The Cook Book: Fortnum & Mason

Dedicated to William Fortnum and Hugh Mason

Copyright

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2016

Copyright © Fortnum & Mason Plc 2016

All photographs © David Loftus 2016

Much of the photography in this book was shot on location at 181 Piccadilly behind a shop hoarding on the third floor.

Fortnum & Mason Plc asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008199364

Ebook Edition © October 2016 ISBN: 9780008199401

Version: 2017-09-26

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Breakfast

Morning Tea

Lunch

Ice Cream

Afternoon Tea

Savouries

Dinner

Sides

Puddings

Supper

Cocktails

Credits

Index

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

‘Where the food is just about as good as food can be’

Introduction

They say you never forget your first time. And when it comes to Fortnum & Mason, they’d be right. It was a chill winter’s evening, in the early days of the 80s, and I was dressed in my London best – shiny Clarks sandals, pressed corduroy trousers and an unusually spotless shirt. My tattered Husky had been replaced with a dark blue overcoat, and as my cousin and I walked down Piccadilly with my grandmother, I shivered with a mixture of cold, and pure, unalloyed excitement. We were up to see the Christmas windows. And maybe – if we were very good and said our pleases and thank yous and didn’t moan or fidget or fiddle about – maybe we could have a banana split at the legendary Fountain.

Having grown up in the depths of Wiltshire, I thought of London as a glittering Emerald City, impossibly exotic, endlessly exciting. And the Italian restaurants, Mimmo’s and La Fontana, that my grandmother loved so much were pure bliss. We would suck down endless Coca-Colas, fight with breadstick swords, devour vast bowls of spaghetti Bolognese, and have our cheeks pinched until they glowed. We didn’t go out to restaurants in the country. In fact, I don’t think Chippenham had any, save the ubiquitous chippy.

London was thrilling, no doubt about that. And Fortnum & Mason was the very pinnacle of big-city glamour. Those spectacular windows, warm and lavish, with the ornate tins of tea and exotic sweets and glittering bottles filled with magic potions. And the clock, where, on the hour, two wooden men emerged, one with a tea tray, the other with a candelabra, faced each other, and bowed graciously.

Of course, I had little idea that these four-foot figures were Mr Fortnum and Mr Mason and that the clock, unveiled in 1964, had taken three years to build. For me, it was utterly magical, more Narnia than Piccadilly, with all the fur wraps and fake snow and sugar-dusted Turkish delight that came with it. Although, unlike Narnia, there was no doubt it was Christmas. ‘Hark the Herald Angels’ trilled from some hidden speaker, and the place was laden with candied fruits, gleaming decorations and vast, extravagant crackers. The White Witch would not have approved.

There was a smell of spice and tea and expensive eaux de toilette. We fought our way through the festive hordes, past the tailcoated staff (more soldiers than shop assistants) and found ourselves in the Fountain, where that banana split, with its lashings of cream and fruit and chocolate and ice cream, seemed impossibly big. It was lust at first sight. As it had been for my mother and father, and for generations of excitable, star-struck children.

Because Fortnum & Mason is so much more than a mere shop. It’s a national icon, a British institution, the finest grocer of them all. For this is a store that has fuelled the furnaces of British history, helped build empires, and fed the appetites of kings and queens, maharajahs and tsars, emperors, dukes and divas alike.

To read through a list of Fortnum’s clients is to wander through our island story, a definitive Who’s Who of the grand, gilded and great. Every British monarch since Anne, the last reigning Stuart queen. Prime ministers from Gladstone and Disraeli onwards. The most brilliant of war leaders, Wellington, Churchill and Montgomery. Actors from Sir John Gielgud to Sir Michael Caine. Plus some of the greatest writers ever to put pen to paper: Byron, Dickens, James, Conrad, Wodehouse, Betjeman and Waugh. All came for their hampers, griottes, Scotch eggs, smoked salmon, claret and tea. All united in their love for this legendary store.

Fortnum’s is a company built upon spent wax. Literally. A seemingly malleable base for such an august London store. William Fortnum was a footman to Queen Anne. And one of the perks of his job was being allowed to keep the spent candles. The Royal Family insisted on new ones each night, which meant a lot of spare wax. Wax that he sold on for a decent profit. But it wasn’t just the candles that kept Fortnum’s coffers flowing. He also had a grocery sideline. And in 1707 he convinced his landlord, Hugh Mason, to go into business with him. So Fortnum met Mason. And they built their grocery as near as possible to the royal palace. Then, as now, St James’s was the very centre of upscale, old-school society.

