I taught them to cook vidya4 - Flipbook - Page 23
Autumn Term
21
is far out from north London but it’s the place to shop for dried
salt fish and tins of ackee to surprise our friends with a Jamaican
saltfish and ackee supper and buy spicy plantain chips from the
street food stalls.
Charlotte Street is our favourite place for a night out, eating
food from around the world. Schmidt’s German restaurant for
schnitzel, goulash and real German cakes, Elena’s L’Etoile for its
thudding French food and the many Greek Cypriot restaurants
selling kebabs wrapped in hot pitta bread. Restaurants are
springing up in Camden and Hampstead all the time. The new
Pizza Palace claims to cook pizza like the Romans and the
Spaghetti House serves the weirdest pasta dishes. We can eat
our way around the world within a few miles.
Pickled onions and chutney
Since I’m short of funds for my lessons, I’ve asked for donations
of spare fruits and vegetables for our lessons on preservation.
London gardens spill out their windfall apples and pears and we
get plenty of beetroot and onions from the pickings of allotments.
The keener students bring in blackberries and crab apples
gathered in forays around Epping Forest or derelict land near
the school.
Now my tables are piled with boxes of apples in various stages
of decay and a large sack of small onions donated by the school
gardener.
The class shambles in and settles on their stools.
‘These lessons are about preserving things so that they will
last longer. How are we going to preserve these apples and onions
so that they keep over winter?’
Silence. They don’t care.
‘Come on, what shall we do with them?’
‘Put them on the compost heap, Miss – them apples look
rotten.’