Mary McCartney - Food: Vegetarian Home Cooking

MARY
McCARTNEY
FOOD

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First Sterling edition published in 2013

First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Chatto & Windus, Random House

Text and photography 2012 by Mary McCartney

Photograph of Mary on back jacket Simon Aboud
Photograph of Mary on Alex Foreman
Photographs of Mary on Arthur Donald
Photographs on Paul McCartney
Photographs on by Linda McCartney, Paul McCartney

Art direction and design by Jesse Holborn / Design Holborn

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ISBN 978-1-4549-0978-1

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Me and Mum, Scotland, 1971and the beginning of my journey with a passion for food.

I have a confession to make. By profession Im a photographer not a cook, but cooking is something I love to do. So I have been lucky enough to combine my two passions and have written and photographed almost everything in this book. By indulging both my great loves, I have found myself more immersed in this project than perhaps I thought possible when the idea for the book was taking shape, and I have loved the process. Getting the recipe right, cooking it, and then immediately photographing the result at home has made this a truly organic, cottage industry. A friend even jokingly suggested I buy a printing press for the next one!

My husband and our friends were the ones who first made me seriously consider writing my own cookbooktheyre always asking me to write down my recipes and say that I seem to magic it up out of nowhere while chatting with them. But, really, I think my feel for vegetarian cooking is so ingrained that it has become second nature. Growing up in a vegetarian family and having Mum at the helm in the kitchen, encouraging us all to dive in, was the best education I could have asked for. My whole family are real foodies, because everything we ate as we grew up was simply delicious, and all of it was hassle-free, quick, and uncomplicated. As the years have gone by I have continued to cook as my mum did, constantly experimenting with different combinations of ingredients, flavors, and textures. I have added my own touches and refined the recipes over time. Up until now these have stayed in my head; Im not disciplined at writing anything down, so often a meal will be made onceenjoyedand then forgotten.

I suppose this is part of my motivation for embarking on this project. It has made me take the time to write down measurements and methods and really think about my earliest childhood food memories and inspirations.

I like uncomplicated cooking, so usually it needs to be kept quite simple and not too time-consuming. I enjoy cooking with friends and family around me; its certainly a social activity for me. When friends come over I dont go overboard trying to concoct culinary masterpieces, but stick to my usual cooking style which is relaxed, straightforward, and stress-freethe empty plates at the end of a meal tell me they are happy!

I think our early experiences and memories of food determine so much of our approach to it as we get older. I was lucky enough to enjoy a very varied vegetarian diet, and so, for me, it wasnt limiting because there was always choice. My siblings and I were involved in the experience of cooking from a very early age. The kitchen was the center of the universe and Mum got us involved, helping cook and tasting always tasting. Now with my own children, I try to get them involved. We discuss meals, recipe ideas, and flavor combinations, and I have found that it gives them a point of view and demystifies the process. The more involved they are, the more interested they become in food and cooking.

When we were young, Mum let us choose our favorite meal on our birthdays. I often chose her cream of tomato soup and fluffy quiche with a large mixed salad. And now I let my kids do the same. I want that tradition to continue and I hope that involving them shows them how varied and tasty a vegetarian diet can be. I have included their favorite recipesfresh pesto, quiche, tomato sauce, chocolate chip cookies, pavlova, and many morein this book, and these are recipes that they have started to make for me! I hope this book encourages you and your children to have a go, too.

Many of the recipes in this book can be adapted and tweaked to your own taste, and if certain ingredients are not available (due to seasonality or logistics), usually others can be substituted instead; you dont have to be a slave to the recipe.

Cooking has always been about a mixture of things for me: eclectic influences, places, tastes, and ingredients that together form my own view of food and how it all goes together. But, above all, two people in my life have provided the foundation for my cooking style.

My main cooking influence was my mother, Linda. She described herself as a peasant cook and had the ability to transform whatever she found in the pantry into delicious meals. Her style was pretty laid-back and low maintenance. Being an American, the basis of her cooking was quite traditional and therefore, so is mine; I guess I learned by osmosis. I love making hearty soups, stews, fluffy rising quiches, large chefs salads and baked macaroni and cheese. Mum also influenced my love of snacks; deep-filled New York deli-style sandwiches, grab bags to snack on during long journeys, filled with nuts, raisins and little chocolate pieces. One of my lasting memories of Mum is the two of us snacking on a tried and true favorite of hersrye toast with crunchy peanut butter and jam alongside a hot cup of our favorite English breakfast tea.