Scilly Salt
Photo © Rob Jones
Interview recorded at the Falmouth Book festival with Cornish chef James Strawbridge, about his latest book - Salt.
Transcript:
James
I think a huge amount what I do is looking to the past for inspiration and finding ways of adding my own creative twist and bringing things up to date, with cooking salt, and all of the arts and skills that I've researched over the time come from my love of history or studied history at university. Whilst I was also working professionally in Kitchens so the two go hand in hand.
I think an awful lot of knowledge has been lost as we've embraced technology and that's understandable. But when you go back to basics and cook from scratch, there's nothing more powerful than salt, you know, in terms of its transformative ability to take an ingredient and alter its chemistry, its organic nature.
So, the benefit of using salt for flavour is something which we can learn more and more about. I find that the most exciting way of really bringing things up to date is to use spices, foraging incredible ingredients in combination with old knowledge that then gives it a fresh lease of life. So, I think the past is really important for my food but I do also believe that there's a need to reinvent things as well.
Rob
Sometimes people feel as though Cornwall is tucked away and is isolated. That's not true, because it's had connections with just about every part of the world, and presumably also ingredients, spices, that kind of thing? So, is it natural for Cornish cuisine to use those sorts of things?
James
I think Cornish cuisine has to retain its roots, which comes down to great seafood, heritage of our sort of culinary past, things like the pasties, the cream teas, sardines or pilchards. But that said, you know, you look at Tim Tagel and the recent archaeology finds of seaweed and burnt pork bones stating thousands of years ago, showing that there was feasting and clay pots as far away as Cyprus, very established trade routes of food thousands of years ago as in the time of the Romans, but I think something like saffron is a perfect example. We've embraced it in the saffron bun. I make a pretty mean saffron salt which is really like gorgeous saffron, orange, yellow hue, but a delicate spice profile that's great on a bouillabaisse or a piece of pan-seared Cornish hake or something. Saffron spices, the trade that's come into Cornwall has definitely added a diversity to our food. We're also massively linked nowadays by social media chefs, the movement of people, so there's no excuse for Cornwall to not embrace these amazing trends from around the world. I think that one thing to be almost wary of, though, is losing our connection with what we produce here, which is I think the strongest thing about Cornwall is its coast and county. The Duchy makes you know, amazing range of artisan products, cheese, great dairy, but the seafoods, the meat, the veg growing, we are blessed with a with a wonderful productive county, so. We need to always bring it back to what part of the food on the plate is from Cornwall and try and build that seasonality.
Rob
So, a question of authenticity ….. you're looking at your coffee longingly, did you want to take a sip, Sorry…..
James
Classic chef. Where's the next coffee?
Rob
So, do you think that that has become slightly easier because over the last few years there's very definitely been much greater interest in local produce and returning to some old ideas in terms of cooking, in terms of breeding animals, that kind of thing? Has it become easier for you to showcase these kinds of things?
James
Yes and no. I think that the availability of good ingredients, there are more and more growers who, instead of going down a monoculture of just doing potatoes or just doing beef, like they are diversifying, they're doing, you know, having a polytunnel growing fruit and veg in in abundance. But as a whole, I think that what we've still got is a bit of a gap between the amount of money it costs to buy good quality Cornish produce and what people are willing to pay for it, like … and you can't create good seasonal local food for less than it's worth. That's not the way it works. So, I think we all need to get accustomed to paying a little bit more for good quality produce and seeing how that is reflected in what we cook at home, and what we are willing to pay when we go for a good meal out.
Rob
You are what I call and ‘Everything’ in as much as you cook, you forage, you photograph the meals for books and develop products. How does that all feed in, which comes first? Is it realising that you're on the beach and you've seen something which is going to make a perfect addition to a meal, or do you actively go searching for these things?
James
I think for me it's very organic and instinctive. The way I cook or create a story, a recipe, a photograph very much starts most of the time with an ingredient that either drops into my lap physically, you know, like a Berry or something off the tree I'm foraging for. Or an ingredient, that I nip over to meet a friend who produces cheese. And then I come back and that then starts to stimulate the ideas. I think though there's a whole load of things that go on behind the surface, which is how you can weave together knowledge and confidence with food and that's come through many, many years of producing it myself, growing, trying to learn how to preserve the harvest out of necessity, and then taking those quite wide range of skills and then figuring out how to just fundamentally create a tasty, good looking plate of food that people will then enjoy the taste of. But for me, the food, the cooking process is really just a hook to get people into a lifestyle choice and an approach, a way of life. And that is all about sustainability, values of dead easy, simple, seasonal local food and that can be very preachy. I think sometimes people can, you know, go and get on a soapbox, talk about climate change and big issues and alienate people who are just trying to, you know, do the best they can on the budget. They have. My approach tends to be much more, how do we make something look appetising? Draw people in almost by stealth into an idea that than when they taste it, when they realise that you know, cooking together as a family is more than just enjoying the meal and it's the process of how we get to the point when you sit down together. I think there's a whole load of behind the scenes work that I try and do. I absolutely love the entire creative process of cooking, food, writing, photography, even social-media and video are used to really not like, but I've got very used to presenting and being in front of camera, and actually holding a camera and producing video and editing. It's all part of the same thing. It's trying to choose the key moments that you can then share. So, I get it wrong sometimes, as we all do, but I'm always trying to learn and trying to improve myself.
Rob
It always seems as though there's been an open warfare against salt in terms of health, how justified are people when they're looking at salt as something which it could be potentially dangerous.
James
Well, I think the concerns about salt, and you mentioned like it's a bit like a war, there is a battle. I'm trying to debunk some of the myths which have dominated the debate around salt, which is that all salt is bad, I fundamentally don't believe that. I think there are good salts and bad salts. Processed table salt is not found naturally anywhere occurring on the planet, so it's bad for our health. There's no defending it. A good quality sea salt with lots of minerals can, in the right quantity really be an asset to your body, help charge you up when you're exercising. It's a vital, essential mineral for life, so I think that the way it is perceived is the bigger part of the picture here and I like the fact that going back to the military roots of Roman legionaries, like who were paid in salt and the word salary or salary coming from that, there's a real history that is reflected at different points where there could be protests like Gandhi. You know it's political salt production, and our rights and our knowledge to do it is something which I think it's been too easily dominated by a … almost like a pharmaceutical company approach of we're gonna sell back all of them seem real strip off this There's a little bit of a conspiracy theory that I've that I sort of believe in, but my key thing is like with fats, like all bread is bad. Well, no, actually real bread with good sourdough, wild yeast can be good for your health. It's the same with all of these things, if you just go back to basics and look to the past for inspiration, then ultimately, we can be both healthy and enjoy tasty food. And I think if you're, if you're not smiling, you're doing it wrong. So basically, you've got to enjoy your food and you don't need to feel guilty as long as you're using the right ingredients.
