I hate the concept of spread.

It sounds industrial, unappetising and harmful, like something you’d use to repair a pot-holed road, smear on a rash or apply to a vegetable plot.

I eat butter and accept no alternatives. Admittedly, not a lot of butter, but I’d rather have the real thing or nothing.

Over the past 10 years or so, we’ve reduced the amount of butter we eat considerably. I love butter on hot crumpets, melted into toast or mashed into fluffy potatoes, but realise that the rest of my body probably doesn’t appreciate it as much as my taste buds.

This morning I calculated how much butter I eat a week: 2 oz (50g). This just happens to be the weekly adult ration in the Second World War. Rations also included 4 0z (100g) of margarine and 4 oz (100g) of cooking fat per week. We don’t use the former and use far less of the latter.

In the war, recalled Marguerite Patten, who worked at the Food Advice Division of the Ministry of Food, people tended to be very healthy, even if menus were somewhat monotonous. Apparently, infant mortality declined and the average age of death from natural causes increased. Dr Alan Borg of the Imperial War Museum suggested that the introduction of more protein and vitamins and the reduction of meat, fats, eggs and sugar played a part in this.

I definitely don’t want to go back to rationing, especially one egg a week or having to use powdered egg, but I like the concept of a simple, healthy diet. I also feel it’s important to be able to enjoy food, even if it’s not eating treats all the time. That’s why I eat and enjoy butter, but not all the time.

Breakfast on a Good Friday is a one-off for us: a supply of freshly baked hot cross buns from the Pantry in Ilfracombe High Street, North Devon.

They only make hot cross buns for a short period so they remain special, unlike the unimaginative supermarkets who peddle them all year round.

Once again, we delighted in the fluffy, light dough and currants, accompanied by butter, some by homemade jam, and a mug of fresh coffee.

What to do with these?

It’s that time of year when some people tire of brussels sprouts, but the Victorians knew what to do with them: turn them into soup.

I experimented by making Saxe-Coburg Soup and lived to tell the tale.

Melt 2 oz of butter in pan and add a small onion finely chopped and cook for 10-15 minutes. To this add 12 oz of peeled and finely sliced brussels sprouts and 2 oz of finely chopped ham, stirring until all the butter has been absorbed. Season with salt, pepper and 1/4 teaspoon of ground nutmeg and then sprinkle and mix in a tablespoon of plain flour.

Gradually add 2 pints of vegetable stock or water (the sprout flavour is strong enough to use water if you haven’t got stock). Bring to the boil and simmer for 6 minutes, then sieve or blend the mixture and return it to a clean pan.

Heat the soup, adding another 2 oz of ham cut into thin strips and 1/4 pint double cream, then serve.

It has quite a subtle flavour and a lovely texture, similar to asparagus soup. The above measures make 4 good-size servings.

The Saxe-Coburgs ruled in Brussels – was this a Victorian joke?

It wasn’t as much of a surprise tonight as we finished it off, but it was just as lovely as it was last night: a deliciously tangy lemon sponge/soufflé dessert.

Lemon suprise

Cream 2oz of butter and 3 1/4oz of caster sugar, then add grated zest of a lemon.

Add 2 egg yolks, 3 tablespoons of lemon juice and fold in 2 tablespoons of plain flour.

Mix in 8 fl oz of tepid milk.

Whisk the two egg whites plus a pinch of salt, then fold into the mixture.

Transfer to a dish and sit in an oven tray with warm water lapping the sides (but not too high) and cook at Gas Mark 4 for 30 minutes.

I found this recipe in a Potato Marketing Board leaflet at a food fair many years ago. What is has do with China apart from soy sauce, I don’t know, but I like it. (You could always substitute noodles for potato.)

2 tablespoons clear honey
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
1 tablespoon sherry (I tend to add more)
black pepper
4 chicken breasts, diced
1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
12oz potatoes, peeled and cut into fine strips
1 red pepper, cut into strips
1 green pepper, cut into strips
1 carrot, peeled and cut into strips
1 head of broccoli, cut up (optional)
1/2 pint chicken stock

Mix the honey, soy sauce and sherry together and season. Add the chicken and marinate in fridge for 1/2 hour or more.

Drain chicken, reserve the marinade. Lightly fry chicken and ginger for 3 minutes in frying pan or wok for 3 minutes (or as long as required). Add remaining vegetables and stir fry for 2-3 minutes. Pour in stock and reserve marinade, bring to boil and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until potato is tender and chicken cooked through.

We’d been meaning to pop in and see what the Rainbow Corner Café was like for some time as it’s changed hands several times in the past few years, so yesterday we made it and it was wonderful.

