Speck

Last Sunday, that is to say a week ago, we started on the speck. A purchase from the people at reference 1 and noticed at reference 2. A start which took the form of a speck stew. In order of addition to pan: rape seed oil, garlic, onion, black pepper (wood ground), tomato, yellow courgette (grown somewhere near TB, taken with skin), celery and speck. Between two and three hours start to finish. Served with salad (no oil or vinegar) and the finest fusilli from Sainsbury's. Probably the stuff which comes in a black trimmed bag which is called Napolina. Observing in passing that, as with bottled water, there is a huge choice of the stuff - choice which we no doubt like, but which is also rather wasteful. We don't really need all that choice for basic products.

Taken down with some Muga from Waitrose, which I think we have had before, but which I don't seem to have noticed. Went down well enough. And while the stew was OK, I found the juniper flavouring of the speck a bit strong. BH liked it rather more than I did. I would probably have done better using the saucisson sec from Sainsbury's, which also happened to be in the refrigerator, but having bought the speck with great flourish (and expense), it was only right to make a start on the stuff.

And I was pleased to find this morning that Bodegas Muga really does exist, with a glossy web site at reference 3, a web site which features this very bottle. Maybe you can actually buy the stuff if you go there; not a special brew for foreign supermarkets where the customers don't know any better. Just think of all the very strange English beer and Scotch whisky which you get on cross channel ferries.

With the young people in the snap above just possibly being offspring of the working Mugas.

All followed up with some stewed Victoria plums, excellent, and some cheese and biscuits, Jacob's on this occasion and with the cheese being the Caerphilly bought on the same expedition as produced the speck. I think the telephone has rather exaggerated the yellow tinge inside the rind, and in any event, the cheese was fine. Not suitable for my everyday use, morning and evening in the way of my Lincolnshire Poacher, but fine in this context, at the end of a reasonably heavy meal. There might also have been a little Calvados.

The (Gorwydd) Caerphilly did come from Wales, if not from Caerphilly. But I suppose I can't complain about that, with very little of the cheddar I eat coming from Cheddar. In fact I can't remember the last occasion on which it did and I remember the place itself as being a slightly tacky tourist attraction rather than a cheese shop.

Gorwydd Farm being bottom centre in the snap above, on the headwaters of Afon Teifi, which comes out at Cardigan, to the west. Nowhere near Caerphilly in the south eastern corner of Wales, nearly in England.

Probably not like Cheddar Gorge at all, with this last snapped above from Google.

PS: later: indeed not. As far as I can make out, somewhere up the lane off to the left (that is, east) off the B4343. A few hundred yards to the north east of where Ordnance Survey appears to put it. Confused of Epsom.

Reference 1: http://www.exquisitedeli.com/.

Reference 2: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/09/london-town.html.

Reference 3: https://www.bodegasmuga.com/.