Love lessons learnt though food

Many lessons are learnt through food and although one would assume these lessons are culinary pay careful attention because these are very often lessons in love. And these lessons are unfortunately mostly learnt the hard way. I will very quickly run through some of the lessons I have learnt just in case you are the rare kind of person that can learn from someone else’s mistakes.

Lesson 1 (aged 16) learnt from the very glamorous blond mother of my first true love (who broke my heart) – Keep your figure by never ever eating potatoes. Useful lesson.

Lesson 2 (aged 17) learnt from being ensconced in a cheap and nasty flat with an older and hellish Hell’s Angel – Fried eggplant is a very good addition to a breakfast but as you find your feet in the culinary world you will learn that eggplant jam is one of the most sublime things you will ever eat. Recipe follows. Lesson - Some good always comes out of a bad relationship even if it is only to open you up to the possibilities of a previously despised vegetable.

Lessons 3 - 11 (aged 19) learnt from a somewhat older, sweet and very charming Italian boyfriend who did not deserve the shoddy treatment he received. How to pickle artichokes, how to pick fresh mussels off the rocks at low tide and whip up a quick pasta sauce, to cook pasta al dente, to seek out a small Italian butchery and buy the perfect salami, that as long as you have the best bread all you need with it is a piece of that perfect salami (no butter), to eat panettone and drink prossecco (together), to eat radicchio even though it seemed impossibly bitter at the time, that you can grow a wide variety of lettuces in your kitchen garden, to only eat ice cream from a gelateria, to drink Campari and soda and the sophistication of Saturday lunches at restaurants.

Lesson 12 – learnt the hard way – Never hand out shoddy treatment to a sweet and charming person with an innate sense of how to eat.

Lesson 13 (aged 20) learnt from a dope-head – to drink Irish coffees and eat Moules Marinière at three in the morning while listening to very, very laid-back jazz and that if you smoke enough dope almost anything can taste delicious.

Lesson 14 – your relationships will be interspersed with bowls of Moules Marinière.

Lesson 15 (aged 21) learnt from Italian boyfriend number two and his family – That unless you are docile and behave according to stringent Catholic mores you will not be “allowed” to work in the family restaurant. Also, Lesson 16, that fresh peaches marinated in wine are one of the most exquisite desserts ever.  And Lesson 17, frogs legs are not worth having more than once and 18, mama is always the best cook.

Lesson 19 – That seduction and romance aside, life with Italian Boyfriend Number Two (and mama) would have been a miserable life.

Lesson 20 – (aged 24/25) during a year spent travelling with the circus: The first thing to do on arrival in a new town is to check out the local food situation and/or find the best restaurant. This lesson still holds.

Lessons 21 - 30 (aged 26 – 39) learnt from my first and very charming mother-in–law. That tequila and tonic is very thirst quenching, that pesto is something to serve with pasta (after two Italian boyfriends?), that it’s useful to learn to cook Veal Scaloppini even if you never intend to do so yourself, that there are a hundred varieties of chilli and that each can be distinguished from the next, that balsamic vinegar exists, that one should always read Gourmet Magazine (and The New Yorker), that in order to keep her precious son satisfied (didn’t happen) I needed to know how to make 15 different chocolate cakes, that if you go to the trouble of making a proper Xmas mincemeat one should really use a very old family recipe prescribing real meat, and that travelling and eating are the great joys in life.

Lesson 31 (aged 26 - 39) – Mother is the better cook (again). Lesson actually not learnt.

Lesson 32 (aged 26 - 39) - Don’t make the mistake of marrying someone who never sets foot in the kitchen. 

You will be happy to know that I have learnt that last lesson and after having fantasies for many years of what it must be like to spend hours in the kitchen with your lover, cooking, chatting, sipping wine and refining the art of seduction, I now know that that is an essential part of a good relationship.

Recipes

Eggplant Jam

Take a couple of kilograms of eggplant (don’t be shy, you need a lot, so make this three to four kgs), peel off strips of skin with a potato peeler, slice them into 1cm thick slices and toss generously in olive oil. Use the best olive oil.

Now you have a choice , you can either fry the eggplant in batches in a heavy frying pan which takes ages and tons more oil, or you can bake them in a high oven on a couple of baking sheets in a single layer turning them every now and again until they are very soft, browned and seem to have almost melted.

Transfer them to a large cast iron pot and add about 500g of peeled chopped Italian tomatoes (either tinned or grated raw – no skin) with all their juice, about 10 smashed cloves of garlic, a tablespoon or two each of paprika, ground cumin and ground coriander, a few whole star anise, salt and a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar.

Cook this for at least a couple of hours over a very, very low heat on the top of the stove, stirring regularly with the lid alternately on and off, until all the liquid has evaporated and the eggplant mixture is frying gently in the olive oil which has miraculously reappeared from the eggplant. Taste for seasoning, you might want to add more sugar, salt and perhaps some ground black pepper. I sometimes add tomato pesto to intensify the flavours. Serve with toasted pita bread triangles. This will keep for at least a week – or you can bottle it and keep it for months.

Moules Marinière

Try to pick fresh mussels off the rocks if you can. About a kilogram per person.
Remove beards, scrape off barnacles and wash the mussels well. Discard any that stay open after giving them a tap with a spoon and after cooking discard any that have stayed closed.

Finely chop an onion or two, a bunch of parsley and a fennel bulb and smash a couple of cloves of garlic. Fry all of this very gently in butter in a pot large enough to hold the mussels too. When the onion is nice and soft add about half a bottle of white wine and turn the heat right up. When the wine is bubbling nicely toss in all the mussels and cook for about 5 mins with the lid on, giving the pot a shake every now and then. Remove all the open mussels and give the unopened ones another couple of minutes.  Divide the mussels among two bowls. Strain the liquid and pour over the mussels. Scatter with parsley and serve immediately.  Serve with crusty bread.