Food memories...

OXTAIL STEW £8.00
BAKED SEABASS, SOUSED VEGETABLES, SMOKED PAPRIKA POTATOES £9.50
BEETROOT & MUSHROOM STROGANOFF £6.50
LEMON POSSETT WITH LEMON SHORTBREAD £3.50
FROZEN SAFFRON & ROAST GARLIC MASHED POTATO £3.00
SHREDDED SAVOY CABBAGE £2.50
LEMON RICE £3.50

Food memories are powerful things, both good and bad, but mostly good for everyone. The smells obviously and the steam and heat of the kitchen, a misted up window clouding the view into the garden on a wet February back in 62, or whenever it was. Clouding the view through the front room window as well.

I grew up in Greenbank, Ince, an ancient village, boasting a village square, Duke of Wellington pub and a 12th century sandstone monastery, which is still standing today, remarkably. The view through our front window stretched across Ince marshes, down to the river Mersey about three quarters of a mile away. In between and out of site was the ship canal which ran from Liverpool up to Manchester. You couldn’t see the water, but you could see the massive oil tankers which plied their way to and from Manchester docks every day. It looked like the ships were sailing through the fields, it was a great thing to show to your visiting mates, who just stood, astounded on the front lawn gawping.

Legend has it in our family, that Portuguese navvies were amongst the 17,000 labourers employed to dig the canal by hand, back in 1887, and a dalliance with an ancestor of ours at that time is responsible for the darker skin and Iberian temperament found in some of the Simcocks today.

I mention food memories because I was contacted by a local friend recently who was waxing lyrical about ox tail stew, a rich concoction, served with a whole cross sections of tail meat, on the bone which he remembered chomping on fondly on many a cold winter’s day. That probably was in the 60’s and since then, ‘on the bone’ has gone a bit out of fashion. But not here, we love it and as I’ve never cooked oxtail before, I was prompted to give it a go.

Needless to say it’s on the menu for this coming week, I’m certainly never one to waste an opportunity to share a recently discovered joy, so I hope you enjoy it too. Have it with the saffron and roast garlic mashed potato in the frozen section and some shredded savoy cabbage while you’re there.