Food Stories episode 4 - Northern Ireland
Food Stories episode 4 - Northern Ireland
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TravelTranscript
00:00For years, I've been lucky enough to travel the world,
00:04but I always return to Cornwall.
00:09This county is famous for rugged coastlines and sweeping beaches.
00:16But Cornwall has so much more to offer.
00:19These mines get almost a mile out to sea.
00:21This is the wonder of the world.
00:23Now I want to show you what this place means to me.
00:26They're like sweeties.
00:28From its rich culture...
00:30I love these here.
00:32..to its ancient history.
00:34Hello.
00:35I talk to those who love this place.
00:37This is where I feel at home.
00:39And as you'd expect, I celebrate great Cornish food.
00:43We take this in, they're more than happy.
00:46Along the way, I hope to inspire you with my own dishes.
00:50A sensational pud.
00:53What I discover is that Cornwall is different
00:56to anywhere else in the world.
00:59And it's that difference that I want to try and explain
01:03and to tell you what Cornwall means to me.
01:07I've lived on the north Cornish coast for most of my adult life,
01:11next to the very beautiful Camel Estuary.
01:17The River Camel runs for 30 miles before it enters the sea
01:21at my home town of Padstow.
01:25And with this view, I can't help but wonder
01:28what it's like to live in a place like this.
01:31The River Camel runs for 30 miles before it enters the sea
01:35at my home town of Padstow.
01:39And with this on my doorstep,
01:42there's nothing I enjoy more than an early morning dip.
01:50I do love swimming.
01:52My wife, Sas, says I am a fish.
01:54She says, not only do you eat fish all the time,
01:57but you swim like a fish.
01:59I tend to feel very at home in the sea.
02:02As long as it's nice and calm like this, of course.
02:08This is where, as a young lad, I fell in love with Cornwall.
02:13MUSIC PLAYS
02:26One of Britain's best-loved poets was John Betjeman,
02:30who derived constant inspiration from the Camel Estuary.
02:34Travelling from London on the grandly named Atlantic Coast Express,
02:39he declared this final stretch along the estuary
02:42as the most beautiful train journey he knew.
02:49Betjeman used to write poetry about this sort of weather,
02:53a warm wind blowing down the Camel Estuary.
02:56And he'd also be writing about the Doom Bar, which is just over there.
03:00You can't see the water breaking on it at the moment
03:03because it's a bit high tide, but it's lurking under there.
03:06And legend has it, which I absolutely believed as a kid,
03:10and still do to a certain extent, that a fisherman shot a mermaid.
03:15And so vexed was she that she put a curse on the estuary
03:20and on the town of Padstow by creating this vast bar of sand,
03:25which has been so dangerous,
03:27has wrecked so many ships and drowned so many sailors.
03:32Actually, one of the main causes of death on the Doom Bar
03:36was salmon fishermen, poachers sometimes, I have to say,
03:39because it was a great place for shooting your net over the bar.
03:43The reason for that was that in the lee of the bar,
03:46the salmon used to just wait and recuperate
03:49before swimming up the Camel River.
03:51So it was a really good place to catch fish, but incredibly dangerous.
03:56There is a song which goes,
03:58BUILD GERMANS DON'T FRET
04:00YOU'LL SOON SHOOT YOUR NET
04:02YOU'LL SHOOT IT RIGHT OVER THE BAR
04:06THE BAR, THE BAR, THE BAR
04:09YOU'LL SHOOT IT RIGHT OVER THE BAR
04:18Not far from the Doom Bar is a family growing pridefully
04:22winning oysters.
04:2440 years ago, Tim Marshall, a fourth-generation dairy farmer,
04:28spotted a gap in the market and diversified into shellfish
04:32here in Portilly, on the edge of the Camel Estuary.
04:40It's quite firm, isn't it? It's not too bad, yeah.
04:43I wouldn't want to see you in your loafers.
04:46Not in my loafers!
