Word spread. People started arriving at our door. A woman from our local allotment began to bring her surplus sorrel in the early spring. In April, a friend would pick stinging nettles by the bag-full from his farm in Hampshire. Other enthusiasts appeared with sea kale from the south coast beaches. Later in the year our builder exchanged the huge puffball mushrooms that grow near his house for bottles of Chianti Classico. When people realised we at the River Cafe were interested in fresh, unusual, wild produce they wanted to participate.
Our passion for vegetables and fruit in season has been at the heart of the River Cafe since we first opened in 1987. Every day, outside the kitchen, we pick from our organic garden many varieties of basil, marjoram and mint, and interesting leaves such as purslane, cicoria, and trevise to use in our recipes. And the simple pleasure of all this, of fresh, seasonal eating, is behind River Cafe Cook Book Green, our third cookbook.
Like the others, it is heavily influenced by our love of Italy, our many visits over many years, and our growing appreciation of the glorious variety of Italian food. All cooking starts in the market, the market reflects where you are, and the season around you. There is the joy in April when the first delicate broad beans arrive; that rich day in October when every stall is loaded with wild mushrooms gathered only that morning; the gentle sadness of biting into that last fresh cherry knowing that soon the brief season is over.
Over the years we have worked with our suppliers from New Covent Garden, encouraging them to bring Italian market produce to London. Now lorries arrive laden with trevise from Verona, artichokes from Rome, borlotti beans from Puglia. These wonderful vegetables are slowly spreading throughout Britain and more and more greengrocers and supermarkets are selling them. If you have a garden you should experiment with growing your own. If not, try farmers’ markets, pick-your-own farms and organic box schemes. But above all develop a relationship with your greengrocer, urging him to supply interesting varieties.
We thought the moment was ripe for a book of this kind, in which we have divided the year not simply into seasons but into months. We wanted to show how specific vegetables are used in specific months for specific recipes – romanesco artichokes for deep-frying whole, the violettas for slicing finely to be eaten raw in salads; how to choose different varieties of tomatoes – cherry vines for fresh pasta sauces, plums for slow-cooked ones and the huge yellow tomatoes for rubbing on to bruschetta. There are recipes using wild ingredients, stinging nettles, sorrel and thistles – for flavouring pastas or simply combining to make a delicious insalata di campo.
Our cooking has become increasingly focused on the garden and its produce. In the summer we make fresh pasta with olives and tomatoes and a risotto of summer squash; in October when the chestnuts appear we put them in soup with celeriac; in the winter we eat salads of puntarelle with anchovies and vin santo, and for Christmas we make a cake with crystallised clementines; in the spring we make a raw artichoke pesto to go with homemade tagliarini.
These are not complicated recipes, and our message is simple too: good cooking is about fresh seasonal ingredients, organic whenever possible, used thoughtfully. It is something the Italians have always known and we hope that with this book you will share our pleasure in rediscovering this simple truth.
Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers London 2000