75. Pondering The Ploughman’s.

  The Ploughman’s lunch. Served on a board in a 15th century pub which is dog friendly so that there’s a black labrador sitting in the hearth (fire unlit, it’s a relatively warm day for January). The photograph of it is so pretty and colourful it could be some artist’s still life effort.

  Much is written about the ploughman’s lunch. It’s an English and, so they say, recently invented little pleasure that conjures up pastoral music, think Vaughan Williams (my music knowledge is weak but Vaughan Williams sounds like the right sort of name for this occasion). Though they also say the English rural working man, including ploughmen, would have been eating it back in medieval times, well the cheese and bread bit anyway. They say that though the cheese and bread reality had existed for centuries someone clever in the ‘Cheese Bureau’ (yes, really) put it together in the late 1950s to promote the sale of English cheese after the end of rationing and it was felt that calling it something catchy like ‘Ploughman’s lunch’ would rekindle the flame of English cheese consumption.

   The Milk Marketing Board really got things moving in the early 1960s with its Ploughman’s Lunch promotion and I remember my very first, and what seemed wondrous, Ploughman’s lunch consumed outside the Old Hare and Hounds at the Lickey Hills not far from where I lived as a boy (and still do) with my father somewhere around 1962 or 63. To accompany it he drank half a pint of mild and I quenched my thirst with Vimto. Our discovery of the Ploughman’s lunch, albeit in so modest a form that it would be more easily recognised by a medieval agricultural labourer than a modern day pub luncher, set us on a road of father-son bonding over a weekly home-made Ploughman’s whilst watching the weekly episode of The High Chaperral on Saturday-evening BBC television. The Old Hare and Hounds Ploughman’s, which we copied, was simply a wonderfully crusty roll of bread with butter, tasty Cheddar cheese and rings of hot but sweet Spanish onion. Hmmm .... the sheer joy of delicious simplicity.

  Which brings me back to the 15th century (more specifically 1470) dog-friendly pub mentioned above where the subject of the Ploughman’s Lunch cropped up - the Old Thatch Tavern in Stratford-upon-Avon (the dog and I were passing a couple of lazy days in this gem of a West Midlands towns). Wanting a light lunch as I was going to dinner at The Woodsman (see Blog 57) in the evening I scanned the menu and was overcome by an overwhelming Ploughman’s Lunch desire. And what a magnificent piece of work was set before me - 2 good-sized wedges of what I took to be fine Red Leicester, an array of pickles (a pleasant Branston, a really rather good pickled egg but a brutally astringent large, halved pickled onion which had an unsweetened acidity rendering it beyond edibility and which could quite happily have been substituted by some sweet little silverskin pickled onions), a sadly near-flavourless mini-pork pie, a pretty little salad wherein lay the necessary slivers of red onion, the surprising but picturesque little bunch of grapes and what really made this a fine Ploughman's - two thick cuts of splendid ham as tasty a ham as one might ever encounter on the road of food pleasure.

  It was a great pleasure to sit in these ancient and cosy surroundings and eat this generally tasty version of a dish that the Stratford labourers might have been eating when this inn was first built and if a tastier pork pie could be found - I like a pork pie rendered more vigorous with the hit of pepperiness - and the aggressive pickled onion could be substituted then this would be an even grander Ploughman’s Lunch.

  As an afterthought I recall that the Ploughman’s Lunch is one of the few foods or dishes to gives its name to the title of a movie (others I can think of are Disney’s Ratatouille and Woody Allen’s Bananas). A movie of the 1980s by Richard Eyre was named after the dish and proved to be one of the great movies of that decade reflecting perfectly the England of the era of Margaret Thatcher.

  As a further afterthought I’ve decided that I’m going to make 2020 my Year Of The West Midlands Ploughman’s Lunch and have resolved to eat a Ploughman’s Lunch in any establishment in which I’m eating which is offering the dish and which looks like something fine is going to be served up to me. To compare I shall, unusually, give ratings so to start off I give the Old Thatch Tavern Ploughman’s a 7 out of 10 which is a pretty good score, just let down by the pork pie and the vaguely rebarbative pickled onion but strongly boosted by the delicious ham and the very pretty picture it makes when first served.

