Sunday, the 11th of July, saw 4 Wild Seasons teami up once again with our two, very lovely, generous, food and drink passionate Italian friends, Maurizio & Cinzia of La Locanda.
The first time we worked together, fusing traditional Italian foods with wild and local seasonal produce from Yorkshire & Lancashire, to create our unique style of multi-course dining, was in late November 2021. On that occasion, we served our unique food-fusion to 26 dinner guests at 'Convivio Selvaggio' which translates to 'Friendly, Lively & Social', an occasion much required after the never-before-experienced and lengthy lockdowns, the nations populace had endured.
Our celebration of summer began with a breakfast of Italian style, sweet/savoury pastries, with a wild meadowsweet infused strawberry jam and choice of tea or coffee. We then began our 2.5 hour foraging adventure on the Lancashire coast, where I lovingly revealed the wild, edible delights of the saltmarsh, mudflats and green spaces fringing them. Guests were introduced to a range of wild, in-season ingredients such as Sea Arrowgrass: a deeply fragranced and aromatic herb, not too dissimilar to coriander, with a multi-layered complexity and deliciousness that surpasses the commercial coriander we are so familiar with. Saltmarsh succulents including; Sea Purslane, Sea Aster, Sea Blight, and Sea Beet, also featured, as did, Sea Radish, Mugwort, and the misclassified, non-native invasive, Japanese Rose, which is more reminiscent of Turkish Delight than actual Turkish delight! Prior to departing, guests were treated to lunch, similar to the style of food I serve on my wild food courses.
The evening phase of our celebration of summer began at 6pm, when the evenings guests walked through the doors of La Locanda. While myself and Maurizio were busy in the kitchen upstairs, Cinzia did what she does so beautifully, ensuring the warmest and most attentive of welcomes and making guests feel thoroughly relaxed and at home: a very Italian cultural norm. A complimentary cocktail, created by Cinzia, was offered, accepted by all, and the conversations and laughter began to flow.
A short window of time later, our guests were shown to their table and the feast began...
1: Scallop, Pistachio, Sweet Pickled Gooseberry:First up was a complimentary canape. A beautifully cooked scallop, coated in crushed pistachios, served with a sweet-pickled feral gooseberry on top. The gooseberries are gathered from a lovely coastal location that I frequent every year, then lovingly pickled in a sweetened, organic, ACV a touch of spring water and complimented with the addition of select, wild spices & heady, aromatic, fresh elderflowers.
2: Panzanella: Tomato, Sourdough, White Balsamic, EVO, Basil, Sea Arrowgrass, Smoky Ramson Sea Salt
Maurizio and myself love tomatoes! We love them so much that we sit for hours just talking about the sensorial delights of them! They come in a fantastical array of species, colours, shapes, sizes, textures, flavours and span a wide spectrum of culinary uses. Funnily, we had both been enjoying this dish at home, unaware that we were both making it and tucking into it. Given how 'Italian' tomatoes are and our love of them, it seemed only apt to serve this dish.
3: Wild Seabass, Saltmarsh Succulents, Herb Gremolata:
It's hard not to repeat the word delicious but, it's such an apt word and the dinner guests used it frequently so, I'll just keep on using it! The use of wild seabass in this dish fits with our collective philosophy regarding all foods; it was sustainably caught (I'm sure we could delve deeper into exploring exactly what 'sustainable' means but this post isn't about that).
4: Raspberry Sorbet & Cold Infused Meadowsweet Syrup: Sadly I accidently deleted the only picture I managed to take of this vibrant palete cleanser, doh!
5: Marinated & Chargrilled Saltmarsh Lamb, Green Herb Puree, Courgette & Pine Flower Salad, Toasted Laver Seaweed:
Lamb and laver is a traditional pairing stretching back to the early days of crofting and subsistence farming We lightly toasted the laver to accentuate it's flavour profile and make it crispy so diners could crumble it as desired: also a lovely tactile element. Courgettes are another cultivated food-love of both Maurizio and myself. Courgette plants are super-generous, with each plant producing up to 4 courgettes per week! This salad, served raw, added a lightness and freshness, while complimenting the fatty, flavour-packed lamb. We sliced them into super-fine ribbons, lightly salted them, added plenty zingy lemon juice, a good glug of superb EVO and finished it off with salted pine flowers.
6: Caramelised Unripe Green Figs, Amaretto Preserved Cherries (Juice Reduction), Homemade Pine Pollen Goats Cheese, Rum Soaked Raisin Bread & Sweet Chestnut Honey:
I was first made aware of a use for unripe green figs in 2016. Since then, unripe green figs preserved in syrup have become an annual staple. Several days prior to this event, I happened to tell Maurizio that I'd been preserving green figs. This triggered a nostalgia and old traditional Italian recipe memory that he used to love making. It's an absolute triumph of a dish working so well on many taste levels and dimensions. It was my personal favourite!
7: Summer Lovin aka Yorkshire & Lancashire Mess
A summery delight that isn't messy at all. It's a tidy combination of fresh strawberries, meadowsweet syrup infused strawberries, a trickle of intense japanese rose syrup, whipped cream, more strawberries, meringue pieces, more whipped cream, a sprinkle of japanese rose sugar, final topping of fresh strawberries and, a crumbly oat biscuit. The white and red colour theme coincidentally highlights the roses of each county...
Wimbledon, you need to up your game on strawberries and cream!
8: Vin de Noix & Preserved Green Walnuts in Syrup
Those of you who know me, know that I love to explore the wilder side of foods and their creative potentials, whether solid or liquid. This vin de noix, is a wild take on the classic French recipe so, it's not French, it's very much English, especially as I've used my homemade wines made from foraged black cherries and damsons. A range of wild and foraged wild flowers, herbs and seeds help create this unique drink alongside some more commercially available ingredients that really add to the whole flavour/sensory experience; cloves, cinnamon, vanilla and orange zest. The resultant liqueur is lush, deeply aromatic, warming, slightly resinous, slightly bitter yet sweet enough to balance that slight bitterness. It's a perfect end-of-meal drink.
The preserved green walnuts are based on a traditional Greek sweet treat called Glyko Karydakis. There is less in the way of wild in this one as it's pretty damn good as is so, only the green walnuts are foraged. The honey used to sweeten these comes from native black bees looked after by a friend who has a croft, high up in the north of Scotland. Her land is as wild as can be and the bees forage their nectar from many wild plants that I myself forage and eat/drink throughout the year. Their honey is divine, a proper foragers honey!
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