Finding Good Food on the Suffolk Coast
Introduction
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| Suffolk |
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| Aldeburgh |
We did our research for those posts in Valletta and Funchal, both orders of magnitude larger than the small Suffolk coastal town of Aldeburgh (pop: just
over 2,000). We did read the menus of Aldeburgh’s small clutch of restaurants
and although they presented a cross-section of modern British restaurants – far better and more diverse than they were thirty or forty years ago – there
was little uniquely Suffolk about them, so we had to look elsewhere.
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| Suffolk with Aldeburgh (underlined) and the position of Suffolk in England (inset) |
The people of Aldeburgh and their visitors obviously care about
good food. They have, I am delighted to report, no McDonald's, Burger King,
KCF, Domino’s or Starbucks, but instead there is an artisan butcher’s, a bakery
or two, a specialist cheesemonger and several independent coffee shops (plus the inevitable supermarket). They also have one local speciality which marks
out the town - the fish shacks.
The Fish Shacks
Aldeburgh’s pebble beach is not much use to the bucket
and spade brigade, but is good for landing the catch from small fishing boats. Much
of that catch finds its way to the line of sheds along the top of the beach
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| Fish shacks, Aldeburgh |
These are not officially called the ‘fish shacks,’ but
the name seems appropriate. From this angle they look rather down-at-heal, but
that is misleading. Aldeburgh is an affluent little town and these sheds deal
in the finest and freshest fish available – and charge accordingly.
Smoked Fish
A couple of them specialise in smoked fish, and this was
there we headed on our first morning.
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| Smoked fish shack |
We bought some smoked haddock paté. Which made a
pleasant lunch…
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| Smoked haddock paté, toast and a salad |
…and some hot-smoked eel. Hot-smoking is carried out
between 74° and 85°C. The fish cooks during the process,
resulting in stronger smoky flavour and a firm, moist texture. Cold-smoking is
done between 20° and 30° and the fish requires curing with salt afterwards.
The eel looked like a length sawn from a policeman’s
truncheon, but the advice given was to cut it in rounds between the vertebrae and
removed the leathery skin with a sharp knife. This worked and we gently warmed the
resulting discs and served them with buttered boiled potatoes and the last spears of the
English asparagus season. And very good it was, too.
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| Smoked eel, boiled potatoes and asparagus |
Fresh Fish
On our final day, we returned to the shacks, browsing for a fish.
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| An Aldeburgh fish shack |
At a shack – not the one photographed – we spied a
Dover sole. Big enough to feed two, it was eye-wateringly expensive, because
Dover sole is, but we could not resist it.
It was a whole fish, so Lynne decided she needed some
advice about preparation. The internet was, as ever, full of suggestions, but it would be a
remarkable holiday cottage which supplied the sort of knives needed to fillet
the fish raw.
Fortunately, Rick Stein had a practical solution.
First, remove the skin. A nick near the tail starts the process…
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| A nick by the tale starts the process |
…and each side comes off in one piece, just as Rick
promised. This allows you to deal with the guts which largely sit just behind
the head.
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| Pealing off the skin |
Then dust with flour and pan-fry it whole - if your pan
is big enough. Even after removing the head, a cut across the fish was
necessary to make it fit our pan. Fillet after cooking…
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| Filleting the cooked sole |
…then serve with crushed new potatoes and locally
picked samphire.
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| Dover sole with crushed new potatoes and samphire |
Thank you, Lynne (and Rick).
Restaurant Fish
Take Away
Our attempt to eat out on Wednesday ended in
failure. We had not booked, every table in the restaurant was occupied and we were turned away with
apologies. Time for Plan B.
I earlier listed the fast-food abominations Aldeburgh does not have, and nowhere did I mention a chip shop. I give fish and chips a
pass because they are deeply embedded in British food culture, and because they
are almost all independent, there are no vast chains of franchised identikit fish
and chip shops.
That said, I cannot remember the last time I was in a
chippy, but it was years, maybe decades ago. Aldeburgh has two, both under the
same management, and one, the Golden Galleon, was 50m from our front door.
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| The Golden Galleon, Aldeburgh. Our home for the week was up the alley to the left of the chippy |
Inside it was bright, clean and did not smell of stale
frying. Although there were, as always, other accompaniments we ordered cod and
mushy peas with the inevitable chips, took them home and ate them from the chip
papers.
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| Lynne with her fish and chips |
The batter was crisp, light and golden, the fish huge
and flaky and the chips fresh and not even slightly soggy – and that is as good as it gets.
Eating In
We returned to our original choice of restaurant two days later, this time with a reservation.
Lynne was disappointed that the red mullet was
finished, but instead chose the Catch of the Day, a pleasing plump, fresh plaice
that arrived, lurking beneath a bed of capers. She was pleased with her
alternative choice.
