(Mostly) Vegetarian Cooking: Eton Mess

This is the finest dessert available to humanity. It's highly English, but I've always found the English know their puddings. This is transcendent, heavenly, exquisite. It's also really simple--which is when English cooking is at its best--it's just strawberries and cream mixed with crumbled crunchy meringues. It's only worth making in the summer though, with summer strawberries. I've had cravings and tried to make it in the winter and the berries are simply not good enough. That being said, this is good even with slightly mushy or over-ripe strawberries, because in the summer the flavor is all there. The berries should hit you with their fragrance and be juicy and plump.

Here's what you need:

200 gm chopped strawberries (I find the worse the condition of the strawberries the smaller you should chop them--don't worry, they'll still taste great.)

150 gm double cream/heavy whipping cream

1 tbsp granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 meringue nests (These you can buy in shops in Britain, I'm not sure where they're available in the US. When I get back, I might have to start making my own meringues.)

Also, optionally, a small dribble of balsamic vinegar.

Take those chopped strawberries and place them in a bowl.

Sprinkle about half a teaspoon of sugar on the berries and pour over a tiny dribble of balsamic vinegar, around 1/4 a teaspoon. Mix the berries up gently and leave them to mascerate. They'll burst forth all their juices. The balsamic vinegar is strange but somehow it heightens the taste of strawberries because it's sweet and sort of tangy. You don't want to really taste it, it will just make the strawberries taste even more strongly of strawberry.

Put the cream in a larger bowl, sprinkleo n the rest of the sugar and dribble in the vanilla.

Softly whip the cream in the bowl. You don't want it too hard whipped, just to the point where it's no longer a liquid, just a big floppy mass.

Crumble the meringues in the cream. There should be some bitesize chunks and some dust.

Mix the meringues into the cream gently. Don't overmix.

Now add the strawberries.

Now when you mix them in, mix it only very, very gently. You want it to be loose and clumpy masses of crunchy bits in cream, with strawberries and their juice rippled through.