Folkestone serves up a mixed bag of food

Taramasalata – none of that over-pink stuff

The food and the travel: those are the key problem areas when traveling in the UK and both were brought into sharp focus for us last year when we visited Rye.

On the food front, it wasn’t necessarily just finding somewhere that was serving food when you needed it that was a problem (although it was, on occasion), but finding food that was worth eating.

Too often on that trip, even basic food such as fish and chips or an omelette was poor.

On the travel front, if you don’t have a car, then you’ll find it difficult getting around. Public transport is far from brilliant – while it is certainly expensive. Last year, for a short trip from Winchelsea Beach back to Rye after a lengthy walk, we paid £5 for two adult to climb aboard a Stagecoach bus.

This year, getting back from Hythe to Folkestone – around five miles, given where we got on and off – the bus fare was £6.40 (also Stagecoach). To clarify: both of these were daytime trips and outside any rush hour.

And dear Stagecoach – the mock leather seats do not compensate.

According to the Financial Times, the company’s pre-tax profits fell by 37% in the year to April this year (partly due to capital expenditure). The poor lambs only made a meager £104.4m.

Rip-off Britain, anyone?

But back to the food.

Driven out of London by the second festival to be staged just 100m away from us this summer, we decided to go away on a bank holiday for the first time.

Time was short. The flyer informing us that the park would be busy for six nights, plus set-up, rehearsal and then the strike, landed on the doormat just over a fortnight ago.

The Other Half suggested a longer sojourn in Folkestone than our first visit in June, when a two-day rap/dance/garage/whatever-the-hell festival had, by the end of the Saturday, left us in danger of throttling each other and in vital need of escape the following day.

Discovering that it’s only an hour (on the fast, more expensive) train from St Pancras to Folkestone, we’d headed to the coast.

This time around, we managed to book a couple of nights in an old-fashioned hotel on the promenade. A week later, we suddenly thought that, given that it was a bank holiday, it might be worth considering eating opportunities in advance.

Bass done scarily 'raw'

After a spot of Googling, we were just able to grab a 9.15pm booking at Rocksalt, the town’s only eatery to bother the good people at Michelin.

Having checked in to our hotel, we headed down to the harbour in search of a late lunch – still over six hours before dinner. Rocksalt is actually slap bang on the harbour – an unobtrusive, modern building that backs onto a collection of traditional fish ‘n’ chippies, seafood cabins and fishmongers.

There we bought fodder and sat down on a bench to eat, free entertainment provided by an example of local colour to our left, regaling listeners with something or other, while swigging from a bottle of red wine, and a seagull who was trying to telepathically divorce us from some of our chips (they’re polite seagulls in Folkestone), while watched and mimicked by a young gull.

Two points here. First, it’s tempting, but don’t feed gulls (yes, I know I’ve done so in the past): it’s making them behave aggressively and causing talk of gull culls.

Second, the takeaway was perfectly good for what it was. My complaints about food are not a snob thing that excludes such eating: it’s simply that, whatever type of meal I’m having, I still expect it to be good for what it is.

Indeed, the pub lunch that we had the following day at the Britannia Inn in Dungeness, after a morning spent walking over difficult terrain, in a howling wind, was also an example of being absolutely right for what and where it was (in my case, scampi, chips and mushy peas, with a glass of good Kentish ale on the side).

But I digress.

On Saturday evening, after dark had descended, we too descended back to the harbour. We were particularly fortunate to be offered a table on the terrace, directly above the lapping sea.

I say “particularly fortunate”, because inside was rather noisy. So was outside, to be fair, but since it wasn’t enclosed, it was less annoying. There is something about British diners: going out for drinks first before going on to eat.

Rocksalt is not a curry-after-the-pub eatery. The anti-social – and loud at those levels is anti-social – diners were neither posh nor ‘chavs’. And it was not younger diners that were the loudest either. A middle-aged group sitting four tables away from us could be heard throughout, with one of the women having to be escorted to and from the loo, and then later, out to a taxi, as she couldn’t stand up properly.

As we neared the end of our own meal, a group inside could be heard boisterously quaffing pints and ordering lobster, having arrived late. The staff looked less than impressed.

