91Èȱ¬

The plate is empty, there is no dish. Where Bury has its black pudding and York its ham, Cambridge has no morsel to call its own. Despite a fearsome reputation for academic brilliance, the awesome beauty of the architecture and the rapidly growing commercial success of the city, Cambridge’s lack of a signature dish has been a source of confusion and consternation to me for some time.

Ìý

And it appears I am not alone. As a result I was commissioned by 91Èȱ¬ Radio 4 to rectify this gross oversight and construct a dish with a heritage and a history from the outset, one that had links both actual and tenuous to the city and might have a chance of becoming a legacy in itself: a challenge indeed. But not an impossibility. The national staple of fish and chips is barely a century and a half old and the ancient Japanese cuisine of sushi was invented at around the same time. The hamburger dates to 1904 and the mighty tikka masala took just 40 years from invention to become the national dish of Great Britain. The lesson is that traditions can be established very quickly indeed. All I had to do was create one.

Ìý

Ingredients and themes formed the bulk of my thought process – the first part simpler than the second given that I spend most of my waking hours (and some of my sleeping ones too) thinking about food. The challenge came when asked to encompass notions of the city itself, and what it means to those who inhabit it, into the dish. The river, bridges, corn, conservatism, eccentricity, acceptance, liberality, multi-culturalism, pride, tradition, forward-thinking, town and gown (or town versus gown) – these ideas and concepts had to inspire the dish as much as the ingredients themselves which is where the real challenge lay.

Ìý

Many of these ideas seemed to have duality at their core and it seemed logical to create a dish of two parts that could compliment each other. Working with the idea of tradition and openness I hit upon the idea of using a platform that most people would already be familiar and comfortable with and settled on putting together a soup and a sandwich – two items with near infinite variability but comforting enough to be immediately accessible.

Ìý

From there it was a short step to deciding what to put in each of them to give the dish a real sense of place and resonance with Cambridge. Here I was led by ingredients and a desire to create something that should take time. I wanted it to be unhurried, a dish that reached its end point only when it was truly ready to represent the leisurely and relaxed pace the city seems to move at. From within 10 miles of the city I managed to source beef brisket, celery, smoked eel, root vegetables, watercress and bread flour all of which came together in what I am proud to present as Celery, Watercress & Smoked eel Soup & The Cambridge Club Sandwich (suggestions for more succinct names are welcome). I officially have a legacy.

Cambridgeshire celery has recently been granted PGI from the European Union, it is a truly local and delicious ingredient. The watercress is my nod to the presence of the river that runs through the city and eels have been caught in the fens for over three thousand years. The pickled celery adds a pleasing acidity. It is a soup that Cambridge should be proud of.ÌýÌý

Ìý

One bunch of celery, roughly chopped plus one stick reserved for pickling

One white onion, peeled and diced

50g butter

Two litres vegetable stock, fresh or from a stock cube

Sea salt

Two bunches watercress, washed and roughly chopped

150ml white wine vinegar

50g caster sugar

50ml water

100g smoked eel (optional)

Ìý

Begin by pickling the celery. Combine the vinegar, sugar and salt and finely dice a single stick of celery. Add this to the pickling liquid and leave for at least an hour. Melt the butter over a gentle heat in a saucepan large enough to accommodate the rest of the ingredients. Add the celery and onion, season with a couple of pinches of salt and soften for 15 minutes. Stir regularly and do not allow the vegetables to colour or caramelise. Add the vegetable stock, bring to a gentle boil and simmer for 10 minutes or until the vegetables are cooked through. Add the watercress, cook briefly for another two minutes then transfer to a blender. Blend until smooth and then pass through a fine meshed sieve to refine the texture. Pour into bowls, garnish with the smoked eel and pickled celery and eat immediately whilst thinking of Cambridge.