  

74. Fictional Chef Fumes, Changes At The Wilderness..

Beef Wellington, Craft Dining Rooms, 2019

  A couple of episodes ago, Ian, the chef in the the BBC’s radio saga, The Archers, which is the longest running radio soap opera in the world and which tells the story of nice middle class mostly English people who are decent and honest while the working class, also mostly English but generally mildly dishonest as well as being comedy characters, denounced the changes in the menu introduced by the locum chef in his restaurant at Grey Gables Hotel. The locum is filling in for him while Ian is on paternity leave to spend time with the child he and his husband have had by a surrogate mother. Why was Ian so disgruntled?
  Well Ian was furious that the locum head chef, whose name I forget and which probably isn’t important anyway, had introduced, daringly one presumes, Beef Wellington and Steak pie on to the menu. Ian was full of fury saying that the locum was taking the restaurant back to the 1970s. It didn’t help that these vintage dishes were proving popular with the guests and even his husband said how much he was enjoying the steak pie.
  Frankly I think it was Ian who was out of touch. I drift back to a stupendous and memorable beef Wellington I luxuriated in at the end of last year at Craft Dining Rooms. And despite Ian’s misgivings the dish was as elegant and modern as one could hope. How much more excited I could feel about having the dish again rather than a plate of foams, pine nuts, anaemic sous vide-cooked pork belly and nasturtium flowers. Ian and a good many other chefs (real and fictional) need to rethink their strategies as we enter the third decade of the 21st century. As do a lot of professional food critics.
  Of course this amble into fictional Ambridge, the village which these characters inhabit, is highly relevant to this Blog as the village is based on elements of one not far from Birmingham in Worcestershire. It in fact finds itself in the fictional county of Borsetshire which I believe is theoretically squeezed somewhat improbably between Warwickshire and Worcestershire which would be a rather tight fit. I’ve no idea if Ian’s cooking is so good that Michelin or The Good Food Guide have graced his restaurant with a mention in their guides - probably not as I don’t ever remember Ian mentioning it and I’m sure he would have done if they had.
  Perhaps, and this could be rather enjoyable, the locum chef will win the Grey Gables restaurant a Michelin plate or a mention in the Good Food Guide, an achievement previously undreamed of in Ambridge and never achieved by the self-satisfied Ian. Borsetshire does seem to be a culinary desert though a couple of years ago a celebrity female chef did open an expensive fine-dining restaurant in, and I can’t remember which, either the county town of Borchester or the large town of Felpersham. It’s a place to be seen in apparently and the programme’s most snobbish characters, Brian and Jennifer Aldridge, who fancies herself as a bit of a cook and hostess, have dined there on at least two occasions. But mostly local people eat out at the local pub, The Bull (recently renamed The B At Ambridge in the face of considerable local antagonism) or at Grey Gables where there’s often a mishap in the kitchen or in the dining room itself.
  So I must try to remember that the West Midlands has not seven counties (Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire,  West Midlands and Worcestershire) but eight (Borsetshire to be added) and to look out for food events there. Perhaps Grey Gables with its Beef Wellington and Steak pie really is at the cutting edge of West Midlands cuisine in the early 2020s despite what Ian thinks.
 The producers of The Archers have for years produced books relating to the programme and one popular aspect of such publishing has been cookbooks. Jennifer Aldridge has even had her own cook book as the programme’s doyenne of cuisine and entertaining. The books are aimed at linking the programme’s rural and farming background to food that is fresh, local and seasonal which the books potentially quite interesting I suppose.

Published 2019

1994 edition

2009 edition

1977 edition

 Changes continue apace in Birmingham’s more important restaurants. At Alex Claridge’s The Wilderness, following the departure of Stu Deeley, the restaurant’s former sous chef, Marius Gedminas, has been appointed as the new Head Chef.

Marius Gedminas

  Meanwhile, excitingly, after leaving Purnell’s where he had worked for 10 years (see Blog 71),  Sonal Clare is taking up the post of General Manager and Head Sommelier at The Wilderness in preparation for the restaurant moving to a larger site in and to enhance the wine aspect of the restaurant (Clare won the GQ Sommelier Of The Year award 2018). Doubtless this is all part of Alex Claridge’s effort to try to make sure every possible action has been taken to persuade the Michelin inspectors that this is the year The Wilderness finally finds its place among the stars.