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| A nice piece of plaice |
Lobster Thermidor is a somewhat dated symbol of luxurious,
even extravagant dining.
Thermidor (19 July to 17 August) was the ‘Heat month’
of the French Revolutionary Calendar. Despite their richly descriptive names –
Brumaire (Fog month 22 Oct to 20 Nov), Floréal (Flower month, 20 April – 19
May) – the Calendar did not catch on and was abandoned by Napoleon in 1805.
Created in Paris in the 1890s, Lobster Thermidor
involved freshly boiled lobster being taken from its shell, shredded and
incorporated into a sauce based on onions, mustard, wine, brandy and cream. It
is then replaced in the shell, covered with grated Gruyère and popped under a
grill until the cheese has melted.
There was no Lobster Thermidor on the menu, but this
coast is best known for its crabs, so they had a Crab Thermidor. Maybe it was a
bit tongue-in-cheek, and I ordered it with a sense of irony, but it was
excellent. Lynne objects to ‘fish that has been messed about’ and although I am
less purist, I expected the rich, complex sauce and the cheese to drown out the
delicate flavour of crab, but not so, instead they worked together. It was
nicely presented, though the salad dressing had a sweetness I could have done
without.
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| Crab thermidor |
Having skipped the starter, I was pleased to find I
could manage a dessert. I chose the vanilla pannacotta, with rhubarb poached in
vodka and shortbread crumb.
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| Vanilla pannacotta |
The pannacotta wobbled nicely, though it may have
been too wobbly, but that is erring on the right side. It also tasted of vanilla - I am always pleased when ‘vanilla’ really means ‘vanilla’ and is not
being used as a synonym for ‘plain.’ I am unsure why vodka was involved; it
hardly added to the flavour. The shortbread crumb provided a pleasing extra texture
An East Anglian Lunch
Not everything is about fish. We ate a lunch using ingredients culled from the specialist local shops where every item was, if not from Suffolk, at least from East Anglia – except the butter, which was sold as being just ‘British.’
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| An East Anglian lunch |
The sourdough bread is from the bakery round the
corner.
The tomatoes were supermarket bought in Staffordshire,
but were (coincidently) grown in Cambridgeshire.
The cheese top left on the board is Wensum White, an artisan
goat’s cheese made at Fielding Cottage on the Steggles family farm near Honingham,
just west of Norwich. It is a mild, semi-soft cheese, often described as
a ‘goat brie,’ though I find that confusing. It has a delicate flavour and a
sumptuous texture. The name comes from the River Wensum which winds its way
across Norfolk and through Norwich.
Baron Bigod (pronounced By God, by some, and Bigg-od
by others) is made at Fen Farm near Bungay, on Suffolk's northern edge. Made
using a Brie-de-Meaux recipe Baron Bigod has a silky breakdown under the
rind and balances a clean lactic brightness with mushroomy, vegetal notes
(Neal’s Yard Dairy). I always enjoy Brie-de-Meaux and Baron Bigod is as good as
any, and better than most. It is surely one of the best cheeses made in England.
Digression alert! Last
November we lunched at ‘Pick and Cheese’ at Seven Dials in London, where I had
the privilege of tasting Truffle Baron Bigod, the same cheese with a layer of
truffle infused ricotta.
Baron Bigod is expensive, the truffled version is, in Lynne’s
words, extravagant. As she does not like truffles, I fear I cannot justify such
extravagance.
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| Truffled Baron Bigod, Pick and Cheese |
Digression over.
The sausage is a Suffolk chorizo. In 2019 we visited
the Countryfile Live exhibition at Blenheim in Oxfordshire where we encountered
the prize-winning Suffolk Salami Company in the British charcuterie tent.
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| Lane Farm Foods, Countryfile Live |
Everything they produce is made at Lane farm in the
village of Brundish, 20Kkm, as the crow flies, northwest of Aldeburgh. They
make their chorizo with DOP Pimentón de la Vera paprika, a smoked paprika
imported from Spain, but otherwise ingredients are local. It is smaller in circumference
and more densely packed with pork than the mass-produced chorizo imported by
supermarkets. Whether Spanish artisan chorizo’s are like this I do not know,
but it matters not. This is a spicy, meaty delight and encouraged us to return
to the shop and acquire a fennel salami to take home.
And In Conclusion….
We ate many other things during our stay, which were
not particularly Suffolk, including an excellent pair of Barnsley chops from
the local artisan butcher. There were also several, ‘cup-of-tea-and-a-sandwich
lunches, and an occasionally beer and a packet of crisps. After all the food, I
should mention that Suffolk is home to the excellent Adnam’s Brewery - and half
a dozen or more wineries. We might possibly investigate those another time.
And we did not just eat. We visited castles and Anglo-Saxon
burial grounds, old churches, local museums and more, as can be found in the
other Aldeburgh post (coming soonish)