of Devon­shire flo­ra, food and fauna

Well, believe me when I say it is very tricky to lim­it myself to just these pho­tographs for my first Devon hol­i­day post. Every moment seemed wor­thy of an image. Can you imag­ine see­ing this lit­tle otter fel­low, and all his mer­ry mates, in per­son? And the view from our cot­tage door, onto the epony­mous Pond of Pond Cot­tage… a tiny view into our evening sit­ting room, the Dairy perched high… but I’m get­ting ahead of myself.

My moth­er in law asks me to clar­i­fy from my last post that our cot­tage did indeed have elec­tric­i­ty! It was only my over­dra­mat­ic sense of occa­sion that made me insist on one din­ner at the pic­nic table, and you would have laughed to see us hold­ing can­dles over our plates and try­ing to iden­ti­fy bites of our sup­pers. “Hang on one minute, is this pork, or rice? This is DEF­I­NITE­LY a green bean…” My fam­i­ly was admirably tol­er­ant of me! But there was also a quar­ter moon to light our way, with prop­er near­ly-Hal­loween clouds skid­ding across it, and enor­mous rustling red-leafed trees to block its light.

Pork Medal­lions with Sage, Mush­rooms and Creme Fraiche
(serves 4)

1 1/2 lbs pork fil­let, trimmed of all mem­branes and fat, sliced into 12 medallions
2 tbsps butter
16 sage leaves
4 cloves gar­lic, minced
1 shal­lot or 1/2 white onion, minced
12 medi­um mush­rooms of your choos­ing, sliced thick
2 tbsps Marsala wine, or Cal­va­dos or brandy
1 cup creme fraiche (half-fat works fine)
sea salt and black pep­per to taste

Melt but­ter in large skil­let until brown and drop in sage leaves in a sin­gle lay­er. Cook until crisp and set aside. Bring up heat to high and place pork in skil­let, again in a sin­gle lay­er. Brown on first side, then turn and brown on sec­ond side. The meat should still be quite raw on the inside. Remove to a plat­ter and keep warm.

Add gar­lic, shal­lot or onion and mush­rooms to skil­let and saute until mush­rooms give off juice. Pour in wine or Cal­va­dos or brandy and sim­mer high for a minute or so. Whisk in creme fraiche and low­er heat to a very low light. Stir until beau­ti­ful­ly creamy, then low­er pork medal­lions into sauce in a sin­gle lay­er. Cook for about five min­utes, spoon­ing sauce over pork quite con­tin­u­ous­ly. When the pork feels firm to the touch, it’s done. Sea­son and you’re ready.

Serve over steamed rice and crush the sage leaves over top. Sim­ply LUSCIOUS.

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I can­not con­vey in writ­ing the intense­ly cel­e­bra­to­ry aro­ma of this dish. It’s quite defin­i­tive­ly autum­nal, with the faint­ly alco­holic sug­ges­tions and woodsy sage and lux­u­ri­ous cream. You will make this often, I’m quite sure, and I’ve had great suc­cess sub­sti­tut­ing veal escalopes and chick­en breasts for the pork.

Pork is one of the sub­jects on which I am unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly evan­gel­i­cal. It is emphat­i­cal­ly NOT meant to be “the oth­er white meat” as our Amer­i­can lead­ers of indus­try would have you believe. A pig should not give white meat, any more than a baby cow should. Pork and veal should be rosy pink, reflect­ing the ani­mals’ hap­py, live­ly life in the out of doors, not a sad, crowd­ed exis­tence in a ster­ile pen. So when you see pork in Amer­i­ca that’s pale and devoid of any char­ac­ter, don’t buy it. Buy chick­en fil­lets if you want some­thing white and fat-free, but save your pork calo­ries for the real thing, pink and juicy.

With this I served my new favorite side dish, about which I’m thrilled because now I like green beans, and it is total­ly sim­ple! It is a sad fact of my taste buds that I can be fed almost any­thing as long as it’s tossed in but­ter and garlic.

