1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (5 page)

A portable meal on its own, no brown bag required.

Cornwall’s crisp, juicy half-moon meat pie, the pasty (sometimes written as
pastie
but always rhyming with
nasty
, although it is anything but), is a first cousin to the Latin-American empanada and the Russian piroshki. Crimped edges of browned pastry enclose a traditional filling of chopped beef, root vegetables, onions, and herbs or, more recently, more inventive force-meats of fish, poultry, or only vegetables. Before
baking, the savory filling is added to a sturdy circle of short-crust or puff pastry, which is then folded in half. Believed to have been developed in Cornwall as a portable fast-food lunch for tin miners who could not leave the mines at midday, the pasty’s thick crust keeps the savory little pie fillings warm for many hours. And still today, it provides a complete, portable meal for those on-the-go types who need to eat and run.

In the nineteenth century, the pasties followed Cornish miners to places such as Wisconsin and Michigan, where the pies are still favored, warm or cold, for lunches and snacks. But despite the pasty’s popularity with the hearts and stomachs of the New World, it remains an English dish. Today, the pasty is “the national dish of Cornwall,” and no visit to this region would be complete without a stop at one of the many traditional shops selling hot, fresh pasties.

Where:
In Cornwall, U.K.
, Proper Cornish Food Company, tel 44/1208-265-830,
www.propercornish.co.uk
;
in New York
, Myers of Keswick, tel 212-691-4194,
myersofkeswick.com
;
in Mineral Point, WI
, Red Rooster Café, tel 608-987-9936; Pointer Café, tel 608-987-3733;
in Tempe, AZ
, Cornish Pasty Co., tel 480-894-6261,
cornishpastyco.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Jamie Oliver’s Great Britain
by Jamie Oliver (2012);
saveur.com
(search cornish pasties).

One of the most luscious and subtly sweet of all apples, the crisp and meaty Cox’s orange pippin has recently become available in the United States at farmers’ markets, a cause for celebration. It’s a wonderfully crisp English eating apple with a highly perfumed skin, a bronzed matte surface that shows only a melon blush of red with orange overtones, and slightly astringent flavor that accents a caramelized sweetness, almost as though the apple had been baked. Considered one of the finest dessert apples in the world, it derives the first part of its name from Richard Cox, the horticulturalist and retired brewer who developed the fruit in the early nineteenth century in Colnbrook, near what is now Heathrow Airport; the second, from the Ribston pippin cultivar from which it was bred. November to April is its prime season for flavor, but it keeps fairly well through late spring. Connoisseurs of this hard-to-grow apple prefer those from English soil rather than New Zealand imports, with some kudos beginning to emerge for U.S. specimens.

Mail order:
Orange Pippin Fruit Trees, tel 616-258-2244,
orangepippintrees.com
.
Further information:
orangepippin.com
;
englishapplesandpears.co.uk
.

Sole with lemon and parsley.

No member of the flatfish family is more highly prized by fish fanciers than
Solea solea
: the sole that owes its snowy firmness and elegant, saline overtones to the icy waters of the North Sea and its name to the port that was a prime supplier for London’s markets.

Although most soles (Soleidae) can be prepared in the same manner, none are quite so firm as the Dover, with its savoriness and its slight elasticity. None are quite so high in price, either, which is why many fishmongers and chefs are inspired to cheat, offering fillets of lesser soles or even local flounder. (True, fresh Dover sole is flown into the U.S., adding to its cost.)

It is easier to recognize the authentic specimen in fish markets, where one can see the whole fish. Dover sole usually runs about 24 inches in length and has an almost perfect oval shape, with even fringes of fins on both edges. It is smaller and thinner than its cousin, the only slightly less delicious North Sea lemon near-sole (
Microstomus kitt
), also an import. Like most soles, the Dover is right-eyed, with both of its eyes on its right side.

Sole does not spoil as easily as many other seafood varieties, and some believe that the flavor reaches its zenith twenty-four hours after being caught. It is the particular combination of flavor and firmness that makes the Dover sole a chef’s favorite; it can be filleted and folded into the roll-ups known as paupiettes.

