Food in winter is all about comfort
and familiarity. Even though I rarely have the heart to admit it those
well-intentioned souls who try and maintain super-healthy diets in the depths
of December, there’s something that seems a bit unnatural about grilled red
mullet at this time of year. If I am going to have fish, it’s almost certainly
going to be in a pie, a stew, or a curry – hold the rocket salad and the mango
salsa until April, please. In place of the light, Mediterranean style of
cooking many of us favour in the warmer months, we have the tried and tested
favourites more commonly associated with British cuisine.
Everybody has a favourite in the
comfort food stakes. Usually, it’s something that takes them back to their
childhood. For me, my mum’s roast chicken dinners will always hold the top
spot, with brow-mopping curries - like the lamb farcha from the superb Cinnamon in New Cross - being a close
second. Also definitely in my top five is sausage and mash. I don’t expect for
a moment that I’m alone in this. Unfortunately, it’s a dish that’s frequently
abused, most obviously by the identikit Ye Olde Pub Grub menus that curse our country’s
drinking dens. Instant mash, granulated gravy, and cheap, fatty sausages might
fool a few hapless tourists, but not those of us who live life on a fork’s
edge.
