June in December

Ok, so this is the last post I do on food for a while, but this is mainly so that I remember the name of a little delicacy that I ate yesterday afternoon. Dolma, or dolmades, are a small snack food that are wrapped in a grape leaf. They can contain meat, or pretty much anything, but the ones that I have always had mostly consisted of rice inside. Usually I'm at Uni on a Tuesday, but yesterday I was able to drop into town because we only had tutorials instead of lectures. The main reason was to see my girlfriend for lunch, but I ended up with the extra bonus of seeing these lovely grape leaf parcels for sale on a stall at the farmer's market.

I've had dolmades twice before, the last time was when I was helping a friend do some building, and his wife came back from the recently opened Deli with many small tubs of fine food - one of which contained a couple of dolmades. My first time was at Glastonbury 2005, and my god they tasted like the best thing I had ever eaten. It had been so hot on the Thursday, this was before the torrential downpour on Friday, and I remember we were all trying not too move too much in order to reduce sweating. Along came a lovely old fella who had a basket full of goodies. On closer inspection we saw these little green things, and the dude recommended them, he said we would find them very refreshing. I think he gave us one for free so we could taste it, and upon doing so I think we all bought two or three each. He wasn't wrong! They are coated in olive oil, and contained rice, pine nuts and other herbs (nothing illegal I don't think), and were an instant refreshment in the stagnant summer heat. We never saw him again, but if so I would have definitely bought some more.

So I was very happy to find out, after 18 months, what they were actually called. Actually, after I bought a tub I had only walked 400 yards before forgetting what they were called again - thank the Gods for Google! It was a lovely moment finding these at the farmer's market, on a stall full of what looked like incredibly tasty types of Mediterranean food. They all looked good, but it was the dolmades that I wanted. It made me realise just how excellent farmer's markets can be. They give an opportunity for local food producers to showcase and sell their food, on a scale and marketability that they can't always afford. What I liked about this stand though, was that it was taking locally sourced food, but creating food that is culturally different to our own. I love trying as many varied types of food as I can, and I was pleased to able to revisit that hot afternoon in Pilton in a single bit of a dolmade.

If you fancy trying them yourself and can't find anywhere that sells them, here's a tasty recipe. Making dolmades