Suffolk Sound Radio Food Show 2/10/24

I have a 2 hour radio slot on Suffolk Sound with Karen Cannard where I talk about food, cookbooks, local producers, chefs and food personalities, and food culture. Here's everything we discussed.

It’s October, the season of mists, mellow fruitfulness, and tendonitis from hacking away at pumpkins and squashes so when I saw Delicious Magazine’s Emily Gussin had published a small chonk of a book titled ‘Don’t Waste Your Pumpkin: Innovative recipes and projects, from stalk to base’, I knew what our topic of the month should be. Cue two hours of book reviews, recipes, and discussions around food waste (16 MILLION pumpkins go to waste each year in the UK!), Charlie Brown’s pumpkin Halloween special, the relentless onslaught of everything pumpkin spiced, and where to drink a local pumpkin spice latte flavoured with handmade syrup.

The catchup link (which is available until Weds 9th October ‘24). Starts around 11.56 minutes in. Warning: BBCR4 Food Programme levels of seriousness are very much absent; Suffolk Sound is a commercial station. Also, apologies for the ummmmms. I’m still learning!

Here goes:

Photo by Karen Cannard

Don't Waste Your Pumpkin: Innovative recipes and projects, from stalk to base by Emily Gussin has been published by Murdoch Books. I have added it to my Bookshop.org store and will earn a small commission should you order from them.

This is only a clip, the full film is available via Daily Motion or Apple TV+, but you must watch the Peanuts Halloween special. It’s one long psychodramatic scream (kinda like Giles Coren’s columns) dressed up as a kid’s cartoon. Perfect for this time of year.

My food column has a recipe for squash gnocchi with an orange, garlic and butter sauce and the backstory is something of a personal psychodrama too. If you don’t want to make the gnocchi by hand, I’ve learned Waitrose (and other stores) sell a ready-made pumpkin version. It’ll more than do.

I also created a recipe for a cornmeal and buttermilk galette with squash, hazelnuts, winter vegetables, and Comté, and a two-squash posole.

There wasn’t time to talk about the differences (or not) between squash and pumpkin so here’s a brief guide.

Squashes originate from the Americas but pumpkin pie was not served at the first Thanksgiving.

Nigella’s pumpkin and goat’s cheese lasagne is perfect as is Nigel Slater’s pumpkin with butter beans, thyme and roast quince with honey. A Thousand Feasts, Nigel’s new book has just been published and it could not look more seasonal. My copy arrived two days ago and I have read nothing else since.

Sod it, I am going to mention the C word. Andi Oliver’s recipe for slow-roast carrot and pumpkin, golden butter coconut chickpeas and parsnip crisps published in the Guardian as part of a Christmas feature sounds gorgeous. The Pepperpot Diaries, her first book (which should have won awards), has lots of recipes using squash: caramelised onion and pumpkin porridge, fish tea (actually a broth), the 3rd day of a 4-way soup, a pelau made with pumpkin, plantain and pumpkin coconut soup, and a red pea soup.

Two from Delicious Magazine: an air fryer pumpkin recipe with creamy beans, crispy chickpeas and sage, and some dear little pumpkin fondues.

Roopa Gulati is one of the best recipe developers and cooks ever and her recipe for pumpkin biryani is in BBC Good Food Magazine. Her book, India: The World Vegetarian, has a recipe for pumpkin and sweet potato vindaloo that I’ve made many times.

I mentioned Lily Ramirez-Foran's book TACOS published by Blasta Books which has a recipe for roasted butternut squash with ancho chilli crust tacos. Edison Fuentes Diaz has a recipe for habanero and pumpkin seed salsa macha, made with oil, dried chillies and nuts in his cookbook Ciudad de Mexico.

Drink a pumpkin spice latte at The Bay Tree Cafe in Bury St Eds or try their pumpkin spice cupcakes. Chef Alex Rotherham roasts pumpkin puree and makes pumpkin spice syrups by hand.

Other ways to use pumpkin:

• Grind toasted pumpkin seeds into a paste and whisk it into soup to thicken.

• Roast chunks with grated nutmeg to toss into pasta with slices of crisp bacon.

• Squashes are very good with Taleggio, parmesan, blue or goat cheese.

• The roasted flesh makes great cheesecakes because of its smooth texture. Junior’s is the ur-version.

• Blend into a hummus adding chickpeas, tahini, lemon and paprika. It's also good with orange.