black gram lentil flour – the main ingredient needed to make medu vada.

What better time to attempt to recreate the vadas than in my parents’ house during a rather unusual lockdown Christmas one year later in the UK?

The streets around Park Street and New Market, Kolkata. December 2019.

Medu Vada with a spicy Tiffin Sambar

3-4 servings

What you need

For the vada

500g black gram lentil flour (mine already contained the spices needed to make medu vada – you can find the same one here)
Oil for frying

For the sambar

1 x red onion, finely chopped
4 x tomatoes, chopped and the skins left on
1 x 500g canned tomatoes
1 x 500g canned chickpeas, drained (I used these rather than lentils on this occasion)
1 x 500g canned whole broad beans, drained (optional – I added these as they were in the cupboard!)
500ml vegetable stock
4 x garlic cloves, crushed
4 x dried red chillis, chopped (I used dried peperone crusco but you could also use fresh chillis)
2 x tablespoons dried coconut flakes
2 x teaspoons chilli powder
2 x teaspoons ground turmeric
2 x teaspoons mustard powder
2 x teaspoon fennel seeds
1 x teaspoon coriander seeds
1 x teaspoon cumin
1 x teaspoon dried red chilli flakes
½ teaspoon ground ginger
Sea salt and black pepper, to taste
A small knob of butter

Steps

Tiffin sambar

1.) Add all of the spices to a pestle and mortar and grind to release the flavour. Set aside.

2.) Heat a small amount of butter in a saucepan over a medium heat. Once it’s melted, add the chopped onions and crushed garlic. Cook for 3-4 minutes until soft.

3.) Add the dried coconut and ground spices to the pan. Heat for a few minutes until the mixture forms a paste and becomes fragrant. Stir frequently.

4.) Add the chickpeas and the chopped chillis. Cook for a few further minutes, continuing to stir.

5.) Add both the canned and fresh tomatoes to the pan, stirring to combine with the spice mixture.

6.) Add the vegetable stock and bring to the boil. Once it’s boiled, turn to a low heat and simmer for one hour.

7.) As the stew gently simmers, stir occasionally and gently mash the chickpeas using a potato masher or the back of a wooden spoon. Add more water to the pan, if needed.

8.) Add the broad beans to the pan 20 minutes before serving. Season the stew with sea salt and cracked black pepper, to taste.

Medu vada

1.) Add the black gram lentil flour mixture to a large bowl.

2.) Slowly add water, stirring each time until the mixture forms a thick batter. It shouldn’t be too runny, otherwise it will be difficult to form the shape of the vadas.

3.) Wet both of your hands, take about a tablespoon of the mixture and roll between your hands. Eventually form a flattened disc with a diameter of about 6cm.

4.) Make a hole in each circle with two fingers to form a donut shape. Place each vada onto a sheet of greaseproof paper or a plastic sheet (in Southern India, banana leaves would be the surface of choice but funnily enough these are less readily available in Europe).

5.) Once all of the vadas are ready, heat about 100 ml of oil in a wok, large frying pan or saucepan on a medium heat (it shouldn’t be too hot).

6.) Fry the vadas in the hot oil for a couple of minutes until each side is golden brown and then turn over. The vadas should cook from the inside out, so that they are soft but not raw in the middle, yet crispy on the outside.

7.) Set aside to cool slightly before serving.

Serving suggestion

You can serve the sambar in a bowl with the vadas on a side plate to dip into it, or alternatively you can simply serve the vadas on top of the sambar. In India this would typically be eaten with a coconut chutney but lime pickle or mango chutney would also go well. A side salad or even yoghurt dip could also be served alongside this. The sambar will keep very well in the fridge for 2-3 days.

Guanciale; an appreciation

28 November 2020

Clive Drew

Food No Comments

Cured pig jowl. Or to be more accurate, “the lower fleshy part of the animal’s cheek and neck”. It’s not a term that usually makes most people salivate but guanciale is considered a necessity in Italian cookery and is also the subject of a fierce culinary rivalry with its close but actually, still quite distant relative pancetta.

Guanciale is made using the pig’s cheek and jowl. It is generally rubbed and seasoned in salt, pepper, sage, thyme, rosemary and sometimes garlic, and then dried and aged for at least three months. The result is a strong-flavoured meat with a texture that softens in the pan in contrast to pancetta, which has a tendency to crisp up. Most of the fat renders away and gives a deep and distinctive flavour to classic Italian pasta dishes such as Spaghetti alla Carbonara, the tomatoey Sugo alla Amatriciana and the Roman speciality Pasta alla Gricia.

