Photo by Kristin Perers
I don’t merely want to cook from Emily Scott’s new book: I want to take up residence in its pages. The successor to her equally charming debut, Sea & Shore: Recipes and Stories from a Kitchen in Cornwall, Time & Tide conveys a sense of stillness and wide-skied calm combined with a cosily bustling practicality, and it’s an engaging combination. I adore Cornwall, and feel so lucky to be transported there, soaking up the beauty of the landscape and food. For this isn’t some aspirational catalogue of a cookbook, in which you simply imagine yourself drifting around the Cornish coast, but a justifiably proud celebration of local produce (allied to a keen sense of how they can be incorporated within a wider culinary legacy) and a reliable, reassuring guide to the sort of food I always want to eat no matter where I am.
I’m talking about Cornish Mussels with Smoked Bacon, Cider, Clotted Cream and Wild Garlic; Cornish Crab Sandwich; a Helford Blue, Spring Onion Leek, Crème Fraiche & Thyme Tart; Whole Mackerel Over Coals with Garlic & Garden Leaves; Monkfish & Saffron Curry; Potted Shrimps; and Dauphinoise with Spinach & Clotted Cream. And, furthermore, about Crumpets; Figgy Banana Bread; Fruit Salad with Elderflower Syrup & Garden Mint; Golden Saffron Buns; Coconut & Jam Sponge; Roasted Stone Fruit sploshed with Marsala; Treacle Tart; No-Churn Clotted Cream Ice Cream; and — actually the first recipe in the book, and I can see why — Seaside Madeleines, that’s to say, baked not in the traditional tins but in scallop shells. My mother always used scallop shells as ashtrays should smokers come over, but using them to bake madeleines in is a much more appealing proposition!
There’s much in my shortlist above that I longed to share with you, but I am very happy with my choice: Cornish Bouillabaisse (and an eminently do-able, unfussy version) with a bonus splurge of Saffron Aioli.
Credit: Time & Tide by Emily Scott (Hardie Grant, £28).
Photography: Kristin Perers.
