Sunday 13th August 2023 - a Sunday 'Flunch'.
'Floffal x Veraison Wines - Floss is returning to the kitchen to cook round two of her carefully curated supper club centred around 'life's edible offcuts'. We've had a sneak preview and we're still reeling over the flavour and texture combinations this vivacious little genius creates. Part celebration of offal and part celebration of the woman herself, whose birthday it will be. Wines paired by us.'
'And this time, it's personal'.
It certainly was.
Following the inaugural Floffal x Veraison Wines feast back in June, it was pretty much within 24hrs that we were discussing the next event, and settled the date for 2 months to the day (slightly biased on my part, given it was my birthday on the 14th). Without sounding too self-indulgent, I suppose I had felt I wanted to (re)establish myself and Floffal in a timely yet still singular and distinctive way. Composing 5 more new dishes seemed at first a little foreboding, but then the 'birthday' bit came into play, and I realised I really ought to feel emboldened enough to put forward dishes that I, precisely, would choose to eat, with or without an audience. That sense of creative identity, in any discipline, is important to nurture. It also requires something which I continue to place as a pillar within the Floffal approach - humility.
I don't underestimate the certain amount of privilege that comes with being entirely in control of what and how to present one's work to others. There's something so raw (and also feels a bit naughty) when everything is so entirely down to you and what you want and choose. It is also terrifying. A sense that, while not escaping completely, I hadn't so readily felt the first time. By the 48hr countdown mark to this one, however, I was stunned by this upfront anxiety bustling through my mind. As soon as it starts, though - as soon as you or someone with you looks up and recognises 'it's happening' - there's only one thing to do. Do it. And I'm so very glad we did.
The nature of what I do - the character and embodying of 'Floffal' - constitutes a true aspect of exposure and vulnerability. In talking about the humbling and humanising aspect of this ethos, I am placing myself in situations and environments that are new to me, while simultaneously trying to provide novel and renewing ideas and experiences for others. This really is a fundamental impetus behind the making and deliverance of my food and projects altogether.
An overview, here, of the menu and wine pairings proper, some which is evolved directly from past-documented dishes whose progress, I very much hope, can be appreciated...
'The Broot':
Paired with Crocizia - Besiosa 2022 (Pinot Noir)
This is the latest embodiment of my ongoing experimentation with the uniquely delicate material that is brains. As I've discussed before - this really is often the deciding and dividing factor for people when it comes to eating offal and eating meat all together. We're so incredibly self-possessive and self-conscious in and of our own brain(s), that to consider any other living thing's, let alone eating them in the same facet as we would another 'unconscious' body part, is simply incomprehensible. I am personally very conscious of this, and while I am always making an effort to seek out and re-fresh myself with people's particularly more reserved perspectives, it also genuinely spurs me on to develop a means of shifting or expanding them.
On this occasion, though, I wanted to introduce myself with some certain gusto. A 'let's get straight to the point' sort of energy. A 'This time, it's personal' kind of come-back. It felt necessary, given there's never going to be another real 'introduction' or 'inaugural' event. Therefore, starting as one means to go on - with a loving but unapologetic approach - deserves something upfront and outright - brains in a bun. A little morsel of me, perhaps...
The birth of 'The Broot' came out of an interpretation of the traditional cream tea - a crumbly scone base with a smooth and creamy element balanced with a fruity textural one. There's more to this and its origins in the 'Floffal At Home' piece on the website. Here, I wanted to elevate and refine it for a wider audience and in a very deliberate response to the feedback I garnered from that first dinner. The main feedback point being, invigoratingly, more brains. It's been quite the little odyssey over the past few months breaking down and sawing in half the numerous pigs' heads that have arrived at the butchers, making sure I store and freeze them methodically in good time. To then be able to bring this all together, from an admittedly rather severe and brutal act into a small and characterfully dainty choux bun, creates a beautiful narrative bite. I think every creative wants to feel they can produce an end product that embodies the same journey, and I felt this one did succeed in that, as did the mouths and minds who told me how much they enjoyed it.
The wine pairing on this was an equally familiar-but-funked-up one; an orange sparkling, which we enjoyed describing with pronounced accents, as 'pithy'. Orange, beetroot and fennel are successful bedfellows already, and this had both ruggedness in the subtle sparkling and yet elegance of golden-amber tones. It harmonised perfectly I think with the character of the dish itself.
Whole Roasted Salmon Head, Bloody Mary Sauce.
