Sophisticated dining – including some wurst

Delicate couscous and feta

If Germany provided plenty of hearty, down-to-earth dining experiences, it also provided two really top-notch fine-dining experiences.

But while the food was excellent, perhaps the most interesting aspect of those meals was that they illustrated that German culinary tradition, far from being something to sniff at, is well worth looking at.

For the first couple of days, adjusting to later starts, larger-than-usual breakfasts and then larger-than-usual lunches meant that we were not in the mood to try either of the hotel’s two restaurants.

Belle Epoque is the flashiest of the two, with Michelin-starred food that, as the name implies, has its roots in what Michel Roux Jr would call “The Classics” – or a certain type of French cuisine and approach – and which is open to non-residents.

There's no escaping Thomas Mann

Downstairs, and also used for breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea, is Holstein, the hotel restaurant for residents. And as that name suggests, it has a rather more local ethos.

During last year’s solo trip to Lübeck, one of the highlights – one of the core things I’d set out to do, indeed – was dinner at Schiffergesellschaft.

The centuries-old seaman’s guild is housed in a 1553 building that still serves as a restaurant.

There, I’d tried the iconic labskaus, a seaman’s dish of pickled or corned beef, the meat mixed with onion and beetroot, and traditionally served with a fried egg on top and a plate of good old matjes herrings on the side.

A superb spargel soup

Schiffergesellschaft gets a mention in Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks, and I was delighted to find that the Holstein has a large, black and white photograph on the wall of the man himself, taken outside the hotel in 1953.

But then the author considered Travemünde as something close to a paradise.

It too features in Mann’s first great novel, and even if worthy Lübeckers were mightly offended by his 1901 literary debut, there is plenty to suggest that their modern-day descendants appreciate the added value it lends the area – there is even a Buddenbrooks restaurant in a hotel just a couple of hundred metres from where we stayed.

But back to the pickled beef.

The first thing on the Holstein menu that caught my eye – a couple of days before we were first ready to dine there – was a labskaus.

How would an essentially modern and smart restaurant tackle such a dish?

Labskaus, deconstructed

I kept that question in mind until the first evening on which we’d actually left enough space for a three-course meal.

Before we get to that, let’s start by saying that, we waited, we were served with a selection of very nice breads, plus quark (a sort of German yogurt) and a lightly spiced relish, plus butter, and then with a small plate that was less an amuse bouche and more an hors d’oeuvres, involving very delicately prepared couscous and crumbled feta that was, if not very Germanic, then certainly very pleasant.

And of course, since The Other Half doesn't like cheese, I got his feta too.

But as a first course proper, both of us opted for the spargel soup.

The asparagus season enjoys cult status in Germany.

Known by a variety of nicknames, from ‘Königsgemüse’ (king’s vegetable) to ‘Frühlingswonne’ (springtime delight) and ‘Zartes Elfenbein’ (soft ivory), restaurants across the country add special asparagus menus, while little stalls set up on the streets to sell this seasonal glory.

While Germans prefer the white asparagus, the green that we’re more familiar with is not neglected.

Matjes herring on onion

Back in 2009, when we were in Berlin in early June, we ordered spargel soup at the iconic Lutter & Wegner, but were disappointed with the overly salty result, which suggested that it had been hanging around for some time.

This time around, the result was quite simply superb, with a creamy base, slivers of perfectly cooked white asparagus, drops of delightful tarragon oil and a few croutons for added texture.

Next up for me at least was the labskaus – which turned out to be deconstructed.

There’s always a danger with this approach that it can look good but not actually achieve anything much for the palate.

Here, it proved a very enjoyable exercise in appreciating the tastes and textures of a mixed dish – I bet those sailors never thought their dish would assume the level of haute cuisine.

Wonderful blutwurst

The meat, combined with some beetroot, came in quenelles, with the fried egg replaced by a breaded quail’s egg atop onion and herbs, a roasted beet purée, homemade potato crisps, matjes and shredded gherkin.

I opted for the almost inevitable ice cream after – but was too stuffed to make much headway with that.

