1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (9 page)

Shropshire Blue is an excellent dessert cheese, pairing well with fruit and dessert wines such as port and sherry.

Where:
In London
, Paxton and Whitfield, tel 44/20-7930-0259,
paxtonandwhitfield.co.uk
;
in Shropshire
, Ludlow Food Centre, tel 44/1584-856000,
ludlowfoodcentre.co.uk
;
in New York and environs
, Fairway Markets,
fairwaymarket.com
.
Further information:
Cheese Primer
by Steven Jenkins (1996);
britishcheese.com
.
Tip:
Look for wide spread, deep blue mold and a bright orange base. If the orange has faded or the rind is cracked, the cheese is past its prime and will be too dry to be enjoyable.

One of the oldest methods of preserving fish, sousing or pickling is said to have been taught to the Romans by the Greeks, and thence to the rest of the world—including England, a nation of enthusiastic herring eaters.
For English-style sousing, herring fillets are soaked in a brine, then rolled and baked in the pickling liquid of malt or white wine vinegar, spices and herbs such as mace, pepper, mustard seeds, and bay leaves. After cooling for at least twenty-four hours, the fish emerges firm but tender, aromatic with a palate-tingling edge of saltiness. That edge is gently mitigated by thin slices of buttered dark bread, the whole most vividly enhanced by a complement of icy gin, vodka, or aquavit—a “brine” that ensures that before long, guests will be properly soused, too.

Where:
In London
, Harrods, tel 44/20-7730-1234,
harrods.com
; Fortnum & Mason, tel 44/20-7734-8040,
fortnumandmason.com
; The Goring Restaurant, tel 44/20-7396-9000,
thegoring.com
.
Further information and recipes:
British Cookery
edited by Lizzie Boyd (1989);
theguardian.com
(search nigel slater’s soused mackerel);
greatbritishkitchen.co.uk/recipebook
(search soused herrings).

Warm pig’s head, anyone? This is only one of the delectable shockers in store for the brave of palate who entrust themselves to the wiles of chef-owner Fergus Henderson. It’s an only-in-London experience, unless one is lucky enough to catch the master chef doing a restaurant stint abroad. An architect manqué, Henderson has a way with animal innards, making the succulent best of unexpected menu items like pigeon livers (on toast) as well as more-usual restaurant fare like silky roasted beef marrow (tossed in a parsley-onion salad spread on crunchy bruschetta), both magical dishes that have placed St. John high atop the list of favorite London restaurants.

Cooking whole beasts from nose to tail, Henderson varies his seasonal menu with offal such as deep-fried tripe; beefy, tender grilled ox heart with green beans and shallots; or a thin and golden-crusted pie of ox tongue and chicken. But it is pig parts that really inspire this gutsy chef, who dishes up crisp cheeks or ears with dandelion salad, gelatinous braised trotters, rolled spleen, and crackling tails garnished with bacon-wrapped prunes filled with foie gras. Kinder cuts for the less adventurous include deliciously prepared fish dishes, rabbit simmered with turnips, and moist roasted guinea hen served with celeriac.

The seasonal dessert menu may include the winey red-berry Summer Pudding (see
listing
), a sweetly burnished Treacle Tart (see
listing
), and Lancashire’s crumbly sharp and earthy cheese served as a foil to Ferguson’s riff on Eccles Cakes (see
listing
).

Fittingly located next to Smithfield Market, the city’s wholesale center for meat, St. John’s skylit and sparklingly white-walled, smart setting was formerly a pork smokehouse. You can also visit Henderson’s more casual St. John Bread & Wine in the Spitalfields Market. It’s a great place for a hearty breakfast of herring roes, deviled kidneys on toast, or a crunchy smoked-bacon butty—a sandwich on a warm and puffy buttered bun.

Where:
St. John Bar & Restaurant, 26 St. John Street, Smithfield, London, tel 44/20-7251-0848,
stjohngroup.uk.com
; St. John Bread & Wine, 94–96 Commercial Street, Spitalfields Market, London, tel 44/20-3301-8069,
stjohngroup.uk.com/spitalfields
.
Further information and recipes:
The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating
by Fergus Henderson (2004),
Beyond Nose to Tail
by Fergus Henderson and Justin Piers Gellatly (2007).

A hearty, fragrant pie with a flaky top crust covering a lusty stew of fork-tender beef chunks and bits of beef or lamb kidney gentled with heady brown gravy, this British classic has been a standard of the English kitchen since Shakespeare’s time. The teasing acidity of the kidneys is subtly sweetened by plenty of softly cooked onions and, often, earthy black-gilled morel mushrooms, dried or fresh. A variant, steak and oyster pie, is a classic dish of the Ballymaloe Cookery School in County Cork, Ireland.

For nearly 350 years, first-time visitors to London have ordered—however apprehensively—steak and kidney pie for lunch at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street, the former newspaper district of The City. The dimly lit seventeenth-century chophouse with flagstone floors, half-timbered walls, and fumed ceiling beams was a regular pit-stop for literary luminaries such as Dr. Samuel Johnson, Charles Dickens, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and has continued to be so for the current generation of writers and tourists. Visitors to Dr. Johnson’s house, walking distance from the restaurant, are advised to get there before lunch; given the effects of the golden ale that classically washes down the pie, deciphering the old script of Dr. Johnson’s dictionary postprandially may pose far too great a challenge.

