Food Stories episode 15 - West Country
Rick Stein’s Food Stories episode 15 - West Country
Transcript
00:00I've been a chef for over 50 years, but I've come to realise that the food we eat tells
00:08a story about who we are.
00:13So I'm on a mission to find out what we all like to eat today.
00:17Oh, that is good.
00:19From our traditional dishes.
00:21Long live the Yorkshire pudding.
00:23To those we've made our own.
00:25I mean, that is multi-faceted Britain on one plate.
00:28Our meat producers.
00:29There you see a robot, he's picking them.
00:32I find a lot of craft beers too hoppy.
00:34I don't know why, but it tastes all right.
00:38Some of our best chefs.
00:40We're picking scurvy grass, pretty punchy.
00:44Plus those keeping traditions alive.
00:46We've just got to finish.
00:48I have no hope.
00:49I'll see how food brings us together.
00:52Dig in!
00:53Lovely, that sort of hot garlic, fabuloso.
00:58And from my home in Padstow, I'll bring you great dishes of my own.
01:02Love stuff like this.
01:04So join me as I unearth the stories behind the food we all love to eat today.
01:17I've seen some incredible things on my culinary tour of the UK, but nothing is more pleasing
01:25to my eyes than the familiar rolling countryside of the West Country.
01:32It's great to be back on my home turf.
01:35Behind me, there's Dartmoor.
01:37Looks like the rain's coming in.
01:38And over there, Exeter, Exmouth and the open sea.
01:43There's something about the West Country.
01:46Maybe it's down to the warm, wet climate verging on the tropical, or whether it's down to the
01:51softness of the accents.
01:54But there's something about this place which inspires people to do brilliant things in
01:59food and farming.
02:03Stretching from Bristol in the east to Penzance in the west, the West Country encompasses
02:09five counties and is home to the vast, wild expanse of Dartmoor and the atmospheric ruins
02:16of Tintagel Castle in Cornwall.
02:23I've always been proud of the spirit of innovation to be found here.
02:27So I'm starting out in Devon, home to a crusading force in sustainable agriculture.
02:35Well, I'm just outside of Totnes.
02:39I'm going to see an organic farmer and distributor of his own organic produce.
02:45And he's an absolute pioneer.
02:47The great thing about this man is that he's not just growing organic food because it tastes
02:53better, but he feels that we've all got a duty to eat organic produce, not just for
02:59our own health, but for the benefit of the planet.
03:05This is Riverford, 1,300 acres of mixed-use farmland producing a wide array of fruit and
03:14vegetables in fields and unheated greenhouses.
03:20It's the life's work of Guy Singh Watson, a man who blazed a trail for organic farming
03:28in the 1980s, when a lot of us didn't even know what it was.
03:33Guy, what does organic mean?
03:36Tell me what organic means.
03:37OK.
03:38Well, if I'm going to give you the most reductionist, it would be, you know, farming without synthetic
03:43fertilisers and pesticides.
03:45So why is it so important, then?
03:47Initially, my motivation for farming organically is that I just didn't want to handle those
03:52canisters with skulls and crossbones on them.
03:54My brother had just been in hospital with paraquat poisoning, which is a broad-spectrum
03:58herbicide.
03:59I just didn't want to be handling them.
04:01And it's developed over 40 years into a sort of all-encompassing sort of philosophy, really,
04:06that I want to farm in partnership with nature.
04:08I want to learn from nature.
04:09I want to be part of nature, as opposed to what most farming does is, you know, completely
04:14destroy what was there and impose something else, often quite alien, in its place.
04:21So in these tunnels, instead of spraying off with, you know, insecticides to get rid of
04:24these spider mites and aphids and so on, we will introduce predators.
04:28So we've got fennel growing around the outside, which the predatory wasps will overwinter
04:32on.
04:33So we're trying to, you know, look at what's happening in a hedgerow, the sort of dynamic
04:36balance that you have, and trying to bring that into our greenhouse, rather than, you
04:41know, reaching for a can of pesticide.
