PORTRAIT: PAUL MITCHELL. FOOD PHOTOGRAPH: INDIA WHILEY-MORTON
A word about frugality. W hen I was growing up, my Welsh and Cornish grandmas (and Mum, actually) were gold-star revampers of the leftover. Uneaten mash had no chance of languishing in a saucer-covered (no plastic) dish in the fridge, only to be rediscovered, mouldy, a month later. No, potato became bubble and squeak with an egg on top (a looked-forward-to alternative to tinned spaghetti hoops). Sunday’s chicken became curry (lovely) and fricassee (not-so-lovely stringy chicken scraps in white sauce) and, lastly, soup (stock, leftover veg and who knows what else but always a treat).
I get immense satisfaction from creating something new out of the uneaten and unloved, relishing the challenge of working them, invisibly, into new dishes (husband Nick has a deep-rooted distrust of leftovers). I love it when bendy veg are coaxed into the Barnes hall of soup fame with good stock, maybe a slug of cider, a parmesan rind or dab of salty-savoury Marmite, maybe a squeeze of lemon.
So, with Gran’s ‘waste not, want not’ mantra ringing in my ears, my favourite feature of the month is on p72, where we talk to cooks whose cultures have always had frugality at their heart; where every scrap of food is valued. Big thanks to Dara, Liam, Aya and Nisha for sharing inspirational dishes from their heritage.
Aside from that, Debora Robertson takes a kid-glove approach to the month when we’re all desperate for spring and the only answer is… to bake. This issue is, in its entirety, an antidote to the down days, and I hope you LOVE it.