Issue four is available to pre-order now!

We're almost there folks! Issue four of Ernest Journal explores the rather eclectic themes of sound, subversion and polar exploration. Read on for more about what's in store – then please pre-order your copy so we can post it out to you fresh from the printers, while it's still warm and inky...

24-page guide to Greenland

Seek out ancient Norse settlements; sail among icebergs while exploring the cultural impact of the great Ice Sheet and delve into Inuit folklore in South Greenland.

Curious histories

Listen to mysterious transmissions on short wave radio; delve into the darker side of tintype photography; investigate an anomaly in the North Sea – a micro-nation owned by a tenacious band of radio buccaneers; and read about Russian composer Alexander Scriabin, whose week-long symphony would bring about the end of the world.

Spaces

Step into the unconventional home of wallpaper designer Adam Calkin and enter the bizarre and wonderful world of sound design.

Slow adventure

Investigate the psychology of polar exploration; discover the secrets of Schiehallion, the Scottish mountain that helped us weigh the world; and explore the evolution of travel writing from the 'unsentimental journey', through Victorian authors and the Beats to situationism and psychogeography.

Workmanship

Forage for the raw ingredients needed to blow your own glass; meet an automaton inventor and discover the obsessions and frustrations of model boat makers.

Timeless style

Wear woollens inspired by the Heroic Age of Polar Exploration; discover the origins of the trench coat, from the front line to the silver screen; and forage for ingredients to create your own wild dyes.

Wild food

Venture into the marshes of northern Norway in search of elusive cloudberries and master the art of wild meat butchery.

All subscriptions and pre-orders will be delivered at the end of November

Issue 4

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Weekend project: Hawberry Ketchup

You say tomato, we say hawberry. Treat your chips to a tangy alternative dip this autumn.

Photos by Lyndsey Haskell

The fruit of a hawthorn tree - haws - are abundant at this time of year. In fact, once you recognise these tart, bright red berry-like fruits, you’ll start to see more of them than even the ubiquitous blackberry. The haws of the Common Hawthorn (the name ‘haw’ originates from the Old English term for hedge) are edible but taste rather like over-ripe apples. This tartness, however, makes for a delightfully tangy condiment and you only need 500g to make a couple of bottles of ketchup. Here our most recent stockist, Lyndsey from What You Sow shares her recipe for this autumnal treat. 

The leaves, berries and flowers of hawthorn are used in traditional medicine to treat diseases of the heart and blood and digestive complaints. Seek medical advice before consuming the berries if you have a cardiac or circulatory disorder and always make sure you are 100% sure of a plant’s identity when foraging.

You will need

• 500g haws

• 300ml apple cider vinegar

• 300ml water

• 150g light brown sugar

• Salt and pepper

How to make it

• Remove all stalks and leaves.

• Wash haws. 

• Place haws in a pan and bring to the boil with the vinegar and 300ml water. Simmer for 30 minutes until soft.

• Push the fruit through a sieve to make a puree. Discard the skins and pips.

• Put the puree back into the pan. Add the sugar and allow to dissolve. Simmer for 5 more mins. 

• Decant into sterilised bottles and enjoy. 

Scrambled egg in a hotel kettle

Having toured as a comic for two decades, George Egg has grown tired of mediocre and overpriced hotel food. In an act of inventiveness, George has taught himself how to cook an array of meals using hotel room appliances. Here is his unique take on a classic breakfast dish, for which you will require a travel kettle and an iron

Photo: Jean-Luc Brouard

Once you’ve cooked eggs this way you won’t go back to using a saucepan, even if you’re not in a hotel. I promise you.

Ingredients

1 ciabatta roll
2 eggs
2 portions of butter
Salt and pepper
Parmesan
A stout freezer bag

1. Put the kettle on. Set the iron to ‘linens’.
    
2. Crack your eggs into the freezer bag, add some salt and pepper and one of the portions of butter and then massage the mixture from the outside through the bag until it’s well combined.
    
3. Cut the ciabatta roll into three or four slices (about 1.5cm thick), butter them on both sides and arrange them in a row before resting the hot iron on top and leaving them to toast. Check every now and then and when they’re browned enough, turn them over and toast the other side.
    
4. Meanwhile lower the bottom of the bag into the kettle and re-boil it, periodically removing the bag and massaging the contents. Check it frequently and as soon as it’s cooked as you like it take it out of the heat. Finally, add another ½ portion of butter for extra creaminess. The beauty of this method is the gentle heat –  the chances of overcooked rubbery eggs is greatly reduced.
    
5. Place the toasted ciabatta slices onto a plate and spoon over the creamy egg before sprinkling with a little more black pepper. You’ll find most hotels provide on request a disposable razor free of charge, so use that to shave a little parmesan over the top.

George Egg is a stand-up comedian who has cooked in hotel rooms all over the world and documented his exploits on YouTube viral Hotel Survival, a video that spawned his one-man show George Egg: Anarchist Cook

anarchistcook.info

 

You can discover more of George's hotel room recipes (including sea bass cooked in a bathroom sink and pancakes griddled on a hot iron) in the third print edition of Ernest Journal.

Issue 3

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Mateus Rosé

What do Saddam Hussein, Jimi Hendrix and The Queen have in common? It's sweet, it's fizzy and it's pink

Illustration: Louise Wyatt

Mateus Rosé, with its crazy pink colour, presented in the flask-shaped bottle we know so well, was quaffed by Jimi Hendrix and fuelled Neil Young’s On the Beach. It was found hoarded in Saddam Hussein’s palace after his fall in 2003, and is apparently one of Fidel Castro’s favourite wines. The Queen reputedly drinks it when she dines alone.

Fernando Van Zeller Guedes first produced this sweet, fizzy rosé in the 1940s from Portuguese red grape varieties that were vinificated into white wine. Guedes sent two bottles to Portuguese ambassadors across the world, inviting them to try the wine and give a bottle to a friend.

This distribution strategy really worked, and by the 1970s it was globally popular. Its sweetness and low price appealed to teens, and its exoticness was seen as sophisticated by middle-class families. And it might just be the only thing rock stars, communists, fascists, teenagers and The Queen can agree on.

Words by contributing editor Guy Lochhead

Bilbo's seed cake

“'I don’t mind some cake – seed-cake, if you have any.’
‘Lots!’ Bilbo found himself answering, to his surprise; and he found himself scuttling off…to a pantry to fetch two beautiful round seed-cakes which he had baked that afternoon for his after-supper morsel.” The Hobbit

Seed cake – an after supper morsel fit for a hobbit

As Bilbo well knew, before you step out of the door on an adventure, you must make sure you’re provisioned for the journey ahead. These rustic treats are flavoured with caraway seeds, while the addition of root vegetables makes them very wholesome.

Ingredients

100g/3½oz wholemeal self-raising flour
80g/3oz soft light brown sugar
1 egg
60ml groundnut oil
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbsp milk
1 tsp caraway seeds
50g/2oz root vegetables (carrot or parsnip), finely grated
3 tbsps mixed seeds (sunflower, sesame and poppy seeds)

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C. Mix the sugar, egg and oil until smooth. Combine the flour, bicarb and caraway seeds in another bowl, then mix with the wet ingredients. Add the grated veg and milk to the mixture. Mix well until dropping off the spoon. Grease a muffin tin with groundnut oil then dust with flour. Place a tablespoon of mixture into each cup. Sprinkle seed mix on top, then bake for 15 minutes.

Recipe by Ellie Davies, rovinglights.wordpress.com