It’s not a joke when I say that I have no memory of anything comparable on the Continent (unless one is near Brits or visitors from the US).

But anyway, to the food.

As an amuse-bouche, we were brought fresh bread with a platter of toppings: the house taramasalata, butter, a butter mixed with pork fat, seaweed crisps and, of course, salt.

Every bit of that was lovely – and my goodness, that taramasalata was a dream of real delicacy, while the porky butter, when sprinkled with a little of the salt, was ... well, I’ll let your imaginations do the work.

I had a starter of bass, marinaded in gin, and served with a scallop, fried in a batter made with tonic water. It came with shreds of red chili, black olives, beautifully crisp pickled cucumber slices and a scatter of baby coriander leaves.

Little aside – this being Britain, our waitress had to check that I did know that it wasn’t cooked.

The fish was delightful: tender and delicate, while the scallop complimented it nicely and the garnishes worked fine – even the coriander, which as baby leaves, wasn’t overpowering and soapily unpleasant, as I usually find it.

The Other Half enjoyed his duck egg with black pudding, girolles and samphire – even though he thought the egg a fraction overdone.

For a main, he opted for the lemon sole with a hollandaise and I went for the Dover sole – in my case, this came with a brown butter with capers, and was simply superb.

The Other Half's duck egg, girolles and samphire

Delicate flesh, incredibly fresh and excellently cooked, with the capers cutting through the natural sweetness of the fish – this was why simplicity is wonderful.

For accompaniments (another British oddity) we chose Kentish cauliflower dressed with cobnuts and lemon, and a selection of seasonal green beans and peas.

Both were good – the cauli was a veritable treat and will be tried at home.

For dessert, The Other Half enjoyed a gin jelly, with Kentish strawberries and a lime and tonic sorbet, while I availed myself of a row of the restaurant’s own sorbets: raspberry, strawberry and black cherry, which simply sung with an abundance of real fruitiness.

On the wine front, we kept it simple with a Domaine Saint Felix 2015 from the Languedoc: a light white with citrus notes.

House-made fudge – instantly evoking northern bonfire nights of childhood – came with coffee.

A top-class meal, with very good, pleasant service, Mark Sargeant’s Rocksalt may not be cheap, but for this sort of dining experience, it was far from being over the top.

Fast forward 24 hours.

Almost from the moment we decided to make this trip, we had planned to visit Dungeness on our full day in the area, traveling to and from nearby Hythe on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway. As such, we envisaged feeling fairly knackered by the time we got back to the hotel that evening.

With that in mind and after internet searches revealed a paucity of decent places to eat on a Sunday night – chains in the town are noisy – we had settled for the idea of dining in the hotel.

Like others of its ilk, our temporary abode thinks it still has to do Edwardian grandeur. Which helps to explain the attempted silver service and a menu that is stuck firmly in the 1970s.

Pity the poor vegetarian – they, and anyone else requiring ‘gentle’ food – faced the prospect of an omelette. And on the basis of the scrambled egg at breakfast ...

When away from work, I’ve dined in such places rather more often than The Other Half, and so was perhaps less surprised by the whole business – and it wasn’t the worst I’ve experienced anyway.

I feel for the staff: they’re not trained to the standard the hotel is attempting and they’re totally flustered when, for instance, you actually make a selection from the wine list that they’ve give you.

Heaven forfend if you actually ask for a bottle of wine – not just a glass of the house whatever.

It was an £18 Gewürztraminer. After waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting ... I called the waiter over to ask what was up, only to be informed that his colleague was in the cellar, hunting. Moments later came news that it wasn’t to be found.

Next try – a £10 bottle of an English white that was on the wine list’s ‘sale’ page.

Some time later – by which point I’d finished my centimetre-thick slab of Ardennes paté, served with melba toast, a doorstep of cucumber, a quarter of tasteless tomato and two fistfuls of frizzy lettuce doused in a thick Balsamic glaze – we heard that that was gone too.

“It’s been a busy weekend”, our waiter offered by way of a difficult-to-believe explanation.

We quickly ordered a large glass each of the house white. It turned out to be inoffensive and utterly unmemorable. Unmemorable, that is, except for costing £6 a glass.

