Cam’s friend Mike is in town at the moment, and comes bearing mouth-watering tales from his current home New York. In addition to veg boxes, the Park Slope Food Coop, and Mexican food, he also showed us this photo of a recent dumpster diving haul. Apparently they got about three times as much as what’s shown in this picture.

When I was a student I also used to dumpster dive with my housemates, and it was amazing some of the goodies you could get – I remember we once got several huge fruit pies (which would probably sell for at least 10 pounds a piece) from a Kosher bakery in North London. Here in China too, where just a few decades ago people were starving, I am often amazed at how much food is wasted. With this recent report revealing the disgusting quantities of food wasted in the UK, and the grim outlook for our planet generally, it makes me mad that so-called 'developed' countries like America and Britain are setting such a bad example to poorer countries like China. I guess I just have to keep my fingers crossed for a more environmentally-aware attitude to food in the future.

I couldn’t agree more. The above quotation is from ‘A Room of One’s Own’, Virginia Woolf’s famous treatise on women and fiction, which I’m currently re-reading. I first read this book some four or five years ago while at university, but having not fully given in to my foodie impulses then, failed to take much notice of this lovely passage:

'Lunch on this occasion began with soles, sunk in a deep dish, over which the collage cook had spread a counterpane of the whitest cream, save that it was branded here and there with brown spot like the spots on the flanks of a doe.

After that came the partridges, but if this suggests a couple of bald, brown birds on a plate you are mistaken. The partridges, many and various, came with all their retinue of sauces and salads, the sharp and the sweet, each in its order; their potatoes, thin as coins but not so hard; their sprouts, foliated as rosebuds but more succulent.

And no sooner had the roast and its retinue been done with that the serving-man…set before us, wreathed in napkins, a confection which rose all sugar from the waves. To call it pudding and so relate it to rice and tapioca would be an insult.’

Surely one of the most vivid descriptions of food you’re likely to find in literature. This lunch, at one of the male colleges, provides a stark contrast to Woolf’s dinner later the same day, at Girton, then Cambridge’s only college for women. This second meal is an altogether sparser affair, consisting only of ‘plain gravy soup’, beef, potatoes and greens, prunes and custard, and finally, cheese and biscuits served with water. Girton’s difficulty in obtaining funds, because it is an all-female establishment, mean that ‘the amenities' (ie. good food) 'have to wait.’

All this got me thinking about the food provisions at Sussex University, where I studied, and which were, to put it bluntly, pretty crap. There wasn’t even a canteen. At times, there was nothing to be found except tired, pre-packaged sandwiches. Anybody who cared about what they ate invariably brought their own food. It was, as I said, dire.

But miraculously, magically, once or twice a week we were saved by Gordon and Elena. This middle-aged couple from nearby Lewes, sometimes helped out by their children or friends, would arrive on campus with two enormous paella pans, portable gas burners, spices, and dozens of boxes of chopped-up vegetables. In the hour or so before the lunch break, they would fry up the vegetables in one pan, and an accompanying bean and tomato sauce in the other. ‘Poor Man’s Potatoes’ was what they dubbed their cheap but delicious concoction, which was served in aluminum take-away boxes, heaped with fresh coriander and spicy pickles. I and my friends adored this food, and would always arrive early to ensure we got some before it all sold out (and it usually did).

In the end though, Poor Man’s Potatoes’ popularity proved to be its undoing. The university catering services realized that they were losing business to this outsider, and Gordon and Elena’s license to serve on campus was revoked. There was a brief campaign to bring them back, but in the end, faced with the brick wall of university bureaucracy, Gordon and Elena gave up and found other places to serve their food.

My friends and I have reminisced many a time about Poor Man’s Potatoes, which was fuel for much of our thinking, loving and sleeping while we were at university. Virginia Woolf would, I think, have approved greatly of Gordon and Elena, and so, in grateful thanks to them, here is my own interpretation of their legendary dish.

