Contents
Contents
Rick Stein
Over my 55-year career, I’ve seen British cuisine transform. What we have now is an amalgam of our own rich repertoire of dishes, and the food and flavours of so many different cultures from the people who have made Britain their home – from meat and two veg to Pad Thai noodles. We have today what I believe is one of the most exciting cuisines in the world’
Rick Stein’s Food Stories is a glorious collection of over 100 new classic recipes that celebrate the flavours, ingredients, and stories of modern Britain. Rick travels every region of the British Isles to include not only traditional favourites such as Bangers and champ with red wine gravy, a classic fish pie or Tattie scones with smoked salmon but also his twist on new dishes that have become part of our national cuisine like Kubo pork belly adobo, Arroz roja, Paneer jalfrezi and Chicken Katsu Curry.
With stunning food and location photography throughout, Rick Stein’s Food Stories is also a delicious and inspiring journey through Britain’s joyous and ever-changing food scene, shining a spotlight on talented food heroes from all over the country, from food growers and producers to immigrant home cooks and iconoclastic young chefs. Here, Rick tells of his love for one particular area of the UK, Argyll and Bute, and foraging for sea herbs.
Argyll and Bute has always been a mystical and magical place for me ever since I first went there with my parents as a twelve-year-old and stayed in the Crinan Hotel. The area is made up of fingers of land with water in between, the longest finger being the Kintyre peninsula. It’s so close to Glasgow as the crow flies, but so far unless you take the ferry to get there. It seems to me that tourists drive north from Glasgow, skirting Loch Lomond and then keep on towards Fort William and the Highlands, not thinking to turn left and back south
to Lochgilphead and down to Loch Fyne. On the eastern shore of this beautiful stretch of water is an isolated restaurant called Inver, a converted croft and a collection of low white bothies with serene views across the cold waters of the loch. There’s a ruined fifteenth- century castle on a promontory of rock nearby and beyond, thirty miles of the peninsula ending at the Mull of Kintyre. A breathtaking scene and I recalled the words in Paul McCartney’s song: ‘My desire is always to be here’. No wonder, I thought at the time.
I was there filming an episode for my series Food Stories and went foraging for sea herbs with Pam Brunton who, with her partner Rob, runs Inver and cooks exquisite dishes, all local and featuring Herdwick lamb from the Isle of Bute, langoustines, lobsters and hand-dived scallops and oysters from the loch, and bass, halibut and turbot from the sea around the isles of Islay, Mull and Arran. It was May and I was freezing as I only had on a thin summer jacket. ‘Ne’er cast a clout till May is out’, as the locals say.
We gathered sea broccoli, sweet cicely, cuckoo flower and scurvy grass – which tasted hotter than horseradish – to adorn many of Pam’s dishes, such as the honey-glazed, barbecued neck of lamb with creamed cannellini beans she cooked for me. The recipe for her beans is the book, but sadly the lamb needed Pam’s restaurant kitchen techniques and could not be simplified for cooking at home without becoming
a pale imitation. Everything about Pam was admirable: a bundle of energy with a sweet smile and an intelligent and practical take on
the common sense of keeping all her dishes local. ‘Why would you not?’ she says. ‘My suppliers are my friends and, a lot of the time,
my customers’.
'On the eastern shore of this beautiful stretch of water is an isolated restaurant called Inver, a converted croft and a collection of low white bothies with serene views across the cold waters of the loch.'
That trip to Argyll was something I will never forget. I’m sure it’s a part of the country that many of us don’t visit but anyone who does will be overwhelmed by how beautiful and relatively unspoiled it is. To me, it’s a bit like the Isle of Wight in that it seems like a step back in time. I often say that as much as I love making television series it’s when I go back somewhere on holiday that I really appreciate places. I will hasten back to Inver with its wooden floors and rugs, log fires and warm dishes of local food.
Rick Stein's passion for using good-quality local produce and his talent for creating delicious recipes in his books and restaurants have won him a host of awards, accolades and fans. As well as presenting a number of television series, he has published many bestselling cookery books, including French Odyssey, Coast to Coast, Far Eastern Odyssey, Rick Stein's Long Weekends, Rick Stein’s India and most recently Rick Stein’s Simple Suppers.
Rick has always believed in showcasing local seafood and farm produce in his four restaurants in Padstow, Cornwall, where he also has a cookery school, food shops and a pub in the nearby village of St Merryn. In 2018, Rick was awarded a CBE for services to the economy. He divides his time with his wife and business partner Sarah between Padstow, London and Australia, where he also has two seafood restaurants by the sea in Mollymook and Port Stephens NSW.
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