For a main, we both opted for cod fillet in a lemon and herb crumb, with a dill cream sauce. Roast spuds and assorted roast veg were served on the side, by our waiter.

It wasn’t bad, but have you ever tried cutting into a roast potato with a traditional fish knife?

Dover sole with brown caper butter – and accompaniments

I concluded with ice cream and strawberries on the grounds of safety.

Yet around us, other guests were lapping it up and lavishing praise on the food.

And then there was the family of three from Yorkshire, who sat down behind us and said they didn’t need to see the menu – they’d have the roast beef and Yorkshire puddings, but “fetch us one with gravy on the plate and two with gravy on the side”.

I wish that I could amply describe the Yorkshire-born Other Half’s expression!

One of the other guests who was enjoying it all sent his breakfast bacon back on both mornings we were there – demanding it be cooked more. On the Monday, it was sent back twice before he found it to his taste. By that stage, they’d presumably substituted meat for old boot leather.

What a contrast.

Yet these contrasts provide yet further evidence of why traveling in the UK is fraught with issues. Thankfully, Rocksalt proved that it doesn’t always need to be the case. I really do hope to eat there again, but in the meantime, could someone unlock the mystery of why so many Brits struggle to eat a meal in a way that doesn’t impinge on their fellow diners?

Making sure your diet has gotta lotta bottle

If there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to have you looking again at your diet and wondering if it’s nurturing you or killing you, then it’s something such as a heart attack in the family.

The Other Half is now attending rehab sessions after his recent Event and these include a weekly talk.

Recently, one on nutrition provided the news that no, locally-produced honey does not render you immune to local pollen. It also included a call for those present to drink more milk, since there’s a risk of an osteoporosis timebomb and they need their calcium.

It’s probably already far more of a problem than most of us realise.

According to Guidelines for diagnosis and management ofosteoporosis (1997) by JA Kanis, P Delmas, P Burckhardt and others, which was published by the European Foundation for Osteoporosis and Bone Disease, in “women over 45 years of age, osteoporosis accounts for more days spent in hospital than many other diseases, including diabetes, myocardial infarction and breast cancer”.

And that’s just women – osteoporosis affects men too.

Of course, the milk-drinking advice included stating that the milk should be skimmed or semi skimmed, and noting that, while calcium can also be found in cheese, you should only to eat a matchbox-sized amount of that in a single day because of the mortal threat of fat.

Look away now – this could be the death of you

Bad luck: today’s lunchtime salad – made at home – included about two Swan Vesta-sized matchboxes worth of feta (together with chick peas, broad beans, sultanas, a little couscous and a ‘dressing’ of plain, Greek-style yogurt).

Having had a small glass of apple juice before leaving home, my breakfast had consisted of a hard-boiled egg, a little poached salmon, some edamame beans and a squirt of teriyaki sauce, with an espresso on the side.

Thank you Itsu: tasty, healthy food, and actually cheaper than the far more conventional breakfast fodder I’ve been having recently.

There was a mid-morning ‘snack’ of a few dates.

Oh dear – never mind the cheese, am I in danger of eating too much fruit, given how it all sugars?

The point, though, is that my rule-shattering amount of feta for lunch should be considered within a wider context of a fairly healthy diet as a whole.

But back to osteoporosis and calcium intake.

I recall reading, approximately 15 years ago, that women on a  diet had a bone density deficit of 22%.

This should surprise nobody, given that one of the first things that goes out of the window when you start dieting is dairy produce.

And on this subject, let’s take a little look at figures for osteoporosis in France and the UK, since the French notoriously eat more cream, cheese and butter than any other nation on planet Earth.

In 2010, there were approximately 377,000 new fragility fractures in France. The number of people aged 50 plus, with osteoporosis, was approximately 3,480,000.

Bone – healthy and not-so healthy

The economic cost of new and prior fractures was estimated as €4,853m each year and it is further estimated that, by 2025, that figure will have increased to €6,111m.

In 2010 in the UK, there were approximately 536,000 new fragility fractures. The number of people aged 50+ with osteoporosis stood at approximately 3.21m. The economic cost of new and prior fractures was £3,496m (€5,408m) each year; by 2025 burden will increase by 24% to £5,465m (€6,723m).