Poor Man’s Potatoes

For the potatoes:
Potatoes, cooked
Cabbage
Onions
Any other vegetable you happen to have lying around
Garlic
Coriander seeds
Cumin seeds
Fennel seeds
Turmeric
Any other spice you fancy
Cooking oil

For the bean and tomato sauce:
Any bean (kidney, butter, chickpea are all good), cooked
Tomatoes or tomato puree
Onions
Garlic
Paprika

To serve:
Fresh coriander leaves
Spicy pickles

1. Chop all the vegetables into bite-sized chunks.
2. In a pan, fry the onions and garlic. Once slightly brown, add the garlic and paprika, and then add the tomatoes and beans. Turn the heat down low, cover and leave to simmer.
3. In a large frying-pan or wok, fry the onions and garlic. Add the potatoes and all other vegetables, mix well and stir-fry until cooked.
4. Add the spices to the vegetables, mix well and cook for a couple more minutes.
5. Serve the potatoes with a generous topping of the sauce, fresh coriander, and spicy pickles on the side.

Yesterday’s Observer Food Magazine contained a lovely article about foodie men and their mothers, and got me thinking about my own early cooking experiences.

Like Hugh Fernley Whittingstall, the first food I made totally by myself were peppermint creams. I was about 8 years old when my after-school childminder, Joy, gave me my first taste of these simple but moreish treats. I liked them so much that I immediately got her to tell me how to make them, and did so, by myself, the very next day.

And of course, like Hugh, Gordon Ramsey and the rest, my mother was a huge influence. Long before she taught me how to make such basics as a roux sauce, spaghetti bolognese and from-scratch salad dressing, I sat and chatted with her while she cooked our evening meals, and must, just by watching, have absorbed a great deal without even realising it.

By about 10, I could make a decent sponge cake single-handed, and it was around this time that I was given my first cookbook, Roald Dahl’s Revolting Recipes. This magical book, illustrated by long-time Dahl collaborator Quentin Blake, includes such gems as Stink Bugs’ Eggs (from this blog’s namesake, James and the Giant Peach)…

…Butterscotch, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory…

…and, of course, Bruce Bogtrotter’s Cake, from perhaps my favourite Roald Dahl book, Matilda.

The funny thing is, I don’t think I ever cooked anything from this book as a child. Funnier still, I nonetheless absolutely loved it. Though the recipes were just a tad too hard for me at that time, that didn’t stop me from poring over the wonderful photos and illustrations, and I remember very clearly how I would often take it down from the cookbook shelf in the kitchen to read while I ate breakfast

While I was home at my mum’s this summer, I realised that this book is perhaps the biggest reason why I now love cookbooks as much as I do. I still enjoy flicking through a cookbook while I eat, and though I may not actually have made many recipes from some of my favourites, they are nonetheless, as the Amateur Gourmet says, among the first things I would grab if my house were on fire.

So, in memory of childhood cooking, cookbooks and Roald Dahl, I present to you the recipe for Bruce Bogtrotter’s Cake. I may not be able to cook it right now (good dairy products and chocolate being rather hard to find in China), but at least I can drool.

Bruce Bogtrotter’s Cake
Serves 1 to 8
From Roald Dahl’s Revolting Recipes

Cake:
8 oz (225g) good quality plain chocolate
6 oz (175g) unsalted butter
6 oz (175g) self raising flour
4 oz (125g) caster sugar
6 eggs, separated, yolks lightly beaten