I had a belly buster – two eggs, jumbo sausage, bacon and beans plus toast and tea. Sometimes food just doesn’t get any better.

The menu ranges from fish and chips to breakfasts, cottage pie and chilli with rice (I think), so there’s quite a range.

We don’t have a fry-up often, but Rainbow Corner Café comes recommended by me for the food, bright and clean decor, and friendly service. It’s on the corner of the High Street and Northfield Road, opposite the Ilfracombe Centre.

Ilfracombe is so lucky to have such a wide range of restaurants and cafés offering pretty much anything you could want.

We’ll certainly be going again, although maybe for a cup of tea rather than a belly buster – got to think of my waistline.

For me, Christmas fare is a mixture of tradition, family favourites, magical flavours and aromas, and memories of relatives who either passed down the recipes or introduced me to special foods. I think Christmas favourites should be a personal choice: forget fashion and foodies.

We’re lucky to have independent retailers who supply good quality food fresh without most of the shrink-wrapping you get from supermarkets. It certainly makes a difference to start with basic foods already full of flavour. Here’s my top 10 favourites, which I have eaten and drunk again this Christmas. 

1. Fresh turkey from Mike Turton’s family butcher, Ilfracombe High Street. Yes, we’ve had roast dinners, leftover dinners, sandwiches, salads and, soon, turkey stew, but it’s still lovely. It tends to be a once-a-year purchase for most people, so why do people have to grumble about it?

2. Christmas bread from The Pantry, Ilfracombe High Street. Even better than their ordinary fruit bread, this had cinnamon and spices in. We bought one loaf, then had to have another. As good as their hot cross buns, which, quite rightly, they only make a few weeks before Easter.

3. Home-made pickled onions. Yes, they fared all right in the shed and have a real crunch to them. Not as good as the ones I remember from my grandmother, but not bad.

4. Home-made fruit cake. Everyone tends to have their own favourite recipe and this one is based on my mum’s. I had to make two cakes and give some up to the family!

5. Home-made red cabbage. Another family recipe passed down from my other grandmother. Red cabbage cut into strips and boiled in alcohol, white wine vinegar and water, along with chopped cooking apple, lots of cloves and a great deal of sugar. The aroma defines Christmas dinner for me.

6. Home-cooked bacon joint. Delicious locally-reared bacon joint from Mike Turton’s family butcher, Ilfracombe High Street. Boiled, then baked with the rind removed, the fat scored and coated with marmalade and pricked with cloves.

7. Home-made mulled wine. I didn’t make this so don’t know the precise spices, which we get from Nana Sue’s Sunfoods in llfracombe High Street. It certainly warmed us up before Christmas dinner!

8. Aspall’s Premier Cru Cider. I’m getting to prefer drinking this to champagne, which some say was developed from English cider-making.

9.Lorenz Saltletts Sticks. A personal tradition going back many years, but for me Christmas Day would not be the same without them. I prefer German makes to others.

10. Gourmet Mulatte coffee beans from the Algerian Coffee Stores. Ground freshly to make a beautifully smooth cup of coffee.

A new recipe and wonderfully delicious, we tried these new sausages from Mike Turton Family Butcher in Ilfracombe High Street.

Now, I’m a bit of a stick-in-the-mud when it comes to sausages and find some of the exotic recipes over the top, but I love these orange and ginger sausages.

We’re so lucky to have adventurous retailers who not only sell excellent quality, local food, but are also innovating.

Definitely worth trying next time you’re passing through town.

It wasn’t my fault. Someone else started talking about pies and the conversation moved on to plunge pies made by Mike Turton Family Butcher in Ilfracombe High Street. It’s a pie outer filled with mince and baked beans and topped with mashed potato.

So what did I want for lunch today?

Delicious plunge pie from Mike Turton Family Butcher, Ilfracombe, Devon

You’ve guessed it!

A lovely meal in itself on a chilly November day.

To wipe out all the imported American Halloween drivel from our consciousness, today we devoted ourselves to pickling a supply of onions for the year ahead.

I can’t remember how many years we’ve been doing this, but it all started with exasperation at the standard of most pickled onions on sale and lingering memories of those my grandmother used to make.

So a couple of hours hard graft, including several minutes of onion tears (which pass quite fast), produced 11lb of home-made pickled onions according to Ruth Mott’s recipe, which includes black treacle and Demerara sugar. 

Home-made pickled onions

Last year’s onions have lasted well and there are two left, which coincidentally I shall consume tonight, along with some chips which I’ll be cooking as a treat.

Halloween? One of these pickled onions will certainly put the wind up you!

