The Aperitif Guy

We associate the simnel cake with Easter, and now is the best time to get one made, so it has time to mature. It's one of the highlights of my baking (and eating) year - a cake so loaded with my favourite ingredients that I could eat it morning, noon and night. Simnel cake wasn't always so strictly seasonal. True enough, it has always been seen as a cake for special occasions, but the practice of eating it at Easter has its origin in tax and rent regulations. The fourth Sunday in Lent was the day the local churches paid their dues to the "mother" church of their area, and the suffragan sees to their metropolitan see. That's a lot of money moving around, and it needed people to physically transport it. We didn't have BACS back then. The task was not entrusted to poor parish clergy, but to local landowners. Perhaps they thought the wealthy would be less tempted to help themselves. With the landowner (and usually his wife) away for the weekend, the servants were ...

Fans of Jane Austen adaptations, or of the recent BBC production "Bridgerton" will be very familiar with the elegance and opulence of the Regency period in British history. The wealth of a growing empire flowed into Britain, particularly London, Bristol and Liverpool, and the merchant classes found themselves increasingly leisured. Tea and coffee, both fairly recent additions to the repertoire of British drinks, were still relatively expensive. Gin, of course, was hugely popular among the urban working class,  dangerously so. Indeed there was much agitation from business owners for workers to be encouraged to drink beer instead. So what did those fine gentlemen and wealthy ladies drink, while they were fanning themselves coyly or stifling their emotions over the dowry negotiations? For many, the answer would be fortified wines. Fortifying and sweetening wines preserved them, allowing them still to be drunk pleasantly after a long sea journey. We know the wines of Madeira were...

There is a definite seasonality to my drinking habits. I have commented on it before: how I enjoy sharp and light drinks in the summer months, fino sherry in the sunshine or rosé wine with salads. By the same token, as the temperature drops and the nights grow longer, I naturally incline to darker, more full-bodied drinks in the autumn and winter. It's not just because winter foods tend to be deeper in flavour, although that certainly plays a part, but somehow the mood of the season calls for darker drinks. Even if I'm not drinking with food, I wouldn't think of opening a bottle of lager, dry white wine or crisp sherry. Even gin and tonic are less common for me come November. Shiraz, Malbec and Rioja People will tell you I'm not a fan of rich, heavily-oaked red wines. I think it would be more accurate to say I struggle to match them with food. In the winter months, I'm more likely to open a bottle after supper, or to open one early in the week and take a glass out o...

Image: Swindon Advertiser To people of my generation, the name of Diana Dors conjures up images from 1970s comedies: a buxom, glamorous lady a little past her prime, camping it up as the dictator in a sketch serial from The Two Ronnies' TV programme, or as Adam Ant's fairy godmother in the Prince Charming video. For those a little older, she was the genuinely sexy star of British cinema of the 1950s and 60s, sold as Britain's answer to Marilyn Monroe and equally used and abused by those around her. Readers may remember salacious tales of sex parties and gangland connections, cheap, titillating films, drink and drugs. She was hardly the kind of person my Grandmother would emulate. Grandma was quiet, domesticated, deeply faithful to her religion and not keen on people drinking. She loved family and loved to bake for us. Every week, we would visit and be provided with scones, custard tart, lemon curd cake, apple pie. You name it, she baked it for us. She once told me I b...

Yes, I've used the 'C' word, and it's not even half way through November! Baking, though, won't wait. Christmas inevitably involves a lot of hospitality for us, so early preparation is key if I'm going to enjoy the festivities. Many of my favourite recipes have been handed from one friend to another, one generation to the next and are recorded on old envelopes and bits of paper stuffed into the back of an old cookbook. I love the stories and memories that go with them and I'm making a point of collecting them into a book to give to my next generation when they're old enough. They may have to get used to my habit of swinging from metric to imperial measures and back again, though. I'm of that age group who were taught using both, and, although I'm equally comfortable with each, I struggle to convert from one to the other. I just use the version I've been given. A Boxing Day buffet, with cake, sausage rolls and mince pies Cakes ...

Autumn is my favourite time of the year for cooking and entertaining. I love to cook with wild mushrooms, orchard fruits, game birds and nuts. Autumn flowers may be hard to come by, but squashes, pumpkins and displays of golden foliage can bring great beauty to your table. Now's the time to let go of my preference for white linen and reach for the cinnamon-red tablecloth, or even a deep brown one. I've been thinking about the flavours I particularly associate with autumn and how we might bring them to the aperitif table. I'll look at four flavours in particular: smoke, apples, pears and blackberries. Smoke Smoked foods of all descriptions make for delicious aperitif nibbles. Simple cubes of smoked cheddar cheese are lovely with a sweet white wine. Look for something with a hint of apple, like a late harvest chenin blanc. Don't ever be afraid of serving a sweet wine as an aperitif. As well as wine, port, Madeira and sherry can all bring a touch of sophisticatio...

L to R: Marsala, Port, Madeira My last blog was about sherry, perhaps the most obvious drink (for the English, at least) to fall into the category of “fortified wines.” It’s a term that conjures up memories of the old duty-free allowances and even older relatives. However, just as sherry is enjoying its own little renaissance, I thought we might have a look at the other versatile wines that are its cousins. The popularity of these drinks in the UK owes much to their keeping qualities. They were originally fortified with brandy as a way of preserving them for the long sea journey to foreign markets. It helps retain a certain freshness and grapey flavour without the need for transporting in heavy, glass bottles. Delicate table wines were harder to transport, so our islands off the north-west of Europe came to love the stronger, often sweeter wines of Porto, Jerez, Sicily and Madeira. Port I think I mentioned port in my post about France. Whereas English-speaking cou...