Gar­licky Green Beans
(serves 4)

1/2 pound fine green beans, ends trimmed
2 tbsps butter
3 cloves gar­lic, minced
1 tbsp olive oil
sea salt and black pep­per to taste

Bring water in a saucepan to the boil and plunge green beans into it. Boil high for about five min­utes or until a bean is cooked to your lik­ing. I like them still with a bite, but not hard. A good guide­line for that lev­el of cooked­ness is that the water smells like green beans! Drain the beans and set aside in a bowl, cov­ered with anoth­er bowl, to keep the beans warmish.

Melt the but­ter in the same saucepan to save wash­ing up, and add the gar­lic. Cook very low until gar­lic is soft and then add the olive oil and salt and pep­per to taste. Keep the but­ter mix­ture warm until you’re ready to serve, then driz­zle over the beans and toss well. When serv­ing, be sure to bring up the love­ly melt­ed gar­licky but­ter with a spoon.

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So this is what fed us one gor­geous evening at our house, which had the ambi­ence of a dolls house, every­thing just bare­ly large enough for John to fit (although he had to duck in the door­ways). The front step seemed to be cry­ing out for our Wellies to rest upon its stones, although Avery was com­plete­ly grossed out by a lit­tle pal who had made his way into her boot, lying on its side overnight: a giant slug!

The pond held a fam­i­ly of mal­lard ducks who appeared each morn­ing and evening but flew off squawk­ing furi­ous­ly if we tried to feed them bread crusts. High above the prop­er­ty perched a sim­ple per­fect, tiny cylin­dri­cal build­ing called The Dairy, which came with a key so we could explore. Under its pre­cise thatched roof we ducked inside, to find a room fur­nished with local Devon mar­ble in huge vats and trays lin­ing the walls, com­plete with a sys­tem of drainage into lead pans below. In the cen­ter was a mas­sive sort of font of more mar­ble, and we tried hard to imag­ine what the pur­pose was, exact­ly, of all these imple­ments. The win­dows above the work sur­faces were stained-glass and the walls made of tiles dec­o­rate with tiny green ivy leaves. I can’t describe the time­less seren­i­ty of this room, which in fact held sway over the entire property.

Above the dairy (very high into the land­scape by now, as you can imag­ine!) was a series of planned walks, through a ver­dant coun­try­side made up of an enchant­i­ng com­bi­na­tion of uncon­trolled foliage and metic­u­lous prun­ing. We had read in the his­to­ry of the prop­er­ty that since its incep­tion in 1810 (as a coun­try retreat for the Duchess of Bed­ford!) it had fall­en into the hands of a fish­ing syn­di­cate (brown trout), and even lat­er than that, been aban­doned entire­ly to be dis­cov­ered by the Land­mark Trust in 1985. Com­plete­ly under foliage! The LT crew dis­cov­ered, if you can imag­ine, entire BUILD­INGS under ivy and oth­er climb­ing plants. Beyond the mas­sive actu­al struc­tures, they uncov­ered miles of pre­cise stone paths, bench­es and bridges, and even two caves, com­plete with sta­lac­tites. Magical.

Just off the gar­den path is the mag­nif­i­cent Hotel End­sleigh, orig­i­nal­ly the manor house that presided over our lit­tle cot­tage for the Duchess. Tea there is not to be missed: sand­wich­es of local ham and grainy mus­tard, rich egg may­on­naise, a Vic­to­ria Sponge cake that Avery rolled her eyes over in delight, dense brown­ies, fresh scones and clot­ted cream. The hotel was packed, as far as we could see, with the car park full of fan­cy cars (our lit­tle Min­now was quite eclipsed in size and stature!). But it was sep­a­rat­ed from our prop­er­ty quite com­plete­ly, adding only a cozy atmos­phere of lux­u­ry, smok­ing chim­neys and ele­gant burn­ing tapers in the evening, when we passed by from our walks on the way home, along the rush­ing Riv­er Tamar, which sep­a­rates Devon from Corn­wall. So fun­ny: on one of our dri­ves, we came to a sign, “Wel­come to Corn­wall.” “Oh, goody, now I can start read­ing ‘Rebec­ca,’ ” Avery rejoiced, pick­ing it up from the car seat. “We’re back in Devon,” we said a few min­utes lat­er. “Good­bye, ‘Rebec­ca,’ ” she said.