04:48So this is the nursery.
04:50I've seen a few oyster set-ups, but how does this work?
04:53This is based on an American-Canadian idea.
04:56Yeah.
04:58When the tide comes in, these floats float the oysters up to the top,
05:01in the top level, where there's a lot more food anyway.
05:04Also, when it's rough, it gives the bags a good shaking.
05:07If you don't shake them, they all get washed to one end
05:10and they can't grow properly shape-wise, so you get a poor shake.
05:14In this bag is 1,200 oysters, which fit into a half-pint pot.
05:18Really? Yeah. So what happens?
05:21So the seed arrives in the post, believe it or not.
05:24In the post? In the post, in about six boxes.
05:27And this is the size they arrive at.
05:29That's what they look like? That's when they come.
05:32So they're about three months old by then,
05:34and this is what they've done in two months.
05:36And you can see this is the growing edge.
05:38Yeah. So if you keep trimming that off,
05:40they grow deeper instead of fuller.
05:43So how many seeds would you buy every year, then?
05:46So, depending on the year, either a million or a million and a half,
05:49depending on the space we've got left over.
05:51A million and a half? A million and a half seeds, yeah.
05:56After a year in the nursery,
05:58the oysters are split from 1,000 per bag to around 100,
06:02allowing them to increase further in size.
06:06Have a look.
06:08God, that's a lot of growth there, isn't it, I guess.
06:10It is. So what would you do here, then?
06:12So the secret now is to, on the racks... Yeah.
06:15..we will unhitch the bags, give them a good shake,
06:18which will give this effect of knocking the new growth off.
06:22And then when it starts to grow again, the shell will go deeper,
06:26so you get a nice flat top with a deep shell,
06:28so you can get a decent sized meat in it.
06:30I suppose it's like pruning a tree, isn't it?
06:32You're cutting all the growth off.
06:34Exactly. Exactly what we're trying to get.
06:36A nice, deep, flat top.
06:38Now, people often ask why I've grown them on trestles,
06:41why not just on the floor?
06:43The trestle will keep them out of the mud,
06:45it gives us a method of moving them and keeping them where they are,
06:48and gives us that ability to shake them.
06:53At any one time, Tim has 10,000 bags in the estuary,
06:58and he's got a lot of them.
07:00At any one time, Tim has 10,000 bags in the estuary,
07:04which have to be shaken or moved every other week.
07:09So these oysters are now coming up for their second year.
07:12Would you say that was a perfect shape?
07:14Just about, yeah, when this new growth gets chipped off
07:17and you get a nice flat top.
07:19That's great. That's lovely.
07:21So I was just thinking, I'm really enjoying this,
07:23because everything you're telling me,
07:25I'm probably going to put in little bits of blurb on my menus, Tim,
07:28because I think the more you tell people
07:30about why these are so special, the more they enjoy them.
07:34Good, please do.
07:40King James I said it was a brave man who first dared to eat an oyster.
07:45Thankfully, these days, oysters must be cleaned
07:48and then purified with ultraviolet light
07:51to remove any bacteria that may give rise to an upset tummy.
07:59The temptation is to try and use your wrists to open an oyster.
08:03Yeah.
08:04But if you use your arms instead, like the Birdies song,
08:07it gives you so much more power, even if you're weak-wristed.
08:10Well, I'm bloated.
08:13It's good.
08:14Cut the top muscle.
08:18Cut the bottom muscle.
08:20And don't flick them over.
08:22You don't want to flick them over.
08:24Cut the bottom muscle.
08:26And don't flick them over.
08:28Cheers.
08:30Thanks, Tim.
08:31You might think it's a bit odd having beer with it,
08:33but it's local, so I just thought it might work.
08:35Good health.
08:36Yeah.
08:40Mmm.
08:43Lovely.
08:44Just the right balance of the meat of the oyster and the roe.
08:48Indeed.
