Giles Wood in praise of eating al fresco amongst the birdsong in his Wiltshire plot
Each year, 30th June is the date I traditionally harvest my first early new potatoes. This year, I chose the Anya variety, which I learned was named after the late John Sainsbury’s wife. Purists say the potatoes need to be eaten directly with the first broad beans. Honestly? The market-town lifestyle is hard work. I thought they would have slightly more flavour, but they were OK, and a lot easier to prepare than the wretched vegetable one-upmanship favourite – the knobbly pink fir apple. From fork to fork, as Monty Don would put it. But I think the myth that organic vegetables have to be eaten in a relay race, fresh from the soil, to preserve the so-called secondary metabolites, is a myth. I now believe that everything in the universe should have a modicum of time to settle itself. Hurry is the curse of modern life in general and...
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