SLOW and low. Two words that fill me with eternally greedy glee. Because as the last traces of late summer are sluiced away by autumnal rains and sun-warmed paving grows as cold as the mortician's slab, so all thoughts turn to the comforts of the kitchen. And the joys of stews and braises, daubes and ragus, carbonnades, curries and cassoulets. Every culinary culture, from desert nomad to Arctic Inuit, has their own version of gently simmered delight-birrias, gumbos and rendangs; adobos and feijoadas; bigos, tajines and goulash. Dishes where all the work is in the preparation, so that, once the pot has been slipped into the oven or been left, bubbling gently atop kitchen hob or glowing coals, you're free to, well, frolic, caper and cavort to your heart's content. Or failing that, simply take the dogs for a walk.
Because the slow-cooked dish is all about the cheap, resolutely unglamorous cuts-cheeks and shins, thighs and trotters, necks and tails. The tough, no-nonsense bits of the animal, which have lived a life of backbreaking slog. In contrast to those indolent fillets and languid breasts, with their neat, film-star looks and bland, easy succulence. I don't mean to do down these sybaritic treats. They have their rightful, if gilded, place in the culinary canon. But hard labour means good flavour.
Esta historia es de la edición November 01, 2023 de Country Life UK.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición November 01, 2023 de Country Life UK.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Put some graphite in your pencil
Once used for daubing sheep, graphite went on to become as valuable as gold and wrote Keswick's place in history. Harry Pearson inhales that freshly sharpened-pencil smell
Dulce et decorum est
Michael Sandle is the Wilfred Owen of art, with his deeply felt sense of the futility of violence. John McEwen traces the career of this extraordinary artist ahead of his 88th birthday
Heaven is a place on earth
For the women of the Bloomsbury group, their country gardens were places of refuge, reflection and inspiration, as well as a means of keeping loved ones close by, discovers Deborah Nicholls-Lee
It's the plants, stupid
I WON my first prize for gardening when I was nine years old at prep school. My grandmother was delighted-it was she who had sent me the seeds of godetia, eschscholtzia and Virginia stock that secured my victory.
Pretty as a picture
The proliferation of honey-coloured stone cottages is part of what makes the Cotswolds so beguiling. Here, we pick some of our favourites currently on the market
How golden was my valley
These four magnificent Cotswold properties enjoy splendid views of hill and dale
The fire within
An occasionally deadly dinner-party addition, this perennial plant would become the first condiment produced by Heinz
Sweet chamomile, good times never seemed so good
Its dainty white flowers add sunshine to the garden and countryside; it will withstand drought and create a sweet-scented lawn that never needs mowing. What's not to love about chamomile
All I need is the air that I breathe
As the 250th anniversary of 'a new pure air' approaches, Cathryn Spence reflects on the 'furious free-thinker' and polymath who discovered oxygen
My art is in the garden
Monet and Turner supplied the colours, Canaletto the structure and Klimt the patterns for the Boodles National Gallery garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.