Paired with Stefan Vetter - Sylvaner Steinterrassen Sandstein 2019 (Sylvaner)
Just a little precursor: I'd wanted to re-enlist the lovely Andrew of Andrew's Smokehouse whose 'Troffal' I'd used for the first supper club, this time using the trout livers to make either a paté or a pan-fried liver per-person with a Bloody Mary inspired accompaniment (a nod to one of my personal birthday traditions of necking one at breakfast all to myself). Early on enough, however, we both realised there wasn't time or capacity to source enough livers, given Andrew keeps his schedule and scope of work in check. To be honest, I panicked a bit, and came up with a bit of a damp squib of a dish (quite literally) in the form of raw cod roe on toast with a bloody mary and a green sauce. Not enough was balanced nor exuding enough flavour. It made it to the tasting with Veraison, but also made it swiftly out into the compost of my own focus for the event. It was a necessary blip, though, because it moved me to return to my initial idea and, comfortingly, a sense of self-belief in that idea being a good one. So, yes, a fish head it was.
I have written before about the unapologetic rawness and sense of occasion that is manifested through the presentation of an entire animal's head at a dining table. In and of itself, it is an organic and authentic piece of nature that (literally) stares at us. This extent of encounter with a life, and simultaneously a death, is in my opinion one of the most significant aspects of cooking and eating altogether. Frankly, it is poetic. That intimacy-with-ingredient, in being face-to-face with life-and-death.
This subject alone is deserving and capable of being explored, and for that very reason I was admittedly concerned about whether to put this dish on the menu at all. A fish head, in comparison to a pig's, is more complex, less conceptually grandiose, and less directly yielding or accessible when it comes to the eating of it. Nevertheless, it is glorious. So rich in flavour, detail, and nutrition, and far too easily forgotten about in my opinion. The bloody mary sauce stayed (well-deserved), and so all that was needed was a squeeze of lemon, seasoning, and a fitting garnish of celery and scavenged watercress. It was well worth the decision to curate it for the 'Flunch', too, when I had the great pleasure of experiencing both Veraison's and my subsequent guests' reaction to it on the plate. Genuine surprise, curiosity, maybe confusion, excitement... or maybe another way of putting it - they all sort of became childlike and completely absorbed in the thing right in front of them. For me, that's 'it'.
One further note ought to be made about the wine pairing, the one which, if I had to pick, I was most enamoured and surprised by. As with the last supper club, we organised a tasting and pairing session with Veraison ahead of the 13th - given this course needed revisions, the second pairing and tasting session was a little more casual but no less purposeful. To drink alone, the Sylvaner Steinterrassen Sandstein (2019) was, in my opinion, really quite challenging. We agreed, though, even that fact alone suited the nature of this particular plate, in concept and in manifestation. Boldly swug after a mouthful of multi-faceted salmon flesh (gills, cheeks, collar, et al.), it delivered an invigorating lift and enlightening contrast to the rich head. The acidity and piquancy paired exquisitely, too, with the natural sweet acid of the tomatoey bloody mary sauce. A real adventure and real delight.
Lambs' Kidneys, Soy & Chilli-Roasted Victoria Plums, Tarragon
Paired with Francesco Guccione - Machado Rosato 2020 (Nerello Mascalese, Perricone, Trebbiano)
This is another 'cousin' dish born out of the July commission - chicken hearts featured there, and while this was potentially the most successful and well-presented piece of that particular puzzle, me and my fastidious insistence that the menu cannot have more than one of each organ meant that the hearts were adapted to kidneys. The echoing shape and size of the plums against the halved kidneys on the plate created a lovely picture, and somehow communicates a sense of how they ought to go together.
This was even further 'Floffal-ed' with deepest thanks to my housemate who, on my behalf and very much embracing the domestic scavenger spirit, brought me an almost unruly quantity of Victoria plums directly from her father's tree in Enfield.
The preparation and 'management' of the kidneys was quite the experience. I bustled into my butchers on Friday morning (the day after the manic Chinatown episode the night before RE pig's blood - read on to the dessert for the fully recounted tale on this...), to accustom myself with no less than 40 kidneys. They arrived encased in the wax-like fat from the loin, not all intact, but the pairs which were resemble some sort of extravagant melting candle sculptures, like something out of a Renaissance painting of a banquet scene.