The Other Half, having opted for a rhubarb crumble after a beef dish, reported himself more than satisfied.

Our final night saw us decamp to Holstein yet again and this time, the hors d’oeuvres was an incredibly delicate matjes herring on top a sweet and gentle onion, very finely chopped, a hint of bitter herbs and a little tomato.

Zander, with beetroot and potatoes

Lovely – and ensured The Other Half didn’t leave the country without at least a taste of herring.

Again, we both opted for the same main course – blutwurst (black pudding).

Gloriously moist and tasty, it was complimented by a bitter salad and quince two ways – as small triangles of jelly and as a rather larger wedge of mousse.

A real joy, this.

For a main course, the Other Half opted for zander, a German fish that is often translated, rather meaninglessly, as ‘pike-perch’, which are two altogether different fishes.

But then there is no British alternative, although it was introduced to the Fens some time ago and is considered a pest – can I try to get rid of it by culinary methods, then?

While he enjoyed that, I dined on lachs (salmon), with new potatoes and white and green spargel, which was very nice if not earth-shattering.

For dessert, however, I picked apple three ways – a slice of feather-light strudel, a sorbet and calvados-infused brunoise on a crisp, all made with Holstein cox. Absolutely gorgeous.

Apple, three ways

On the matter of wines, we drank a German red with the first meal at Holstein: that was a first, and very nice it was too.

For the second meal, we opted for a white – a Grauburgunder: a 2012 Kabinet, trocken, Weingut Bimmerle from Baden, which was also extremely nice.

We left thinking that that was food we’d be more than happy to eat again.

What Holstein perfectly illustrates is that German cuisine is very far from being sausage and pickled cabbage.

It can be hearty and simple and comforting, but done like this, it can also be as sophisticated as anything that most of us are likely to eat anywhere.

The wurst a foodie can get?

Bratwurst in Lübeck – on a proper plate

Germany remains low on the list of travel destinations for Brits - and to be honest and from a rather selfish perspective, I rather like that.

Back in 2000, my parents visited the country for the first time as part of an organised trip to see the Oberammergau Passion Play.

Performed by the village people every 10 years or so since 1634, the millennium staging coincided with my father’s retirement, so his parishioners had thought it a fitting present.

The thing that worried him most was the very fact of going to Germany – for some, The War has never really ended.

That all-important first beer of the trip

Indeed, as I have been reminded more than once, “we didn’t win the war just so the Jerries could rule us through the EU!” and as I remember clearly when coming home from my first day in the second year at Fairfield High School for Girls: “We didn’t win the war so that you should have to learn German!”

In the event, both parents were charmed. And this seems to be the case for anyone visiting.

But while scenery and beer might be attractions, one thing that is not standardly viewed as a selling point for Germany is cuisine.

After all, it’s really just sausages and pickled cabbage, isn’t it?

As only a slight aside, it should be noted here that sauerkraut is not pickled, but is fermented, with the finely-shredded vegetable layered between salt in barrels.

But back to sausages.

Matjes herring with a jacket potato

One of the tedious little rules that those who complain about ‘red tape’ love to hate came I to force in 2003, when it became law that sausages be labeled so that you know how much actual meat is in them – and not just a figure that could include all sorts of parts of the animal, plus the ‘pink slime’ that has been blasted off otherwise stripped carcasses.

But while the foodie-based revival of the humble British banger has improved things greatly, millions of the smooth, pink slimy ones are still sold, leaving one with a sense of culinary despair. And I must admit, at this point, that it not so long ago that I preferred these – although now I find them fairly repulsive.

But back to Germany and wurst.

Breakfast, with fish and small frikadellen

Our trip to Schleswig-Holstein was always going to produce some wurst opportunities, and it was in Lübeck where I enjoyed a very nice bratwurst with chips and the obligatory mustard.

Germans make some very nice mustards indeed, from the mild, yellow senf that’s just perfect with a bratwurst, to the grainy, sweet type from Bavaria.