Evenings of aro­mat­ic log fires, chats with my two favorite peo­ple, card games, hilar­i­ous attempts at a Sher­lock Holmes game acquired at a local flea mar­ket! All with a back­ground of soup sim­mer­ing (not a bone or scrap escapes my indus­try, and we wal­lowed in creamy red pep­per soup, mush­room soup with fresh thyme, and the clear­est, sim­plest chick­en broth with plen­ty of car­rots and cel­ery). And hours of time to read. Avery plowed through all her books, all my books, all the books that came with the house, reach­ing a grand total of over thir­ty by mid­week. “There has to be a book­shop near­by!” she wailed, and this we found in dar­ling near­by Tavi­s­tock (don’t tell Avery, but there’s a stat­ue of… Sir Fran­cis Drake there).

The Book­stop has some­thing for every­one includ­ing a mas­sive chil­dren’s sec­tion and a cafe. Tavi­s­tock is graced as well by a per­fect Dick­en­sian del­i­catessen and all-round good­ies shop called N.H Cre­ber, Qual­i­ty Gro­cer. I loved it any­way, but some­one with a sweet tooth would go quite mad among the bis­cuits, cakes, choco­lates and jams. And Scotch­es, don’t even get me start­ed! Many I had nev­er heard of and cer­tain­ly could not afford. But I could afford some of their duck liv­er pate, and Avery suc­cumbed to choco­late-stud­ded short­bread. A glo­ri­ous place, as you see! I also made a for­ay into Palmer’s butch­er shop where I acquired sim­ply the most fla­vor­some smoked streaky bacon I have EVER eat­en. One slice will sat­is­fy any­one, with a fried egg on the side. On a sand­wich with Fred­er­ick­son toma­toes, I can only imag­ine. And here I pro­cured a love­ly cheese called Cor­nish Yarg, now Avery’s hands-down favorite. “Describe it for me, what you like about it,” I inquired, and after some thought, she said, “It’s an unas­sum­ing lit­tle cheese, it’s just there to be enjoyed.” Creamy and simple.

And to give you a brief idea of the wildlife to be enjoyed, let me point you to the Tamar Otter and Wildlife Cen­tre (in Corn­wall!). I have rarely seen Avery so hap­py. “I want Anna, I want Anna!” she kept cry­ing, miss­ing her best friend who is obsessed with all things ani­mal. These endan­gered lit­tle crea­tures were every­where at the Sanc­tu­ary, and we arrived at feed­ing time, to see them leap for bits of fish thrown to them by the impas­sioned and delight­ful own­er. “I know they look cute, and fur­ry,” he warned, “but these lit­tle guys will take off a thumb from you before you can turn around. I’ve seen them take down a heron in 15 min­utes.” Love­ly thought. He assured us we could see this fas­ci­nat­ing spec­ta­cle of the food chain in a Youtube video, but so far I have resist­ed the call.

I must love you and leave you with this mas­sive post, a paean to Devon and Corn­wall. Soon I shall tell you about the wild ponies we encoun­tered in Dart­moor and regale you with some sto­ries of cas­tles and state­ly homes near­by. Prob­a­bly the peo­ple you trav­el with will not be as full-up with Sir Fran­cis Drake as our child is (the musi­cal is only three weeks away), and so your vis­it to his home will be more peace­ful than ours, which includ­ed a run­ning com­men­tary on every­thing the dis­plays got wrong. Till then, if you sim­ply can’t live with­out more pho­tographs, try this. And make that pork dish: you won’t be sorry!