04:43How have you managed to make enough money to grow and pay everybody?
04:47Because there's not much margin in a Swede.
04:51The secret is selling it direct, you know, to our customers on the doorstep.
04:56And we get 100% of the retail price, as opposed to selling to a supermarket, where probably
05:01you'd get a quarter.
05:06Guy became one of the first farmers to deliver mixed vegetable boxes directly to people's
05:13homes, a revolutionary moment that upended the traditional norms of the supply chain.
05:21He now has 70,000 customers across England and Wales receiving a veg box each week, something
05:29I never could have predicted when I first met him.
05:32So I came to Riverford Farm years and years ago, and it was just like a small, you know,
05:37doing the right thing, selling, almost like selling vegetables on the roadside.
05:41Yeah, I did start selling vegetables out the back of my car, more or less.
05:46It's been a long old journey, and I do sometimes come in at the weekend when there's no one
05:50around, and I can't really quite believe what I see.
05:56From selling veggies at the roadside, to being the boss of a company with a turnover of over
06:02£100 million, Guy has now even expanded into the restaurant trade, with this impressive
06:09on-site eatery selling the day's delicious produce.
06:15I love that the menu has limited options based on what's been freshly picked.
06:21I'm having a dish of pickled aubergine, heritage tomatoes and French beans.
06:28This is lovely.
06:29Very nice dressing, slightly tart, which is great.
06:32Do people complain about having no choice?
06:35No, I've never heard anyone complain.
06:38And I suppose Riverford and our veg boxes is the same, you know, we pack a good selection
06:42of vegetables, you know, as far as possible grown locally at that time of year.
06:47And it takes out so much stress and wastage, and it means that you can serve good food
06:52more cheaply, you know, without making the compromises that are made in most kitchens.
06:57Well, this is lovely.
06:58Where's the bread from?
07:00Just down the road?
07:01Just down the road.
07:02They bake it here.
07:03Oh, of course they do.
07:04Of course they do.
07:14I think sometimes one's so overwhelmed by things going wrong on the planet that you
07:19sort of wonder what can we do?
07:22But talking to Guy has been really inspiring.
07:25I mean, he's achieved so much and he's done it all in the right way.
07:34They say eating a little less meat is one way we can all help the environment.
07:40And having left Riverford with a bounty of heirloom carrots and beets, frankly, I'm more
07:47than happy to go vegetarian for a day.
07:51I want to bring you into the Alice in Wonderland world of tart tatins.
07:55Well, vegetable tart tatins.
07:58Everything's back to front and upside down.
08:00And this is what I did today.
08:03The carrots are the showstopper here.
08:06These eye-catching coloured ferratis are perfect.
08:10Slice about 10 of them lengthways, but save the tops.
08:14You'll need them for later.
08:16Add three sliced beetroots, then drizzle with olive oil and season.
08:23Add sugar next.
08:25That's the key to unlocking the flavour of the veg through caramelisation.
08:30And I've got one more trick.
08:32I really like a bit of star anise in roast vegetables like this.
08:35It's got this very, very subtle aniseed-y flavour and it works really well with the
08:40sweetness of carrot and beetroot.
08:43Give it all a good mix and pop in the oven for about 20 to 25 minutes.
08:51For the rest of the filling, sweat red onions in butter.
08:57Add a clove of garlic.
09:00Season.
09:02And once softened, set aside.
09:08With the roasted veggies done, butter a dish and embrace
09:12your inner Picasso as you layer the carrots.
09:16I put the thick end on the outside and the thin end in the middle
09:20and I alternate the colours, yellow, orange and purple,
09:24creating a lovely pattern.
09:26Then the beetroot.
09:27If there are any little gaps between the carrots,
09:29you'd be able to see the deep purple of the beetroot through the gaps.
09:33Put those all on and then the onions.