73. Starting Off 2020 At Folium, Legna Closes.

  For the first gastronomic self-indulgence of 2020,  a regular lunch companion and myself set off for Caroline Street in the Jewellery Quarter, stopping off at Ginger’s Bar in Purnell’s Bistro in Newhall  Street for a couple of wonderful cocktails (I’m rather hooked on Penicillin at present), to have lunch at Ben Tesh’s sublime Folium. It’s a while since I’d last been able to go there much to my regret and it was with excited anticipation that my friend and I stepped into the calmly decorated restaurant which sadly was rather quieter than I should have liked to have seen it - the excellence of Ben Tesh’s food should really ensure that the place is packed with diners for every service

  Two very happy hours of feeding followed. Many of Tesh’s dishes are exquisite with beautiful if sometimes rather understated presentations at times. A set lunch was all that was on offer but there was no need for regret as every dish was very fine, frequently delicious and a pleasure to have set down before oneself.

  The menu offered ‘Tart of Cornish crab and frozen duck liver’ - the first of the many delightful dishes to be brought to our table (I do like the service at Folium), the inevitable sourdough bread - but a fine example of this little pleasure, a perfectly delicious Tartare of mackerel with little balls of marinated cucumber and wasabi (a dish that proved once and for all that cucumber does have another role other than to put in one’s glass of Hendrick’s or Pimm’s no 1), a happy but delicate chunk of cod with cured pork fat and preserved white asparagus with which we indulged ourselves on paluga caviar though afterwards we thought that perhaps we needn’t have, a fabulous short rib of wagyu beef cooked over Binchotan with flowingly smooth Inca gold potato and black garlic, perfection in the memorable form of ‘sheep yoghurt sorbet, frozen spruce and lemon thyme’ with a conclusion to the meal in the form of ‘Madagascar chocolate, frozen burnt cream and cobnut crumb’.

  Folium is undoubtedly one of Birmingham’s finest restaurants whether or not it has a star. Ben Tesh’s cooking can not be praised enough. Perhaps he’s a little quiet in projecting his restaurant and other more outward-going chefs are getting more attention than they deserve in comparison with him but those who have dined at Folium must know that the restaurant really does offer exceptionally fine dining in the city of an increasing number of fine restaurants.

  Unlike many others, I was not surprised by the result of the general election in December. Similarly I was not surprised, though others were, to read that Aktar Islam has closed down his Italian-style restaurant, Legna. Why was I not surprised? Birmingham has too many expensive restaurants and to keep going in the face of such competition means you have to be really very good and based on my one visit there (recounted in Blog 50, 1 March 2019) Legna was not as good as it needed to be (though we might note that it was awarded a Michelin plate in the 2020 Michelin Guide and listed in Harden’s Guide 2020 but interestingly was not mentioned in The Good Food Guide 2020).
  Aktar Islam blamed costs associated with the building in which Legna was situated as the reason for its closure and said that he would concentrate on two new restaurants that he plans to open soon including the Argentinian- style Pulperia due to open in two to three weeks time in Brindley Place.

Legna’s scruffy ‘Bolognese’

72. Craft Dining Rooms.

   And so, a quick mention of my pleasurable visits to Craft Dining Rooms in the International Convention Centre.

 My first trip to Craft Dining Rooms was in mid-November 2019 for an early dinner and I derived such pleasure from the whole meal that I have returned twice since then - for lunch and for Sunday lunch. Such joys! Since my first visit Andrew Sheridan has moved in as chef (see Blog 71) but before his time I found the food to be delicious and excellent. The only real fault with the restaurant was the chilly atmosphere (literally not metaphorically) and I do hope the heating problems will be soon sorted out.

  The meal which captured my attention and ensured I was to become a devotee of Craft Dining Rooms was made up of a starter of Roast diver-caught scallop with bacon, apple and baby gem (a delight), ‘Arthur Wellesley 18615 Beef Wellington’ with caramelised onion, creamed Duke potato and Wiltshire truffle which I thought was a magnificent dish (I read a review by a food critic in a Wolverhampton newspaper who had obviously been in a grumpy mood the evening he’d dined at the CDR because he found no pleasure whatsoever in this splendid Wellington - a lesson to us all to take the opinions of professional critics with a pinch of salt) and then a highly original carrot cake trifle which was enjoyable but not the best dessert I have had (I’m not a dessert person and to really thrill me a pudding really has to come up with something extraordinary) but still very edible.

  A couple of weeks later I had lunch at CDR with a regular lunching companion. Again the food was enjoyable though we learned that English red wines still have some way to go.

  This restaurant is high on my list of places to dine in Birmingham and I look forward to experiencing Andrew Sheridan’s fayre as he settles in. These are exciting time for Birmingham food lovers.

Some further pretty gems:-