For us, every season has its own magic. Here at The Dysart Petersham, the subtle shifts in sunlight, shadow, and sky arrive quietly, only to mature suddenly. These changes bring a new beauty, a fresh feeling, reflected in the character of light on the building and through its expansive windows.
The log fire moves, somehow, from being simply symbolic of seasonal change, to being part of the changed quality of light, reflections, temperatures and a welcome from the winds, rain and cascading Autumn leaves.
The Flavours of the Season
With Autumn comes an abundance of flavours, aromas, and ingredients that inspire the kitchen:
Autumn-led dishes rooted in tradition, reinterpreted with respect and imagination
Ingredients for all the senses, heightened in this reflective time of year
Even before they are unwrapped, the aroma of English Autumn truffles fills the kitchen with promise. Months of planning and preparation by the kitchen team now bear fruit, adding depth, layers, and freshness through preserves, wild plums, blackberries, and white currants.
Crab apples and medlars are plentiful. Two varieties of medlar are currently being bletted, one from a loyal customer’s garden, the other from our own. Crab apples, too, are at different stages of harvest, their varieties varying in colour, markings, flavour.
“We have created an unctuous soup with local pumpkins; nasturtium leaves and flowers from the garden are made into a peppery sorbet and served with smoked trout eggs”.
“Ceps and chanterelles are in abundance, bringing the deep, earthy flavours of the forest floor to our dishes”.
Head Chef Kenneth Culhane
Celtic Inspirations in the Kitchen
Drawing on his Celtic heritage, Kenneth has planned for the season with delight in tradition and in the change in the seasonal ingredients.
“I’m planning on changing the greens, taking some Celtic inspiration, without the cauldron, as I found a recipe for wild greens cooked very similarly to how we do it, in their own juices, so we will be using varieties of kale and greens, tossed with roasted cobnuts, blackberries, and a honey-apple vinaigrette”.
“Later this month I’m looking at doing a Venison and barley Irish stew”.
“Garden apples and local wild apples will be used to make a baked apple pudding, served with an ice cream of roasted brown butter, local bay leaves, and freshly toasted yeast. With another nod to the Celts, some toasted oats will be used to make a crumble base for the ice cream, surrounded by a walnut tuile”.
“We have also received some fabulous local quinces, which we have cooked with vanilla, cinnamon sticks, and port. The juice from the cooking will be used as a fragrant sauce for the apple pudding”.
Head Chef Kenneth Culhane
Other vegetables that will feature on the menus over the next few weeks include white beetroots, chervil roots, parsnips and Aztec broccoli, still coming in from the garden. This has taken on pleasingly bitter, earthy, and tannic notes. Its florets have shifted gradually from green, through amber and brown to a strong red, emphasised by the redness of the stems as Autumn advances.
What a wonderful discovery this robust vegetable has been – we have learned this year we do not need to plant so many plants for a long-lasting harvest and to give it more space!
“We are using Aztec broccoli florets in the greens and under an Autumn dish of duck with wild blueberry and mushroom sauce”.
Head Chef Kenneth Culhane
Honey custard pudding with vanilla-poached pear, toasted saffron and a Sauternes sauce embraces the elegance of the season.
Some of the crab apples, with their red blush deepening to a dark, glossy scarlet once cooked, have been turned into a great seasonal cordial for the bar. Kenneth developed the idea of making a syrup from the apples, with lemons and sugar to bring out their natural flavours”.
“We are serving it with Rathfinny sparkling wine from Sussex to create a very English crab apple kir royale”.
MD Barny Taylor
Kitchen Garden
The kitchen team, harvesting throughout Summer and Autumn, has now gathered almost the last of the kitchen garden’s Summer and early Autumn yield.
This year our broccoli came to nothing, though growing statuesque stalks and leaves! On the other hand, the Aztec Broccoli excelled, edging out anything nearby.
We made the mistake of leaving the sunflowers just a little too long and the parakeets got the seeds, all but one head we had brought in beforehand. We are learning!
We have created two new raised beds, cleared the broccoli, tamed the Aztec Broccoli and planted from seed: Azur Blue Kohlrabi, parsnips, Sanguina beetroots, Hokkaido Winter Squash, and Jumbo Pink Banana Winter Squash.
It’s a quirk of this season that one of our fruit trees has blossom coming out again, now! They have all been pruned and thinned, to let light and strong winds through the branches.
Autumn in Myth and Meaning
Autumn held deep symbolic and practical importance in Celtic Irish culture, both as a seasonal turning point and as a spiritual threshold in the ancient Irish calendar, a sacred hinge of the year.