Possibly one of the most satisfying things in the world of butchery is removing the sinew-y membrane from the outside of a kidney, along with that waxy fat that crumbles and crackles apart as you peel it away from the organ itself. Doing this 40+ times, however, is an quite an endeavour. Then comes a methodical and intricate sessions of halving each kidney and removing the nodules anchored into their middle. The butcher in me always wants to be swift and dexterous enough to do this with a knife, but the reality is that kitchen scissors work far better.
The loin fat that lambs' kidneys are encased in is some of the most exquisite and useful when cooking said meat. I reserved some of this and rendered it down in the pan to cook the kidneys in, which is essentially 'lamb-squared' in terms of flavour. I can never get over how fascinatingly beautiful and endearingly alien a raw kidney is. There's something jewel-like about them, and they're able to take on flavours as well as emit their own distinct one. They're squishy and supple and so rewarding. I could go on...
The plums were a true delight, and delightfully humbling given the effort my housemate went to in gathering and delivering them to me in good time. The sauce really was drawn from instinct, and the very organic nature of the plums meant that each one when baked behaved slightly differently, which is a task and in itself when you're trying to deliver 23 (minimum) equal and acceptably aesthetic plates of food - warm, and at speed. It did however really embrace a Floffal spirit of spontaneous adaptation and revival, and it again all felt rather special and sentimental to me. Victoria plums such as these were are my mother's favourite food - we had a sacred tree in our garden growing up - and she was also the person to introduce me to kidneys. So, for my birthday, it did admittedly touch the nerves to create something from these literally and emotionally raw ingredients.
Lest we forget the wine - floral, pronounced fruit and just enough zip to match and re-ignite the chilli heat in the sauce. Another epic from Guccione whom Veraison have so successfully familiarised me and many others with.
Rotisserie Ox Heart, Cauliflower & Dark Tahini, Roasted Cauliflowers Leaves, Parsley Dressing, Toasted Nuts.
Paired with Tenuta Di Carleone - Chianti Classico 2020 (Sangiovese)
"Four fucking kilos of meat."
Will insisted I note this down in our de-brief, over oysters, the day after the event - my birthday, hence the oysters. I'm not one for self-citing too much, but I suppose this rings true in its own way, and given Will's previous and high-achieving career in publishing prior to wine, I take his advice seriously.
It references, to be clear, the sheer size and quantity of your average ox heart. Prepping three of these whole at half past ten on the night before the event - butterflying, removing all ventricles, aorta, sinew and general gnarly bits, trimming the fat, bashing it out and then stuffing and layering it back as a patchwork 'cap' surrounding the rest of the meat, before rolling and tying up with butcher's twine - is yet one more of the rather surreal circumstances I tend to find myself in with Floffal. It's still fun, though.
Ox Heart is a very dear thing to me, and was certainly the first and fundamental offal item I knew I had to put on my birthday menu. It's a powerful thing to behold and to undertake - there's a sense of real theatre throughout that I also wanted to enact for my guests, and in some way challenge myself I suppose when it came to the cooking of it. Given the 'Sunday Lunch' vein of the theme as well, there was another opportunity to reorient our 'traditional' means and ideas of eating meat into something more offally. I knew from past experience of the 'facilities' at the wine bar - apart from just one single hotplate, the only other permanently installed heating-cooking-thing is the rotisserie oven, used for poussins on Sundays. Thus, arrival at a whole-rotisserie Ox Heart - a beautiful mutant morphed out of your assumed whole roasted beef joint with 'trimmings' that so many people are apparently happy to pay a substantial amount of money for every other weekend in our capital.
As the photos should somewhat demonstrate, the process employs some proper butchery lark - trimming the excess fat that grows forth, almost like a sort of mushroom on a tree trunk - and then finding a suitable 'seam' to butterfly out the entire thing. Aorta and ventricles need pruning back, too, until you're left with individually unique 'open books' of bolshy, beefy and ripe flesh. I then added in some of the fat trimmings, seasoning all over, and some fresh parsley & rosemary stems (including stalks), before folding and rolling as best I could the whole thing back over itself into a happy, bloody bundle. This is then tied with butcher's twine (it's a slippery and rather obscurely shaped customer, I will add), ready to be skewered with an enlivening performance on-site (think Viking reenactment).
I would have liked to be more clinical with my approach as to the actual cooking, but frankly on the day, with everything else to do, it involved what is, really, my favoured approach to cooking - prodding, sniffing, poking, listening, feeling and connecting with past experience and knowledge as to 'when it's done'. One thing to monitor is the caramelisation and rendering down of the of the fat all around the heart. This imparts significant flavour, of course, but also indicates the temperature and an approximate rate of cooking, therefore. With two hearts going at once, it also had the desired theatrical effect of melting fat dripping from one onto the other - a happy and natural coincidental basting, which is what would be required by-hand with just the one heart in play.
