How to have a quail of a time this Valentine’s Day
Quail with rose petals (and some beetroot for enhanced redness). Photograph: Ann Larie Valentine via Flickr
It is all rather confusing: in the past there were a lot of Valentines about, only some of them linked to 14 February, and none of them having anything to do with romantic love. That came later.
Perhaps the one we have most sympathy with is the Valentine with the big amethyst ring who spared our much put-upon legionary the breathless trudge up Stamford Hill. This saint was martyred for helping soldiers evade the draft by marrying them to local ladies (the Emperor held that marriage rendered them unfit for service). Nothing romantic here.
Another Valentine was rash enough to try to convert the Emperor Claudius to Christianity, who had him imprisoned. While under arrest he miraculously cured Julia, the blind daughter of the jailor, and just before his execution, is alleged to have sent her a farewell note signed ‘from your Valentine’. A likely story.
Other Valentines in history have been Christian martyrs, at least two of them put to rest along the Via Flaminia in Rome. Another one might have been African. But it was not until the 14th century in England that Geoffrey Chaucer brought courtly love and springtime birdsong into the picture.
His long poem the Parliament of Fowls tells of birds getting together on 14 February, St Valentine’s Day, to choose their mates, long before the first signs of Spring, and the tender green leaves and sunshine and red roses of later months. His birds are a raucous lot, except for the sweetly soppy doves, who wed for life, unlike the birds of prey, who shopped around. But here in Hackney there is early birdsong in February, when blackbirds get territorial and robins and wrens squabble in the bushes, and the end of winter seems possible at last.
Bunches of flowers and confectionary and cards were exchanged in the eighteenth century, and credulous antiquaries constructed the ‘invented tradition’ of love tokens and turtle doves and keys,and resurrected Chaucer’s red roses. All of which can be bought by the bucketful in Hackney today.
Making a meal of it
But the convention of offering a nice meal to someone you are fond of is a happy one, and even over-priced and over-rated, it can be an appropriate way of showing affection. Or you can dish up a Valentine’s Day feast at home, at a fraction of the cost.
The chosen menu can be ambitious, lavish, or restrained. The important thing here is to avoid stressful fuss and bother; for a meal of voluptuous candle-lit calm it is best to renounce show-off stuff, just waft onto the table a succession of exquisite morsels, (whatever you went through hours ago getting them together).
Shucking oysters is a horrid task, whatever the aphrodisiac implications. Go instead for local smoked salmon (from Hansen and Lydersen or Foreman and Field) or some early asparagus, lightly grilled and dusted with freshly grated Parmesan, or some carciofi alla Romana (artichoke hearts braised with garlic and mint).
Then bring on the main course: a conjectural version of Laura Esquivel’s Codornices en pétalos de rosas (Quail with rose petals) from her magical realist love story Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Hot Chocolate) in which Tita and Pedro, the doomed lovers, are sustained and stimulated by Tita’s amazing cooking, as their illicit passion permeates the kitchen of her evil old mother’s hacienda. Tita could turn even a cheese sarnie into a potent aphrodisiac. Esquivel’s recipes are evocative rather than explicit, but this version is simple to prepare in advance, the sauce and decoration can be added at the last minute, and the stunning visual effect justifies the expenditure on the half dozen, no let’s make it a dozen, red roses.
Quail with rose petals
2 nice plump quails
butter
2 cloves of garlic
½ teaspoon aniseed
½ teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon ras el hanout*
a small stick of cinnamon
3 cloves
about 10 dried rose buds
rose petal jam to taste**
salt and a few black peppercorns
2 small squares of dark bitter chocolate
dry white wine
rose water
some fresh red rose petals
Pound together the garlic, spices and some rose petal jam with a little salt and black pepper. Rub this into the quail, and put some of the mixture into the cavities. Let the birds absorb the flavours for an hour or so, then fry in butter, add some white wine to the quail in its pan juices, clap on the lid, and simmer until done. Then take the little birds out and keep warm, add the chocolate in very small amounts to the pan and keep on tasting, adding a bit more of the jam if it needs it, but aiming at an aromatic not too sweet effect. Just before serving add the rose water. Dish up the quail on a puddle of the sauce, and decorate the plate with the red rose petals, sprinkling some more rose water around to perfume the air.
A pudding might be some chocolate brownies from one of Hackney’s many artisan bakers, heaped with fresh cream lightly whipped with a little vanilla sugar and some rose water. But there is a lot to be said for a nice old-fashioned sherry trifle; those in my far distant Yorkshire childhood were made with Bird’s Custard and tinned fruit (‘on points’, a great luxury), with sweet sherry from the back of the kitchen cupboard (how did it get there?). Helen Saberi’s book Trifle has some much more appealing recipes.
Puddings are all very well, but the ultimate aphrodisiac might for some be a version of that stonking great amethyst ring worn by the early Valentine. Dream, baby, dream.
*Ras el hanout is a Moroccan spice mixture, mild but complicated, which includes dried rosebuds, and once the brilliant emerald green cantharides beetle, Spanish Fly, a notorious aphrodisiac. This was one of the ingredients that a kind friend used to bring me from her home in Fez. The version you can buy from Seasoned Pioneers is mercifully free of such potentially fatal additions, but wonderfully fragrant.
**Rose petal jam can be found in Turkish stores. It is very sweet, so use with restraint. The white wine helps to mitigate it, or a squeeze of lemon juice would do the trick.