We were due to be in Cornwall for this bank holiday weekend, visiting family. For reasons not for this blog, we haven’t got away.
But the visit got me to thinking about the food I’d be eating when we were there. Pasties, of course. Proper meaty, peppery Cornish Pasties. And there’s all the fish, I guess raised in popularity by the activities of Rick Stein and his Padstow-based empire.
Two of the most memorable meals of recent years have been an Asian-flavoured sea bass in a restaurant right on the beach at Newquay, and the calamari and chips (oooh, what chips! Possibly the best I’ve ever had) at a café on the beach at St Ives.
So what about Sussex food? Having lived here for four years, I really haven’t got a clue what Sussex food is. There’s just one recipe I can think of, Sussex Pond Pudding – and I’m sure I have one somewhere in amongst my 130-odd cookbooks, but I can’t find it.
But what else? We keep finding lavender-flavoured cakes and biscuits in teashops, but I can’t find any real evidence they’re local. Maybe it’s just a fad.
So where do I find Sussex food?
Update, 29 May:
I couldn’t find a recipe for Sussex Pond Pudding in my cookery books, so I Googled.
The recipes on the Net are remarkably consistent, and go something like this:
Serves 6
Suet crust pastry:
- 275g self-raising powder
- 1tsp baking powder
- A generous pinch of salt
- 150g shredded suet (beef or vegetable)
- Cold water to mix
Filling:
- 175g butter
- 175g brown sugar
- 1 large unwaxed lemon, washed and pricked all over with a skewer
Butter a 1.2 litre pudding basin. Make the suet crust pastry – sift flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Stir in the suet and stir in sufficient cold water to form a soft dough.
Cut off a quarter of the dough and roll it out to fit the lid. Then roll the rest out and line the basin.
Put half the butter and sugar in the bottom and the lemon on top. Add the remaining butter and sugar on top of the lemon. Moisten the top edge of the pastry and attach the lid.
Cover with foil, or waxed or greaseproof paper, and secure under the rim, allowing a fold to a leave space for the pudding to rise.
Steam for 3 hours.
Turn out and slice for serving. The sauce flows out into the ‘pond’ of the pudding’s title.
Now the confession: I haven’t tried it. I haven’t even dared point the thing up for my diet, and it’s definitely a pudding for winter.