The St Agnes Food Mile
1.
The issue of food miles is a modern and thorny one - green beans from Kenya, strawberries from Mexico, asparagus from Peru: right or wrong? On St Agnes, however, we are ridiculously fortunate in being able to acquire most of our fresh produce from within walking distance.
As a cook, like a hungry spider, I sit at the centre of my Island web - alert to every movement: Kit and Harry Legg returning from sea with another batch of fresh lobsters caught on the Western Rocks; Tonya restocking the Tamarisk organic vegetable stall with beautiful firm aubergines and bunches of fragrant, leafy basil; a Troytown beef animal that has made the transition from munching and mooing on the Wingletang Downs to oven-ready deliciousness...
As a cook, like a hungry spider, I sit at the centre of my Island web - alert to every movement: Kit and Harry Legg returning from sea with another batch of fresh lobsters caught on the Western Rocks; Tonya restocking the Tamarisk organic vegetable stall with beautiful firm aubergines and bunches of fragrant, leafy basil; a Troytown beef animal that has made the transition from munching and mooing on the Wingletang Downs to oven-ready deliciousness...
2.
When I sense these tremors it is time to take a stroll down to Periglis. While I wait for the lobsters to be landed I’ll pick a bagful of glossy sea spinach. Then... off round the coast to Troytown to load up on cream and butter (and perhaps a scrap of home-grown Bacon). While I’m there I might just add a punnet of juicy raspberries and a litre of vanilla ice cream, made on site with cream from the farm’s dairy herd.
My five-a-day is dealt with under a tree: the Tamarisk Farm organic vegetable aisle. Tiny new potatoes, cherry tomatoes and courgettes still with the flowers on. A handful of frondy fennel herb straight from the hedge completes the deal, and I put the money in a highly secure and sophisticated plastic box with a slot cut in the top. |
3.
Pudding is still missing something... but just round the corner, the lovely ladies of the Little Island Chocolate Company are, like Medieval alchemists (or pink-aproned Willy Wonkas), adding precious essential oils to vats of melted chocolate. The oils have been distilled on Westward Farm from flowers grown in the clear air of St Agnes (rose geranium, agastache, lavender...). These same flowers, in a good year, will have fed the Westward farm bees: Honey of the Gods.
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4.
Oh, and eggs of course. Carrying a baler-twined tray of Island eggs home over the bumpy track, I get a fair few comments from passers-by about omelettes/breaking/can’t make without/ etc.
Am I missing anything? If so, The Shop will plug the gap no doubt. Organic spaghetti? Vacuum-packed chestnuts? Marinated olives? Parmesan cheese? Ground almonds? No problem. Not to mention... WINE! A handful of pinks from the Bulbshop completes the picture. |
5.
Returning to my kitchen, profoundly unstressed by the Agnes shopping experience, dinner almost makes itself. Even a fool can cook with fresh produce of this quality. The lobster will be briefly boiled in seawater and should go well with a proper mayonnaise (I got the eggs home safely) flavoured with fennel. With it, a summer salad of new potatoes, cherry tomatoes and char-grilled marinated courgettes. Or something a bit more gutsy - a dish of creamed sea spinach with that farm bacon and just a hint of fresh chilli, perhaps? It depends slightly on which wine I have opened to help the process along...
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6.
For pudding, a rich, warm lavender chocolate tart (Island butter in the pastry of course) with ice cream. With a spoonful of those plump raspberries drizzled with honey on the side of the plate, and the only noises outside those of birds and sea, I don’t believe anyone, anywhere can be eating better than this.
Cooking by Piers, art work by Rachel
Cooking by Piers, art work by Rachel