Is Fanny the Pasta Master after all?

Fanny likens most of the pasta served in 'our little island home' in the 1970's as 'stewed knitting'. Her aim in the Pasta Partwork is to eliminate this from our future diets and show us all how great the pastas of Italy can truly be. Did she succeed? We certainly embrace the wonders of pasta warmly these days. Can Fanny really take the credit? We could mostly, no doubt, name the 39 pasta shapes Fanny collects together for us as an education. She bought them all in a lovely little shop in Soho, but gives an address to write to a very helpful man in St Albans who will advise if you tell him what you have been unable to obtain, should you not be fortunate enough to shop in Soho. I wonder if he was flooded with requests?

Continuing her education, Fanny gives a culinary history of Italian fare, comparing it to her beloved French Cuisine. She notes that where French Cookery is divided into four groupings - La Cuisine Régionale, La Cuisine Familiale, La Cuisine Bourgeoise (modest but good) and Haute Cuisine Française (the crowning glory) - Italian is a collection of regional cookery featuring infinite variations of pasta throughout. But how did it cross over to our unadventurous little island? Fanny reckons its all to do with returning soldiers heading home after the Second World War.

Hordes of fighting forces folk apparently headed home from Italy clamouring for pasta, only to be offered English horrors boiled until flabby and tasting like boiled jumpers. So they rebelled, insisting that their 'womenfolk' discovered the proper way to cook pasta. Thanks Heavens Fanny was there to help, who knows what might've happened if not. Fanny comments that it was a reverse of normal culinary history too, where men were usually a stumbling block to their women experimenting. New dishes and cuisines would traditionally be given a repugnant look and a mutter "Why can't I have my food plain the way my mother made it?" Fanny reckons their Italian military service was a tremendous 'boon' ending irritating eruptions from 'menfolk' taking the pleasure out of any special dish.

But what if we don't know how to cook pasta, or worse still, how to eat it properly? Fanny to the rescue! Cooking is simple - lots of boiling water and seasoned well, over salted is essential. As for eating, its probably best if Fanny shows you. The correct way is to press spaghetti with a fork against a spoon, turning the fork round to form a neat mouthful. Then, shove it in, with a certain amount of decency. The incorrect way is of course just to heave it all up on fork requiring a friendly assistant, in this case René, to come to your rescue with scissors.

Of course with the importation of pasta comes equally exotic ingredients too, like garlic, which may not be to everyones taste. Except certain mystics who have seemingly long employed its benefits against evil forces. Fanny also uses garlic to weave magic spells on people who claim to be fervent haters. The key is to crush it down with a small piece of wood and hide it in every dish at your big buffet parties. Then simply chortle as folk leave 'reeking of it', but thanking you for not giving them any garlic, as you know full well how much they hate it. It's witchcraft alright. Fanny has fooled us all, we now eat pasta AND garlic like it's going out fashion. Little did we realise that is was Fanny herself who made it popular. Making little carts for your toy donkeys to pull around from all your pretty pasta never quite caught on though... Some magic spells will just never work.

We are the Champignons, my friend

To contrast Fanny's first 'Bill of Fare' in this partwork, Menu 2 is hot and seems more homely and comforting for it. Today's starter is a simple soup - Creme Forestière - or plain old Mushroom Soup to you and I. Except, as ever with Fanny, nothing is plain even if it is simple. The main ingredients are mushrooms, shallots and garlic, three of my favourites. 

Fanny suggests using olive oil as always, but I substitute with some Scottish rapeseed oil, which I am sure Fanny would approve of, wouldn't she? Too late. After heating it in a pan with some butter, I add the very finely chopped shallots and cook them gently for 3 minutes. Fanny is very precise here. I then add the chopped mushrooms and grated garlic clove (Fanny recommends a very small one) and cook until they are all tender. No precision time here. 

Once tender, I add some flour and work it up to a rough paste. Fanny insists I use the back of a wooden spoon, but as you can see the rebellious part of me feels inclined to use a spatula, and it works just fine. So, rough paste achieved, time to add in some white wine, gradually. Ah, lovely, wine in soup, Fanny is a genius. Once it's incorporated, Fanny tells me to add in white bone stock - no surprise that I substitute this for a vegetarian alternative. 