Pancetta in comparison, is made with pork belly that’s seasoned and flavoured with salt, black or red pepper and ingredients such as chilli, juniper and garlic. The curing process is usually quicker and can last anything from three weeks to three months. Pancetta can be unsmoked or affumicata and produced either in rolls (typical of Northern Italy) or in wafer-thin slices (more common in the South). Its flavour is more delicate and therefore, more versatile than guanciale but there is really no contest when the stronger flavour of the former is required for particular recipes.

Guanciale, salumi and salsiccia for days.

I first knowingly experienced a dish made with guanciale in August 2017 at Pasta Remoli, a fantastic, wallet-friendly Italian neighbourhood restaurant tucked away on a side street in Finsbury Park, North London (now happily expanded to seven locations in the capital). I had decided to shake things up a bit by moving out of my comfortable, yet small flat on Stockwell Road, Brixton and taking on a complete renovation project up on Brixton Hill. For the next five months whilst the new flat was uninhabitable, I lived transiently in a combination of run-down student halls, cheap, seedy hotels and finally a Bailey caravan on the site at Crystal Palace Park. I had spent two weeks living in the relatively plush University of Arts London accommodation block Sketch House, hence my chance discovery of the delights of Pasta Remoli.

The caravan during this period. December 2017. Crystal Palace.

I ate at Pasta Remoli a number of times over that fortnight and on one occasion tried the chef’s recommendation, Pasta alla Gricia. It was deliciously salty and the guanciale provided a robust umami taste. The Head Chef and Owner Simone Remoli even popped out of the kitchen to see how I’d enjoyed it. I was an instant convert.

I took an Italian friend who was typically picky with food and sceptical about the trattoria-style restaurants in London to Pasta Remoli a year later and it got their seal of approval too. Highly recommended to any Londoners reading this blog!

Guanciale alongside a Pugliese *burrata*.

In Italy, guanciale is available in most of the bigger supermarkets, as well as the butchers (La Macelleria). In the UK, more specialist delis may stock it, although unsmoked bacon cubes can also be used as an alternative.

Shopping in Bari, guanciale costs as little as €3 for 300g. Its flavour is pungent so best to use it sparingly – you’ll need a sharp knife or even scissors too as the outer casing can be tough. I’ve cooked Spaghetti alla Carbonara and Pasta alla Gricia with it and the liquid fat wonderfully coats the pasta and gives the dishes a burst of flavour, as well as a glistening, yellow-ish, hue. The only downside is that my flat smelled like the kitchen of a greasy spoon (for the non-UK readers, the informal name for a traditional British breakfast café) for the next 24 hours – you’ve been warned!

My Life in Food and The Taming of the Nolche Olives

25 November 2020

Clive Drew

Food 2 Comments

I’ve had a somewhat love / hate relationship with food and cookery over the years. As a kid, I was blessed with having a mother who enjoyed cooking and baking (we rarely had fast food) and a half-Khasi, half-Irish grandmother (raised in Shillong, Meghalaya, Northeastern India) who was a dab hand in the kitchen and made all manner of delicious curries and fragrant dhals. My dad was also a barbecue enthusiast during the warmer months and we’d spend hours concocting new marinades, at times using ingredients that would usually be considered unconventional in the preparation of a savoury meal.

My secondary school made it compulsory to study a technology for GCSE-level and I opted for Food Technology (eating your creations was a benefit that Woodwork, Electronics and Textiles couldn’t offer). I did pretty well across the board in the exams we had to take aged 16 but bizarrely, my highest mark came in Food, with an A*. Fortuitously I did my coursework all about Italian cuisine and even made my own ravioli and tagliatelle using a neighbour’s pasta machine.

It takes three of us to open a can of spaghetti at Reading Festival. August 2005.

At university cooking fell way down the priority list in favour of nights out, socialising and my band. During this period, my specialities included beef goulash out of a can, served with McCain microwave chips, noodles coated with pesto from a jar (to this day I can no longer enjoy the flavour of pesto) and an array of supermarket microwave ready-meals. If I had £20 left in my pocket, a night out would always win over going to a restaurant for a meal. I was also rather partial to cheesy chips with garlic sauce and even had a preferred supplier of choice; It’s Pizza Time on Crwys Road, Cardiff, run by a Greek man called Attis. In hindsight, the runny garlicky sauce was actually something special – as was the aromatic stench coming from the bin in our shared student flat the following morning.