But that really was my sole taste of wurst on this trip, although and I was delighted to find a gift box of three tins of Bavarian weißwurst and a small jar of the latter in Hamburg Airport on the way home.

Instead, I made the most of the opportunity to enjoy the fish – whether fresh, smoked or soused, and starting every day with matjes herrings at breakfast.

"A great British tradition"

Indeed, a first meal selection on German soil involved matjes herring, fish that has been ‘ripened’ by soaking in a mild preserving liquid for a few days.

The flesh is firm, boneless, easy to digest and has a delightful, delicate taste. It can be served with a variety of sauces, including a very traditional one of sour cream or yogurt, and dill.

On this occasion it was served in full fillets alongside a jacket potato with sour cream and chives.

Among the other non-fresh delicacies tried came smoked mackerel and sprat, proper gravadlax – or as the Germans call it, gravad lachs – and eel.

Passing a small shop in Travemünde itself gave an opportunityfor a glance into northern German fish culture – an absolute Aladdin’s cave of piscene wonderfulness.

The Swinging Mods set the beat

Eel featured again on the trip – but as a combination of literature and jewellery: I bought a small one in the form of a pendant, based on a Günter Grass sculpture. Readers of The Tin Drum will know the role that eels played in those pages.

Other pleasures included a piece of fried turkey with a lemon hollandaise on Sunday after our long coastal walk, and, of all things, fish and chips on the Saturday.

The latter was served from a van at a May festival that we joined, where a husband and wife team advertised this as a “great British tradition” and were really chuffed when we told them that it was very good, which it was.

Black beer

Washed down with serious black beers, as the Swinging Mods rocked the air with the sort of ’60s sounds that encouraged an amount of unabashed dad dancing on a small wooden dance floor.

On the Sunday night, we hit a restaurant on the water front, where we enjoyed a vast spread of cod, with fresh cucumber salad, buttered potatoes and pickled cucumber and a mustard, cream sauce on the size.

The Other Half, gazing at this as it was laid before us, murmered, of Germans as a whole: “when it comes to portion size, they don’t fuck about!”

We had one below-par meal – but that was more a question of the restaurant being in chaos, only one man being in the kitchen and clearly refusing to try to speed up to keep up with the influx of customers.

Portion size!

We tried cake too – and oh, German cake is a thing of very great pleasure. Forget the cliché of Black Forest Gateaux (although a real one is a real delight) – I enjoyed a local speciality topped with marzipan, because Lübeck is, after all, the marzipan capital of the world, and a deep, dense chocolate torte.

There were other points of note on the culinary agenda too: honey – the hotel restaurant had at least 12 varieties available at breakfast and lovely were the six that I managed to try during our stay.

And breads too – again, the breakfast buffet included several varieties of traditional German breads, most of them organic. I’m not quite a pumpernickel girl, but I do love a good volkornbrot, a traditional whole wheat bread.

Beer everywhere was, of course, clean and a pleasure to enjoy – slowly!

Serious, serious chocolate cake

And one evening, after that poorest meal, we relaxed in the hotel bar, The Other Half with a cocktail and me with a glass of a very light beer and a Fürst Bismarck ‘doppelkorn’ schnapps on the side. It has to be done at least once.

The only disconcerting point was that these drinks were ordered by me in such immaculate manner that the woman serving declared that I spoke German “so sweetly”! I am not sweet!

We had two evening meals in the hotel restaurant – of which much more another time. But all this – the much more ‘humble’ fodder – had more than enough to recommend it and more than enough to make it memorable.

But oh, oh, oh – the herrings!

Cometh the hour, cometh the cassoulet

It was July. The weather had been mixed as we had trundled from Bordeaux to Carcassonne by train. It was late afternoon when we disembarked, with no obvious method of getting to the hotel other than Shanks's Pony, so we walked, using iPhone 'sat-nav' to guide us.

After checking in, we'd walked over the bridge to the village that lies beneath the plug of rock that bears La Cité itself. Everything was shut. Reluctantly, we adjourned to the hotel restaurant and, expecting nothing to match the view as night descended on the ancient city, ordered cassoulet.

