Taken from Dorothy Hartley’s Food in England by Palladius. She tells us that quince is hard and pear shaped, bright yellow when ripe and red when cooked. It has a most delicious aroma.

I bought a bagful from the grocers – eight in all. They will keep in the fruit bowl for a few weeks.

Jane Grigson has a few pages on quince in her book Good Things. Perhaps the most tempting recipe is a Moroccan Meat Stew made with chicken, ginger, butter and quince. I am not sure I will be able to persude the children but I might do it for myself on Friday evening.

Christopher Lloyd repeats the recipe in his book Gardener Cook and notes that he had scribbled into the margin of his battered old copy of Good Things so good and easy.

He suggests that should you see a quince tree in someone else’s garden laden with heavy yellow fruit in late October you should not be shy of knocking on the door to enquire as to whether they are willing to share that autumns harvest. I remember walking through Woodstock many years ago and seeing just such a quince tree bowed down with the weight of its fruit. Of course I walked on rsather than knocking on the door.

We have a small quince bush against the wall in the veg plot but although it flowers well it has not given any fruit much larger than a marble. However it seems to be doing better each year – last year the fruit grew no bigger than a pea.

This afternoon I am going to cook two of quinces I bought from the grocers in syrup and lemon juice.The recipe comes from Simon Hopkinson’s The Vegetarian Option. The quinces need to be quarted and put into a lidded oven dish with 8 tablespoons of syrup, a teasoppon of lemon juice and a few grindings of white pepper. He actually suggests maple syrup but wasn’t able to pick that up yesterday and I am sure that Lyle’s Golden will work just as well.

The dish goes into a low oven for an hour until the fruit is tender. He suggests eating it whipped cream flavoured with eau de vie an olf bottle of which we have in the basement.

There are quince in the greengrocers on Oxton Road.. I was in there first thing and as I walked out Kazim pointed them out to me. i bought just the one  but then as I drove over to The Farmers’s market in New Ferry I convinced myself that one would not be enough and a half dozen or so would look good in the kitchen until I got round to cooking them.

So I stopped again at the greengrocers to get me a bagful. The had some giant pomegranates which looked too good to resist so I took one of those as well.

Having put them into the basket I wemt round the back to let Kazim know I was getting them.

He was sat with Nadir at a rickety table having lunch. There was a small shelf with a kettle and some pots and pans for cooking. They had plates of vegetable and rice stew which they were eating with bread. Kazim invited me to have a taste and he explained how he made it with kohlrabi, onions,carrot, turnips fried in olive oil. Once this had started to cook he threw in a good handful of rice and then water. He had to keep stirring it to stop it from sticking and burning. Shortly before it was ready a couple of peeled tomatoes were stirred.

He put two spoonfuls on a plate for me and flavoured it with soy sauce and olive oil. It was very good. i must try and get there foir lunch next week.

As it was lunch had been bought at The Farmers Market. Two packs of lamb chump from Bryn Cocyn Farm.

I cooked the same potato cake I had cooked last night except this time it was for two. The turning over with a plate worked perfectly again.

The lamb was fried off in olive oil having been seasoned well with salt and pepper. Just before serving I stirred in some finely chopped lemon peel, parsley and garlic.

Listening to another Soul Jazz compilation – Country Soul Sisters – 25 tracks from Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette to Kitty Wells and Bobbie Gentry

There was a remarkable golden light when I walked into the kitchen at 7.20 this morning. It was as if the trees in the garden had reached up higher into the sky so the light was filtered through their yellow orange late autumnal leaves. It only lasted a few minutes and by the time I had had my shower and was down again it had gone back to the lowering grey clouds and the weather report’s threat of rain. Later the day was coloured with disorder.

The drive home in the evening was taken up with guilty pleasues. I will write elsewhere about the glory of Soul Jazz compilations. Today it was the turn of Volume 2 of Delta Swamp Rock. Unless you are the sort of person whose heartbeat quickens at the name Duane Allman it is unlikely to do much for you, but it ticked all my boxes. Coming out of the tunnel it kick started into the start of Freebird and I found myself tapping fingers on the steering wheel to that bit towards the end when the twin guitars start to squeal.

So Friday evening are mostly taken up with the noise and guitars, not a bad combination.

At home the autumnal theme continued with the food. Last week I had picked up a partridge at Wards. A partridge is one of the great pleasures of autumn. If you see them on sale buy it. One is the perfect size for one helping.

