Journal ·
A West Country larder
Day boats, walled gardens, and the quiet advantage of cooking where the produce lives.
The South West of England is one of the great larders of Europe, and it is strangely good at keeping the secret. Hand-dived scallops out of Cornish water. Lamb off Somerset grass. Cheddar made a valley away from the village that named it. Cream that needs no introduction and asks for none.
“The favourite ingredient is a date, not a thing: the first week the asparagus is ready.”
Cooking from this larder is a privilege that comes with a rule: buy close, buy in season, and let the distance a thing has travelled show in its freshness rather than its air miles. A menu written here in January looks nothing like one written in June — which is precisely the point.
Guests sometimes ask for a favourite ingredient. The honest answer is a date, not a thing: the first week the asparagus is ready, whichever week that turns out to be.
— Samuel