The Chianti we paired with this I would describe as, fittingly, beefy. A very oxen sense of purpose and punch, and warmth of a spice - again, something you'd indulge in with your more traditional Sunday roast, I'm sure, but with an added sense of dramatics and intrigued.
A mention for the accompaniments - cauliflower is both seasonal to the time but also offers two elements in one; the 'flower' and the leaves, which deliver both crispyness and supple, clean and green vegetable-ness we all like to see on our Sunday lunch plate. It's a fantastically sustainable item in that sense. The dark tahini was a note of luxury melded into the purée, encouraging a more silken and indulgent texture and to enhance the cauliflower's inherent nuttiness which is so seductive alongside that deep and rich wine, the meat, and against the acidity of the parsley dressing with its fresh herbal and allium notes of the raw shallot. Finally, the toasted mixed nuts give an additional contrast in texture and accent the savoury aspects amongst the milder sweetness of the meat and the verdant punch of the dressing.
'The Bloodie': Blood & Chocolate Cake, Prune & Rum, Elderberry Jus, Crème Fraiche
Paired with a 'Black Velvet': Guinness & Microbio - Nieva York 2022 (Verdejo)
This is another reincarnation from my 'At Home' commission in July which certainly did progress in terms of its texture and concept. I stumbled upon a totally new and separate recipe (yes, there are multiple blood and chocolate cake recipes and eaters around the internet), with notably different quantities but similar method - that most surreal of processes in which the blood is 'whipped into stiff peaks'... This time was no less without its own theatrics, however. I'd left the butchers a-flutter on the Thursday before the event, a blisteringly hot afternoon, whirling around in desperation after discovering my previously trusted Asian supermarket in Peckham had no pig's blood. All I received were blank faces when I asked, afeared, whether they had any idea about when their next delivery would be.
Sweating and stunted, I marched up and down Rye Lane to every other place I thought might stock it. The same bemusement answered me each time I questioned about their stock. By some strike of fate, I'd arranged to meet a friend in Soho later that day, and while I was conscious of making that meeting in good time, it suddenly occurred to me that it might also be the route, or rather en route, to my saving grace - Chinatown. Home, re-dressed and slightly de-stressed, I bundled myself onto the bus and headed into town. The whole experience was feeling like some sort of modern-day-gothic-PG Wodehouse episode. 'Quite remarkable', 'most distressing' - those sort of phrases that are as eloquent as they are ridiculous.
I arrive in Chinatown, with circa 25 minutes to spare before the various supermarkets close (8pm). I was hopping in and out of them like a deranged grasshopper - more of the same bemusements and asking around fellow colleagues trying to understand what exactly I was asking for. On a few occasions hopes were risen then crushed when I was led to a refrigerator, only to be handed blood tofu rather than the fresh stuff. It might have been the inevitable alternative, but there really is no comparison to fresh pig's blood... (another surreal sentence I am very aware to be writing and admitting to be the case).
My last chance, the final destination, entered at 7.52pm. There are various sections categorised by nation rather than food type. I fling myself down the steps into the freezer section, scanning every shelf. 7.57pm, I check, then scan again, moving to the last three freezers. Then, I see it. A little draw, with 4 packets of frozen pig's blood - the same I found and used the last time. I audibly squealed (maybe even a bit like a pig?!) with joy. Immediately messaged multiple contacts on my phone to update them with my achievement (it's the small victories). I grabbed 3 of the 4 packets and rushed to the till, cradling them like ducklings, and re-instilled with confidence and relief that, yes, I have a dessert for Sunday.
In terms of the day and dish itself, by the way, this one was certainly an improved alternative. There was a real fudgyness to it and lightness. I'd been a little sceptical about this new recipe from the time before. I really did wish to give people a taste of the contents, rather than it be hidden but there for the sake of involving offal in a dessert. Luckily, there was a gentle earthy-iron flavour just at the end of every bite, enough to take note but not to overwhelm. There were still at least 3 separate instances of being questioned about the 'actual blood', though. Who knows to what extent people might have been disbelieving, they were all very polite, and they all finished their plates, which did include a decided portion of very determinedly-sourced blood - symbolised playfully by the splatter on the plate. That splatter, too, harkened back to a previous dish and narrative - the elderflower from the last event morphed into elderberries, just in time, to make an glorious and unique syrup to add into the jus, along with prunes and rum (and, yes indeed, a touch of blood to thicken...)
