Growing up in England in the 80s, my mum used to drive to a village in Hertfordshire called Whitwell to buy bunches of watercress from Wells farm. We had a Renault 5 with a slippery back seat and lively suspension, so we would bounce as we crossed a humpback bridge to get to the farm. Through the car window, my brother, sister and I, sticky and argumentative, would often see the backs of two of the Sansom brothers as they picked watercress from emerald-green waterbeds that had been cultivated for more than 200 years. It was farms like Wells that grew some of the millions of bunches that were carted up to London in the 1800s and 1900s. In her essay about the watercress girls, Angela Clutton writes about how it was loved by the wealthy, but needed by workers, who ate it for breakfast in sandwiches, and the poor, who ate it with nothing. She also writes about the young watercress girls and their wicker baskets of green and their early-morning cries of “Wo-orter-crease, wo-orter-crease”.
Back home in the 80s, Dad would stuff watercress in his sandwiches, its soft leaves and succulent stems pungent with mustard oils, making it both a salad and a seasoning as good as mustard. It was one of the first things I remember teaching myself to eat, seeing the peppery heat as a challenge that would eventually give pleasure. Mum used to make watercress and potato soup, pan after pan of Jane Grigson’s potage de santé (soup of health) which, despite its colour and name, we absolutely loved with bread and butter.
My green-tinted nostalgia and love of watercress makes it one of the edible things I miss most about living in Rome, where it is no longer cultivated, despite being an indigenous plant and favoured by the ancient Romans as a food and a medicine. Despite my living away for years, watercress is still the culinary equivalent of a lost friend, one you instinctively think to call or include, before remembering they are not around, that you will have to put rocket in your sandwich, which is all very nice, but not the same as the chlorophyll whip of watercress. Along with lancashire cheese, bacon, double cream, butter, English apples and biscuits, it is one of the first things I buy when I come back, putting it in or with whatever I can, including these Sunday-night potato cakes.
A collision of Delia’s recipe for potato cakes, a Neapolitan gateau (a family-size bake of mashed potato with cheese, more smoked cheeses, egg and salami), and ping-pong ball-size, deep-fried croquettes, these are the recipe equivalent of slippers that have been left to warm in front of the fire. It is also a nicely straightforward recipe.
Olive oil aids crispness, butter flavour: which is why I fry in a mixture of the two. You can serve whatever salad you wish with the cakes (or none at all), but if I am in England, watercress is a must. It is all about contrast: the crisp shell and soft-centred potato cakes, matched with the floppy leaves and succulent stems of verdant, peppery wo-orter crease.
Potato, parmesan and salami cakes with watercress
Prep 10 min
Cook 30 min
Makes 8
1.2kg potatoes
150g salami, diced or diced pancetta, fried
1 large egg, beaten
75g parmesan, grated
1 tbsp chopped parsley
A grating of nutmeg
Salt and black pepper
Fine, dry breadcrumbs
Olive oil and butter for shallow frying
Watercress
Olive oil and red wine vinegar dressing
Scrub the potatoes, then boil them whole in plenty of well-salted water, until tender. Drain and leave them to sit until cool enough to peel.
Either mash the potatoes, or pass them through a potato ricer or food mill. Add the diced salami or pancetta, egg, parmesan and plenty of freshly ground black pepper, and mix. Taste for salt and add more if needed.
Shape the mixture into about eight, 6cm-wide patties, dip each one into milk or beaten egg, then roll in dry breadcrumbs.
In a frying pan, heat a glug of olive oil and a knob of butter until it foams, then shallow-fry the patties until deep golden on both sides.
Dress the watercress with salt and a dressing of olive oil and red-wine vinegar, and serve with hot potato cakes.