09:36Life is way too short for making puff pastry,
09:40so roll out some of the packet stuff,
09:43drape it over the dish and do your best to tidy up the edges.
09:48Pop that all in the oven at 190 degrees fan for about 25, 30 minutes.
09:55Next, I made a pesto out of carrot tops.
09:58I picked up the idea from my recent travels and it works a treat.
10:01I put a copious amount of carrot tops into a liquidiser,
10:04then I added grated Parmesan, garlic, pine nuts, salt
10:11and plenty of olive oil and whizzed it all up.
10:21With the tart now baked, it's time for the tricky bit.
10:25Pop a plate over the dish ready for flipping.
10:28Or if, like me, you can't find one, use a massive chopping board instead.
10:34I confess, I wasn't sure that this was a good idea.
10:37Did it work? Yes, it did.
10:40Hey, wunderbar.
10:42It looked perfect. Just one carrot had fallen out of place.
10:46A drizzle of the pesto and you've got yourself a lovely, colourful,
10:50flavourful dish.
10:52And talking of which, here's a little bit.
10:55I just bought a slice out for me to taste.
11:01Carrots are the thing.
11:03If carrots weren't a vegetable, I'd almost say they were a fruit
11:06because when they're cooked like this, they're so deliciously sweet.
11:10And the carrot and my carrot-top pesto.
11:16Fabulous.
11:20I just love it when I make a dish like this.
11:24I just love it when the produce does the hard work,
11:27so I'm on the trail of another West Country speciality.
11:31It is, of course, cheddar cheese.
11:35These days, most cheese is mass-produced,
11:38but there's been a revival in hand-crafted artisan cheese.
11:43And there's one family in Devon that's been making cheese since 1540.
11:49And in 2023, they won the coveted People's Choice Award
11:54for the best cheddar in the UK.
12:03And it's all the hard work of the nation's most famous female cheesemaker,
12:08Mary Quick.
12:13This is the magic moment, cheese,
12:15where the solid's emerging from the liquid.
12:18OK.
12:19Do you want to make the very best out of that beautiful raw material?
12:24That raw material is milk,
12:26to which a starter and rennet have been added
12:29to kick off the cheesemaking process.
12:32The rennet causes solids, or curds, to form,
12:35and the liquid by-product is the whey.
12:38We've brought the curds and the whey down
12:40into these beautiful vessels, coolers.
12:42Yeah, yeah.
12:43And we're taking the whey off,
12:45and we're bringing the curd, which is the solid, to the side.
12:50Why are you doing all this by hand?
12:52Our cheesemakers here are making judgements on the cheese.
12:56They're making judgements.
12:58Why are you doing all this by hand?
13:00Our cheesemakers here are making judgements
13:03on the basis of their knowledge and experience.
13:05Yeah.
13:06And they're doing that at every moment.
13:08And because it's this open-vat, handmade, small-batch process,
13:12they can actually make changes.
13:14Whereas if you're in one of those big dairies
13:16where you've got all the milk from Cornwall pouring out,
13:19you can't stop anything.
13:21Yeah.
13:22You just have to go with whatever, however that goes.
13:25As an orphan in biology, there's an unpredictability
13:29to how the milk and starter will react.
13:32Working by hand allows Mary's team to tweak the process
13:36to suit each batch.
13:39This starter, as it happens, is going a little bit faster today.
13:42So it's almost the cheese is running the show.
13:45The cheese is absolutely running the show.
13:47Fabulous, fabulous.
13:50Once separated from the liquid whey,
13:53these great blankets of curd are fed into a machine
13:57and milled into flakes.
14:01Then handfuls of salt are mixed in with what look like garden forks.
14:09Next, it's shoveled and pummeled by hand
14:12into a steel vat lined with muslin cloths.
14:17There's 27 kilos of curd in each of those cheeses,
14:20so that is pretty hardcore.
14:24And when the workers' biceps have done their best...