Its pairing was so satisfyingly fitting, too. Black Velvet - something dark and gnarly with a balanced sense of luxury and extravagance. That's blood and chocolate to tummy, and that's Guinness and Pét-Nat to the throat, on this occasion. It rounded off and back to the fun little game of the 'Broot' - hence the 'Bloody' - where those most extreme of animal parts are reimagined in some of the most delicate and decent of forms.
Epilogue.
I keep trying to curtail my emotions in this de-brief, but I will say that it's bound to be a reflective and evaluative time, given the birthday and sense of occasion, and the basic fact that there is something to compare it to, and an expectation to do better. There's also no point in denying how deeply emotional and significant all of this is to me. It's another main point I try to make via my work and food, in that this sort of activity and means of treating our ingredients and the 'life' around us does really improve and touch the heart and mind in kind, exciting and genuinely transformative ways.
I thought I would touch upon a few of the points that immediately stood out to me from the birthday/debrief-over-oysters:
Constant communication. Sharing the process.
This really is owed to the extraordinary women at Veraison Wines who were working on the day of the event, and throughout the journey from concept to execution which includes of course the infamous Will (of Veraison-introduction fame). Following our inaugural collaboration together, we have grown and intertwined as dear friends beyond the realms of the workplace. Their hospitality towards me is infinitely humbling and inspiring. There was the charm of unknown and inaugural effort of the first supper club, which I think helped carry us through the admittedly haphazard service that ensued. Nothing too appalling, but something certainly worth making a note of for improvement and education. This time around, it was simply a look - eyes locked for a second - or a nod between myself and them, to signal that plates were ready, or one table were waiting to be served, or that we were moving on to the next course and things needed clearing. We all learnt from the last time, and we all knew we not only wanted to improve, but wanted really to just enjoy and ease ourselves through the experience together. To be able to share it again with these genuine and incredible humans of hospitality is such a gift and never fails to cause a smile to spread across my face (even as I write this now).
Remember the nature of the challenge; keep command of the concept.
Nature. Challenge. Command. Concept. Really, it's these four words that are of significance and trigger the emotions back again somewhat. I do belief strongly in the power of actively addressing our aversions surrounding eating animals, from the matter-of-fact of death, to our individual disgusts in texture, taste or thought of a specific piece of that animal. These are all very real challenges, both practical and conceptual. I don't use the term 'deliberate ignorance' lightly, but I do see it and feel it now and again, which is frustrating and sad. Our curiosity and capacity to always learn and grow is precious, and something as integral and available as our food (meat or anything else) is such an immediate and rewarding way of sustaining that. This is certainly key for me and behind why I continue to pursue Floffal and my work.
This also harks back to my mention of being terrified that rather shocking sense of fear, and of not really being able to understand what precisely one is afraid of. I have learnt that I grow and prosper out of being challenged: facing my aversions or my scepticism about something and seeing it as a learning process rather than an opportunity to triumph or be proven wrong. I think that is what I'm trying to do with my food and with the 'Floffal approach' as well, so it is of course important and inevitable that I put myself in a similar position to my guests and supporters. To be able to believe in the opportunity gained from being challenged, rather than seeing it as a task in and of itself to 'overcome' (or indeed, to 'fail' at), is also that sense of inherent creativity and curiosity that the work is founded upon - that is the concept to be used to command everything else.
I never aim specifically to designate a 'philosophy' on this, but it somehow seems to always creep into the way I write and my means of explanation when it comes to talking about it. Maybe there is something in that, but for now, as I would wish with my food itself and with my relationships with anyone I encounter through it, I am happy to leave it to exist and deliver its value as organically and independently as possible.
Thank you, again, to everyone who supported and encouraged me throughout this little expedition. To my Head Butcher, Jon, for sourcing all those fucking kilos of meat. To all at Veraison for embracing me and enabling me. To my housemates and co-habitants of Floffal HQ for, essentially, tolerating me. To every individual who wanted to know and learn, and expressed any amount of curiosity - it is what powers my own sense of it and is such a gracing and humbling thing to receive.
Here's to a fuck-tonne more beautiful, enlivening and enriching (in all ways) offal and ingredients to be made and tasted... stay curious and keep looking with me.
Oh, and here below another example and case in point - keep having fun - like pretending you're being eaten by a pig's lower jaw mid-service.
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