British establishments are gaining ever more culinary awards from Good Food Guides and travel writers. Once dismissed as gastronomic desert, Britain is clocking up Michelin stars and culinary gongs for cuisine from the far north, (Three Chimneys Restaurant with Rooms on the remote Scottish island of Skye) to the south western reaches of Cornwall, (Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant with Rooms at the fishing village of Padstow).
Now a London restaurant is making a name for itself with dishes that would seem to be inspired more by a medieval "cokeboke" for My Lord's banquet in the Great Hall than by the writings of Escoffier or other icons of French cuisine. Chef Fergus Henderson of the new cult St. John Restaurant in central London's Smithfield is tickling the palates of its fashionable clientele with Rookery Pie and braised breast of Squirrel served with wood fungi and wild garlic leaves.
The broadsheet Times reports that the restaurant's supply of 40 per week acquired from rural culls is barely enough to satisfy the growing taste for such an esoteric dish and with the onset of Spring the squirrel culling season is drawing to a close. The squirrel in the pan is not the endangered red squirrel but the grey animal introduced into Britain from America in a fit of ecological aberration by Victorian landed gentry over a century ago. It now numbers nearly 3 million in the wild. It has ousted the smaller and less aggressive native red squirrel from all but the remotest woodland habitats and gained itself a pest classification. But many people balk at eating what they consider a picturesque honorary pet. The grey squirrel colonies in St. James's Park and Kensington Gardens are now tame enough to hand feed and have little need or inclination to forage for their own food. My Lady and I found their antics a pleasant diversion as we paused by the lake in St. James's Park on our way to Buckingham Palace from Horse Guards Parade.
Grey squirrel, which I understand is, or once was, popular served as a fricassee, jambalaya or burgoo in its country of origin, is likened to tender wild rabbit by Chef Henderson. He reportedly braises it in red wine and serves it with Boletus edulis, the delectable fleshy brown capped mushroom commercially gathered in the pine woods and forests of Europe and rushed to market while fresh, or bottled, canned or dried.
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