For such a short month, February offers plenty of occasions for themed entertaining and cooking. After Valentine’s Day pink food, there were pancakes for Shrove Tuesday, festive food for carnival and auspicious oriental dishes as the Year of the Sheep begins.

In addition, there are all those events dreamed up by lobbyists for a particular product or industry. Today, for example, is Margarita Day. Loved and consumed by millions around the world, this celebration honours this ‘sacred’ tequila, triple sec and lime drink every year on this day.

This is also the first day of the Copenhagen Food Fair in Denmark, the last day of the Canberra Food and Wine Expo in Australia, the final fling of the South Beach Wine and Food Festival in Florida, the US and, even more esoteric, the last day of the Food, Drink and Rhubarb Festival in Wakefield, the UK.

When the shelves are bare of English fruit, Yorkshire rhubarb is eagerly awaited at this time of year, for a very short season, and never mind the price. It is grown in a small area of Yorkshire, known as the rhubarb triangle, centred on Wakefield, using an ancient and labour intensive method of forcing sheds, where the plant is kept in the dark and harvested by candlelight to keep it pale and pink. If you have visitors coming from England, it is worth asking them to bring you some, as it makes the most delicious crumbles and fools, and is a surprisingly good accompaniment to oily fish.

The Dutch, as you might expect, also produce bright pink rhubarb, on a much larger scale, using chemicals to keep the stalks that characteristic shocking pink. But if rhubarb is not your thing, there are all the other short seasons of local produce to look forward to, Gozo asparagus, broad beans, peas and eventually field tomatoes, figs and peaches.

But even here, I notice, the notion of seasonality is changing, with poly tunnel strawberries available from January.

The rich variety of fruit, vegetables and herbs we enjoy today stands in comparison with that of our 17th- and 18th-century ancestors. On investigation, a surprising amount of attention was paid then, and even earlier, to the use of garden produce.

Surprising, because one thinks of the food of this period being largely composed, on the one hand of pottages of pulses and cereal gruels, and on the other of barons of roast beef and stuffed peacock. Not a bit of it. Although there were few books devoted wholly to vegetarianism, most early cookbooks included chapters on fruit and preserves, salads and cooked vegetables or pot-herbs. Many of the vegetables used were common then, but now seem exotic, such as cucumbers as a cooked vegetable, sea kale, morels, sorrel, samphire, salsify, burnet and purslane. And they knew how to cook them, no boiling of green beans for 20 or 30 minutes as some of the Victorians used to advise.

John Farley, principal cook at the London Tavern, chided those cooks, who spoiled their garden stuffs by boiling them too much.

“All kinds of vegetables should have a little crispness, for if you boil them too much, you will deprive them both of their sweetness and beauty,” he wrote. Still good advice today.

One of the earliest important writers on vegetables was John Evelyn, one of the great and good of his day. A founder member of the Royal Society, diarist, traveller, gardener and influential thinker, and writer on these and other subjects, Evelyn does not deserve to be overshadowed by his contemporary, Samuel Pepys. Evelyn’s recipes for preserves, puddings, cheesecakes, possets and especially salads could be tackled today relatively easily. I recommend his: “Orrenge leaves. Set or sow the seeds of orenges and lemmons, and when they first appeare Croppe them and put foure or 5 into any sallet, they render an admirable taste.”

So, as the days warm up, as the sun comes out and as thoughts move away from hearty casseroles and warming stodge, here are a few vegetable-based recipes and one for that Schiaparelli pink rhubarb.

Rhubarb fritters

(Serves 4-6)

300ml water
25g butter
175g plain flour
Pinch of Gozo salt
1 egg white
400-500g pink rhubarb, about 4-6 slender stalks
To serve: icing sugar

Boil 75ml water and in it melt the butter. Then add the remaining water, cold. Beating well, gradually add the flour until you have a smooth batter. Just before using the batter, fold in the stiffly beaten egg white.

Cut the rhubarb stalks into at least finger lengths, thus each stalk cut in three or four lengths. Then dip them into the batter and fry them in deep, fresh, boiling oil. Cook for five to six minutes, remove, drain on paper towels, and dust with icing sugar before serving.

Cornish herb pie

(Serves 6 to 8)

450g lean bacon rashers or slices of pancetta, rind removed
450g leeks, trimmed, finely sliced and thoroughly rinsed
225g spinach, thoroughly rinsed, dried and finely chopped
60g each finely chopped rocket and parsley
3 eggs, plus extra mixed with milk for glazing
Gozo salt and pepper
150ml chicken or ham stock
225g shortcrust pastry

This is based on a very old recipe, before we knew what pancetta was, but I think it makes a very good alternative to bacon.

Line a one-litre pie dish with half the bacon rashers and top with the leeks mixed with the spinach, rocket and parsley.

Beat the eggs with the seasoning and stock and pour over the vegetable mixture. Lay the remaining bacon rashers on top, and cover with pastry. Make a hole for the steam to escape.

Brush with beaten egg, and bake in a preheated oven at 180˚C/350˚F/gas mark 4, for 45 minutes or so until the pastry is golden brown and the custard is set.

Cook’s note: As you can see from the recipe, this is like an upside-down quiche. If you prefer, you can use the pastry to line a flan or quiche dish and then layer the ingredients as above, finishing with the bacon or pancetta, and bake in the usual way.

Mushrooms marinated in sherry

(Serves 4)

500g mushrooms
250ml fino or dry amontillado sherry
50g butter
3 shallots, peeled and quartered
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
Pinch of ground cumin
Pinch of Gozo salt
2 or 3 sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves only, and chopped
1 orange

This is based on an 18th-century recipe, when oranges were used as much as lemons for garnish.

Choose a mixture of oyster, shiitake, cup and button mushrooms. Wipe the mushrooms and cut off the hard end of the stalk. Put them in a bowl and marinate in the sherry for 30 to 40 minutes. Strain the mushrooms, and use the remaining sherry for other dishes.

Heat a large shallow pan, add the mushrooms and cook them, covered, over a high heat for five minutes. Drain off the liquid and use in soup or stews. Add the butter and the rest of the ingredients, except for the orange. Grate most of the zest into the mushrooms, but leave a third ungrated so that you can take off two good slices to halve and use as garnish.

Squeeze the juice into the mushrooms and cook for a further 10 to 15 minutes, adding more sherry if you prefer extra liquid. Serve in heated bowls with triangles of buttered toast and the half slices of orange.

Cook’s note: If you want to serve this dish cold, which is also very good, use olive oil instead of butter.

Tossed cucumber

(Serves 4 to 6)

2 large cucumbers
25g butter
Pinch of Gozo salt
2 to 3 tbsps fino sherry, dry vermouth or dry white wine

With a potato peeler, strip the skin from the cucumber and cut off the two ends. Halve lengthways and discard the seeds.

Cut each half in half again, and cut each piece in two or three batons.

Melt the butter in a sauté, or tossing pan, and when just browning, add the cucumber and salt.

Cook, stirring, or tossing occasionally, for five minutes, and then add the liquid, and cook on high heat for three or four minutes more.

Cook’s note: Serve with curries, pate, chicken and pork dishes and with fish dishes.

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