As Fortnum & Mason grew (helped by Fortnum’s grandson, Charles, going into the household of Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III), so too did the British Empire. Wars raged, the map became steadily more pink, and the fortunes of Fortnum’s grew. They supplied tea, wine and ale to the officers of Waterloo and Trafalgar alike. Queen Victoria sent out huge shipments of their famed beef tea to feed her armies during the Crimean War. And Robert Graves writes of Fortnum’s hampers, filled with potted beef, Stilton and proper tea, arriving weekly in the World War I trenches. Winston Churchill was just one of many grateful recipients.

Yet Fortnum & Mason has never been content to live in the past. To respect it, sure, but never to become trapped in its amber grip. To stay still is to stagnate. They’ve always been innovators, from hampers and Scotch eggs to having their own beehives on the roof. With the Food and Drink Awards, they continually inspire (and reward) excellence in British food writing. And in 45 Jermyn St. they have a thoroughly modern restaurant that still values old-fashioned delight. Comfort, quality, the joys of a civilised long lunch.

This is the first official Fortnum & Mason cook book in over 300 years, the recipes a fusion of the classic and modern. But it is no mere coffee-table tome, destined to look good but gather dust – this is a book that should become splattered and worn with constant use, to be bent, bruised and loved. Like Fortnum & Mason itself, it aims to be timeless and practical, offering a taste of Britain with a resolutely global appetite. A keeper of British tradition and a curator of the world’s greatest ingredients. The recipes, though, are all united by two things – their connection with Fortnum & Mason, and the fact that they taste damned fine too. So here’s to the Grande Dame of Piccadilly. To good food, and cooking. And to the next 300 years.

Ingredients

Good cooking starts with the best possible ingredients – a simple but fundamental Fortnum’s philosophy. Listed here are some favourites, all of which will make the recipes in this book the best they can be.

Burford Brown eggs

The yolks are wonderfully creamy.

Butter

Fortnum’s have some amazing butter, but one particular favourite is Abernethy butter, churned by hand in Ireland.

Honey

A great substitute for sugar, Fortnum’s has an exquisite assortment of honeys.

Chardonnay vinegar

This delectably rounded vinegar will work wonders in any dressing.

25-month-aged Parmesan cheese

With a wonderfully salty and peppery flavour, this can be grated over carpaccio, asparagus or salads. Or simply eaten with honey.

Anchovies

Fortnum’s use L’Escala anchovies – as a seasoning with lamb, in a salad, to boost the flavours of a dish, or served on toast.

Fortnum & Mason’s Traditional Potted Stilton

From the last family-owned Stilton producer in the UK, this cheese can be made only with milk from the three ‘Stilton counties’ – Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire.

Daphne’s Welsh lamb

Produced by Daphne Tilley in Denbighshire, this is lamb as it’s supposed to taste.

Fortnum’s smoked salmon

The house cure comes from Severn & Wye in Gloucestershire. They use Var salmon (one of the most sustainable and fine-tasting farmed fish), gently smoked over oak. The result is a delicate, smoked salmon with languorous length and true depth of flavour.

Glenarm salt-aged beef

This beef is hand-selected from the Glenarm Estate in Northern Ireland. It is then dry-aged for 28–42 days in the producer’s Himalayan salt chamber, a process that reduces moisture and intensifies the flavour.

Fortnum’s Single Cask Madeira

This goes beautifully with most puddings. Once opened it will keep indefinitely. An ever-reliable store-cupboard ingredient.

Breakfast

‘The English-speaking world divides roughly into two main camps – one camp swears by tea, the other coffee. Occasionally, each camp swears at the other. At Fortnum’s, we maintain a strict neutrality. Here harmony reigns – for here you will find the best of both worlds’

Grilled Kippers with Lemon and Parsley Butter

After Edward VIII had abdicated, and was waiting, in exile, to marry Mrs Simpson at Château de Condé, he still craved a taste of home. So he had Fortnum’s send down its Craster kippers (from Northumberland, with a strong oak smoke) every morning by plane. Anything to avoid that gloomy Continental breakfast.

Proper oak-smoked herrings are a classic British breakfast dish, although they seem to have fallen out of fashion in recent years. Why? All those fiddly bones? Perhaps. My mother reckons it’s the smell, which tends to linger, but if you poach them, you’ll have no such odorous issues. Anyway, the scent of grilling kippers is sublime.