08:49Actually, when I was tasting that oyster,
08:51I could taste the chamelestry, you know?
08:53Not the nasty bits, the mud,
08:55because I swim in the Camel River every day
08:58and you do get a sense of the fragrance of the camel.
09:02And it's really good that the county is producing such excellence
09:06as your oysters now.
09:08I think we might just have one more.
09:10OK.
09:16With such fantastic fishing and a beautiful coastline,
09:19it's easy to forget that this isn't all Cornwall has to offer.
09:23So much of its rich history lies inland.
09:29For centuries, this proud county
09:31was a fairly independent nation within England.
09:35But that changed in 1066,
09:38when William the Conqueror successfully invaded Britain.
09:42As a reward for his help during the conquest,
09:45William gave his half-brother, Robert, Count of Mortain,
09:49most of Cornwall.
09:53In the east of the county, about a mile from the border with Devon,
09:56is the town of Launceston.
09:58Here, Robert is responsible for one of the finest
10:01surviving Norman castles of today.
10:05Set on a large natural mound, it dominates the surrounding landscape.
10:10It's unusual, as it has a round tower
10:13built inside an existing round keep.
10:16What a lot of people don't realise is that these castles
10:19didn't look like this in Norman times.
10:22They were plastered, and this part of the castle
10:25would have been also painted with reds and greens,
10:28and there would have been hangings from the walls,
10:32and the whole top of it would probably have been white.
10:39The original structure would have been made of wood.
10:42Then later rebuilt in stone and likely covered in lime render.
10:49Occupying a strategic position, the castle controlled access to Cornwall.
10:56You've got Bodmin Moor over there in the sunlight
10:59and Dartmoor over there in the gloom,
11:02and here would have been this massive white tower,
11:05a symbol of strength, and you could see people coming from miles around.
11:10Do you know, I don't think I've been here before.
11:12I can't believe such a really special castle I've missed out on.
11:16I mean, it's just fantastic up here.
11:18I guess I might have come here with my mum and dad
11:21driving down to Cornwall, but probably I would have been
11:24dragged up here moaning and saying,
11:26I want to sit in the car and have ginger beer and crisps,
11:29but I can't remember it.
11:33From this height, I spy Castle Street,
11:36home to what the poet John Betjeman called
11:38the most perfect collection of 18th-century townhouses in Cornwall.
11:45Launceston was also home to another of Britain's most important
11:4820th-century poets, Charles Corsley.
11:51He lived in the town for 86 years,
11:54in the county he called the Granite Kingdom.
11:59The thing I like about Charles Corsley is that his language
12:02in his poetry is really so simple.
12:04He was a teacher here in Launceston,
12:06and I guess he had those kids in mind when he was writing his poetry.
12:10The poem I particularly like, called Eden Rock,
12:13it's about his death, about looking beyond his death.
12:17You may remember I had a Jack Russell called Chalky
12:21I was very fond of, and the beginning of Eden Rock runs like this.
12:26They are waiting for me somewhere beyond Eden Rock,
12:30and they are in the same suit of genuine Irish tweed.
12:35His Terrier Jack, still two years old, trembling at his feet.
12:40I always remember Chalky used to be going...
12:51At the fabulous Granite Church of St Mary Magdalene,
12:55Corsley wrote a charming little poem
12:58about the curious legend of St Mary.
13:01Oh, it rolled off.
13:02It's said that anyone who can lodge a stone upon her back
13:05will be rewarded.
13:07We're having a go, yeah, we've managed to get one.
13:09Oh, we've got some, too.
13:10Have a go, it's actually harder than it looks.
13:16It's because it hits that top bit there.
13:18It does. It's too low.
13:20Is there something a bit wrong about throwing rocks
13:22at the statue of Mary?
13:25You're knocking little bits of Mary Magdalene off as you do it.
13:29It's a bit accelerated weathering.
13:31Granite is quite weather-resistant, isn't it?