I squashed up a clove of garlic and stuffed that into the cavity. The seasoning was a dash of olive oil, salt, pepper and a good pinch of ras el hounet.

In the meantime I made my potato cake. One large peeled potato very finely sliced with one of the knives capable of taking off the top of a finger. Butter was melted in a black iron pan and the layers of potato were added with more seasoning of salt and pepper. That was kept on a low heat for about 30 minutes. In the meantime the partridge went into a medium oven.

The potato cake was turned over. This involved a moment of doubt. If it had stuck or was undercooked the whole thing would be a failure. It worked this evening. The bottom was starting to brown and the sugars in the potato had started to coalecse. A small plate was placed over the pan and I flipped it over. It fell away perfectly and I was able to slid it back into the pan and onto the stove for another twenty minutes or so to cook through whilst the partridge was done.

The potato cake was then slid onto a plate and the partridge placed on top. It was delicious. Although I started with a knife and fork I finished with my fingers – snagging and picking every last meat and picking up my glass of wine in my fists.

We listened to the Dexy’s album and I was taken away again by thought of having seen them do it all on the stage a few weeks ago.

Last night I watched a documentary about Dorothy Hartley. It had in fact been on BBC4 on Tuesday night. I had missed it then but through the beauty of iPlayer was able to catch up. It was an evening alone, the kids in bed and me downstairs with a bottle of beer. I was not sure about the documentary itself, the presenter Dr Lucy Worsley was too enthusiastic and keen as she sheared her sheep in a clean pair of wellies and shepheared a group of grammar school boys making Stargazey Pie.

But it got over the otherworldliness of Dorothy Hartley and I went back to the shelves late in the evening to pick out my copy of Food in England and another one of her books that I managed to pick up 2nd hand The Land of England. 

She was a remarkable woman and all her other books are now a goal I can set myself whenever I walk into a secand book shop including a book about travelling around Ireland of which someone said if you want to see Ireland in extreme and unnecessary discomfort, Irish Holiday will tell you how to do this…my only criticism against an enthralling book.

I wonder if she made it to the The Sheep’s Head.

By way of a small tribute I set out below her comments on mackerel from Food in England.

MACKEREL

“When Mackrell ceaseth from the sea,

John Baptist brings grass-beef and pease.”

Tusser

This is the most beautiful fish. When the shoals come in to the bay, mackerel is suddenly very plentiful and cheap; at other times there may be none for weeks. Its delicacy makes it one of the most difficult fish for transport and it spoils so rapidly that there were special laws permitting it to be sold on Sundays , even in Scotland.

Mackerel, so fresh the light shines from it like a rainbow, should be treated exactly like trout, and grilled and served as swiftly. For this the smaller fish are best. The very large mackerel, full of roe, are better split and stuffed with a good herb seasoning (as they have less flavour). Therefore small mackerel, grill as trout; large mackerel, bake with stuffing.

Large mackerel

Take 4oz. of fine breadcrumbs, 2 oz. of fine dripping or lard (just melted), 1 teaspoonful of powdered herbs, 1 small onion scraped finely, salt, pepper and a spot of anchovy sauce. Beat together, binding with an egg, dry the fish, put a strip of bay leaf inside each, fill up with the stuffing, dust with seasoned flour, and dot over well with dripping or butter before baking in a medium oven for about 30 – 40 minutes (according to the size of the fish). In this case (i.e. a very large and therefore less-flavoured fish) it is permitted to serve with a full-flavoured sauce – anchovy or parsley.

Note. Any soft roe may be mixed in with the stuffing, but the hard roe is better baked under the fish.

There is no need to argue with anything that she has to say about mackerel. I am not so sure about the cooking of large mackerel but I think with a few changes it could be made to work well. Olive oil for the dripping or lard and fresh herbs for the dry and perhaps not so long in the oven.

Tonight we ate the Garstang Blue that Matthew gave me in September.

I had been keeping it for sandwiches but late in the evening it transpired that we had all the ingredients for pasta with a blue cheese, spinach and cream sauce but without the blue cheese. So the Garstang Blue was taken out of its silver wrapper and melted slowly in a pan with some chopped garlic, double cream and finely chopped spinach. The cheese was ripe and in its prime and an hour later there is still a furry, bitter after taste at the back of my tongue – and that is a good thing.

We listened to Mark Mulcahey and Tame Impala.