These statistics are from A Svedbom, E Hernlund, M Ivergard, et al, Osteoporosis in the European Union: A compendium of country-specific reports, 2013.

It’s worth noting that calcium deficiency is not the only cause of osteoporosis, but that alcohol consumption and smoking both also increase bone fragility.

In which case, given levels of smoking and alcohol consumption in France (and given that it has a higher population), the lower number of fragility fractures is even more remarkable.

But then again, the French have not – thus far – lost any sense of a national cuisine; of the traditional and largely seasonal food that has sustained them down the centuries.

We have. We expect asparagus and strawberries in December, and are faced with a dizzying array of culinary styles in shops and restaurants.

And in a way, the culinary snapshot from our recent trip to Rye is indicative of that: poor versions of a ‘national’ dish – fish and chips – cooked on the basis of pre-prepped, largely-frozen ingredients, while local gems such as Cromer crab were noticeable primarily by their absence.

That’s not to say that there is no place for culinary evolution and global influences – or that the French don’t have these (see couscous as an example of the latter), but merely that we have gone to an extreme.

Subject to the whims of British culinary fashion

We fall out of love with genuine British ingredients – and then it takes a celebrity chef to bring them back into fashion. See cooking apples and cauliflowers as but two recent examples.

Sainsbury’s summer TV advertising campaign, “tigers don’t eat quesadillas”, also illustrates the current climate, starting from the perspective of a family where the children get to say what they will and will not eat.

I know it’s not hip parenting these days, but what was actually wrong with ‘Dinner time! Come and sit down!’ followed by (if required) ‘that’s what’s on the table – if you don’t like it, there’s nothing else’?

The idea of giving small children a choice about what they eat is nonsense: they need to be able to make an educated choice before being given a choice – and that means a food education first.

Nor is that an education where you make pronouncements on what’s good or bad for health. It’s a question of educating the taste buds.

Okay, it’s still probably going to be something of a battle, given the amount of high-processed, industrialised junk around the place for children to be tempted by. And Big Food spends an awful lot of money working out precisely how to get children hooked on that junk, so it’s not an evenly-matched battle: this is classic David and Goliath.

But getting home in the evening and asking your pre-primary school child what they want for dinner – and then responding with “you can’t have dippy chips every night” because they regularly have that because you don’t want to cook a fresh meal after a day at work, is not the answer and not the way to a healthy diet.

And why quesadillas? What’s wrong with a salad? It doesn’t have to be limp, tasteless lettuce and cucumber, with flavourless tomatoes.

Take some broad beans (in season at present). Pod and cook for 3-4 minutes, in unsalted water, depending on size. Allow to cool before popping the little green gems out of their skins.

Hull and halve some strawberries (also in season).

Broad beans. In season now. Yummy

Pop on a plate together with some feta – the natural saltiness of the cheese is a fabulous foil for the beans, and works well with the fruit too.

Dress with some Balsamic vinegar.

If it’s a main meal, have some good bread on the side or a few new potatoes (also in season).

Colourful, tasty and healthy – and not complicated.

The media doesn’t help – producing scare stories about health and further confusion about diet.

I freely admit that I find myself wondering if I’ve got it basically right: am I getting enough calcium, for instance, or do I need to start guzzling a pint of skimmed milk every day?

Indeed, am I really getting it all so badly wrong that today’s second matchbox of cheese will ensure that I won’t live long enough to get osteoporosis?

Inspired by walks in Rye and Hastings

Yew and Boat

If the weather on our visit to Rye was mixed – two days sunny and dry, two days wet and grey – it didn’t ruin the trip.

On Sunday, with drizzle in the air, we headed back out across the Rye Harbour Nature Reserve to Camber Castle, a low fortification built by Henry VIII.

Now a ruin – and only open to the public on limited days – our only company as we gazed inside were sheep.

The Little Gate

It was a walk that had already taken in the Stanton shelter from WWII, and the sight of a lone Spitfire above the salt marshes, banking

and turning to head back east.

