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Every February – or occasionally March – I get together with two friends to gorge on pancakes; I provide the pan, Caro does the cocktails and poor old Harry is invariably the chef because she never fails, even three ciders in. With two half-Frenchies in the room, we always start with buckwheat galettes, usually served complète with gruyère, ham and a fried egg (though the more we eat, the more adventurous the combinations become). Then we move on to softer, thicker British sweet pancakes with lemon juice and crunchy demerara sugar to finish. We rarely manage to meet on Shrove Tuesday itself, but apart from the year I went vegan for Lent, that’s no problem. After all, any cold, dark evening is improved by a pancake party.
I suspect we’re not alone in sticking with the classics, so I’m not going to suggest too many alternatives, but, given that pancakes are not just for the 47th day before Easter, I do like the sound of Nigel Slater’s ones stuffed with cheese and caramelised onion, I know I’d love Yotam Ottolenghi’s Austrian kaiserschmarrn and, though they’re as flat as they sound, Jimi Famurewa’s Nigerian-Dutch puff puff pancakes look incredible. Oh, and there’s Meera Sodha’s Indonesian-style salted peanut and chocolate pancakes, while Claire Ptak’s fluffy cardamom pancakes with thyme-spiked figs certainly aren’t just for Christmas.
But back to my point, which is that crisp, earthy galettes aren’t the only delicious thing to come out of Brittany (they’re not even exclusively Breton: buckwheat pancakes are also commonly eaten in other places that are similarly too wet for growing wheat). Helen Goh’s butter cake, for instance, is emphatically Breton in its celebration of the rich, yellow stuff produced in this wonderfully wild region that’s one of my very favourite parts of France. Another Breton speciality that will warm you from the inside is a rich, sticky kouign amman, or Richard Bertinet’s prune-studded far Breton, a recipe he inherited from his mother, though he had to go back to the Côte Sauvage to fetch her spoon so he could perfect the dish at home. Come to think of it, that last is a bit like a pancake, so perhaps you could serve it for pudding next week, though obviously you’ll want to have the lemon kind, too.
As well as superlative seafood, butter biscuits and what might well be the world’s best crisps (the brand Brets even make a Breton butter flavour variety), we have Brittany to thank for salted caramel, a flavour combination first popularised by Quiberon chocolatier Henri Le Roux. You can make your own salted caramels, complete with edible wrappers, with the help of Heston Blumenthal, or throw tradition to the wind with Thomasina Miers’ Mexican-inspired version, flavoured with smoky tamarind.
It belatedly strikes me that my fondness for this place stems as much from its exports as for its ancient dolmens and beautiful coastline – fleur de sel, tinned fish and cider. And, though it’s from neighbouring Normandy, if you happen to see some Isigny creme fraiche in the supermarket chiller cabinet, all thick and yellow and as different from the sloppy bright white stuff as skimmed milk is from Jersey milk, grab a jar, take it home and stick it on a buckwheat pancake with some tangy Breton salted caramel sauce. That’s advice for life, not just for Shrove Tuesday.
My week in food
The best thing I ate | The food at Tropea in Harborne, Birmingham, never fails to please (even our own Grace Dent loved it), but on my most recent visit last weekend, they even managed to better their excellent ragu bolognese with a ricotta-stuffed agnolotti sitting plumply atop a lake of vivid green kale and herb sauce that was so good, the vegetarian had to fight for his fair share. Back in London, with a bunch of cavolo nero in hand, I couldn’t resist trying to recreate it – I used Joshua McFadden’s original recipe, albeit with double the garlic, but Meera Sodha’s plant-based version looks well worth a try, too.
My croissant crusade | Last month, I went to Paris for the day on a mission to try as many top-rated croissants as possible, from hipster slow-fermented ancient grain varieties to pastries with a pretzel shell or a swirl of za’atar through them (you can read about it here), but perhaps the most useful recommendation for anyone arriving by Eurostar is Boulangerie Carton, right opposite the Gare du Nord – £1.40 of crisp, buttery joy within sight of the station. Correspondents inform me the place also does a superlative hot chocolate.
The truth about carbonara | Until recently, many culinary historians believed that the spaghetti alla carbonara so jealously guarded by Roman cooks was created during the second world war with US army rations, to satisfy the American appetite for bacon and eggs. This theory seems to have been dealt a death blow by NRC journalist Janneke Vreugdenhil, who recently discovered a mention of the dish in an August 1939 report from Rome. It’s a revelation that the Italian daily La Republicca described as “a nice sigh of relief for those who have always believed in the Italianness of carbonara”. Sadly, there are no details of how to make an “authentic” version.
Snack of the week | I have a serious salty, crunchy snack habit – if I open a bag of nuts, I literally cannot stop – so when I read about the Hodmedod’s range of roasted pulses in Joe Woodhouse’s new book, Weeknight Vegetarian, I immediately went online to order a selection. Not only are they British grown and roasted, but they’re significantly lower in calories than my usual (and delicious!) mixed nuts, and much higher in both fibre and protein, too. Hope you’re on commission Joe.
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