A First Bite of Autumn

The first of the autumn dinners came off my stove top yesterday. A warming recipe of pan-fried lamb with a butternut squash mash and a couple of potatoes on the side. After tasting the sweet, nutty chunks of lightly boiled squash it seemed a shame to knock seven bells out of it using a potato masher, but this recipe was merciless. Brie, double cream, salt and black pepper...all contributing to a big sloppy mash that rolled across the plate like orange lava. It was a robust and fattening introduction to a vegetable I have never used before. As a result of the experience I will be using brer squash a hell of a lot in the coming season, this much I know.

Outside a sunny yet cool day was turning into evening. The leaves are still on the trees but something had changed. The tipping point was the end of the Ashes; it was once Flintoff finished waving drunkenly from the bus in Trafalgar Square. As we switched off our televisions or made our way back to our offices, the finger on the great clock ticked sonorously round and suddenly summer was over.

So rather than clinging shamefully onto our shorts and sandals, we throw our hands in the air in defeat and welcome autumn as a friend in all its colours. Our activities, our pace of life and our atmospheres all change, and one of the most evocative atmospheres is tied up with our food.

This is why I cook seasonally when I can; there is no other reason except to heighten the pleasure of the food. I have no other point to prove...and anyone who believes that somebody who dares to do more than microwave a ready meal is part of a middle class conspiracy to out-smug the rest of society under the sneeringly labelled "foodie" banner will be met with a tired sigh...and then thrown through the window. Nigel Slater, as ever, hits the nail on the head:

"There is something unshakeably right about eating food in season: fresh runner beans in July, grilled sardines on a blisteringly hot August evening, a bowl of gently aromatic stew on a rainy day in February. Yes, it is about the quality of the ingredients too, their provenance and the way they are cooked, but the very best eating is also about the feeling that the time is right." -- Nigel Slater, the Observer.

He is right. But I am trapped like a rat in a flat in south east London, with no garden and little money. Just cooking a hotpot in September like I did today is not enough. There was no mist outside, no roaring fire and the promise of a glass of single malt inside. This is the underlying problem with these atmospheres... they are ideals, half-imagined and half-remembered memories of how it should be but rarely is.

Atmospheres, it seems, are not an external-only construct. They live in our heads just as much as they do out there in the real world. They are the soul of photographs, the streets in which old films are set, the Dickensian snow scene in a Christmas card. Ah, but I do not want to warm my hands on that flame for too long because I will be repeating myself from old posts.

But what the hell, eh? There are many atmospheres in autumn to look forward to, many of them seen as cliches but haunting nonetheless. The smell of the first bonfire as the sun goes down, the sound of wistful old jazz musicians blowing a emotive lament, the sight of a cluster of mushrooms perched precariously on the knot of an old tree, the taste of tart blackberries picked from a place of which only you know...the list is endless and hopelessly sentimental. But there is no shame in working with the world instead of cocooning yourself against it, no matter how inured you pride yourself on being against such fey nonsense. Get a grip... get atmospheric. It tastes so much better.