I’ve seen Spitfires before – and Hurricanes and a Lancaster bomber: ceremonial fly-pasts in London come in low over our little patio garden, with The Mall just seconds away; so low, you can see the markings on the wings above.

But to see one like this, as one would surely have seen one, 75 years ago during the Battle of Britain, over this same landscape, had something both awesome and haunting about it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera to hand.

The Gate Post

And later, when we spotted a hare leaping among sheep in the distance, and shortly afterwards, a marsh harrier hovering over the vegetation, the camera was absent too – but not our pleasure in seeing such sights.

There were flocks of geese – of at least two species – plus ducks (not just mallards), and a family of swans out for a Sunday morning swim with a cygnet.

You could stand in the middle of the reserve, reeds towering on one side, and listen as the wind rustled through the greenery: the only sound to be heard. In London, there is always at least the background hum of traffic.

As reported previously, it’s an environment that provides plenty of inspiration for local artists – and little wonder.

Camber Castle

So to conclude these posts about the trip, here is a small selection of my own efforts, inspired by the same surroundings.

The photographs were all taken on an iPhone 6 Plus, which saves lugging something bigger around and produces some very good results. They have been processed in Photoshop and I have experimented with a wider variety of approaches than usual.

The first one, Yew and Boat, was taken on the Friday walk and is a perfect illustration of how, sometimes, you’re torn between whether to not to use monochrome or colour.

Sheep Under the Hawthorne

It’s wonderful in either, but I think the colour version simply sings – and, of course, alongside the others, gives a real impression of just how sunny it was.

I admit to be particularly please with this – a good framing, but still requiring the fortune to come upon it.

The Little Gate is another where I was fortunate enough to spot it – and the contrasts between the light and shaw work so well.

It’s almost a cliche of the English countryside – and none the worse for that.

Gate Post, Camber Castle and Sheep Under the Hawthorne were all taken on the Sunday walk, in the conditions mentioned above.

Door at Ypres Tower

The first of these has been de-saturated – a quite trendy look – and has been sharpened to bring out the detail even more. The second has a simple monochrome treatment.

The third has had some desaturation – but nowhere near as much as the Gate Post, and has none of the same degree of sharpening.

And while I appreciate that it’s the wrong part of the country, there’s something about the subject that makes me think instantly of Thomas Hardy’s novels.

Door at Ypres Tower is just what it says on the tin – but works well in black and white, which adds drama to the strength of the inside of the door itself.

Anchor Detail

Anchor Detail is also what it says. This is a close-up of part of the wood of a two-ton Napoleonic anchor that’s on display alongside the net shops in Hastings.

While photographed like this it becomes abstract, there’s so much beauty in the pattern and colour of the wood.

Lastly, I’ve included Teasel, which was done on a 15x10cm scraperboard, taken from a photo I shot during the first walk on the nature reserve.

I did quite a lot of scraperboards in the mid 1970s, copying an etching of an otter that my parents had, and selling form for something like a fiver a throw.

It was last year when, contemplating producing my own Christmas cards for the first time, I bought a packet of small boards – black ink over a gold-coloured background – in order to produce an image.

It took some time to get back into the swing of it – and there’s some debate about how much I managed that – but while I wasted plenty of the small boards, I found myself with two left.

A picture of a teasel, snapped from above during our first walk in Rye Harbour Nature Reserve had the sort of graphic quality that seemed to be crying out for a treatment along these lines.

It’s a reasonable effort, I think – given how long ago it is since I played with the technique.

I hope you enjoy these pictures here – it is, of course, entirely possible that the inspiration will continue in the coming days and weeks.

But only time will tell – and that will be for another post, another day.

• All images are copyright.

Finding art in Rye and Hastings

Camber Sands by David Purdie

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that much of my own art takes as its starting point the built environment – after all, I live in a pretty extreme version of that and experience it on a daily basis.

But our trip to Rye was not limited by walls, and the outdoors and natural worlds that we found ourselves enjoying is clearly  an inspiration to plenty of artists working in the area.

That first walk down to Rye Harbour saw us, as mentioned before, take tea and cake at the Avocet Gallery and Tea Room.

