Rocket attack…

CHRIS BENNETT has been the happy recipient of a friend’s garden produce.

A FRIEND, whom I shall call Wendy for want of a better name, has a vegetable garden. As Wendy is a former farmer her garden, as you may imagine, is a delight to behold.

It is complete with a scarecrow (although its duties are more that of a scaremonkey) called, I think, Wurzel Gummidge; a good name for a scarecrow, I am sure you will agree.

Among the many herbs and vegetables that seem to thrive in Wendy’s garden, - not, I suspect, that they would dare do otherwise – are a fine example of one of my favourites, rocket.

I noticed that the rocket has taken off this year. I was presented with a large bunch when I visited the house last week, and started nibbling its peppery, lemony leaves in the car on the way home.

Herbs are a thing I have come to rather late in life, one of the reasons being, I suspect, that I had not encountered really fresh herbs until I came to live by the sea eight years ago. Many moons ago, when I lived in a flat in Hillbrow, I used to wander down past the old Landdrost Hotel, to Plintor, probably the best greengrocer I have ever encountered.

Not only were their fruits and vegetables tingling and shining in their freshness, but they were displayed in such a manner that the whole shop had the air of a jeweller’s to it. The aubergines glowed with deeply satisfying, almost midnight hues; fat leeks, clean as babies, snoozed in their beds of tissue. The shop floor was, of course, spotless.

Apples, oranges and strange furry fruits were in rows as straight as the chairs at a grand dinner; herbs were in bunches, looking for all the world like flower arrangements. Some were flower arrangements.

But I digress.

Wendy’s rocket is most certainly to be sniffed at. Like basil, another of my favourites, its scent springs from the leaves when they are lightly rubbed.

It is particularly delicious, in small quantities, mixed with mushrooms in an omelette. The sliced mushrooms should be simmered in a little butter and the rocket shaken into it at the end of the cooking.

I tried to find out a little more about this beautiful greenery, but it seems only to appear in my food books after about 1975. Its botanical name is Eruca vesicaria and it is a member of the cabbage family. We all have our faults.

Not that I have anything against cabbage. I like cabbage, but it has always been the buffoon of the English kitchen.

I was delighted to discover last week that a new book is on the shelves. Compiled by the erudite Jill Norman, the literary executor of Elizabeth David, it is called At Elizabeth David’s Table. It is a fine book and a great tribute to Mrs David’s skills as a writer, and especially as an essayist. It includes some of her pieces composed for The Spectator,

Sunday Times, Vogue and Petits Propos Culinaires.

As with so much of her writing it is the devotion to research, often involving much travel around post-war Europe with a friend (Mrs David never learnt to drive) that lends her work its great charm.

At Elizabeth David’s Table is available now and is, for the right person, a perfect Christmas present.