Intrepid Gourmet

Turn on any TV channel these days and I guarantee you will see one or another of your favourite TV chefs in ego-action, preaching, teaching, advising and now and again even cheating. You will see and hear about their one to five star establishments, which part of the ocean or river their fish was netted, how their beef was fed and delicately massaged and from which corner of their herb gardens the broad leaf parsley came from.

Until quite recently the very mention of English food was enough to deter even the keenest  of overseas Anglophiles from nearing our shores. Their decision to avoid our green and pleasant land was probably justified; more so as we Brits were also fed up with the bland overpriced, post war rubbish we were being served in the name of English cuisine. It is only now, after all these years that England is beginning to recover from its once deplorable culinary reputation.

I’ve got a thing for bok choy at the moment. Apart from it being less expensive than mangold, which I find it similar to, it is more versatile.Bok choy, or brassica chinensis to use its scientific name, is classified as a cabbage. Nonetheless, bok choy bears little resemblance to the round European cabbages found in western supermarkets, or to the Napa Cabbage for that matter.

American friends of mine had a shrimp farm on the coast of Ecuador and I never missed a chance, when in the area, to visit him. His house, built to modern American standards, with all mod-cons, including whirl pool, deep sunken bath tubs and a broad wooden balcony, was ideally situated on top of a headland, overlooking the Pacific ocean.