Home Kill, Sperm Sacs & The Intoxicating Tonka Bean

and the intoxicating tonka bean

We asked some of our leading chefs and food writers to tell us about an eating experience they are looking forward to. Their surprising answers ranged from hakarl to home kill, via unusual ingredients, old favourites and a very special restaurant, as Paul Little explains. TONY ASTLE

Owner/chef, Antoine’s

I would quite like to try shirako, which is sperm sacs of either cod, angler fish or puffer fish. I know a couple of people who have. I googled it and it would be interesting; it’s quite creamy. There are many ways of cooking it but steamed is probably best. Tempura would be too easy — it could taste like anything. I love foie gras and all that. When we were in Japan last time, I had “foie gras from the sea” — i.e. monkfish liver. I managed to get some and it was unbelievable. I like Japanese-type food. Then there is hakarl from Iceland — beheaded shark that’s buried and fermented — I quite like dried fish. I think I have tried most things. I tried live octopus and quite enjoyed that. I don’t know if it was really alive — it was probably one of those things that keep moving after they’re dead.

JULIE BIUSO

Food writer

I’d like to get up close and personal with a tonka bean. They are a dark brown colour and look like a wrinkly raisin. A chef gave me one a long time ago. They are about the size of a regular bean and the smell is intoxicating. It’s like a vanilla-y clove/ nutmeg scent. Some chefs use the beans to stretch out pure vanilla because it’s cheaper and easier to work with. I put it in a ramekin in a drawer and sniffed it every day for a year. I couldn’t stop. I thought I’d never do anything with it but then I started to wonder. I thought you would probably grate it like nutmeg. Then I looked online and found they are poisonous, although you’d have to eat a lot of them to do any harm. They are banned in America.

SIMON GAULT

Author, chef and co-founder of Giraffe restaurant

Everybody loves a big, juicy nectarine or peach but if you’re in Italy, they pick fruit that is ripe, as opposed to a lot of supermarkets here that pick fruit for longevity. You never get the juice from the fresh piece of fruit dripping around your mouth and the “Oh my gosh, this is just incredible” feeling. I always look forward to that in Italy or Spain. If you go to a farmers’ market here, you’re more likely to have small producers picking things when they are ripe, particularly tomatoes. The tomato is a good example of something that is not picked when it should be but picked so it lasts a long time on the shelf. That means you don’t get the lycopene, which is something in the tomato that is so good for us.

Also, there’s a guy in the South Island — Poaka is the company name — who’s farming some special pigs and doing a fantastic curing process, which is as close as you’re going to find here to something you’ll get in Italy or Spain. Normally here pork’s full of preservatives but this guy is feeding them acorns and only killing about nine a week. [See also Giulio Sturla]

ALLYSON GOFTON

Food writer

We moved to Cambridge in February last year and bought some cows — Speckle Parks that we’ve called Panda and Stella. They will be killed after June, if they are looking good. We had a taste of some when we arrived and it’s really delicious meat. It’s quite marbled and the pieces I’ve had have been a lovely deep-red colour. They’re not melt-in-the-mouth steaks like wagyu, they’re a little bit firmer but they have sensational flavour. We have enough land to feed them on and they’re putting on weight well.

I’m looking forward to doing everything with the meat we get, including the oxtail and suet. In particular, at the local market here, there are some amazing new artisans called Bellefield, who have won a lot of prizes. They make a miso butter and we’re going to have that with the steaks. I’d like to get back as much as I can but understand it’s difficult to get the cheeks some times. If I can I will get all of it back — like the brisket and the short ribs. I’m tired of going into the supermarket and seeing them pre-cut

— they cook up chewy. I’d also like to get the kidneys — ox kidney is hard to get. And I would be interested to know how much fat is on the kidneys, because I like suet. Not interested in the tripe. And at the price of oxtail I’ll definitely be getting the tail.

NADIA LIM

The meal I’m most looking forward to is something I’ve completely grown and gathered myself. We’re living on a farm in Otago, so now I have the opportunity. I’ve got dalmatian climbing beans, green dragon tomatoes, rainbow Inca corn, red malabar spinach, black russian tomatoes, black beauty zucchini and black beauty eggplant. For protein, we have heaps of rabbits around here and rabbit is really delicious. No chickens yet but they are arriving in a few weeks, so we’ve got to get the coop finished. I’ve never had my own chickens. And there will be fresh fruit for dessert. We have an old plum tree and there’s also an apple tree. The apples are not the best eating apples but will be great to cook to put in an apple and plum pie. We’re also making our own cider and on the benchtop at the moment I have some elderflower champagne coming along. Cookbook author and co-founder My Food Bag