Culinary adventurer Adam Clark
Adam's gooseberry jam.
Nature's bounty.
The family that forages together stays together!
by Culinary Adventurer Adam Clark
You may not know this yet, but I decided a little while ago to stand down as head chef of Bedruthan Steps Hotel. Why? An exciting new culinary adventure was calling me.
I've taken up a new role as food development chef for Red Hotels (the company that runs Bedruthan and its sister hotel the Scarlet) and my ambition is to create a range of Red Hotels own branded products.
Wooden spoon in hand, I've got off to a good start by creating preserves for both hotels to serve with breakfast, afternoon tea etc.
And I've been lucky enough to have spent quite a bit of my working day food foraging some of Cornwall’s most beautiful spots, gathering edible hedgerow treasures from which to create some wonderful Red Hotels fare.
On days off, I've taken my family on food foraging expeditions, gathering the most wonderful sloes, so abundant this year and so early. I've never seen them so big. I've also discovered the merits of the wild plum, and squirrelled away a bumper crop.
Back in the busy Bedruthan kitchen, I set to work with my finds. Now, if you stop for a drink at Bedruthan's bar, and you will see on the spirits shelf our very own sloe gin - a wonderful liquor with a lovely flavour and wonderfully warm feel to it. Just what you need on your return from a windy beach walk.
Excited by my success with the sloe gin, I used some of the wild plums to make a flavoured vodka, which after just a few days is already looking enticing. I can only imagine how quickly that is going to go once I put it in the bar. Be sure to look out for it when you next visit us.
Hopefully, with all the sloes I picked with the help of my family, there will be enough to go round. My children Archie and Daisy, my wife Tania, my brother Nick, sister Penny, niece Anna and I all really got stuck into the picking and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on a beautiful sunny day in St. Agnes. We had walked over the beacon with views as far as St Ives one way and Newquay the other, and the colours of the heather and gorse over one of the highest points for miles was incredible. The different shades of purple and golden yellows were really lovely.
It hasn’t all been a blue skies ideal life though, I've been in my full on wet weather and bramble protection gear as I took on some seriously spiky bushes.
Firstly, the blackberries. Well, I had to get stuck in didn’t i? So in I went and came out laden but truly scratched and bloodied. It was worth it though, and our apple and bramble jam is a real seasonal treat.
Then there was the rosehips and the sea buckthorn, discovered on our own sand dunes below the hotel, so in i went again. If the prickles from the roses weren’t bad enough, have you seen the thorns on a sea buckthorn? There is no easy way of gathering these as the thorns are massive and not easily seen in amongst the berries and leaves but i managed to get myself a little routine going on and got a little savvy in how to handle this plant. And again it was well worth it after using a River Cottage recipe to make sea Buckthorn and apple jam, a real special jam that I will be making for our speciality range.
As for apples, I have never seen so many wild apples as I did this year. I have taken up most of the conference fridge with crates of crab apples and am slowly working my way through them.
I'm enjoying my new role; it's very satisfying to be providing both hotels with their preserves and I have been receiving good feedback too.
We have been spending time getting our labels and jars organised so that we are able to let our guests have some memories of their stay to take back home with them, so please ask when you visit if you love tasting our preserved Cornish countryside.
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