‘Tis now the season for the parasol on the West Cornish coastline… perched just above the rough unimproved coastal grassland, they are there for the picking…
‘Twas luck for me they were sitting pretty the day before Valentine Warner came to forage and cook with me for a new tv series on UKTV’s Good Food Channel, Coast to Coast (’twill be aired after Christmas but who in god’s name has access to this channel??). I don’t even have a regular aerial, let alone a digibox.
Oh, the joys of filling up one’s basket with fungi. Next stop revealed the golden chanterelles in the woods, the beginnings of a very good forage. We went to Godrevy and Upton Towans the following day and collected mussels, rock samphire, spear leaved orache, fennel, wild apple mint, black mustard leaves and sea buckthorn berries. Valentine cooked it up very simply with the parasol cap as the base to the salad, mackerel, pan fried with fennel flowers, chanterelles and mussels scattered on top with the greens and crispy laver seaweed accompanying it. It was incredibly fresh, wild, brimming with vitality and all ingredients except the British rapeseed oil had come from within 10miles of my kitchen.
Now, if anyone has access to UKTV, let me know and I’ll pop round with a bottle of wine after Christmas to have a butchers. xxx