The cake was delicious – and the art on display was appetising enough to have me smacking my lips at the range of high-quality works by local artists who had been inspired by the varied land and seascapes.

I came away with a delightful limited edition, signed and numbered print by Sue Scullard, an illustrator and artist whose woodcuts are simply incredible in their detail.

They’re also very small – which is particularly handy when you’re running out of available wall space in your own private gallery.

Out of a superb selection, I chose a print of a woodland scene – anyone who has been following this blog will know that I have a growing fascination with woods and forests, so it was a perfect picture.

The Edge of the Wood by Sue Scullard

But it wasn’t the only art that we saw – or that I picked up – although it was the most expensive, at £55 (plus what it’s costing to have it framed in plain oak, which seems an appropriate choice).

Find out more about the gallery – and they are constructing an online shop – at avocetgalleryandtea.co.uk.

Sue's own site can be found at suescullard.co.uk.

We had ambled up and down the High Street in Rye on the Friday evening, by which time all the shops were safely shut. But it had given us the opportunity to see what was around.

There was a general art gallery – and next door, a gallery belonging to photographer David Purdie.

A few doors down the street, another photographic gallery displayed works that had had colours so heavily saturated that John Hinde postcards would have natural by comparison.

It hurt my eyes every time we passed it over during the course of our stay.

But David Purdie’s gallery, on the other hand, drew me inside.

Red Hut by David Purdie

Making your work pay is not always easy for artists. In David’s case, his superb photographs are available in a number of ways, from signed prints, to posters to greetings cards.

It’s a long time since I bought any photography to display at home, but I was more than happy to spend under £20 to buy a specially-made frame that holds three of the greetings cards.

Like the print, it fits into a specific spot – indeed, on the wall in my little bit of study/studio space, thus adding additional inspiration.

And since the three photos I picked – groynes at Winchelsea Beach, an old fisherman’s hut next to Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, and dunes at Camber – are united by the sea, which I love so much, it was entirely apt.

It was amusing talking to David: he moved to the Rye area from London – not far where we’re based. After some years in the area, he finds it quiet – we’re desperate to get to somewhere where you can actually hear yourself think!

You can find out more about David’s work – there is an online shop, and he also runs photography workshops – at purdiegallery.co.uk. There’s also Twitter for keeping informed about the gallery – at @PurdieGallery.

Not that this was the end of the artistic aspect of the trip. On Monday, with the wind lashing in and a constant drizzle falling, we’d headed through the grey to Hastings.

Initial disappointment had given way to pleasure and interest when we’d discovered the fabulously-named Rock-A-Nore Road, a designation given it in 1859 and derived from a former building “lyinge to the Mayne Rock against the north”.

It borders The Stade – a Saxon term for ‘landing place’, where Europe’s biggest beach-launched fishing fleet is based and where you can find the incredible old net shops – black-tarred, tall, wooden buildings that used to be used to store the nets and other fishing tackle.

Misty Morning by Andrew Dennis

Later, wandering along one of the winding streets of the old town, we spotted a gallery with pictures in the window of the net huts.

This was the Old Gallery, and it largely serves as an outlet for work of self-taught local artist Andrew Dennis.

The Other Half spotted instantly why his pictures of the net shops would particularly appeal to me. Such was the way in which they caught my attention that I picked up another small print.

This is already on the wall – a simple, black frame picked up for next to nothing in Cowling and Wilcox last weekend does the job very well.

To find out more about Andrew’s work, visit theoldgalleryhastings.co.uk.

These were not the only artists’ work that we admired during the trip.

Pill Box, Rye Harbour by Brian Yale

The Rye Art Gallery was a revelation, with a small exhibition in one of the rooms upstairs, as well as the sale rooms downstairs.

My favourite work on display was the acrylic painting, Pill Box, Rye Harbour (2002/3) by Brian Yale.

Deceptively simple, it seems to me to contain the past and the future in the region’s familiar shingle landscape: humanity’s interventions in the landscape returning to that landscape as nature reasserts itself.

The gallery has a website under construction at ryeartgallery.co.uk.

So, while we’d headed to the coast with literature in our minds, we found far more art than expected – and this just gives you a hint of what can be found in the area.