http://www.cityam.com/index.php?news=30062IT was when a friend came back from a meal at the uber-modern British Devonshire Terrace in the City, all ruffled about his dessert, that I knew we’d moved into a new age of puddings. Or rather, an older age.
“Lemon possett,” he mused. “Didn’t we used to call that syllabub?” Whether we did or didn’t, it brought home to me that the architecturally wondrous, imploding chocolate creations of the boom time are out, and granny’s desserts are in. Five years ago, who’d have even known their posset from their syllabub?
It’s hard to find a British menu in town these days that doesn’t offer something with a hefty dusting of granny sparkle; Eton mess, trifle, possett or sponge pudding are as common nowadays as the foam-laden, fusion-blasted desserts of yore.
A quick check of some of London’s de rigeur restaurants reveals this: creamed rice pudding (with prune and Armagnac compote) at Gordon Ramsay’s York and Albany, Eve’s pudding with custard at the Frontline Club and, drumroll please, lemon syllabub; raspberry jelly and cream; Eton Mess and a killer, talk-of-thetown custard tart with butterscotch at St Pancras Grand.
The furore for vintage desserts is part of a larger trend of going British, which has been happening for some time now. Fussy and foreign is out, local and British and “honest” (the culinary buzzword of the day) is in. It’s not so surprising that once chefs get into the British thing, their first port of call is traditional classics.
NEWFOUND TASTE
But something else is going on that explains our newfound taste for all things classic in the pudding department. Nostalgia. Nothing evokes a memory of safer times past like food, and jolly times past, such as our childhoods, are just where we rather wish we were just now.
Richard Howarth, co-owner of London’s boldest homage to British cuisine of yore, Bob Bob Ricard, says: “Times are a bit stressful at the moment, and anything that reminds you of easier times is good. Sherry trifle calls to mind your grandmother rather than banks collapsing.”
Indeed, Bob Bob Ricard’s menu includes some very pre-credit crunch dishes: beef tea and egg mayonnaise for mains and sherry trifle, baked Alaska, knickerbockers glory, lemon possett and Victoria sandwich cake for dessert. Memories are balm for the spirits in uncertain times, and London’s restaurants are capitalising on that.
Howarth says that the menu at Bob Bob Ricard was born of discussions between himself and the chef, James Walker, of their favourite foods, most of which are things they loved when they were younger. “When we started talking about it, we started to remember dishes, and those delicious childhood moments would flood back.” But a modern restaurant can’t simply wallow in history.
“Nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake is not good, otherwise we’d just be a museum,” says Howarth. “You need to create a relevant restaurant. It’s quite difficult with some of those favourite things: as well as delivering on people’s memories, you have to meet the requirements of modern palate – for example, my granny probably made her trifle with tinned raspberries and we make it with fresh; we use fresh vanilla and make our custard from scratch, whereas she probably used powder. We still put hundreds and thousands on top though, which helps with the nostalgia.”
ROSE-TINTED
PAST Nobody is better at all this than Quentin Fitch, chef of the Searcy’s at the Barbican restaurant. His dessert menu manages to evoke a powerfully rose-tinted past as well as being intriguingly creative. Poached pear tart; brown bread ice cream with gingersnaps; black molasses tart with licorice ice cream and – wonderfully – praline burnt cream (creme brulee in French) are on offer.
“The basis of the desserts are really traditional,” says Finch. “I don’t think people want to see contrived creations anymore, with sponge sugar and tuiles – at the end of the day that’s all garnish. “There is a certain amount of indulgence when people have desserts – it’s rich, it’s got calories. But who cares, it’s the credit crunch, let’s eat it anyway, they say. People read this pudding menu and say: ‘You know, I haven’t had that for years’ and try it – it’s a double whammy of comfort.”
Fitch, like Howarth, always takes the modern palate into account. One modern twist, of which he is particularly proud, is the use of black molasses instead of treacle in his tart served with liquorice ice cream. Liquorice is also an unusual, deeply chic nod to the past – so rare these days it’s hip.
But a modern twist isn’t always required: Marcus Wareing’s custard tart sprinkled with nutmeg for the Queen’s birthday has gone down in foodie circles as one of the best desserts of all time. We were, as Fitch points out, a nation of cake makers. We had proper afternoon tea every day, for which a piece of good Madeira cake would not only delight the tea-takers of the 1950s and 60s, but modern diners out for the perfect, stodgy end to a meal.
Turn up to Searcy’s at the Barbican on the right day and you might just find one of Fitch’s chef’s family parkin recipe, a Yorkshire, molasses-based cake – or perhaps a lardy cake, served with a scoop of ice cream.
Ah, wasn’t the past a better place after all?
zoe.strimpel@cityam.com
