Three cornered leek

The three cornered leek was only introduced to Britain in 1759; to put that into perspective our Parliament was created 52 years earlier. Within 100 years it was fully wild and had run riot across the country, like an idea whose time had come.

Three cornered leek is a ridiculously elegant leaf, the tricorn shape bringing to mind the ridged points of Napoleonic millinery. Its bright, oniony yet herbaceous smell identifies it clearly as an allium - a little like the green tops of spring onions. It flourishes in damp woodland from October until March, carpeting the cold banks of wintry woodland with its verdant spears.

In his book Dirt to Soil, Gabe Brown talks about his journey from farming conventionally in the American Great Plains to becoming one of the foremost advocates of regenerative agriculture. Relentlessly pragmatic, he’s as far from the hippy dreamer you can imagine. For him, rescuing his soil health was first about not losing his farm as a succession of bad years washed it away and destroyed his yields. Only later was it about repairing the damage that the wilfully blinkered agricultural training had done to the Midwest. He gives detailed lists of the planting mixes he uses, but in essence his message boils down to never leaving the soil bare. He plants winter cover crops and lets roots (he’s a big fan of daikons) rot in the soil to improve texture at the same time as fertilising. He’s constantly experimenting, trying new things and adjusting his methods in tune with results.

In Wilding, Isabella Tree details the gradual (re)wilding of her Knepp Estate in West Sussex. The fields, scoured of life through years of chemical agriculture, succumb to wave after wave of weed species as each take their turn to exploit various niches created as the land returns to balance.

I was thinking about bare soils and wilding as I filled a bag with three cornered spears. How this recently arrived allium that found a niche in bare wintry banks and shaded corners was now, like our newly happy (but rotting) fish, properly British. Like how the idea of Brexit spread its way across the barren fields of our nation’s psyche. It bloomed like one of Isabella’s weeds across the tabloid-poisoned earth to fundamentally change first the coverage, then the nature of our soils.


That change in nature is currently making life that much harder for the small wine importers who bring so much joy into my life. People like Roland Szimeiszter, from whom I buy the most wonderfully characterful Central and Eastern European wines. Wines made by people farming organically and biodynamically. People whose connection to their land makes them natural kin to Gabe Brown, grubby finger-nailed regenerative farmers the lot of them.

Three cornered leeks aren’t the sort of thing you base a meal around, more an ingredient to include in dishes you already know and love. Three cornered leek and lamb potsticker dumplings, slick with soy sauce, chilli oil and Chinkiang vinegar is normally something I’d have a beer with but the delicate tannins and smoky wild herb and bramble nose of Oszkár Maurer’s Nagy Krisztus Kadarka from Serbia would have me ditching the Tsing Tao in a heartbeat.

Cold roast lamb sandwiches with three cornered leek mayonnaise for Sunday leftovers would be quite glorious with Bott Frigyes’ Slovakian Hárslevelű; its glimmering minerality and crisp tarragon, white pepper and pear bouquet making a sublime lunchtime companion.

Search out the three cornered leek a little later in the year when it’s overlapping with wild garlic and you’ll find it in flower. Pretty white blossoms with a bashful droop. Pick them when they’re still in bud and they make a wonderful pickle that provides a burst of delicately perfumed acidity when used as garnish.

Think of soft herb gnudi with a shellfish butter dressing, pickled three cornered leek buds bringing the bright top notes the dish needs, while also picking up the prickle of volatility from something with some skin contact, like Zsolt Sütő’s Strekov1075 Heion. Zsolt is an ethnic Hungarian making wine in Slovakian ruins of the Austro Hungarian empire. Not only a glorious wine but a reminder of the folly of imperial grandeur. Plus it’s a choice I know would rile my Brexit voting countrymen, and for that I’m doubly grateful.