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WORDS BY SUDI PIGOTT
PHOTOS BY TONY FRENCH
From pork cheeks and Italian lard to fennel pollen and mastic gum, get gastronomically savvy this year, and treat your tastebuds to something new
Among carnivorous foodies, ordering the modish cut of meat is the very definition of gastro-chic. Cheeks, beef or pork (especially from the acorn-fed black leg Ibérico pig, often on the menu at Brindisa tapas restaurant in London’s Borough Market) are the dish du jour; cooked low and slow to tender, rich, caramel unctuousness. The Tuscans have used pork cheek, called guanciale, since ancient times served salted, massaged in red wine, and cured to mature. Guanciale is indispensable in spaghetti al’matriciana.
TRY: Matricianella (4 via del Leone, Rome) or buy from www.savoria.co.uk
TRY: Both beef cheek and equally modish oxtail and bone marrow are served at Axis at One Aldwych, London (www.onealdwych.com).
Fish cheeks have been rediscovered too, though the Basques have long venerated the almost gamey, gelatinous hake cheek or kokotxas customarily served with pilpil, a garlic and parsley sauce.
TRY: Laredo (Calle Menorca 14, Madrid; www..tabernalaredo.com). Cod, skate and monkfish cheeks are good.
TRY: Crisp spiced pork belly is served with monkfish cheek and cauliflower foam at Channings Hotel, Edinburgh (www.channings.co.uk) or monkfish cheeks in spicy tomato sauce at Antiche Carampane, San Polo, Venice.
 Lardo di colonnata is far removed from British lard. This is a classic Tuscan speciality gaining wider gastro kudos, which has special Slow Food Presidia protection. It is pork-back fat cured in sea salt, garlic, herbs and spices and put in Carrara marble basins and left to mature at least six months in hillside caves. It has a delicate taste and a wondrous aroma, is sublime on warm bread and often used to wrap fish and meat.
TRY: Pizza della Repubblica in Milan (www.hotel. principedisavoia.com) serving giant scampi served with rosemary and tomato.
TRY: The charcuterie plate at wine-bar Cul de Sac (Piazza Pasquino, behind Piazza Navona, Rome) or buy from www.. san-lorenzo.com
 Who says olive oil is only for vinaigrettes and conventional cooking? It is a favourite of avant-garde chefs who thrive on the unexpected. Olive oil ice-cream is de rigueur, especially with a savoury slant—iced sweet olive oil parfait, caramelised chickpeas, date puree—at Claude Bosi’s Hibiscus (www.hibiscusrestaurant.co.uk). Ferran Adria of E Bulli spherifies olive oil to produce what looks like large grains of caviar with a liquid centre, which pop in the mouth. It’s a spectacular technique involving liquids gellified with algin (seaweed extract) and submerged in a bath of calcium chloride.
TRY: Heinz Beck, three Michelin-star chef of La Pergola, at Rome’s Cavalieri Hilton, serves it with scampi and tapioca vinaigrette. www.cavalieri-hilton.it
 Fennal pollen has a more subtle ambrosial anise flavour than the vegetable or fennel seeds and adds an extra intense flavour dimension to dishes from raw fish carpaccio to salmon and makes a superb rub for roast meat. In Le Marche, a region of Italy near Ancona, Italians have used fennel pollen for generations to flavour ciauscolo, a spreadable salami and to add voluptuous flavour to olives and sauces.
TRY: Chef Chris Horridge’s at Bath Priory (www.bathpriory. co.uk) is renowned for his inventive use of flowers and herbs, and serves Turbot with lentils, fennel puree and fennel pollen foam.
BUY: Monti Sibillini fennel pollen at www.lafromagerie.co.uk
 Mastic is a resin extracted in diamond-like ‘teardrops’ from trees of the pistachio family. Its most common usage is in chewing gum and proper Turkish Delight (rahat locum) but it’s increasingly being re-invented as an interesting chewy texture for edgy desserts. Traditional Greek ‘spoon sweet’, gliko tou koutaliou mastic with a splash of rose or orange blossom in iced water are served in fashionable Athens eateries.
TRY: Christoforos Peskias, 48 Armatolon, Athens, www.48therestaurant.com
TRY: Idiosyncratic chef Heston Blumenthal’s dishes it up at The Fat Duck (High Street Bray; www.fatduck.co.uk). He uses its resinous pine-like bouquet in ice-cream and desserts.
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New Year, new food?