My overwhelming reaction to the best part of a week away from France, mostly spent in London, was OMFG where did all these people come from. I lived in London twice for periods of 4 years in and around Clapham Junction and having friends who sensibly stayed put while I went off a wandering, I have spent time there every year since the 1980’s. Despite Brexit that corner of London is still full of French ex-pats, there is a French kindergarten school or ‘école maternelle’ and a junior school or ‘college’ as well as the most ridiculously priced pâtisserie ‘Aux Merveillieux de Fred’. Their little marvels are meringues of multiple and complex flavors with cutesy names like The Incroyable or The Impensable. They do a very good croissant and brioche too. All at prices that are seriously 5-10 times what you would pay in France, London prices are a shock to the system and even my Londoner friends think Fred is taking the piss. Getting into London and getting around is easy with trains to Waterloo and Victoria and the Tube at Clapham South, so for visiting it is the perfect base. I use my visits to stock up on “posh tea” from M&S or Waitrose, Branston, Cooper’s Oxford Marmalade. I used to pick up Marmite but now this is reliably found in most large french supermarkets, it’s good that our acquired taste of a treacly brewer’s yeast has gradually worked its sticky way into the French palate.
Like all London streets, the stores and businesses evolve and change over time and Northcote Road is no different. Where Fred’s mortgage-worthy merveillieux now sit displayed was originally a family butchers, Dove and Sons. They had a reputation for being tied in some vague way to the Richardsons, arch enemy of the Kray twins. They were smart enough to spot the gentrification around them and raised the quality and range of products to go organic and include pheasant, guinea fowl and Angus beef while the other butchers, Hennesey was still serving the locals with lamb chops, sausages and belly pork. Hennesey’s is there still to this day, but that may be because Dove made enough money to sell up and retire years ago. What were banks are now universally pubs and have been for years, while the other staples, the estate agents, are more numerous and fancier with some of the names changing to global brands. Two standouts from the 90’s are still there, Hamish Johnstone and Philglas and Swiggot. The former is a fabulous cheese shop, the kind that is staffed by complete cheese anoraks. Full of amazing farmhouse British cheeses as well as the French hits, olive wood cheese boards, expensive chutneys and anything savory with ‘Artisanal’ on the label somewhere. I indulged. Isle of Mull strong Cheddar, Sparkenhoe Red Leicester, Cropwell Bishop Shropshire Blue and Yoredale Wensleydale made their way back to France. Philglas, by their punny name, is a wine shop of diverse taste and range, primarily focused on smaller producer and the kind of wines not found in the local supermarkets. English wine shops struggle not to be snobbish but generally the staff at Philglas err on the side of nerdy knowledge that they are happy to share, especially if you give them some reasonable guidance like “easy drinking southern Rhone under 20 quid”, and they usually have the good grace to not laugh out loud.
The newcomers to the street are the ever-rotating cast of restaurants on the crest of the latest trend, a new Danish coffee house, yet another pizza place, a vegan café and a Thai all competing with the two old Italian restaurants that have been there forever and of course Nandos. The other newcomers are hawking beauty treatments, injections, laser, surgeries and general Kardashianization processes as the British have definitely embraced their inner selfy, even at the cost of looking the same as everyone else.