The final additions after the stock are some seasoning including nutmeg and single cream. Even before adding the cream, the soup has a creamy and velvety texture, so this feels like a double luxury. The soup has a really vibrant colour thanks to the rapeseed oil - Fanny would be pleased. And that's it. It's very tasty and feels more substantial than it originally seems. The splash of nutmeg lifts it and works well with the shallots particularly. Fanny serves her Creme Forestière in soup cups and saucers designed by Picasso (nothing else would do) with nut sprinkled puff pastry triangles on the side, I chose a more basic bowl.

Fanny opts for another hot main - Le Sandwich Chaud - which she translates as a Family Buffin. It's essentially a homemade burger served in an English Muffin. So, I jump straight to hot pudding. For once it's nothing fancy at all. Baked Bananas. Which of course translates into French as Les Bananes Cuites en Manteaux. Everything sounds better in French. The ingredients again are simple. Erm, bananas.

The bananas are laid on a baking tray and given 20 minutes in a moderate oven. Fanny insists that the blackened skins form part of the presentation - telling me to cut a strip away of the pitch black skin once baked to reveal the flesh. Fanny suggests that dinner guests will really enjoy sprinkling their individual banana with brown sugar, lemon and orange juice. Dinner parties must've been a hoot Chez Cradock.

Bill of Fare - Sunshine at Suppertime

I think Fanny has chosen some light dishes for her end of partwork menus to try and counterbalance the flurry of flans. As before, they really bear no connection at all to what I've been learning or creating, but instead are just some ideas to have ready for guests round for dinner. I have to resist my temptation to roll out some savoury paste and make the starter for 'Bill of Fare One' into a tart though - it's Cold Ratatouille which only sounds slightly more tempting in French - Ratatouille Glacé.

I have to confess that Ratatouille isn't one of my favourites, perhaps it's the disappointment as a vegetarian of often finding it as the only option on a menu, and even then without much flavour or texture. The ingredients however are fresh and are some of my favourites - Aubergines (Fanny calls them Eggplants), courgettes (Fanny calls them baby marrows), peppers (Fanny calls them pimentoes), onion and tomatoes (Fanny doesn't have any alternative names for these). The technique is fairly simple, heat some oil, fry the chopped onion and peppers for a while, add the courgettes and Aubergines, cook for a while longer then add the chopped tomatoes.

Fanny urges me to cook them gently together until all the vegetables are soft and have made their own sauce from the juices and the oil, before seasoning. Lastly Fanny asks me to add 'une persillade' which is a garlic clove crushed together with some milled (which I hope just means chopped) parsley. My French gartronomy terms are coming along nicely!

Fanny suggests this is served cold as a hors d'oeuvre or hot as an accompaniment to a main meal. It looks different to any usual ratatouille - much more vibrant and less 'tomatoey' - adding the parsley  and garlic at the end of the cooking gives it a real flavour punch too. I am impressed, even cold! 

Skipping over Fanny's suggested main of Normandy Rabbit with Cider, it's straight to work on pudding - an Orange Meringue Pie. Oh, a pie. I thought the flans were finished...this version however has no pastry base thankfully and Fanny suggests is a very old and simple recipe which is a firm favourite in the nursery. Not quite sure which nursery she means though.

The technique is simply heating together some orange juice with fresh lemon juice and rind, mixing in some cornflour and water in a paste, adding butter and egg yolks - a kind of orange curd I suppose. Once thick and gloopy it goes into the serving dish to cool.

Fanny explains that the beauty of this simple old-fashioned pudding lies in the base being sharp and the meringue topping being sweet. The meringues are made in Fannys usual way and piped (of course) in a decorative manner on top of the orange curd. I copy Fanny's picture for inspiration, she would be so pleased with me! 

Then, into a low oven to dry out the meringues until they look like the colour of cooked biscuits apparently. Fanny is of course right, the base is lovely and sharp and the top crunchy and sweet - a lovely end to this particular menu, and a welcome light end to the flans!