Where:
In London
, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, tel 44/20-7353-6170;
in New York
, Tea & Sympathy, tel 212-989-9735,
teaandsympathynewyork.com
.
Further information and recipes:
foodnetwork.com
(search steak and kidney pie);
theguardian.com
(search steak kidney pie whitingstall).

England’s noble, heady Stilton is not intimidated, not even by Italy’s royal Parmigiano-Reggiano (see
listing
), so firm a position does it hold in the world pantheon of cheeses. Never mind its uncertain pedigree. (It was created either by a housekeeper, Elizabeth Scarbrow of Leicestershire, in 1720, or by one Cooper Thornhill of Yorkshire around the same time.)

The pungent, aged triumph is produced in only three counties—Darbyshire, Leicestershire, and Nottinghamshire. The cheese owes its
iconic steel-blue veining to the crust of the cheese being pierced with long, stainless steel needles, allowing air into the core. In a fully ripened cheese, aged for a period of six months to a year, the sharpness of that blue veining should be gently mitigated by the crumbly creaminess of the tannish background—but overly ambitious producers and retailers often choose to sell the cheese before its prime.

Although Stilton is often sold in small, wrapped pieces or in attractive crocks, such packages are really intended for souvenir buyers, not connoisseurs. It is far better to purchase it cut to order from a 14-to 16-pound cylinder. That way, you can judge the quality of the cheese by looking for an abundance of blue veining running all the way to the edges of the cylinder, which ought to have a dry, parchment-brown rind. And then, of course, you can taste before you buy, a wise step with so expensive a product.

With its decadent aroma and its complex, sharp-to-mild flavor that varies with age, Stilton fares as well with raw vegetables such as celery, cucumbers, scallions, and radishes as it does with walnuts or fruits such as ripe pears, apples, and muscat grapes. It also provides a sparkling accent to aged ruby or tawny port or a well-burnished Madeira. The best foils for this strong, assertive, easy-to-spread cheese are mild-flavored English water biscuits; thinly cut, firm-textured light wheat bread; or even Scandinavian whole-grain crispbreads (as long as they are not seasoned with caraway).

Where:
In London
, Neal’s Yard Dairy at three locations,
nealsyarddairy.co.uk
;
in New York
, Murray’s Cheese Shop, tel 888-692-4339,
murrayscheese.com
.
Further information:
Cheese Primer
by Steven Jenkins (1996).

Elusively, lavishly runny and fast-ripening, this butter-colored semisoft cheese with a moist orange rind and a malevolent aroma is a must-taste for anyone claiming cheese connoisseurship—a quest with which a bit of trivia never hurt. In the 2005 animated film
Wallace & Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit
, the cheese was portrayed as being so pungent it revived Wallace from the dead.

Love it or hate it, but skip it and you are bypassing a mystically seductive flavor with a hint of rich cream and overtones of the bitter, the salty, and the mushroomy. As with similar strong ripening cheeses—French Epoisses, Alsatian Munster, and German handkäse—the Stinking Bishop is best accented by a ripe, tangy pear or ice-cold radishes or celery, along with thin water biscuits and gently sparkling hard cider or light beer.

The evil-smelling cheese, made from pasteurized cow’s milk, was developed in 1972 by Charles Martell for the Teddington Cheese Company in Gloucestershire. Its improbable name represents no sacrilege, as it refers not to a prelate, but to the Stinking Bishop pear; the fruit’s juice is mildly fermented into an alcoholic cider called perry, in which the cheese rind is washed every four weeks as it ages.

Where:
In London
, Neal’s Yard Dairy at three locations,
nealsyarddairy.co.uk
;
in New York
, Murray’s Cheese Shop, tel 888-692-4339,
murrayscheese.com
.

The pudding can be made in a large bowl or individual molds.

Ripe red raspberries, red currants, blueberries, and blackberries are favorites for this cool and moist dessert with the sparkle of liquid garnets. Although the word
pudding
suggests either a hot and steamy dish in the English vein or a creamy dessert favored by children, in this case it refers to a cool, fresh press of lightly crushed and sugared berries encased in white bread that turns lusciously crimson as fruit juices seep through. But it is a pudding in form, as it is turned out of a bowl, a soufflé dish, or a charlotte mold to be spooned into individual dishes and topped with a swirl of whipped cream, crème fraîche, or clotted cream, the sweet, thick cream topping hugely popular in Devon and Cornwall (see
listing
). This cool enchantment is generally offered in English restaurants and homes in midsummer; these days, however, it can be had year-round if frozen or imported berries are deemed acceptable. For the very best results, use raspberries and red currants and, to avoid having to cook them, select berries that are very ripe and flavorful.

Serves 6 to 8

About 3 pounds (2 quarts) of soft, ripe, but unspoiled berries (raspberries, red or black currants, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries), washed and well drained

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons superfine sugar

Grated zest and strained juice of 1 lemon