Babet - but no feast
Stormy days on Orkney
One of my favourite food films is Babette’s Feast. Yes, that’s how Babette should be spelt and not just with an et, as if to say We left the EU and the ette doesn't matter in the Uk any more. The storm, like the leaving, is bringing disaster. But I am ranting and rambling and missing the point (yet again). Babette’s Feast is a fabulous story of good fortune, sharing, hardship, stormy weather and, above all, wonderful food and cooking. We will watch it yet again before this storm blows itself out.
It’s amazing how much less scary it seemed with just the wind and before the rain started falling heavily as it is doing today. Our border collie has even refused a walk this afternoon!
Now, back to Babette’s Feast. In Sussex I met Troels Bendix, a wonderful sourdough baker , chef and founder of Sødt. He prepared and cooked much of the food for Babette’s Feast, including the pastry boxes or coffins for the quails - whether you watch the film or not you will understand that they had to be tiny for the birds. Troels taught me much about the mystery of sourdough, that Sicilian lemons make a wonderful marmalade when paired with a few black peppercorns, and he hosted a hugely generous reception when my book A Feast of West Sussex was published.
My practical sourdough skills came on leaps and bounds in the summer when I visited North Ronaldsay to visit Louise who runs the Lighthouse Café on the island. I went to chat about the famed North Ronaldsay seaweed-eating sheep, the only rare breed in the UK to have a Grade 1 listed monument, the sheep dyke, associated with them. Yes, we talked mutton and Louise’s pies, but we also talked sourdough as she had come to Orkney after running a very successful bakery on Mull. Her top tips, which have greatly helped me, are:
If you are an occasional sourdough baker (i.e. less than every day or two) feed your starter four times before using it.
Keep the starter out, not in the fridge, when preparing to use it.
Always use the starter on the rise, i.e when increasing in fermentation bubbles.
The inter-island flights are an adventure for most of us, although they are a way of life for anyone commuting into Kirkwall or to the islands (some teachers go to the outer isles daily). It’s an Islander plane, about an 8-seater, which flies into North Ronaldsay low over the dyke. Days like we’ve been having with Storm Babet render the outer islands cut off, the plane is unable to fly any of its busy schedule, and there are no inter-island ferries either on many routes. Certainly not to North Ronaldsay.
Planes from the Scottish mainland have generally made it into Kirkwall these last few days, but the supermarket shelves are empty as the ferries bringing supplies are not crossing the Pentland Firth, one of the roughest stretches of sea around the British Isles. There’s plenty of local produce in the local shops, but supermarket shoppers are facing the reality of living on an archipelago in the winter.
Amid all of this our builders, who are working outside, have not missed a day. When the wind was from the west, they were working at the east end and now it is from the east, they’ve moved to the west. I’ll share photos when they have finished. I’ve been baking a lot to keep them happy - they are Victoria Sandwich and beremeal shortbread fans. I have even supplied them with soup when I was worried about them and the Barriers were closed and I was beginning to think about making up beds for them as they both had to cross the Barriers to get home. But they got home and they got back - and the baking goes on. They taste-tested my Hallowe’en apple cheesecake, my latest blog for Orkney.com. It got a thumbs up. Stay safe - and eat cake.
A feast of words, Rosemary, thank you! As for the weather, I think of it this way: the wind covers the windows with salt, and the rain washes it off....