Vegetable Main Courses

When I first came to live in Skye, which feels like yesterday but is in fact 25 years ago, you couldn’t buy a tomato in a tin, let alone a fresh one, at the Co-op in Broadford which is my local food mecca. In the intervening years I reckon there has been (and is ongoing) a greater revolution in the availability of fresh vegetables than in any other form of foodstuff.

Because we live here, in the most beautiful of all the Hebridean islands, I assume that whatever I can buy locally must be an indication of its accessibility elsewhere in even the most rural areas of Great Britain. There are too many food writers who forget just how many of us don’t live within a stone’s throw of Soho and the wonderful and varied foodstuffs to be found there and in other parts of central London. These days I can buy garlic, aubergines, red, yellow and green peppers (I loathe the green ones), and fresh Brussels sprouts in the winter months – this may not sound remarkable, but not long ago the only sprout you could buy locally was a frozen one.