14:29..a hydraulic press takes over to squeeze them into their final shape.
14:36Then it's all about adding flavour.
14:38Each cheese is matured for up to two years in a very special place.
14:45Come into our cheese cathedral.
14:47Oh, wow.
14:49Gosh, that's amazing.
14:53Smells so good.
14:56What a sight.
14:574,000 cheeses in floor-to-ceiling racks
15:01that are turned every ten days to ensure an even texture.
15:09The muslin cloth allows the cheese to breathe
15:12and a mould to form, creating a rich flavour under the rind
15:17that I'm just longing to taste.
15:21This is two-year-old cheese. Yes.
15:23So have a smell.
15:26Yes.
15:28So you've got some of those kind of quite funky volatiles.
15:31Yeah.
15:33Yeah, funky volatiles.
15:35Sounds like a band.
15:37Yeah.
15:41Oh.
15:43Magnificent.
15:44It's got such a body and also still acidity,
15:48but it's sort of mature acidity.
15:50That's gorgeous.
15:51A real work of art, I would say, Mary.
15:53Thank you, Nick.
15:54That's... I'm really honoured coming from you.
15:57And to make the most beautiful cheese we can from those cows' milk,
16:01you know, for me, that's an amazing privilege.
16:04Amen to that.
16:08I want to celebrate Mary's produce with a recipe that does it justice.
16:13With this cheese potato and spinach phyllo pie,
16:17I'm letting that gorgeous mature cheddar be the star,
16:22with the milder flavours of the veg, the support acts.
16:26The first thing I'm going to do is fry some onions in butter.
16:30In we go with the onions.
16:31What I'm looking for is a light brown with the onions here,
16:34and you can easily tell when you're going to achieve that light brownness
16:37by the amount of steam that's coming off,
16:39because the onions won't start to caramelise
16:42until all the water's driven off.
16:45There we go. A bit hot.
16:48Next, the pie filling.
16:50Crack an egg into a bowl,
16:52dollop in some cream,
16:54sprinkle in salt,
16:56give it a little kick with English mustard,
16:59and season with black pepper.
17:02Good, there's my cream filling all ready to go.
17:05Now, the next thing is to grate some cheese to put in there.
17:09When I was talking to Mary Quick, I was sort of thinking,
17:12I really want to do a dish that you can really taste the quality of the cheddar in it.
17:16OK, spinach.
17:19Simply wilt the spinach in a pan with a splash of water.
17:23It only takes two ticks.
17:29Right.
17:30Next, slice up some boiled potatoes.
17:35So, now to make up my phyllo pie.
17:38First thing to point out is you don't need to make your own phyllo.
17:41Really hard to make.
17:44It's so delicate, it can easily stick,
17:47so grease a baking tin by brushing with oodles of butter,
17:51and then do the same to each layer of pastry.
17:55Lay out four sheets in a crisscross pattern to make a base.
18:00Add about half your potatoes,
18:03onions,
18:05spinach,
18:07the cream filling,
18:09and top with the cheese.
18:12Repeat the process, season,
18:15and add another few layers of phyllo for the top,
18:19with a bit more butter brushing
18:21to make sure you get a gorgeous, crispy, golden finish when it's baked.
18:27OK, now just fold everything up.
18:31The sort of rougher it looks,
18:33the better it will look when it comes out of the oven.
18:40It's almost like working with paper.
18:44Final butter.
18:50So, there we go.
18:52Pop all that into a fan oven at 190 degrees for about 35 minutes.
19:02And there you have a delicious, veggie, cheesy delight to enjoy.
19:07Well, I'm so looking forward to this.
19:09I know it's going to be a mixture of softness and crunchiness.
19:15Which indeed it is.
19:16What really pleases me is the mature cheddar in there.
19:19It's just got so much flavour in it.
19:22It's a real deal cheese pie.
19:35I've left the lowlands of East Devon
19:39to head up onto Dartmoor.
