Introduction Dinner is different in winter. The change starts late on a summer’s evening, when you first notice the soft, familiar scent of distant woodsmoke in the sudden chill of the evening air. Then, a day or two later, a damp, mushroomy mist hovers over the gardens and parks. Later, you notice the leaves have turned silently from yellow ocher to walnut. Autumn is here once again. You may sigh, rejoice, or open a bottle. For many, this is the end of their year. For me, this is when it starts, when warmth and bonhomie come to the fore. Energy returns.
With the change of weather, supper takes on a more significant role. We are suddenly hungry. Once the nights draw in, I am no longer satisfied by plates of milky burrata and slices of sweet, apricot-fleshed melon. No more am I content with a bowl of couscous with peaches, soft cheese, and herbs for dinner. What I crave now is food that is both comforting and warming, substantial and deeply satisfying. Food that nourishes but also sets me up for going back out in the cold and wet. And yet, I still find my diet is heavily plant-based with less emphasis on meat. It is simply the way it has progressed over the years, and it shows little sign of abating.
At the start of the longest half of the year, our appetite is pricked by the sudden drop in temperature, and as evenings get longer, we have the opportunity to spend a little more time in the kitchen. To mash beans into buttery clouds. To simmer vegetable stews to serve with bowls of couscous. To bring dishes of sweet potato to melting tenderness in spiced cream. And of course, the pasta jar comes out again.
My cold-weather eating is more substantial than the food I eat for the rest of the year. Dinner becomes about one main dish rather than several lighter ones, and the focus shifts toward keeping warm. On returning home I will now happily spend an hour cooking. Maybe a little longer.
The oven gets more use at this time of year, the grill and griddle probably less. More food will come to the table in deep casseroles and pie dishes. I dig out my capacious ladle for a creamed celery root soup as soft as velvet. The temperature of the plates and bowls will change. We want to hold things that warm our hands, a sign of the happiness to come.
There will be carbs. They protect and energize us. They bring balm to our jagged nerves. (Winter is nature’s way of making us eat carbohydrates.) Crusts—of pastry, breadcrumbs, and crumble—add substance, potatoes fill and satisfy, and there is once again a huge sourdough loaf on the table. Rice and noodles are no longer a side dish and now become the heart and soul of dinner.
My autumn and winter cooking is every bit as plant-based as the food I make in the summer; it just has a bit more heft to it. Shallow bowls of rice cooked with milk and thyme in the style of a risotto. A verdant, filling soup of Brussels sprouts and blue cheese. A saffron-colored stew of sour cream, herbs, and noodles. Translucent fritters in a pool of melted cheese. Golden mushrooms astride a cloud of soft yellow polenta. There is a tangle of noodles and tomato, peppery with chile; roast parsnips and baked pumpkin; a wide earthenware dish of sweet potatoes and lentils glowing like a lantern; an herb-freckled crumble of leeks and tomato or rutabagas and thyme in a pastry crust; and a tarte Tatin of soft golden shallots and autumn apples. It is all here, between these covers.
This is also the season for “something on toast.” By toast I mean not only bread cut thick and rough-edged, but toasted bagels and crumpets, muffins and naan. Any soft dough that will crisp under the broiler and will support a cargo of vegetables or is happy to be slathered with a thick wave of crème fraîche or hummus, roast vegetables, or perhaps cheese to melt and bubble.
And, of course, there must be dessert. An early-autumn crumble of plums and almonds. Chocolate puddings (you really must make the ones with dulce de leche). Ginger cake with a cardamom cream, and a custard set with cake and apples. There will be nut-encrusted shortbreads with blood orange, and baked apples with crisp crumbs and cranberries. I expect syllabubs and baked pears on the table, pastries laden with a golden dice of apples, and scones pebble-dashed with nibs of dark chocolate.
I probably eat more desserts during the cold months, but mainly on the weekend. The main-course recipes in this book are predominantly for two; the desserts, though, are all for four or more. You can’t really make a tart for two or a tiny batch of scones. The recipes are made for sharing with friends and family. That said, most of them are rather fine eaten the following day. Especially those little chocolate puddings.
Like all my books, the first volume of
Greenfeast was written from and about my own kitchen. That it found itself welcomed by quite so many came as something of a pleasant surprise. I have lost count of the number of people who in the last few months have told me that this is the way they eat now, as an “almost vegetarian.” The idea that so many people’s everyday eating is going through such a change, and that meat is no longer our first thought when working out what we want to eat, is heartening to say the least. Apparently I am not the only person for whom meat is still looked forward to but as a once-or twice-a-week treat, not the knee-jerk star of every meal. I knew this was happening (you would have to live under a stone not to) but I genuinely hadn’t realized how widely and quickly the change has come about.
Yes, vegan cooking and full-blown vegetarianism is on the rise, but there are far more people who seem to prefer a less rigid approach to their eating. This makes sense on so many levels, but when all is said and eaten, it is simply that the options for cooking without meat have never been more varied or delicious. There has never been a better time to celebrate the move toward a mostly plant-based diet.
Copyright © 2020 by Nigel Slater. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