It went way beyond our expectations. We'd had the tinned stuff before, but this was a first 'proper' taste of a treasure of French regional and national cuisine.

Two days later, when we boarded a train for the mountains, we took with us a carefully wrapped cassole, the traditional earthenware cooking pot for the cassoulet.

Back home, in the autumn, I laid in duck confit, but the haricot bean - at the heart of this hearty dish - proved elusive. And then, just as the weather started its dip to the sort of temperatures one could expect in January in northern Europe, I found some.

The moment had arrived.

Cassoulet was, the great cook Prosper Montagné declared, "the god of south-western food" in France.

Initially, it would have been made with fresh broad beans, until white beans arrived from across the border in Spain in the 16th century. And the haricot had since become the established bean for the dish. It remains arguably one of remarkably few absolutely crucial ingredients.

This culinary adventure began in seemingly sensible manner - checking recipes in my own library.

I turned first to the version in Hot Sun Cool Shadow by Angela Murrills; then to one in Goose Fat & Garlic by Jeanne Strang and yet another in Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of South-West France.

Stephanie Alexander had produced her own version in Cooking & Travelling in South-West France, which was the last of my collection of books dedicated to that area - and, as far as I know, the only ones published in English.

If I was getting a little dizzy by now, it was but the start.

In French Country Cooking, the Roux brothers used pork and lamb and no confit. Joël Robuchon's version includes lamb shoulder and lamb neck, and involves topping the final dish with crushed melba toast mixed with parsley, which sounds close to heresy, if you ask me.

Bruno Loubet presents a simplified version in Cooking from l'Odeon, to be cooked not in a traditional earthenware pot, but in something like Le Creuset and presented at table in exactly that.

In The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery, Auguste Escoffier gives instructions for a cassoulet dominated by mutton and with the option of "goose or chicken".

In European Peasant Cookery, Elisabeth Luard's version is informed by her year living in the Languedoc and the instruction of her neighbour there.

And of course, we cannot forget the divine Mrs David, whose French Provincial Cooking goes into some detail about the history of the dish, as well as providing relatively straightforward instructions from a period when Toulouse sausage was something you could only hope to find in a very limited number of shops.

Culinaria France crams it all into a very terse recipe, while The Food of France, like Murrills, simplifies.

Larousse Gastronomique prefers far more detail, and quotes Montagné as having said that cassoulet could be divided into three types - a 'Trinity'.

The 'Father' came from Castelnaudary. The oldest version, it included pork - loin, ham, leg, sausages and fresh rinds - with "perhaps some fresh goose".

The 'Son' of Carcassonne used leg of mutton and, in the shooting season, partridge.

The 'Holy Ghost' of Toulouse uses the same ingredients as in Carcassonne, but in smaller quantities and with the addition of "fresh lard, Toulouse sausage, mutton and duck or goose".

These are the main versions, but as Larousse makes clear, it is far from being a finite list. There is even a salt cod version, with the fish replacing the duck or goose.

But while this so clearly reveals its peasant roots, the French being the French, there has had to be some formalising of what was already a classic - well beyond its home region - into an institution.

In 1966, the États Généraux de la Gastronomie française decreed that a cassoulet had to be made up of at least 30% pork (which could include sausage), mutton or preserved goose, together with 70% haricot beans and stock, fresh rinds, herbs and flavourings.

All of which still leaves things about as clear as mud for the beginner.

So, which path did I follow?

In the end, it was largely Luard, with hints from Robuchon and David.

Prep had started yesterday with the beans. I usually use tinned ones, so I was grateful to read on the packet that 40g of dried haricot would turn into 80g of cooked pulses, which is generally regarded as a 'portion'. Seeing 80g weighed out, I decided to add another 20g for good measure. These was then decanted into a bowl with plenty of cold water and left overnight.

And so to this afternoon.