13:34So maybe she'll be all right for a few more years.
13:37Oh, yes!
13:39You know the poem?
13:41Yeah, I know, I haven't read it for years, actually.
13:44Well, it starts, Mary, Mary Magdalene, lying on the wall,
13:48I throw a stone upon your back, will it land or fall?
13:52It's supposed to bring good luck.
13:54Well, clothes.
13:55Clothes.
13:56Yeah.
13:57Send me down for Christmas in stockings or some hose,
14:01but just before the winter's end, a brand-new suit of clothes.
14:05Who was the poet?
14:07Charles Corsley.
14:08Charles Corsley.
14:10Did you grow up here?
14:11Yeah, I grew up in a village about five, six miles away,
14:14but I went to school in the town,
14:16and we always did our Christmas carol concerts here,
14:19and so our music teacher would bring us down
14:21and we'd actually have a go at throwing the rocks before,
14:24for good luck.
14:25I actually don't get up to Launceston much,
14:27but it's really, really nice.
14:29We call it Launceston, but the locals call it Lanston.
14:33That's right, Lanson.
14:34Lanson.
14:35You kind of miss out all the Cs and Ts, so it's L-A-N-S-O-N, Lanson.
14:39If you're a local, that's how you want to pronounce it.
14:42Lanson.
14:43Yeah.
14:44So it's a bit like pasties and pasties, then?
14:46Kind of, yeah.
14:47It's the ah, it's the kind of Cornish drawn-out ah sound
14:51Lanson.
14:52Yeah, that's it.
14:53Fabulous.
14:54Well, whichever way we look at it, it's a very, very nice town.
15:02In typical Cornish style, as we headed west to Lansend,
15:06the storm that had been threatening finally broke.
15:11MUSIC PLAYS
15:18I'm driving in what is known as the Gloomy Boys Land Rover,
15:21and the reason for that is I generally travel with Chris,
15:25the cameraman, who loves gloomy music.
15:28But it's not really gloomy, it's romantically gloomy,
15:32and we love it.
15:34MUSIC CONTINUES
15:41What's weird about gloomy music is it makes certain people,
15:45and I am one of them, happy.
15:47It's almost like composing gloomy music
15:50actually exercises the gloom and makes you feel better.
15:54Catharsis, I suppose.
15:57And actually, over the years, Chris has introduced me
16:00to lots of artists who I've then come to really love.
16:04And I'm on my way to meet one of them today,
16:08which I'm really looking forward to.
16:11Graham Thitkin and his wife, Ruth Wall.
16:14A splendid harpist.
16:18MUSIC CONTINUES
16:38MUSIC CONTINUES
16:44Born in West Cornwall, it's only natural
16:47that the Cornish landscape and history
16:49has inspired some of Graham's compositions.
16:52MUSIC CONTINUES
16:59Shifter was wonderful.
17:02Thank you. What's it refer to, then?
17:05It sort of refers to a syndrome, if you like,
17:08called shifting baseline,
17:10which is a term, a quite lofty term,
17:13for ecological environmental degradation
17:16and how we don't notice it happening,
17:19over generations quite often,
17:21because we can all refer to,
17:23oh, it wasn't like that in my day when we were younger.
17:26We understand those points of reference,
17:28but what we don't notice is how things have changed
17:31before we have any reference point, before we were born.
17:34So that's what this is about.
17:36It's about how these baselines that we all have,
17:39the norm that we all refer to in our lives, constantly changes.
17:42You know, listening to Shifter, it's very lovely music,
17:45but there was some sort of tension in the music.
17:48Is that intentional? Yes, there's constant tension.
17:51I quite like the fact that Graham's putting that sweet sound
17:54with something quite nasty, actually,
17:57quite kind of subversive.
17:59And the electronics, you know, the Moog has got quite a cool sound,
18:03but it has to be quite, quite wild and really overpowering.