. . . home-grown apple is one of the delights of late summer and early autumn. We’ve got two small apple trees and this year they have borne more fruit than ever before.

Apples ripening in the sun

While an apple bought from a supermarket may be bigger, rounder, shinier and smoother than one straight off a tree that is bumpy, misshapen or smaller, it’s unlikely to offer the same full flavour.

Green apples on the tree

When you pick them, you know that these apples have not been sprayed with chemicals or transported by chiller van: they are fresh.

Greensleeve apples picked and eaten in September

They really don’t take much looking after, but their taste cannot be beaten.

Summer, you ask?

Yes, today was beautiful, so after pruning fuchsias, we went for a walk up Hillsborough with the dogs and started blackberrying.

Blackberrying can be infectious. It’s all right, you don’t need an inoculation, but once you start you seem to be enticed into all manner of brambles and stinging nettles which attack your hands, arms, legs and every other part of your body. It doesn’t matter as long as you get to that one really juicy, ripe blackberry you have seen.

We arrived home with a good haul . . .

Freshly picked blackberries from Devon

Then, once all the accompanying travellers had been removed from the fruit, into the pan they went . . .

Freshly picked blackberries in the pan

 Boil’em up with sugar and smell that wonderful fruit!

Making blackberry jam

Once it’s reached setting point, bottle it . . .

Blackberry jam reaching setting point

. . . and once it’s cooled and set, it’s ready to eat.

Delicious!

It’s been a very wet and dull August here, which hasn’t helped our runner beans. We were late planting them out as we had to prepare our new vegetable plot.

Runner beans grown and eaten in Devon

But at long last our crop is ripening and picking has begun.

Runner beans growing in spite of a cold, wet August

Our first meal reminded us how delicious home-grown runner beans are: sweet, tender, not at all stringy. Where else can you find such wonderful vegetables?

Exquisite tasting beans

Only in your vegetable garden or plot.

Not something that we eat every day, but a wonderful occasional treat, especially when you can buy fresh cod or other white white fish and local potatoes (which have never seen the inside of a supermarket warehouse or articulated lorry). We buy Braunton potatoes, grown within 10 miles of Ilfracombe, from Norman’s independent greengrocer in Ilfracombe High Street.

Home-made fish cakes and chips with pickled onions

So simple to make too: mix the cooked white fish and mashed potato, adding salt, pepper and a few parsley leaves, then mould into a long roll. Slice the fish cakes, dip in beaten egg and coat with home-made breadcrumbs. We use the end slices of a loaf from our baker’s, The Pantry in Ilfracombe High Street, bake them in the oven and grind in a blender. 

The chips are also made from local potatoes, peeled and chopped thick.

Deep fry the fish cakes very hot for five minutes or until ready, then keep warm in the oven, while frying the chips for 15-20 minutes.

The fish cakes are deliciously light and fluffy inside and crisp on the outside. I eat mine with home-made pickled onions, but choose whatever accompaniment you prefer.

We chose a fruity Regatta from Stanlake Park, so refreshingly free of the chemical after-taste (and headaches) of mass produced wines, as the perfect white wine on this occasion.

A potentially dangerous meal if eaten too often and if you’re not careful when deep frying, but lovely to enjoy as a treat with common sense and an otherwise healthy diet.

Probably never if you’ve always shopped at a supermarket, for their produce has to be chilled, stored or worse to preserve it from grower to distribution centre to articulated transporter to shop to shelf, which doesn’t leave a lot of time or room for fresh in its true sense.

Eating fruit or vegetables picked by yourself from where they grow is an ecstasy alien to the concept of the supermarket and is the price to pay for convenience they offer. Convenience when used in conjunction with supermarkets is not common hassle-free sense of the word, but a marketing term which ignores annoyance, hard work, time and expense which a visit to a supermarket involves.

I certainly don’t have the time or garden space or even the climate to grow all my fruit and veg, so the next best option is to purchase it from a greengrocer which sources as much local produce as possible. We are so fortunate to have Norman’s at 40 High Street, Ilfracombe, from whom we enjoy the best home-grown lettuces we’ve had for years, Braunton potatoes grown 10 miles or so up the road and a superb selection of other seasonal produce.

What’s more we can walk there and back (although they do deliver in town), so we save the wear and tear on our car and the cost our fuel spent getting to a supermarket and back, which makes the shopping bill lower even before we’ve entered the shop. Also, when we have had to use a supermarket in an emergency when we’ve forgotten something, the supermarket produce can be more expensive, so don’t believe the advertising spiel that they are necessarily cheaper.

It probably doesn’t take any more time than going to a local supermarket, but I think we eat much better. This is what real choice is.