Honey from a weed. it’s a wonderful idea of being able to extract one of life’s most incredible natural foods from an invasive, meandering and annoying pestilence. But in reality weeds can be wonderful things and have been used over the annals of time to produce wonderful and nutritious food, especially in times and seasons of austerity. I’m in the throes of reading a wonderful book with the same title, ‘Honey from a Weed’, by a magnificent lady whose experiences of Tuscany, Catalonia, The Cyclades and Apulia have inspired me to explore some of the food and cooking techniques in the villages she habited during her journey. Patience Grey was an English cookery and travel writer in the mid to late twentieth century, and the book ‘Honey from a Weed’, which was published in 1986, is an account of a Mediterranean way of life. Not only is it a magnificent compendium of traditional recipes and encylopedcia of wonderful local ingredients, yes, including weeds, but it is written with such eloquence and for me creates life-like visuals of what life must have been like. Sometimes I just yearn for that simplicity in life – and always I yearn for the wonderful food.
Let’s take celery heads – yep, that seemed out of left field, but the leaves of celery I bought were often lopped off in the grocers. Now, I shudder with disbelief that I would want such incredible flavoured flora to be discarded – They are magnificent; wonderful in salads and truly amazing sautéed as part of another dish. And this brings me on nicely to one of the recipes in the Patience’s book that has now become a staple – fagioli borlotti alla Toscana – Tuscan borlotti bean stew. Patience talks about how in Carrara in May there appeared beautiful pink marble husks containing fresh marbled beans, fagioli borlotti. These stunning looking beans swell when cooked and then turn brown. When I first read the recipe for his, I was captivated by the freshness, the simplicity and the idea of it being made in an earthenware pot over an open fire – I have never looked back.
For the recipe itself, borlotti beans are seasonal, so I have substituted the dry version for the fresh; the result are great. So let’s get cooking.