18:17What sounds like an uplifting chord starts to sort of bleed
18:21a little bit and smudge and blur into something
18:24which has that feeling of degradation going on the whole time.
18:28And I think that's the thing about Shifting Baseline,
18:31it's so incremental that we don't notice that difference.
18:34Well, I mean, when you're saying that, I think about something
18:37like wild salmon in the camel estuary or crayfish.
18:41You know, when I started cooking in the sort of 70s,
18:45we used to get these massive crayfish,
18:48but these days you get occasional crayfish
18:51and you get occasional wild salmon, but you don't sort of notice it.
18:55And, you know, the fact that so much has changed
18:58and so much overfishing has happened,
19:00so basically what you're saying is this is what's going on.
19:03It is, and it's not just the overfishing,
19:05it's all the other stuff which is there.
19:09One of Graham's career highlights was in 2010
19:13when he performed a piece with Cornwall at its heart.
19:18Entitled PK, it was inspired by the old Porthcurno telegraph station.
19:24Here, undersea cables carried messages around the world
19:28to places as far away as Mumbai, or Bombay, as it was called then.
19:35So, PK starts with Morse code and it's just on percussion.
19:40I don't have the drums here, so I'm going to do it on cowbells.
19:43These rhythms were taken from messages which went out under the sea,
19:46so this is how it starts.
19:53RHYTHMIC TAPPING
19:58PK premiered at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the proms.
20:08It was performed by the BBC Family Orchestra,
20:12including members from the BBC Concert Orchestra
20:15and over 200 amateur musicians.
20:18CHOIR SINGS
20:29So, how does it feel to be Cornish and based in Cornwall,
20:33using local ideas for your music?
20:36I love the fact that there are stories, local to everybody, everywhere,
20:40which are really important.
20:42Everything is of interest to somebody, and I think things like PK
20:46are things which it's lovely to be able to use in my work.
20:51Inspired by plants at the Eden Project in East Cornwall
20:55and sounds from the natural world,
20:57Graham collaborated with Ruth for their classical debut
21:01on an album called Still Warm.
21:17A lot of the music which harpists play, forgive me if I get this wrong,
21:21is sort of quite romantic and a bit dull for you, would you say?
21:25Oh, Graham, that's terrible, shocking, shocking behaviour.
21:28I'm being put on the straight and narrow.
21:30A lot of it is romantic, yeah. I would say it was dull.
21:33And so what I wanted to do was put the harp in a different context
21:38and not just do the sort of cliched things
21:41which you might expect to hear with a harp.
21:47HARP PLAYS
21:53I mean, just watching you play, just the way you move your hands,
21:57it's so sort of mesmeric.
22:04It's a very strange instrument cos it looks and sounds quite dreamy.
22:08Yeah. But the actual physical reality of playing
22:11is that you get blisters and it's quite sore to pluck,
22:15especially early on when you're learning.
22:17And then you're doing stuff with your feet, so there's a lot going on.
22:29At the Eden Project concert,
22:31Ruth played three different types of harp.
22:36This one is a bray harp.
22:39It's a bit like one of those angel harps
22:41that are in the Renaissance pictures.
22:43So it looks pretty beautiful.
22:46So I'll just let you hear a wee bit of it. I'd love to.
22:49BRAY HARP PLAYS
23:12The bray harp.
23:14I mean, it's just sort of Henry VIII's court somewhere,
23:17playing that, and it's just totally different.
23:20I mean, for 500 years, this was the common harp in Europe.
23:23You can't kind of conceive of it now when everyone thinks...
23:26It's a sort of lyrical... Refined instrument.
23:29Yeah, it's very ballsy.
23:31But the very fact that you're thinking about the physicality
23:34of the instrument that you're writing about is extraordinary.
23:38I mean, I love doing it, I suppose.
23:40Like, you love doing your job, I love doing this.
23:43That's my next life, learning how to cook fish.
23:46I really, really can't cook fish.