19:43Here, Haytour rocks dominate the landscape.
19:47Granite from Haytour quarries
19:49was used to build the first London bridge.
19:55Dartmoor has also been the inspiration for many a writer,
19:59not least Arthur Conan Doyle,
20:02who used the moor as a setting for one of his most famous novels,
20:07The Hound of the Baskervilles.
20:10It's said he was inspired by the local legend
20:14of a fierce, spectral dog known as a yethound,
20:18said to embody the spirit of an unbaptised child.
20:23It hunts the moor at night with the devil.
20:29But I've come to this part of the moor
20:31to tell you about another well-known tale.
20:34You've probably heard of the phrase Uncle Tom Copley and all.
20:38Well, it comes from a song called Widdicombe Fair,
20:41and Widdicombe is just down the bottom of this hill.
20:44I really like it. It's a great Devon folk song,
20:47full of West Country humour.
20:53Tom Pierce, Tom Pierce, lend me your grey mare
20:57All along, down along, out along me
21:00For I wants to ride over to Widdicombe Fair
21:04With Bill Prumer, John Shewer, Peter Gurney, Peter Davy,
21:08Dan O'Winton, Harry Oak, Old Uncle Tom Copley and all
21:12Old Uncle Tom Copley and all
21:15For over 200 years, Widdicombe in the moor has held a country fair
21:21attracting people from all over Devon.
21:24The folk song Widdicombe Fair tells the story of seven men
21:29who travelled on a borrowed grey mare to get to the fair.
21:34Well, Friday came and Saturday soon
21:37Their now famous journey is celebrated in a church
21:41with this delightful model.
21:44With Bill Prumer, John Shewer, Peter Gurney, Peter Davy,
21:48Dan O'Winton, Harry Oak, Old Uncle Tom Copley and all
21:52Old Uncle Tom Copley and all
21:55As I understand it, these were real people
21:57and they lived way across Dartmoor.
21:59And the next line goes,
22:02So Tom Pierce, he got up to the top of the hill
22:05and he seed his old mare down a-making her will.
22:09And I think that just means she's on the point of dying.
22:12No wonder with all those seven heavy men on her back.
22:15So Tom Pierce's old mare, her took sick and died
22:20and Tom, he sat down on a stone and he cried.
22:24But this isn't the end of this shocking affair.
22:27When the wind whistles cold on the moor of a night
22:34Tom Pierce's old mare doth appear ghastly white.
22:40So it's the ghost of Tom Pierce's grey mare.
22:43And all the long night be heard skirling and groans
22:48from Tom Pierce's old mare in her rattling bones.
22:53Now that Tom Pierce's old grey mare is dead
22:56all along, down along, out along me
22:59they all were agreed she should be buried
23:03with Bill Pruitt, John Stewart, Peter Gurley, Peter Davy,
23:06Donal Wynne, Harry Oak, Old Uncle Tom Copley and all.
23:19Having bid farewell to the moors and their ghosts,
23:22I'm winding my way to another evocative corner of the south-west,
23:27Dorset's Jurassic Coast.
23:32It was in these rocks and sandy coves
23:35that the dinosaur hunters of the 19th century
23:38unearthed hidden treasures.
23:41And there's a legendary Dorset-born chef who is following suit.
23:46Hi. Nice to be back.
23:48Welcome aboard. Yeah.
23:50My longtime friend Mark Hicks runs the Oyster and Fish House
23:55in Lime Regis, overlooking the harbour.
23:59Writer of 12 cookbooks and a colossus of the British food scene,
24:04he's always been a champion of local, often foraged ingredients.
24:09And I'm very excited to be sampling one of his signature dishes today.
24:15Oh, that looks nice. Cockles, pollock and seashore veg.
24:19I'm not at all at all at all with what is local.
24:22You can find these on the riverbank.
24:24So, sea aster, sea purslane, marsh samphire,
24:28sea blight, which is interesting.
