Guide to ingredients

In Britain we are actually blessed with some of the finest ingredients in the world, although lots of them don’t always find their way into our normal shopping territory and we may have to go searching for them. Nowadays, hough, there aren’t many ingredients we can’t get our hands on if we try, thanks to farmers’ markets, specialist suppliers and supermarkets becoming increasingly adventurous.

We may take for granted certain indigenous foods that stare us in the face daily. For example, Scotland has an international reputation for some of the finest beef in the world, some of our best wild mushrooms come from the Highlands, and Scottish seafood, like oysters, scallops and langoustines (Dublin Bay prawns), are prized and exported all over the world. Oysters are a part of English history. The Romans loved our Colchester oysters so much they designated the town, Camulodunum as it was then called, the capital of Roman England. Except for oyster enthusiasts who tend to take them for granted, most of us miss out on their pure taste of the sea.