23:48Graham doesn't eat it. That's a terrible admission to you.
23:51You don't understand, Graham.
23:53You should come, I'll cook for you.
23:56Cornish fish, you know, just simply cooked.
23:59I mean, you could not possibly fail to love it.
24:04And I'm going to prove it.
24:09Here, in this beautiful cove I used to visit as a child,
24:13I want to show you how to cook a dish
24:15that I would never dream of trying at home.
24:18And yet it's one of the easiest and quickest meals you can make.
24:22Cornish mussels in cream and cider.
24:30I've never really understood why home-cooked mussels
24:33aren't more popular.
24:35They're cheap to buy online, simple to cook and very, very delicious.
24:40A much-loved dish of mine.
24:42I'm going to convince you to give it a try.
24:47For a serving of two, roughly chop a few cloves of garlic.
24:51Don't worry too much about the skins.
24:54Some spring onions and saute in a generous knob of butter.
24:59I did tell you it was simple.
25:02Now for the mussels.
25:04Mostly they're grown on ropes,
25:06so you don't have the little stringy bits called byssus
25:09attached to the mussels in most that you buy.
25:11So you don't need to clean them really.
25:13Also you will find a couple still a little bit open.
25:17Don't worry about that.
25:18As long as they close up a little bit when you squeeze them,
25:22they're still alive.
25:24And give them a sniff.
25:25They should smell very, very lovely.
25:27If they smell at all off,
25:29and I don't need to explain what off smells like.
25:32Off is off.
25:34Don't use any of the mussels.
25:36So that's it.
25:37They're ready to go in.
25:40Next, some cider.
25:42Vintage cider.
25:44This dish is like a variation of Moule Marinier,
25:47which is a sort of basic, classic French dish.
25:50You can put what liquid you like in with it.
25:52It just happens in cormorant.
25:54I think it goes very well with cider.
25:56Probably about 200 ml.
25:58You can use beer if you like.
26:00You can use white wine.
26:01You can use red wine.
26:03Basically, all I'm doing is just creating a little bouillon of cider,
26:08and the juice is coming out of the mussels.
26:10Put a lid on now to hasten these things.
26:15Once the sauce is boiling, cook the mussels for about two minutes.
26:21Great, that's come up to speed now.
26:24So one of the things with mussels is when they've opened,
26:28it's time to finish the dish,
26:30otherwise the mussels cook too much.
26:32A big dollop of cream, like that.
26:36And I'm going to put a little bouquet in here of some thyme
26:40and a little bit of bay leaf.
26:42As you can see, just throwing everything in.
26:44And finally, some sorrel, which I grow.
26:48If you can't get sorrel, use spinach.
26:51But actually, if you know what sorrel's like,
26:53you can get it around the hedgerows at this time of year,
26:57wild sorrel, and it's got this lovely astringent taste.
27:02And finally, some pepper.
27:04Plenty of pepper.
27:07And then now a nice stir.
27:11And that is ready to go.
27:14You can almost do it as quickly as unwrapping a sandwich.
27:19It's just smelling absolutely lovely.
27:22And you know, the soup that I've created is actually the bonus.
27:26It's eating the mussels that will be the big pleasure.
27:30How about that?
27:33People are often saying to me,
27:35what would your last supper be?
27:38And I often say more mariniere,
27:40but in this case it wouldn't be mussels with white wine
27:43and onions and garlic.
27:45It would be Cornish mussels with sorrel, cider, spring onions...
27:52..and cream.
27:55A taste of Cornwall.
28:03Join me next time as I continue my journey
28:06across the ancient land of Cornwall.
28:08There's 1,100 shipwrecks on the Doom Bar.
28:11It's very, very dangerous.
28:13So what happened then?
28:14I slipped and then over the cliff.
28:17They've renamed it Berries Leap.
28:20Now for the crab omelette.
28:22Now for the crab omelette.
28:24That is heaven.
28:28This is heaven.
28:52You