24:30But, you know, with fish just cooked simply as a perfect garnish.
24:34I know... Simple flavours.
24:36I know it's going to taste wonderful,
24:38cos you've just got this knack of doing the simplest things
24:41and somehow there's some sort of alchemy goes on there.
24:44A lot of people say,
24:46but I think it's a good fish, isn't it?
24:48Bit of cider. That's made in Somerset.
24:51Now we have Dorset sea salt, which is great.
24:54Jurassic sea salt? Yeah.
24:56Made in Portland.
24:58By a guy called Jester.
25:00It's a proper Dorset name, isn't it?
25:02If you were thinking the PR, you'd probably say,
25:04flavoured with dinosaurs.
25:06Very likely.
25:08So we're just going to pop that in the oven.
25:10Six or seven minutes.
25:12Cockles are just going to be lightly steamed in cider.
25:14It smells of the farm that it's made on.
25:16Yeah, yeah. That's what I like about it.
25:18Dead easy.
25:20It's great to see Mark being so bold with the seafood,
25:23just relying on the flavours themselves
25:26to come through with no fancy extras.
25:29So they've just about opened now,
25:31and they're lovely and plump, aren't they?
25:33Mark blanches the seashore veg,
25:35plates up the pollock
25:37and scatters the cockles on top.
25:40This represents what we do.
25:43Seasonality, simple, fresh.
25:46It really does.
25:48It's all served with a crisp white wine,
25:50and even that is from round these parts.
25:53And what could be better than a glass of Devon Minnow
25:56with some local pollock?
26:00This is fabulous.
26:02It's the height of simplicity.
26:04It's almost an antidote to sort of Michelin star food.
26:07It is, yeah. In some ways it's the opposite.
26:09It is, yeah.
26:11Because we're talking about the ingredients more,
26:13putting it very simply on the plate as opposed to complicating it,
26:16and also having an interest in where it comes from.
26:19Where food comes from is an important thing.
26:21Looking at the ocean, I know whose boat it is,
26:23and I get on the phone to them and ask them what they've got.
26:26What do you think about the cooking in the British Isles now, then?
26:30Well, I think it's come a long way.
26:32I remember going to London 40-odd years ago from Dorset,
26:35and everything was French.
26:37Menus were written in French, the dishes were French.
26:39And it probably wasn't until I started writing about food
26:42and finding all the different producers
26:45that I really sort of got into, you know,
26:48the best of the UK sort of thing.
26:50I mean, do you think that people looking down on our cuisine
26:54is coming to an end, then?
26:56Yeah, I think so.
26:57No, I think you can eat as well in the UK
27:00as you can anywhere in the world, I think.
27:02On that note...
27:05Cheers.
27:06Cheers.
27:19It's very nice to be back in Padstow.
27:21I've been all round the UK now.
27:23The stories have been fantastic.
27:25I mean, people are a bit rude about this country
27:28and everything's going to the dogs, da-blah, da-blah, da-blah.
27:31But you know what I've seen?
27:33I've seen passionate individuals
27:35harnessing delicious produce from the land and sea.
27:39They're lovely, aren't they? Aren't they great? Yeah.
27:42I've seen exceptional chefs cooking extraordinary dishes.
27:47The New York Times mentioned Birmingham
27:49as one of the places in the world to visit for its food,
27:51which I thought was incredible.
27:53I'd probably taste another of these
27:55and I'd say it's not as good as Rachel's.
27:57Charmer, I know. You are a charmer.
27:59Ideas from across the globe
28:01become an exciting part of our own food story.
28:05So good. No wonder it's so famous.
28:08So I think there's a big sort of surge of confidence
28:11in what we're doing and an eagerness to try out new things.
28:15So from that point of view, it's been a fantastic journey.
28:19I'm so glad I did it.
28:24If you'd like to see more episodes of Rick Stein's Food Stories,
28:28press the red button now to watch on BBC iPlayer.
28:58.