It does, however, seem a travesty to compromise so superb a fish with complicated sauces and fillings. Dover sole looks and tastes best when prepared whole and on the bone, preferably either grilled and served with a glossing of butter and lemon or a brassy touch of mustard sauce; or, as in the intricately demanding French style, sautéed
à la meunière
(see
listing
).

Where:
In London
, Wiltons, tel 44/20-7629-9955,
wiltons.co.uk
;
in New York
, La Grenouille, tel 212-752-1495,
la-grenouille.com
.
Further information:
North Atlantic Seafood
by Alan Davidson (2003).

Squashed Fly Cakes. Dead Fly Pies. Fly’s Graveyard. Don’t let this pastry’s colorful colloquial nicknames, which refer to the black currants that poke through its dough, dissuade you from indulging in what is an excellent teatime treat.
Eccles cakes are small tea cakes with a chewy filling of allspice-and nutmeg-scented dried currants, sugar-frosted and baked into crisp, golden rounds. Their proper name comes from the town of Eccles in the city of Salford in northern England, where baker James Birch is credited with inventing them in the late eighteenth century.

As with any food that has been around for a while, Eccles cakes generate some gentle controversy. Contended points include the use of flaky puff pastry or the firmer short-crust, and the matter of candied fruit peel in the filling, an embellishment some swear by but others scorn. Choose your side secure in the knowledge that whatever you decide, you will hardly go wrong.

Though all the cakes need for company is a cup of strong tea, for a sophisticated contrast they do not suffer from being served with slivers of Lancashire’s own snowy, tangy cheese, as they are at St. John Bar & Restaurant in London (see
listing
).

Where:
In London
, St. John Bar and Restaurant, tel 44/20-7251-0848,
stjohngroup.uk.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Beyond Nose to Tail
by Fergus Henderson and Justin Piers Gellatly (2007);
visitsalford.com
(search history of eccles cake);
epicurious.com
(search eccles cake).

A far cry from the dried impostors used in baking and puddings—in reality, Greek miniraisins—true currants are not dried grapes. Like gooseberries, they are members of the
Ribes
family, and eaten fresh, the tiny droplets bring their alluring sweet-tart flavor to jams, juices, and syrups, or act as sublime flavorings and toppings for ice cream.

Most beloved of all may be the red currants, whose garnet sparkle and deeply rich winey flavor have been highly prized since they were first cultivated in Europe during the sixteenth century.

They are the prime ingredient in “Cumberland sauce,” the heady, pungent blend of port, dried mustard, and ground ginger; named after the Duke of Cumberland, the sauce makes a perfect condiment for game. Their white cousins, with a slightly milder, more elusive flavor, are actually albinoid variants, and the fully saturated black currants are too tart to be eaten raw. Cooked, their aggressive character is muted and they become a sharp, titillating delight, deeply rich and teasingly tangy.

Brits have made a specialty of black currant pie for centuries, also adding the fruit to teatime treats like Eccles cakes, tarts, fools, and puddings. The French cherish the black currants, too. They famously appear in the syrupy liqueur crème de cassis, mixed into Champagne for one of the world’s classiest cocktails, the kir royale. (When made with white wine, it’s just a kir.) In Germany and Austria, red and black currants are crushed into juices, to be blended with chilled soda water for refreshing aperitifs long after the midsummer fresh currant season has ended.

Stateside, red currants are available, but not widely so. During their short growing season (it peaks in early July), they can be found mostly in fancy food and farmers’ markets. Black currants, however, are hosts for white blister pine rust, a European disease that spread in the U.S. during the 1800s. Because it destroys white pine
trees, the growing of black currants was banned in some states until the mid-1960s, when disease-resistant varieties became available. Growing them remains illegal in a handful of states (including Maine, the so-called Pine Tree State).

Mail order:
For fresh black currants in July, and frozen currants and preserved currant products year-round, Queener Fruit Farm, tel 503-769-8965,
queenerfruitfarm.com
.
Further information and recipes:
The Pie and Pastry Bible
by Rose Levy Beranbaum (1998);
The Joy of Jams, Jellies, and Other Sweet Preserves
by Linda Ziedrich (2009);
cookstr.com
(search steamed currant pudding).
Special event:
Sarau (Blackcurrant) Festival, Upper Moutere Village, New Zealand, February,
saraufestival.co.nz
.