Icing:
8 oz (225g) good–quality plain chocolate
8 oz (225g) double cream

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F, 180°c or gas mark 4.
2. Line a cake pan with baking paper and butter the bottom and sides of the paper.
3. Melt the chocolate in a Pyrex bowl set in a saucepan of simmering water or in a microwave on low heat. Mix in the butter and stir until melted.
4. Transfer to a large bowl and add the sugar, flour, and lightly beaten egg yolks.
5. Whisk the egg whites until stiff. Gently fold half of the whites into the chocolate mixture, blending thoroughly, then fold in the remaining whites.
6. Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake for about 35 minutes. There will be a thin crust on top of the cake, and if tested with a toothpick the inside will appear undercooked (don't worry, the cake will get firmer as it cools). Remove from the oven, and let cool in the pan on a wire rack.
7. While the cake is cooling, make the icing. Melt the chocolate with the cream in a heavy–bottomed saucepan over lowest heat, stirring occasionally until the chocolate is fully melted and blended with the cream. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.
8. When the cake is cool enough to handle, remove it from the pan and discard the wax paper. The cake is prone to sinking slightly in the middle, so flip it upside down before icing by placing a plate on top and carefully turning over the cake pan and plate together.
9. Carefully spread the chocolate icing all over the cake with a spatula. Allow the icing to cool and set slightly before serving.

One of the many delights of my recent visit back to the UK was how much I enjoyed the food. Living in China for two years, it's easy to forget that there is a whole world of other wonderful food beyond the borders of the People's Republic. But though of course I was expecting great things from France and even London, I certainly did not anticipate the foodie heaven than Edinburgh turned out to be...

Edinburgh is one of my favourite cities in Britain, and my connection with it goes back quite a while - I worked there for a month at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2005, and have been back almost every year since. This time, I visiting my great friend Peggy Hughes, who I worked with at the Book Fest and who is now a busy busy bee on the Scottish literati scene. Knowing about my love for food, she and her lovely partner Colin took it upon themselves to give me a one-day food-tour of their city, and in doing so totally turned around my previous favourable-but-not-amazing foodie impression of Edinburgh.

We started at the Edinburgh Farmers' Market, which Peggy, who will herself admit is not the biggest foodie, is nonetheless a huge devotee of due to the infamous Hog Roast. It was a beautiful morning, and what with being festival time as well the market was packed and bustling. While Peggy headed straight to the aforementioned stall,

I chose first to sample the wares of one of the market's success stories, Stoats Porridge. This ain't no ordinary porridge; this is, if such a thing exists, gourmet porridge, exemplified by my own choice of Stoats Cranachan: porridge, fresh rasberries, toasted oats and single cream.

It was sublime, and for me at least, took porridge to whole different level.

Though my hunger was somewhat abated by this oaty delight, I still had room enough left for something I spied at one of the very first stalls - homemade Scotch eggs.

This is no supermarket junk foodstuff, but the real thing - crisp breadcrumbs, surrounding a deliciously savoury sausage meat mixture, itself wrapped around a huge, rich duck's egg.

It really was fantastic. Years ago I heard a radio program about real Scotch eggs; it must have piqued my interest for I remembered it at the market, and was so excited to try something that is usually pretty gross, but done properly is just brilliant.

And the fun didn't stop there! After the market we went for a little peek at Edinburgh Books, the magical shop that hosts some of the events at Peggy's festival, West Port; and after that, a trip to my old favourite the Mosque Kitchen.

This was but an hour or so after the market however, and I really wasn't hungry enough for a full meal. Luckily, rather than miss out on one of the best (and cheapest) meals in the city, I had the inspired idea of asking them to serve my dal in the tupperware box I'd brought along to the market for any takeaway purchases (that I didn't end up making).

The lovely mosque folks obliged; my dal was totally yummy, and even yummier eaten an hour or two later when my appetite had returned.

But it didn't end there, oh no. Much, much later in the day and accompanied by other friends, I made a trip to the wonderful, inspirational Susie's Wholefood Diner, where I ate many a delicious meal during my various visits to Edinburgh, and to where I was eager to return.

The friends I was with were, in fact, rather reluctant to eat at Susie's, and I had to insist that they would like it. Once they'd tasted the fantastic, homecooked vegetarian food however, they were of course won over (though you will have to imagine it for yourself because the dining room was too dark to photograph!).

