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The Rich Tradition explores how the customs and traditions of peasant life in Europe have influenced the food people eat and the way it is cooked. It is based on Elisabeth Luard's book European Peasant Cookery.
After looking at the fundamentals of peasant cookery and traditions, Elisabeth Luard goes on to describe the cookery and traditions on the Scottish island of Mull in the Inner Hebrides, which was her home for many years.
For a number of years, Elisabeth Luard lived with her young family in Andalucia in Southern Spain.This second episode of "The Rich Tradition" series follows her as she revisited Andalucia, with its traditions of fiestas, dating back in many cases to before the beginning of the Christian Era and its cuisine based on local produce and influenced by the centuries of Moorish rule.
The Ruthines—also spelt Ruthenes—are an ethnic minority originally from the Ukraine who became stranded in north-east Czechoslovakia—in what is now Slovakia—at the time of the break up of the Soviet Union. The Ruthines have succeeded in maintaining their culture, their language and their traditions, with their livelihood dependent on small holdings as sheep farmers and on wood-cutting.
For the whole of human history in Europe, the Mediterranean Sea has been a major source of food for the peoples round its shores. This remains as true today as ever, in spite of the threats of over-fishing and the introduction of alien species. In this episode, Elisabeth Luard visits Mediterranean ports in Italy and France. This episode begins with Elisabeth Luard spending time with the crew of a fishing boat in San Remo, in north Italy near the border with France, and sharing their meal of spaghetti with cuttle-fish, tomato and peas, and fried small fish. She then goes to Murano near Venice, where she visits a restaurant to share the staff meal of fresh sardines and salad before being shown how to make the region's favourite dish of Spaghetti alle vongole. The episode ends with Elisabeth in Marseille learning how to make the iconic Bouillabaisse.
Provence in south-eastern France, where Elizabeth Luard also spent time with her young family is well known for it's local culture and traditions. The region is rightly proud of it's history, traditions, cuisine and wines. This episode begins with Elisabeth Luard shopping in the market in Vaison la Romaine for cheese, vegetables, spit-roasted rabbit and quails, and local saucisson for lunch, and visits a traditional bakery, and an olive oil producer in Nyons. She goes to Arles for the Festival of St George. Finally she learns how to cook shoulder of lamb with épautre (spelt) from an innkeeper friend.
The Netherlands is most famous for its windmills, tulips and Edam and Gouda cheeses, but there is much more to Dutch culture and cuisine as Elisabeth Luard discovers. Elisabeth Luard's trip begins with a visit to a family living in a houseboat to share their traditional Hutspot. She then visits a miller grinding wheat for sale to a baking co-operative, and one of the oldest Genever distilleries in Holland. An interval to sample a Dutch favourite, raw new herring, is followed by a visit to a cheese making co-operative in Gouda and then to a friend to learn how to make spice cake. Finally, having been fitted with clogs, she learns how to make brown beans with soured milk sauce, a dish so traditional that it is the subject of a traditional dance.
Elisabeth Luard travels further north to Sweden, where she finds out about the lives of those living in the forests and on small holdings before finding out about those famous elements of Nordic cuisine, the different ways of using fish and the famous smörgåsbord. Elisabeth Luard spends time with a forester couple, sharing the wild produce of the woods and moors. She then visits a young family who have gone back to the "good life" before turning to the sea, to fishing, to smoking fish, making gravad lax and marinated herrings. A fully loaded smörgåsbord table leads to the 70th birthday celebrations of a friend.
The Slovaks retain their tradition of the senior matrons of the community educating the young girls through singing and play acting.Elisabeth Luard's time among the Slovaks starts with the ceremony, traditions and foods for welcoming a new baby into the community. She spends time watching a traditional puppet show in a basement theatre in town, before going back to the countryside for a village wedding. Elisabeth Luard's time among the Slovaks starts with the ceremony, traditions and foods for welcoming a new baby into the community. She spends time watching a traditional puppet show in a basement theatre in town, before going back to the countryside for a village wedding.