The pulses were rinsed, drained and popped into a large pan with plenty of cold water, a peeled and sliced carrot, a stick of sliced celery, an onion studded with two cloves, a sachet of bouquet garni, six crushed garlic cloves and the small amount of pork fat Matthew had been able to give me yesterday.

It's heated quickly and then, just before it starts to boil, the temperature is reduced to leave it barely simmering. And so it stays for an hour.

In the meantime, the meats are prepared. Now, this was dinner for two people with smallish appetites, so I'd got a small piece of lean pork, which I diced, plus two Toulouse sausages.

One of the confited duck legs was placed, dripping, into a frying pan, where it gave off all of it's coating of creamy fat, before being removed to a plate. Then the pork and the sausages were fried in this fat, together with another four crushed garlic cloves.

The duck leg was stepped of its flaking meat; the sausages were sliced thickly. A diced onion was cooked in the fat after the meats had all been removed.

Don't throw the fat away - you need it later.

Next up, skin, deseed and chop a large, beefy tomato.

Heat your oven to 120˚C.

When the beans are ready, strain. Get rid of the vegetables and bouquet garni. Keep the pork fat.

Take your pot/casserole and put the fat in the bottom, fat side down. The theory is that, starting with some beans, you layer the ingredients. For just two of us, that meant a layer of beans, then everything else forming on thick layer, to be topped with more beans.

Oops. A problem. There were nowhere near enough haricot to top the dish. It was rather too late to contemplate a minimum four-hour soak for more beans, followed by an hour simmering.

I cheated in the only way possible, rinsing of a tin of cannellini beans and using them to fill in the gaps.

The dish is covered (with foil, if you don't have a lid) and placed in the oven for two hours. Check a couple of times and, if the beans look a little too dry, add a little boiling water.

After two hours, remove from the oven and turn up the heat to 160˚C. Spread a layer of breadcrumbs over the top and drizzle with the melted goose/duck fat from the duck confit that you'd reserved.

Leave the lid off and pop back in the oven. Give it 30 minutes, by which time it should have a nice, golden crust, then remove and stir the breadcrumbs gently into the beans. Back in the oven it goes for at least another half an hour.

The key here is patience. But every 10 to 15 minutes, give it another stir.

This breaking the crust is considered to be really authentique: they do it seven times in Castelnaudary and eight in Toulouse. It's now been set at three times in Hackney.

Remove, serve and eat.

For a first effort, I was very pleased. It wasn't perfect - the shortage of haricot being an obvious point. But I'd also be inclined to increase the initial bean cooking time by 30 minutes, as suggested in at least one recipe, to ensure they're just a little softer.

And the pork and sausages need to be cooked initially for a shorter time but at a higher heat.

But that apart, I was chuffed. My first effort was no insult to the lovely, half-glazed dish that has graced the kitchen since our return last August. And it certainly won't be long before I give it another go.

Cooking the great British banger – and refs getting it wrong again

After British Food Fortnight, British Cheese Week and Chocolate Week comes British Sausage Week – for which piece of information I have the excellent Matthew Fort to thank.

And is there anything much more British than a good banger?

Well no – but that’s why it can do with a week to boost it: the sausage has been so badly served by mass production, not least as that process adds water to the finished product.

Now at this point, I have a confession to make. Until recently – embarrassingly recently – I just refused to budge from the mass-produced sausage you’d find in any corner shop or supermarket.

Peppa Pig pink and with as little texture as possible – inside or out – this was what a sausage was for me. I just didn’t ‘get’ the better ones.

I don’t really have any strong memories of sausages from childhood. There was my mother’s version of the French dish, sausage and kidney Turbigo – which I now cook, a tad more authentically (in other words, it has real onions) and in my teens, when we visited her mothering St Helens, we’d stop at a local butcher on the way to pick up some tomato sausages for lunch.

We must have had sausages – because I know that the crabapple jelly she’d make from fruit gathered at my grandmother’s was perfect with sausages. Yet I cannot recollect the sausages themselves.

I do remember sausages at college: they would lie there in the morning on the tray in the campus canteen, under light and always rather worryingly suggestive of a row of uncut penises. Or perhaps that was simply the effects of student living on my innocent mind.