Attempting to make pancakes whilst wearing a blazer. Cardiff, February 2006.

Things came back round full circle though and I re-discovered the joys of cooking in my mid-20s. Culinary figures such as Anthony Bourdain, Marco Pierre White and Graham Garrett shared the non-conformist spirit of many of the musicians I admired and even their predecessors, the likes of Elizabeth David and Patience Gray were the rebels of their day. Food became a way of understanding more about other cultures – much in the same way as music.

During the first coronavirus lockdown in Italy (one of the most strictly-enforced in Europe), I found myself effectively stranded and isolated in a foreign country; living, working and exercising from the same small flat, only allowed outside for necessities. Cooking and coming up with new recipes in the evening became a form of salvation and a creative outlet to look forward to.

That brings us to November 2020 and browsing my local branch of the Dok supermarket in Bari, I picked up what I thought was a box of black grapes. It was only when I got home I realised I had picked up a box of ‘Olive dolce da tavola nolche’ instead of the grapes. I’m usually a great lover of olives but these were like no other olive I had ever tasted. They were extraordinarily bitter (I have no problem with the most pungent blue cheeses or 95 percent cocoa dark chocolate), they made the skin on the inside of my mouth go on edge and turned my fingertips purple. I taught a lesson an hour later and actually struggled to properly annunciate my words initially, thanks to the after-effects of this strange variety of olives.

After some research, it transpires that these kinds of nolche olives are a speciality of Puglia and in particular the region around Bari, Bisceglie and Molfetta. They are only in season from September until November and their distinctive ultra-bitter flavour comes from the presence of polyphenols and in particular the compound oleuropein. They are high in anti-oxidants and thought to reduce cholesterol and protect against cardiovascular disease. I was beginning to feel quite fortunate that I had picked these up instead of the grapes after all.

I also found out that heating the olives made them less bitter and caused them to break down in the pan. Below is a recipe I came up with for the remaining Olive dolce da tavola nolche, using what I could find in my fridge and kitchen cupboard.

Nolche olives with Datterino tomatoes, chickpeas, chilli and casarecce

2-3 servings

What you need

400g olive dolce da tavola nolche (only available between September and November – normal black olives will do)
400g canned chickpeas, drained
3 x cloves of garlic, crushed
2 x Peperone crusco (dried crusco pepper from Basilicata), deseeded and sliced horizontally
3-4 dried red chillies, sliced (no need to discard the seeds)
Half a small salumi, cut into 5 or 6 slices and then chopped into 5mm-sized small chunks.
12 x Datterino or cherry tomatoes, halved
2 teaspoons of dried Sicilian oregano
250g of dried pasta (in this instance I used casarecce, short twists, originating in Sicily)
Grated Parmesan or Pecorino to serve

Steps

1.) Heat a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil in a saucepan over a medium heat.

2.) Add all of the olives and season with sea salt and black pepper. Cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring frequently. The olives will begin to break down and disintegrate and the pan should develop a deep purple coating.

3.) Whilst the olives are cooking, bring a large pan of water to the boil and then season with sea salt.

4.) Add the crushed garlic to the pan of olives and cook for 1-2 minutes, until soft.

5.) Add the sliced peperone crusco, red chillies and salumi to the olive pan. Heat for 4-5 minutes until the salumi starts to crisp up and the peppers begin to soften. Stir frequently and add a drop of water or white wine if the salumi starts sticking to the bottom of the pan.

6.) Add the chickpeas, sliced tomatoes and oregano and continue cooking for a further 10 minutes, stir occasionally. Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to its instructions (10-12 minutes is recommended for casarecce).

7.) Once the pasta is cooked al dente, drain well in a colander but reserve approximately two tablespoons of the starchy pasta water in the pan.

8.) Combine the nolche olive mixture with the casarecce in the pan the pasta was cooked in. Mix well so that all of the ingredients are coated and incorporated.

9.) Serve in bowls, topped with grated Parmesan or Pecorino cheese, to taste.

Serving suggestion

As a side dish, I roasted some fine green beans and cicoria (a bitter green leaf that grows in abundance in southern Italy) with olive oil, sea salt and rosemary for 15 minutes in the oven. A simple green salad would also work well.