The Black Forest in southern Germany, famous for its gateau and cuckoo clocks, is actually a land of small farmers and foresters. Like traditional rural communities everywhere, nothing is wasted.In this episode, Elisabeth Luard is shown how to make the regional onion tart, apple tart and also spätzle by both the traditional method and a more modern way. As in many communities of small farmers, nothing goes to waste; the farmers have the right to make schnapps, often from fermented apple and pear mash, and after the distillation, the left over mash goes to feed the cows. The Black Forest is also famous for its sausages, hams and other pork products, and Elisabeth visits a 300 year-old family pork business. The winters there are long and snow-bound, so traditional skills like wood-carving and black-smithing are preserved. Of course, Germany is famous for its drinking songs and its beer, so the episode ends with a song, a beer and a chaser of schnapps.
Hungary is associated in people's minds with goulasch, though it is more properly called paprikas. Elisabeth Luard spends time with different ethnic groups, the Magyars—descendents of nomads who still practise their horsemanship—and the Swabians before spending time in Budapest. Elisabeth starts her trip to Hungary spending time with descendants of the Magyar nomads who drove the Romans out of the area and who now farm the land and fish in the Danube, with whom she shares the latters' paprika-spiced Szeged fish soup.
Elisabeth Luard spends time in Friuli among the Friulani, who have preserved their linguistic and cultural identity through centuries of war and invasion as the plateau has provided access to the wealth of the plains of northern Italy to the many forces who have invaded Italy throughout history. The traditional cuisine of Friuli is based on polenta, rather than pasta, and Elisabeth is shown both how it is made in the family kitchen, how a star chef serves up the peasant polenta to his discerning customers, and how it is served at festivities for the whole village. Apart from maize for the polenta and for feeding the cows and chickens, asparagus, that is white asparagus, is a local cash-crop, which, apart from being enjoyed locally with a 'sauce' of boiled egg, is exported over the pass to the markets of Vienna.
Ireland is famous for its potatoes, which still form a staple part of the diet. Thanks to the potato. the population of Ireland multiplied rapidly in the early 19th Century, but then came the blight in the mid-century and millions died of starvation. Of those who survived, millions emigrated to the US, most of them sailing from Cork. Elisabeth's first visit is to the famous "English Market" in Cork buying provisions for a craic in the evening. As a victualling port, the people of Cork made their fortune from salted fish, salted meats and spiced beef, together with butter and eggs preserved in butter, all traditions which are preserved to this day, and can be bought in the "English Market". She then spends time with a man who harvests whelks for export to France, spends time with farmers making butter and cheese. The other important Irish staple is soda bread. After being shown how to make it the traditional way, Elisabeth helps prepare the other dishes for the evening's party.
In this last episode of the broadcast series, Elisabeth follows the traditions and foods marking the end of Lent and the festivities of Easter in the Palóc village of Hollók in Northern Hungary. The Good Friday fasting meal in Hollók a meatless soup made from pinto beans with root vegetables stored through the winter, and sweet noodles with poppy seeds are made from the same dough, and then down on the plains, where the soup is made from fish from the river. Although this episode covers the festival in parts of Hungary, many of the foods, such as sweet breads enriched with egg, fish and ham are common right across Eastern Europe and even into Scandinavia. So to are cultural traditions, like decorating eggs. The episode ends with a brief look back at the places Elisabeth visited during the earlier episodes and a reminder of the highlights.
Previously unaired pilot episode. Elisabeth Luard explores the traditional foods and culture of Tangier in Morocco. The episode starts with the fishing boats returning to harbour and unloading their catch. Elisabeth then joins a fisherman's family to follow the preparation and share their fish tagine. Visits to the market, to the harvesting of olives and seeing how families make their bread and have it baked in the communal oven follow … couscous being made by hand, steamed over a stew of lamb and vegetables forms another family meal. More markets and street food, mint tea … the episode brings out the rich culinary and cultural traditions of Morocco.
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