It was a time of transition, harvest, and renewal that shaped how communities related to the land, time, and the supernatural.
Autumn was not seen as a decline into darkness, but as a passage through it, a sacred journey from abundance to introspection, from harvest to hibernation, from life to renewal.
Through their myths and rituals, the Celts, like so many cultures, expressed a profound respect for nature’s rhythms and an enduring belief in the harmony and balance of all things. In its beauty and its decay, was seen the truest reflection of that eternal balance and rhythm.
They saw in Autumn a lesson about balance and transformation, that every ending contains the seed of a beginning, and that the cycles of the earth mirror the cycles of the soul.”
Head Chef Kenneth Culhane
The transition from Summer to Autumn has inspired wonder and awe across cultures and millennia.
“Here at The Dysart Petersham, Autumn is an invitation to delight in simple, natural pleasures, the rich flavours, colours and textures of the season, crafted thoughtfully, celebrated fully and with a heartfelt welcome from us”.
This is the second in our series on living thoughtfully, responsibly, well — the principles that guide life and work at The Dysart Petersham. They shape how we think, what …
Over the rest of this year and over the Winter months we are planning a series of articles about the importance we attach to our values, summed up as ‘living …
Kitchen garden – definitely work in progress – definitely always something to learn – definitely rewarding. The more we plant, the more we experiment with what works here, in our …
Celebrating Autumn: Seasonal Dishes, Garden Harvest & Celtic Culinary Traditions
For us, every season has its own magic. Here at The Dysart Petersham, the subtle shifts in sunlight, shadow, and sky arrive quietly, only to mature suddenly. These changes bring a new beauty, a fresh feeling, reflected in the character of light on the building and through its expansive windows.
The log fire moves, somehow, from being simply symbolic of seasonal change, to being part of the changed quality of light, reflections, temperatures and a welcome from the winds, rain and cascading Autumn leaves.
The Flavours of the Season
With Autumn comes an abundance of flavours, aromas, and ingredients that inspire the kitchen:
Even before they are unwrapped, the aroma of English Autumn truffles fills the kitchen with promise. Months of planning and preparation by the kitchen team now bear fruit, adding depth, layers, and freshness through preserves, wild plums, blackberries, and white currants.
Crab apples and medlars are plentiful. Two varieties of medlar are currently being bletted, one from a loyal customer’s garden, the other from our own. Crab apples, too, are at different stages of harvest, their varieties varying in colour, markings, flavour.
Celtic Inspirations in the Kitchen
Drawing on his Celtic heritage, Kenneth has planned for the season with delight in tradition and in the change in the seasonal ingredients.
Other vegetables that will feature on the menus over the next few weeks include white beetroots, chervil roots, parsnips and Aztec broccoli, still coming in from the garden. This has taken on pleasingly bitter, earthy, and tannic notes. Its florets have shifted gradually from green, through amber and brown to a strong red, emphasised by the redness of the stems as Autumn advances.
What a wonderful discovery this robust vegetable has been – we have learned this year we do not need to plant so many plants for a long-lasting harvest and to give it more space!
Honey custard pudding with vanilla-poached pear, toasted saffron and a Sauternes sauce embraces the elegance of the season.
Some of the crab apples, with their red blush deepening to a dark, glossy scarlet once cooked, have been turned into a great seasonal cordial for the bar. Kenneth developed the idea of making a syrup from the apples, with lemons and sugar to bring out their natural flavours”.
Kitchen Garden
The kitchen team, harvesting throughout Summer and Autumn, has now gathered almost the last of the kitchen garden’s Summer and early Autumn yield.
This year our broccoli came to nothing, though growing statuesque stalks and leaves! On the other hand, the Aztec Broccoli excelled, edging out anything nearby.
We made the mistake of leaving the sunflowers just a little too long and the parakeets got the seeds, all but one head we had brought in beforehand. We are learning!
We have created two new raised beds, cleared the broccoli, tamed the Aztec Broccoli and planted from seed: Azur Blue Kohlrabi, parsnips, Sanguina beetroots, Hokkaido Winter Squash, and Jumbo Pink Banana Winter Squash.
It’s a quirk of this season that one of our fruit trees has blossom coming out again, now! They have all been pruned and thinned, to let light and strong winds through the branches.
Autumn in Myth and Meaning
The transition from Summer to Autumn has inspired wonder and awe across cultures and millennia.
Globally, myths of seasonal transition celebrate transformation, gratitude, preparation, and harmony with the Earth—from Tammuz in ancient Mesopotamia, to Persephone’s descent into the Underworld and return for Spring and Summer, to the traditions of North American indigenous cultures.
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