Denis Cotter - For The Love of Food

for Maureen, for the love

Contents

There is no love sincerer than the love of food
George Bernard Shaw, The Revolutionist's Handbook, Man and Superman

This is a book of recipes and this bit at the start is the introduction, where I tell you about the themes and concepts that bind the collection of recipes together. The thing is, though, there is no concept. The book took more time than should have been necessary to put together because I spent so long at the beginning writing bits and pieces of essays that would form the core themes of a serious food book. A few recipes would be added later to flesh out the concepts.

Then one morning, I typed out a recipe for what wed eaten for dinner the previous evening. The next morning I did the same thing and for the next few months I set myself small targets of a few recipes a day of dishes that were simply nice things to eat. Some were records of meals eaten, others ideas for later occasions. For a while I thought I would get back to big themes, but the day came when I realised that perhaps a book of nice things to eat would be of more use than an addition to the growing list of serious food tomes. Not that theres anything wrong with serious food books. The so-called first world is still a long way from putting right our relationship with food. But how many books do you need to tell you to shop local, eat more greens and stop supporting big, nasty corporations? Browsing a bookshop one day, I drifted to the food section, as I tend to do, and spent some time poring over a couple. One was a perfect, eloquent summation of the state of our eating habits and the way back to reality. The other seemed like just another repetitive bandwagon jumper. The first made me feel that enough had been said and the second galvanised my sense that I wanted to do something more useful than add weight to the bookshelves.

I went home and wrote another recipe, something nice to cook for dinner that could be shared and might bring pleasure to the cook and the people sharing the food. Then I made dinner. Nothing fancy or elaborate, but it took a while, mostly because I like to potter in the kitchen. It wasnt a dish that called for reverence or any acknowledgement more than an occasional mmm We ate it watching a movie, the food just one part of a lovely evening.

Perhaps there is a theme here after all, and if there is, it is something to do with love and food. The love of the act of cooking itself, something we are discouraged from feeling when the media is full of ideas on how to make dinner in five, 10 or 20 minutes. And the love expressed through food prepared for those that you love. Food is survival fuel first and foremost, but it is surely one of humanitys highest marks of evolution that we have turned the preparation and shared eating of it into a generous act of love. When you cook for someone, you are saying here, eat this, I hope you will love it. When you share food, you are sharing the pleasure of taste and of hunger satisfied.

So here, enjoy this book of simple pleasures. Share it with those you love.

Whats your breakfast routine? A slice of cold toast rejected by the kids, eaten standing at the kitchen counter, hair dripping, wondering where your socks might be and trying to make school lunch sandwiches? Or a bowl of yoghurt, optional sliced banana depending on time, while checking email and applying lipstick at the same time? Mines the latter, minus the lipstick. Porridge, at a stretch. We have less time for breakfast than we do for dinner, and most of us go out the door in the morning with some degree of guilt about how chaotically we approach the officially branded most important meal of the day.

Dont worry, Im not here, having a Martha Stewart moment, to add to your guilt with tales of pumpkin pancakes and portobello florentine. Though come on now you could get up a tiny bit earlier and make some porridge or boil an egg. No? Okay, never mind. Its also true that guilt and stress will get you sooner and worse than the lack of a good breakfast anyway.

These recipes are for those mornings when youve got all the time in the world and youve decided to spend it eating with lovers, friends, family or the whole lot in one go. Food to cook and share at a leisurely pace. Its probably the weekend, lets imagine the sun is shining, the newspapers are full of interesting stories and the radio is playing all your favourite songs. Someone even brought a bottle of bubbly, meaning the meal can stretch slowly far into the day. Brunch might be the proper term for it, the original fusion cooking, breakfast and lunch in one go. A meal without rules about courses, quantity, combinations, structure; or whether you eat the sweet or savoury things first.

That last ones an interesting divider of people whether, given one hard choice to make at the breakfast diner, they order sweet or savoury brunch. Im a hollandaise dope. No matter how much I try to order the most interesting thing on the menu, my mouth opens and I name the dish with the most hollandaise. Yet, when I subconsciously twist my own arm, it always surprises me how pleasurable it is to eat sweet treats for the first meal of the day.

At home, its unlikely youll be presenting a menu, nor would I recommend it. If doing separate courses seems like a good idea, make the first one cold, from stuff that can be grazed on while you get on with the main act. Put delicious things on the table fruit, yoghurt, granola, crackers, jams, chutneys and cheese.

For anything more than a cosy couple, breakfast/brunch is something of a juggling act, whether youre cooking for four or a hundred. This is especially true when it comes to eggs, when the result can flip from perfect to gone too far in a few seconds, and there is so much that needs to come together at the same time. Make sure everything but the eggs, including people, is ready before the final stage of cooking begins.

Eggs are on something of a comeback from the graveyard of medical condemnation. Apparently, we dont actually die from eating more than a couple of eggs a week. Phew! I never could figure out, with a fondness for the occasional five-egg omelette, how to stay within view of the old limits, never mind operating below them. This readjustment of the official ruling on eggs came just in time for me. I was getting to the age when some doctor was sure to start telling me to swap the hollandaise for a Hollywood egg white omelette. Double phew! Mind you, some eggs might as well be all white for all the flavour theyve got. Eggs, almost more than anything else, get their flavour and richness from how they are produced. This is no preacher book, but I will say this keep chickens or get to know your source, and dont poach an egg thats only fit for making cake.