Food for FortFoodAre you sure you want to know? Well…I can't find angelica at the supermarket or even confectioners. Has it been deemed 'bad' for us?
Ah, angelica, or Angelica archangelica, as its euphonious Latin name has it. Now there's a forgotten ingredient. Fresh, its leaves were added to salads; candied, it was one of those chummy ingredients you lobbed into cakes, puddings and the like – it was valued as an aid to digestion and a stimulant to circulation. It's true it doesn't feature much in recipes these days, so maybe it has fallen out of fashion, but I can find no evidence of a jihad against it by the forces of health and dietary efficiency – indeed, it features on the BBC's food website (in Antony Worrall Thompson's South Sea islands Christmas pudding and Mrs Beeton's gingerbread nuts). That said, there was a word of warning a few years ago that you shouldn't take angelica if you're a diabetic, because it elevates blood sugar, and women should not take it when menstruating as it can cause heavy bleeding. I'm surprised you can't find any, but Wilton Wholefoods will send you some (£2.89 for 100g). If you get desperate, grow your own and candy the stems. It's a handsome plant.
I teach cookery classes at Sussex Downs College, and while demonstrating how to dress a crab, I was asked what the brown meat is made up of. As it's not the lungs, muscle, mouth or stomach parts, it must be other organs – one website unhelpfully said it was 'glands'. Can you help?
According to the peerless Alan Davidson's North Atlantic Seafood, brown meat "consists mainly of the digestive gland or 'liver' and reproductive organs". So the website was right, up to a point. However, as every crab lover knows, the brown meat packs a far bigger flavour punch than the white. Now we know why.
Got a culinary query for Matthew? Email food.for.fort@theguardian.com
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