Jenny Linford - The missing ingredient: the curious role of time in food and flavour

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First published in Particular Books 2018

Copyright Jenny Linford, 2018

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover illustration by Kenji Oikawa

ISBN: 978-1-846-14898-9

To my family and friends,
with my love

The idea for this book came to me in the early hours between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. when night passes to day. Its a strange, solitary period when I, as a light sleeper, often find myself lying half-awake in the dark in bed. As I lie there, thoughts often worries, but also solutions and ideas drift up from the depths of my subconscious to the surface of my mind. I was preoccupied, pondering ideas for a food-themed day to offer as an event. Could I take people on a journey through food history? I wondered ambitiously. Travel from the early days of food in Britain through different periods in time Time. The word caught me, stopping me in my mental tracks. My brain took the word and spun it around rather than food in time, what about time in food; time as an ingredient, THE universal, invisible ingredient. It felt like a eureka moment, an insight into something big. Rather than a theme for an event, I felt I had the kernel of an idea for a book.

This book explores culinary time. In over 25 years of writing and thinking about food, I have always been fascinated by the way in which food connects to so many aspects of our lives history, identity, culture. Food is so much more than fuel for our bodies; it is charged with meaning. Time and food is a vast, complex subject and one which I find enthralling. I spent months working out a structure what I wanted to put in the book; time touches all aspects of food in some way or the other, but I wanted a book that was engaging and interesting. I think of this book as a kaleidoscope, in which my short essays, each looking at time through the prism of an aspect of food or cooking, fall together to form a complex, intricate pattern. Writing The Missing Ingredient has been an engrossing journey, enlivened by encounters with remarkable people en route. During my encounters with food producers, chefs and food writers, the importance of taking enough time came up repeatedly. For the most part, this was without prompting from me. Very few of the people I talked to knew that it was culinary time I was focused on (a book about the craft of food, what makes good food is how I usually described it), as I wanted to discern for myself the role that time played in their work. The Missing Ingredient moves from seconds to years, taking the reader on a journey with me through aspects of culinary time. The book is designed to be read from start to finish but also works as a volume to be dipped into. What I realized, as I researched and wrote, was the overlapping nature of the material. How looking at a subject such as meat from different time-focused points of view meshes together to create an insight into the complex, varied role of time: from the time required to rear livestock for maximum flavour, to hanging meat, to the right amount of time to cook it or the ingenious, historic ways we have found to preserve this valuable protein.

Time is the universal ingredient in the food we cook and eat. As an invisible ingredient, however, it is seldom considered in its own right. Time is an essential part of the act of cooking. To cook food well, one needs to know how to use time appropriately. Time in the kitchen can be a brisk affair measured in minutes: the quick cooking of spaghetti in boiling water until just al dente, the exciting, rapid transformation that happens when one plunges sliced potatoes into hot oil to make chips, the thickening as you stir a mixture of flour, butter and milk into a sauce. It can also be altogether more mellow: gently simmering bones and vegetables for hours to make stock, marinating a shoulder of lamb with spices overnight, the steeping of Seville orange peel to make marmalade, slowly roasting a piece of belly pork at a low temperature for hours until the meat is succulent and the crackling crisp and golden-brown When it comes to certain dishes such as the frying of an omelette or the grilling of a fillet of fish rapidity is of the essence in order not to over-cook them. In these cases, a deft hand and an eye to the clock make all the difference between the creation of a meal that is pleasurable and one that is a lacklustre experience. Other aspects of cooking, however, require patience. The browning of meat creating the appetizing aromas and flavours through the complex Maillard reaction is a process that requires time in order to do it properly. In Malaysian cuisine, curries and sauces involve the initial cooking of a paste made from spices, herbs and flavourings. This must be done with care and cannot be rushed. Hastiness at this stage a skimping of the time required will manifest itself in a disappointing harshness and thinness of flavour in the final dish. Watch an experienced chef at work in the kitchen and one notices his or her acute awareness of time, how this factors into the decisions they are making. The ability to cook food for the right amount of time is a key part of a cooks skills. One of the satisfactions of learning to cook is understanding how to use time effectively. Appropriately, a practical, working knowledge of culinary time takes time to acquire; there are no short-cuts to experience.

Times relationship with food is multifaceted and complex, extending far beyond the right cooking times for dishes. We appreciate many different aspects of culinary time. At one end of the spectrum is the idea of freshness. Eating truly fresh food is a vivid experience. Years ago, when I was a teenager living in Italy, my parents and I visited Italian friends whose home was in the hills above Fiesole. Our kindly host, noticing my boredom at the adult conversation, told me that I could go into the garden and help myself to the fruit growing in it. I stepped out into the warm Tuscan sunshine and, rather hesitantly, reached up into the branches of an apricot tree, pulled a downy-skinned, deep orange-red-coloured apricot off the tree and ate it. I still remember how delectable that apricot tasted. Not only was I eating it fresh from the tree with no passage of time after harvesting for it to deteriorate I was also eating it when it was ripe and ready. Over the months between spring and summer, a fertilized apricot blossom had been transformed, swelling and ripening with the rain and the warmth and light of the sun into the fruit that I enjoyed so much. The tree itself had taken years to grow, requiring care and attention from its owner from its first planting as a sapling to its fruitful maturity. My brief encounter with an apricot required many diverse types of time.

We also value the alluring patina that ageing adds to food and drink. Many of our most highly prized foods and drinks Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena (traditional balsamic vinegar of Modena), jamn ibrico, vintage wines and spirits take years to produce. This extensive use of time is closely bound up in our appreciation of these delicacies. The taking of time is nowadays used as a marketing tool. Recently, the multinational Unilever went to the trouble of producing a handsomely presented XO (Extra Old) Marmite. Labelled matured with a stronger taste, this is an example of ageing being used to add a sheen of glamour, transforming what is normally regarded as an everyday, mass-produced food into a desirable luxury. So prized is the concept of ageing within the food world that numerous short-cuts are used to try to mimic its effects. Some cheese-makers tap into the cachet associated with matured cheeses by wrapping their cheeses in plastic, storing them in chilled conditions, then releasing them as 1- or 2-year-old cheeses. On tasting them, however, one would note very little difference or improvement. Meaningful cheese-maturing such as that carefully carried out on Parmigiano-Reggiano or farmhouse Cheddars allows the cheese to breathe and dry out. When consumed, these aged cheeses deliver a richness of umami and a long, lingering finish. An authentic ageing process is one that impacts meaningfully and beneficially on the final organoleptic (sensory) experience, so affecting aroma, taste and texture. There is a mysterious alchemy to how time works. The changes wrought by time during processes such as the maturing of air-dried meats or the ageing of port even the simple melding of flavours in a stew made a day ahead are little understood. The beneficial results, though, can be tasted and appreciated.