For a little added context, this was in the years just following the appearance on Esther Rantzen’s That’s Life of the Yorkshire Terrier that could ‘say’ sausages. Titter ye not, Missus!

The thing with sausages, though, is that they're not a quick cook. To get the best out of proper butcher's sausages, you need time.

After The Other Half picked up a pack of venison sausages last weekend, this has proved a big week on the sausage front.

I wasn't completely satisfied with the results of those (the pack did two meals): tasty, but a bit dry. The difficulty, of course, is that lack fat.

On Saturday morning, before a manic day, I sat in bed with a cup of coffeee and browsed various sources for answers.

Delia seems to concentrate on recipes that include sausages, as opposed to basic information about how best to cook them.

I was surprised to discover that as eminent a source as Jane Grigson recommends pricking them before cooking – surely that means losing lots of the juices and fat? Although I seem to remember that my mother pricked them – but then again, I seem to remember that she grilled them. Perhaps we had already moved into a culture of removing fat as much as possible?

But sure enough, Nigel Slater came to the rescue. In Real Cooking, he details the basic method. It's not difficult.

Pop a little fat in a pan – dripping or lard or some oil, but not butter because that would burn, and moist definitely not marg. Pop the sausages in (not pricked!), pop the lid on, turn the heat right down and cook for around 30-40 minutes, turning two or three times.

In other words, you're partially steaming the sausage, but in doing that, also retaining moisture. And because it's a low heat, you don't risk the skins bursting.

The following hours were busy. The Other Half came up to Broadway Market for what was probably my earliest shop there, then we took the bus to Marylebone Station and the train to Wembley to watch the Rugby League double header: Wales v New Zealand, followed by England v Australia.

Suffice it to say that the latter provided some real fireworks – and the referee (who'd only officiated his first professional game earlier this year) dropped a number of clangers. I'm not saying that England would have actually won, but the scoreline could have been rather different from the 20-36 that was on the scoreboard at the end of the 80 minutes.

But then again, Australian coaches could make Alex Ferguson look tame, given their constant whinging and whining about officials and rules. They whinge in advance – just to make sure the officials know how they want the game run.

Still, it's all rather cathartic – and when we got home, I was able to watch the second half of QPR-Manchester City. Unfortunately, we'd booked our Wembley tickets before the football fixture list revealed that the Blues were actually going to be in London on the same day.

It was deeply annoying – but at least we won, albeit after a greater struggle than any other match this term so far.

We're breaking records – and I'm still convinced somebody's going to wake me up any time now, and we'll be in a relegation struggle! In this case, I was convinced that former players Shaun Wright Phillips and Joey Barton were going to come back to haunt us (even though Halloween's been and gone). And indeed, the latter had a strong game – including a hardly unexpected hack at David Silva's legs. Doubtless he tweeted philosophically about it later.

But the difference is right there: Silva's now a City star – not Barton. I still say it was the best bit of football business ever done getting anyone to pay money – let alone nearly £6m – for someone with such a reputation as a thug, on and off the pitch.

Anyway, I was starving but the time we got home. With the rush earlier in the day, I'd had to resort to stadium food. Overpriced and really not very thrilling at all. Chips weren't too bad, but the fried chicken was dry. And why, oh why can't you buy a 'meal' without a vast drink with it?

I found myself missing the pies at Eastlands.

A red onion was peeled and sliced, while a little lard melted in a pan. Then it was left to cook away gently. Shortly afterwards, the sausages – plain butcher's pork – went into another pan, also with a little lard, before being lidded and left on low.

Then it was back to the football with a welcome cup of tea.

I peeled the remainder of some spuds from a bag from the supermarket (yes, I do occasionally shop in supermarkets in midweek) and popped them on to boil. The intention was to put them through the ricer, but the varied sizes from the end of the bag meant that some cooked quicker than others and I was left with a bit of a crumbled mess. It took some draining, so I simply left it as crushed potatoes, which worked perfectly well.

