LEEKS

This is a year-round vegetable, although supplies peak in the autumn and the spring. Botanically, they're related to both onions and to garlic, but the taste is gentler, more subtle. It's very tolerant of frost, and is a pleasant trouble-free home grower.

In choosing leeks, don't be deceived by the larger specimens. These are much more likely to be tough -- the best leeks are the small ones. The tops of the leaves should be green: reject anything where there's yellowing here. And remember that in preparing them for the kitchen you'll trim away almost half of the plant, so buy generously. You can keep fresh leeks for a week in the fridge, and it's recommended that you wrap them loosely in plastic to stop them drying out.

For such a staple vegetable, cooking them is surprisingly critical: undercooked, they're tough and chewy, overdone they're soft and squashy. Test them while cooking by pricking the base with a skewer or sharp knife. You can boil, steam or braise them.

The leek is one of the older and more widespread of vegetables. They've been cultivated for at least 5000 years and there are Egyptian tomb paintings to verify this claim. They're natives of a wide swathe of the world, from the Middle East to China -- although easy to cultivate as they are in Europe, they don't belong here. They came to Britain via Phoenician tin traders, and entered these islands through Wales. The history and the trivia are possibly even more interesting than the biology. The Romans prized them highly, and the emperor Nero ate so many in the belief that it would preserve the clarity of his voice (Welsh connection again?) that he was nicknamed 'porrophagus' or 'leek eater'.

The traditional connection with Wales is of course preserved as a national emblem, a tradition that dates back to 640 AD, when King Cadwallader was being pressed by marauding Saxons, who inconsiderately were not easily distinguished from the native Welshmen; the Welsh wore leeks in their hats as a simple identification. The battle was a famous victory for the Welsh, who -- legend has it -- attributed this to the power of the leek!

It is a renowned source of soup -- cock a'leekie and vichyssoise to name but two. The latter is so evidently a French concoction that it comes as something of a surprise that it was invented around 100 years ago in New York, at the Ritz Carlton Hotel.

 

 

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