With my suitcase full of treats and surprises, marmalade stowed safely inside my running shoes I flew home into a rainy Lyon airport, for once slightly ahead of time, passport control was breezy and the bag of treats arrived on the carousel within 3 minutes. If I had ventured into the bakers on my return, it would have been marked on the chalkboard that it was the feast day of St Alban. Alban is of course that rare beast, an English saint. Growing up in the West Country there were St Alban’s schools and a local hospital in his name and of course the town of St Albans north of London. Alby is the first English saint or ‘Protomartyr’ so now I know where the excellent band got their name. If you are unfamiliar with their shouty fun, check them out here. Alban according to quite a few sources does seem to have existed and was a typical Romano Briton at a time when the Empire was still trying to kill all the Christians. He sheltered a priest who was being hunted and was miraculously converted by the stoicism of the priest in the face of his persecution. He swapped cloaks and surrendered himself in the place of the priest when the soldiers came knocking. The local Roman chief honcho thought a sound scourging would do the trick, but when the beatings didn’t have the desired effect, decided that Alban was for the chop. Alban was led off to his execution when they came to a fast-flowing river that could not be crossed. There was a bridge, but a rentamob of curious townspeople who wanted to watch the execution (burn the witch!) had so clogged the bridge that the execution party could not cross. In an apparent hurry to get to martyrdom, Alby raised his eyes pleadingly to heaven, and the river miraculously dried up, allowing him and his captors to cross over. The astonished executioner, black hood and all, drops his sword falling at Alban’s feet, freaked out by the instant drought happenings and trying to keep on the right side of powers greater than himself, starts pleading that he will suffer alongside Alban or be executed instead of him. The other trainee and assistant executioners, obviously a little freaked out themselves, hesitated to pick up the sword. Meanwhile, Alby and the now large crowd go on up a gently sloping hill, completely covered with all kinds of wildflowers. When Alban reached the top of the hill, he began to feel a bit parched what with all the drama, so asked out loud for God to give him water. Bingo, another water trick and a spring immediately bubbles up at his feet. By now the assistant executioner has had enough of the messing around with water and abruptly cuts his head off, as well as the head of the official executioner who had refused to execute him, for good measure, and ‘pour encourager les autres’. The legend per the Venerable Bede, obviously wanting Team God to have the last word, is that immediately after delivering the fatal stroke, the eyes of the second executioner popped out of his head and dropped to the ground, along with Alban’s head; keeping his eyes on the prize in a maudlin way. If you want to revisit all this, the cathedral of St Albans is built on the supposed site in the former Roman town of Veralanium in Hertfordshire. As you can imagine with all of the water tricks and miracles his legend spread far and wide and there are churches in his name across northern Europe, the German’s being big fans. In fact, when Henry the 8th dissolved the monasteries the relics of the saint were removed from St Alban’s abbey on its closure in 1539 and some ended up in St Pantaleon’s abbey in Cologne. They gifted his shoulder blade in 2002 to the current cathedral, probably hoping to make up for other gifts they inadvertently dropped in the area during the Blitz.
It is actually starting to feel like summer finally now the waterboarding, masquerading as Spring, has finished. The humidity has been very popular with the slugs so while away in Lyon the garden in Saone et Loire has been eaten almost in its entirety, vegetables, flowers and even a decorative tree, ironically toxic to humans. We have been waging war since our return, using the vinegar filled ‘bucket of death’ to kill our hand-picked harvest of slugs as well as beer traps (which really work), coffee grounds (do not work) and tin foil around the tree trunk (kinda works). With the help of the newly arrived sun we think we are winning, and I can try again to plant a summer crop of tomatoes, squash and beans. The battle continues.
In Chassy, a very pretty little village not far from Guegnon is found JK. a restaurant opened only 18 months ago by Kevin and Jeanne. Kevin is from Bologna and Jeanne is more local. They met while they were both working under Doucet in Charolles and their eponymous country restaurant is both beautiful in its setting and very accomplished in its food and service. It received its first entry in Michelin this year with a Bib Gourmand ranking, and it was well deserved. We went for dinner on Saturday. They offer no choice other than how you want your pleasure, in 3, 5 or 7 servings. They obviously take note of any likes, dislikes or aversions but part of the joy is the pleasant surprise of each dish. The food reflects the Italian and French influences and is a great blend of local and southern European dishes but recreated from local ingredients. They are nice people, and it is reflected in the young but hardworking front of house service team, happy and enjoying what they do. It’s worth the journey, the village itself is very picturesque with options to stay overnight nearby at a gite in the outbuildings of the castle up on the hill, and a small cottage gite next door. Go visit!
Anecdotes and Antidotes in Burgundy 