And to finish, a tin of mushy peas – this was becoming a bit of a northern day.

To serve, some of the juices from the sausages dressed the potato, while I opted for a spoon of redcurrant jelly on the side.

The sausages were delightful and the onion was soft and sweet – just starting to crisp a little: as I like it best.

It might have been the end of British Sausage Week, but my sausage education will continue. Watch this space for a first experiment making my own!

Comfort food required

After the unexpected encore of summer, autumn has returned. It's not simply a case of the shortening days reflecting the season, the temperature has now dropped.

Although it was beautifully bright at the end of the afternoon, it was more than a tad nippy. Waiting for a bus on Euston Road, my still-sandalled feet were jolly cold by the time we got home.

Which was the signal to change into the sort of comforting snuggly clothing I haven't worn in months - and prepare some equally comforting food.

We had popped into a small, local supermarket before getting the bus and, with the need for comfort and the desire for ease in mind, had picked up a pack of frankfurters. Everything else was already in the fridge and cupboards at home.

Sauerkraut is an acquired taste, but it's a taste we acquired some years ago on our first trip to Berlin.

It's easy enough to find in the UK these days and there was already a partly-used jar in the fridge.

It took me some time to find a way of cooking it that The Other Half enjoys, but the following seems to work.

Take your sauerkraut, rinse, drain and then squeeze it to remove as much excess water as possible.

Heat a little lard and very gently sauté the vegetable. At this point, I also added a peeled, cored and finely chopped apple, plus a bay leaf. Finely grated carrot is another good option and if you want to go for a really serious central European taste, then a few crushed caraway seeds won't go amiss.

Barely cover with water or chicken stock and cook very gently for 20-30 minutes, checking the liquid doesn't entirely evaporate too quickly. Season to taste.

The packet of franks suggested cooking in a microwave or grilling or frying. Better yet is the following, far more authentic method.

Pop them in a pan that's large enough for them to lie in. Cover with water and bring gently to boil - you don't want to split them - then put the lid on and leave, off the heat, for 10 minutes.

Serve with boiled potatoes and good German mustard - the first mustard I learned to enjoy, having come from a background that eschewed it, just as any other
Articulately strong tastes were eschewed (no horseradish either).

So, excellent comfort food and easy to cook. And sauerkraut afficionados will tell you that not only is it absolutely NOT pickled cabbage, but is fermented, it's seriously healthy too.

Indeed, there is a long history of the liquor from sauerkraut being consumed as a health drink.

There are inevitably questions over whether mass production methods reduce any of these health benefits - so perhaps sauerkraut should join the list of foods that I intend to try making myself?

Let's have a bit of a harvest festival

Since we’re in the midst of British Food Fortnight, it seemed the perfect opportunity to do some serious British cooking – and also to consider just what 'British food' means in the 21st century.

Since I did roast beef just over a week ago – and what could be more British than that? – a portion of last Friday evening was given over to the question of what to cook this time around.

It was a football Saturday – and an early start – so there could be no sitting up with a coffee in the morning. The list had to be ready in advance for The Other Half to head to Broadway Market.

Jane Grigson’s English Food is, on such occasions, a fascinating read, with dishes from around the country – many of which you’ve never heard of in the first place and a substantial number of which have probably been all but forgotten.

You see the regional ingredients reflected in recipe after recipe – lamb in Cumbria, for instance, where sheep graze the hills from the rolling Lake District to the bleakness of the utterly inappropriately named Eden Valley.

British Food Fortnight was started, 10 years ago, by two vicars, who wanted to revive the tradition of the harvest festival. I've always relished the ripeness of the season, its fecundity, its sensuality and voluptuousness – and it was one of the parts of the religious year that most appealed too when I was growing up.

The fortnight itself, though, has changed since those early days and come to represent something more, but very much with a sense of the celebration of what we produce on these islands.

