First round of picnic game

I have decided to while away some hours between now and that wonderful moment when the aircraft doors are ‘prepared for take-off’ by assembling my shopping list. The first several letters of the alphabet are enough to sustain life for 10 days without any problem. Consider these possibilities in just the first three.

I’m going to a country cottage and I’m bringing:

A is for Apples. An ideal food for someone in quarantine against a deadly disease, an apple a day keeps the doctor away. Britain was once renowned for its country-apple orchards. The rosy Ribston Pippin (pdf) gave its name to Beatrix Potter’s party-giving, pie-baking cat, Mrs Ribston. Elizabeth David, the great food author of mid-century England, once got into a bother with the English Apple Board over Bramley apples. She actually meant to praise the fruit for pies (not pies of mouse, as Mrs Ribby served). It wasn’t David’s fault that some unnamed subeditor retitled her article about baking with them “Big Bad Bramleys.” I’ll be arriving in England just in time for the early pickings of the apples like the renowned Worcester Pearmain. (This apple’s family tree enchants me, although I’m a little unclear how it can be both mother and father.)

Next letter: B

B is all about fat, the foundation of baking and sauteeing. I’ll obviously need some local creamery butter, unsalted. I suspect I’ll have to make do with supermarket butter, and I wonder if Brexit will have reduced the availability of certain brands… Adieu, M’sieur le President from across the Channel in Normandy, France. Skol to Lurpak of Denmark, Slàinte Mhath to Dublin’s Kerrygold. Never mind. Yeo Valley butter, from neighbouring North Somerset, is guaranteed in the shopping cart.

Bacon is a whole ‘nother matter. The Brits know a thing or two about bacon, as evidenced by the 28 varieties of bacon rashers listed on the shopping website. The stuff Americans usually get is called ‘streaky,’ which is accurate for the comparatively generous amount of fat. I’ll never forget my first encounter with back bacon: Meaty, rich, perfect under the over-easy egg. They say Wiltshire pigs produce some of the best meat for bacon, so I’ll add “cured, unsmoked, Wiltshire back bacon” to the list. If I need more fats to cook with, I’ll dig into the butter.

I was too busy at the height of the pandemic to bake bread (except for one loaf of my signature banana bread). Perhaps I’ll bake my own Bloomer while under quarantine? I should point out the ingredients have nothing to do with bloomers, the undergarment.

Third letter: C

C is for … oh dear! Do I stay in the dairy and say Cream? Or step out to the garden for Carrots, Courgettes or Cucumbers? No, wait, I’ll need courgettes in their American disguise for ‘Z,’ so strategically, these useful veggies stay off the list here. And I don’t actually cook much with cream.

Ah, but I’ll be in Dorset, next door to the counties renowned for clotted cream. Tim and I encountered double-cream early on, while shopping for marmalade and jam and things to put on toast. Double-cream doubled down on the still-pourable stuff that topped our whole milk.

On the other hand, C is also for Chocolate. I left off being a candyholic many years ago, but I can always persuaded to have a break and have a Kit-Kat.

As a child of ten, I encountered British chocolate and abandoned Hershey’s bland bars forever. On that first road trip, my parents discovered Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Fruit & Nut bars. They seemed a bit healthy, so Mom would buy a bar and we’d share it out alongside a bag of ripe peaches in a roadside lay-by. (A confession: as a 10-year-old, I often spit the whole almonds out into a tissue under the guise of a sneeze.)

Then we stopped at Brighton beach, and every other child on the pebbly shore seemed to have an ice-cream cone. Not an ordinary ice-cream: these were spiked with a choccie! I begged very hard for my first ‘99‘. The creamy vanilla ice-cream, the crumbly chocolate ‘Flake’ with the vanilla cream melting into it. Sunshine. Salty waves. Bliss.

I’ve brought home a six-pack of Cadbury Flakes ever since.