Finally, close to midnight, it was time for my last supper: wonton soup at the Szechuan restaurant under Peggy and Colin's apartment. I won't go into too much detail about it here, because I will be doing so elsewhere soon, but needless to say, it was perhaps the perfect end to a perfect day. I guess a foodie is a foodie, wherever she is.

Every summer from the age of 11 to 18, my parents and I went on holiday to the Lot in Southwest France. I hadn’t been back there for almost 6 years until this summer, when I went to help out with the catering for the week-long singing holiday, Chanson Combard, that my mum organises and our friend Krista holds in her barn. Inevitably, this trip became a long and evocative walk down memory lane, and one stormy night, watching the lightning approach from the horizon, I, my mum and Krista reminisced about our most favourite restaurant in the area, the Unicorn.

The Unicorn was a single-room restaurant in an old building on the side of a busy road. The interior had probably not been altered since the sixties or even earlier – the wallpaper was stained with decades of cigarette smoke, and mice and cockroach sightings were not unknown. The old couple who ran it (Madame and Monsieur) were delightful, but if you peeped into the miniscule kitchen you got something of a shock hygiene-wise. One wall of the dining room was flush with the roadside, so you were serenaded by the sound of trucks roaring past as you ate.

None of this mattered in the slightest however, because the food was absolutely incredible. For nine and a half Francs, you got five courses – salad, a starter, a main, cheese, and dessert – and all of the most fabulous rustic French cooking.

The portions alone made the Unicorn amazingly good value – they were enormous. Piles of fresh prawns, stewed in Ricard, reached almost level with one’s nose; the duck baked with prunes in an earthen-ware pot was so huge it was nicknamed ‘Bucket o' Duck’; and the cheese course was encyclopaedic. The food was so copious and delicious, in fact, that my father would go on little walks between courses to recover and build up his appetite for the next onslaught.

We ate countless times at The Unicorn, and even though the menu hardly ever changed we never got bored, and came back year after year. I can remember the food there better than any other restaurant we ever ate at in the Lot – perhaps just because the menu stayed the same, but perhaps also because it was so unbelievably tasty.

When I was about 17 or so, we heard that The Unicorn had closed down, due to the death of Madame. Since then, every trip to the Lot has felt incomplete in some way, lacking in excess and indulgence. So, in honour of The Unicorn, in honour of over-eating and in honour of immoderation, I offer you the menu of this year’s Chanson Combard; not quite as luxurious as the Unicorn's, but still in the same vein nevertheless. Bon appetite!

Sunday
Dinner: Melon and grapes with vinaigrette; Roasted Vegetable Lasagne and Salads; Chocolate Tart.

Monday
Lunch: Courgette Bake and Falafel
Dinner: Tomato and Mozzarella Salad; Homemade Pizzas and Salad; White Chocolate Cheesecake.

Tuesday
Lunch: Provencal Pancakes and Potato and Tomato Bake.
Afternoon Treat: Chocolate Brownies
Dinner: Lentil Casserole with Raita; Spinach Pie and Salad; Pain-au-chocolat Pudding with Hot Fudge Sauce and Ice-cream.

Wednesday
Lunch: Stuffed Aubergines
Dinner: Caramelised Onion Tart; Courgette Bake, Olive Bread; Cheesecake and Chocolate Tart.

Thursday
Lunch: Lentil Bake and Chinese Aubergines
Afternoon Treat: Chocolate Fudge
Dinner: Bruchetta; Pasta with Tomato, Goat’s Cheese and Salads; Peach Clafoutis.

Friday
Lunch: Caramelised Onion Tart; Pasta Bake; Couscous Salad.
Afternoon Treat: Banana Bread
Dinner: Stuffed and Roasted Red Peppers; Spinach and Ricotta Lasagne; Charlotte Aux Fruites.