It was no surprise, though, to see food writer Matthew Fort tweet that supermarkets weren't supporting it or to read, in a column by Oliver Thring, that a Morrison's, sitting right next door to the orchards of Kent, is selling Chinese apples – although one suspects that even if they’d been selling apples from the garden of England, the fruit would probably have been halfway around the UK and back, such is the crackpottery of the centralised supermarket distribution system.

Living in urban areas, it’s all too easy to forget just what an agricultural heritage we have. The journey north by train is always an enjoyable reminder.

The sky above was as pale blue as my shirt on a beautiful morning. At times, the scenery could have been an almost chocolate box vision of England in the early autumn. Sheep and cattle rested in fields. Green hills rolled gently and an increasing number of the trees were wearing the signs of seasonal change.

Narrow boats dotted the landscape as the canals wound their way between the industrial conurbations, with ribbons of smoke drifting upward from slender chimneys.

There were signs of ploughing: bare soil marked with the patterns of agricultural machinery; stubble elsewhere, spiky in the morning light, like an unshaved chin. The occasional small, square church squatted amid neatly arranged gravestones.

Not that this is the only England visible from the train: there’s the manicured golf course that sits incongruously alongside a vast, belching power station, and cloned, modern rabbit-hutch homes within sight of the tracks too. Depending on the route, there is industrial dereliction: buildings with jagged, broken windows like screaming mouths, as forgotten as the productivity they once housed.

Slag heaps are slowly returning to nature. And at Watford, the journey passes by one of England’s new cathedrals, a vast shopping mall in which to worship the buying of things (except food, usually).

So what about the food?

Well, however many of the dishes from Mrs Grigson’s book might have gone out of fashion, one of the staples of British food remains abidingly popular – the banger.

Not, of course, that a love of sausages is limited to these shores. But unlike our Germanic cousins, for instance, we have managed to reduce the banger to a shadow of what it can be.

Things have improved a little since reluctant producers were dragged kicking and screaming into revealing on packets just what percentage of proper meat was in a sausage – as opposed to the delightfully euphemistic ‘meat derivatives’, which now have to be labeled as such.

But that’s not solved the whole problem.

Industrially made sausages are difficult to brown properly because the sheer scale of the production process means that the machines that make them have to be constantly cooled by water, which finds its way into the finished product along with the listed ingredients.

And that’s another big question – what’s in your mass-produced sausage?

Checking Ocado’s website, even the ingredients list for Daylesford’s ‘organic pork chipolatas’, we find: “Antioxidant: Ascorbic Acid, Citric Acid”, plus sugar and sunflower oil.

Then there’s the matter of the right balance of quality meat to fat: yes, you need proper fat and no, sunflower oil does not count.

So there’s more than one reason for buying the best butcher's sausages you can find.

Sausages can be magnificent – but all too often we seem to forget this and treat them as ‘fast food’ in the worst sense of the word; as not being seriously good food that’s worth investing a little time and care in.

So when you’re ready to cook, don’t prick them – you’ll actually lose all those valuable juices that keep the sausage moist.

Heat some fat – lard is brilliant, dripping would be perfect for beef sausages – in a heavy pan and then cook on gently on a low heat, checking frequently. This helps to prevent the skins bursting.

It can easily take 30 minutes, so don’t expect to rush.

There were pork and leek sausages in the fridge when I got back from the football – and I cooked them as described, in the Le Crueset casserole, with a sliced red onion.

On the side – simple boiled spuds and carrot, with good butter. Nothing complicated – but it really doesn’t have to be.

I did, though, have a bit of a revelation the other week, realising that potatoes bought from the organic stall on Broadway Market actually had a different, discernible taste. So too did some new potatoes from the not-quite-organic stall that I’d tried a few days before.

It’s a surprise, because – like so many other people, I suspect – I’ve accepted, over many years, a sense of potato being potato being potato and, generally speaking, just padding. Well, with the exception of Jersey Royals. But I’d certainly never been so conscious of a particular flavour in a maincrop spud.

So the next time I’m on the market, I’ll have to check just what they are.

And in the meantime, I'll contemplate further how to celebrate the joys of the British harvest season.