As ever with such a simple, unfettered dish, quality is everything. A second-rate kipper is a mean and disconsolate thing. Fortnum’s source theirs from Severn & Wye. The smoke is elegant and rather light. They’re grilled, and served with a melting lump of good butter. Add a decent twist of pepper, and you have a breakfast fit for an (ex) king.

Serves 2

2 kippers

a little olive oil

For the lemon and parsley butter

50g softened unsalted butter

a small bunch of curly parsley, finely chopped

1 lemon

Put the butter into a small bowl and beat in the parsley. Add the zest of a quarter of the lemon, then cut the lemon in half, squeeze the juice from one half and beat that in too. Taste the butter and add more lemon zest or juice if you like.

Heat the grill and line the grill pan with foil. Place the kippers on it skin-side down and brush them lightly with olive oil. Grill for 6–8 minutes, then transfer to serving plates and top each kipper with a spoonful of the lemon and parsley butter. Serve with the remaining lemon half, cut in two, and some brown or granary toast.

Porridge

Porridge, stirred slowly, the old-fashioned way. Which means just water, real Scottish oats, salt and, if required, a splash of cream. Plus honey, the golden nectar that runs thick through Fortnum’s veins. A simple dish, but one that has to be made just right. You sure don’t want to annoy a Scotsman. In the eternal words of P. G. Wodehouse, ‘It has never been hard to tell the difference between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.’

Serves 4

1 litre water

a large pinch of salt

200g porridge oats

To serve

plenty of runny honey

double cream (optional)

Suggested toppings

golden raisins

sunflower seeds with ground cinnamon

sliced banana with maple syrup

blueberries with chia seeds

Bring the water and salt to the boil and whisk in the oats. Cook gently for 4–5 minutes, until the mixture has thickened and the oats are tender.

Ladle into 4 bowls and top with a generous swirl of honey and/or one of the toppings suggested. To make the porridge extra luxurious, add a good splash of double cream.

Boiled Egg and Soldiers

A boiled egg, I hear you cry? A boiled bloody egg? But everyone knows how to boil an egg. Get water to a rolling bubble, add egg, cook, and remove. Simple, right? Well, yes and no. We’ve all suffered the indignities of overcooked ovoids more suited to tennis than tucker. Or undercooked, where the white teeters on the translucent, and the yolk is still cold. But to Fortnum & Mason, perfection is all about just-firm white and oozing yolk, all the better for the buttered soldier’s initial assault.

Traditionally, the bread was baked fresh on the premises, while the butter came up, in churns, from Somerset and Devon. It was there, thanks to all that lush grass, that the richest, sweetest and deepest yellow butter could be found. It was wrapped in lettuce leaves, to keep it cool, in the days before refrigeration.

As to instructions – the fresher the egg, the better. And please, never ever keep eggs in the fridge. There’s no need and, if you do, plunging cold eggs straight into bubbling H2O will cause them to crack.

1 Put the eggs into a pan of cold water.

2 Bring the water to the boil.

3 Turn off the heat and cover the pan.

4 Set your timer for the desired time:

3 minutes for really soft-boiled eggs

4 minutes for soft-boiled eggs

6 minutes for firm soft-boiled eggs

10 minutes for firm yet still creamy hard-boiled eggs

15 minutes for very firm hard-boiled eggs.

Serve with lavishly buttered toast soldiers.

Plus a sprinkle of salt and pepper.

Caviar Boiled Eggs

Caviar. ‘As eaten by mermaids in cool grottos’, according to the honeyed words of ‘All The World’s a Stage’, a Fortnum & Mason Commentary from the early 1930s. These fearsomely expensive fish eggs have long been a favourite Fortnum’s product, sourced from wild Volga sturgeon. Thanks, though, to rampant overfishing, the wild stuff is now illegal. Good. But farmed stuff is so fine these days that it would take a master to spot the difference. At 45 Jermyn St., a caviar trolley has been introduced. And its well-oiled wheels have barely stopped revolving. Here, with impeccable tableside theatrics, eggs are scrambled before your very eyes.

Serves 4

12 Burford Brown eggs

150ml double cream

70g unsalted butter, plus extra for buttering the toast

1 tablespoon chopped chives

20g Oscietra caviar

8 slices of sourdough bread, toasted

salt and freshly ground white pepper

Bring a large pan of water to a rapid boil and add 8 of the eggs. Simmer for 6 minutes. Remove the eggs from the pan and refresh under cold water. When they are just slightly warm, put the eggs in eggcups and cut the top off each one. Carefully remove the yolks with a teaspoon, mash them with a fork and set aside.

Crack the remaining 4 eggs into a bowl, add the double cream