Food for Thought

Food has always been a big part in my life. First off, it has sustained me so far. Second, it turned me into a spectacular fat kid, with many joyous memories of food. A classic was baking a cake with a friend. Nothing fancy; just a chocolate cake. With a slab of chocolate in the middle. We got too hungry after it was in the oven for 10 minutes that we gave up, took it out and called it a mud pie and then called it an empty cake tin ten minutes later. I wasn’t ashamed. Third off, it’s become a big hobby of mine. I think I can trace this back to my Jewish Godmother, whom did Christmas when I stayed with her one December. She made the most incredible pork belly, and forced all the Jewish children to eat some, losing their “Pork-ginity”. They were not ashamed either. They went back for more. I had obviously beaten them there. Food is quite a nostalgic thing – linked to people, places, cultures. It’s funny how, when you cook from what you know, you are what you eat. There are a couple of things that stand out on the long, long list of foods that have excited me, confused me, and made me happy enough to die. Here’s a highlight reel – begin the pop music and filtered photo sequence – scotch eggs (every time); pastry (yes, I know it is not one thing) ; peanut butter (Insert Severus Snape – “Always”). But the crowning glory of my food history is what I call Puffed Beef Cheeks, simply because I cannot remember what it was actually called. 10 hour slow roasted beef cheeks, in doughnut dough, deep fried, rolled in cinnamon, paprika and sugar and served with hot apricot jam. Those Puffed Beef Cheeks. Daaaaam. We all have something we chase. All have our little, or some people are self-important enough to have big, dreams. Here’s one of mine come true – Fool’s Gold: the sandwich of the Gods. Recipe for Fool’s Gold: 1 loaf ; 4-6 people One loaf of bread ; 4 tablespoons of butter ; ½ jar of berry jam ; ½ jar peanut butter (crunchy – don’t even think about smooth; heathens) ; 500g bacon ; No self-respect To cook the bacon, chuck in a hot pan with a splash of olive oil, and get creative. I liked some cinnamon and soy sauce to add a rich flavour whack. Cover the loaf in the butter and bake at 180C for about 5 minutes to crisp up. Then cut in half and hollow out. Fill with the jam, cooked bacon and peanut butter. Then eat until you regret. I thought is was pretty great. “But why stop here?!” screeched the internal, insatiable hunger. Now here comes my spin on the old classic; Fool’s Platinum; 4 people. 250g bacon ; 6 tablespoons of apricot jam ; 4 tablespoons of butter ; 4 cinnamon doughnuts ; Half a cup of peanut butter ; 1 tomato ; 1 sheet of puff pastry  ; 1 litre of cooking oil Put the oil in a pot and heat up until deep frying temperatures. Cut the puff pastry into 1 cm thick ribbons, curl them with your fingers and throw into the oil and hear them scream.  Remove when they are golden. Splash of olive oil in a pan and add the bacon bit by bit and add the jam as it cooks, saving enough that all the bacon gets some. Cut the doughnuts in half and cover in butter and bake for 5 minutes at 200C. Slice the tomato thinly. Heat the peanut butter up in a microwave. To assemble – doughnut half, two slices of tomato, ¼ of the bacon, doughnut half, and pour some of the hot peanut butter over it. Put the pastry twirls of the side. Tada. This obsession with this combo was born after seeing the movie “The F Word” with Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan. Chantry, played by Zoe Kazan, is the archetype of the perfect woman. She is another obsession, maybe for a different post. But it is funny how people bond to characters in movies and series. You hear people talk as if they are close friends, and the shock and horror –  “I didn’t think X would do that! That’s so not like him!” Strange. And I do it too. It all jumps to the idea of escapism. We will love what keeps us suspended; something that makes us light in the face of Milan Kundera’s Bearble Heaviness. At what point does our escapism end on the spectrum of normality? It is fine for little girls to horde dolls, but when a grown man collects action figures it becomes sad. Why? I would love to interview the committee that sets these boundary points on what we might accept as a decent escape. No to drug-use, but yes to alcohol. It’s harmless, right? Ignoring the car crashes, and cancers, and liver failures, and domestic abuses, and other forms of violence, it’s fine right? Life is but a collection of paradoxes that make sense to those that do and don’t believe them. My father once said that the one way of thinking about intelligence is the ability to hold several contradicting ideas as true at once. I believe this. And I don’t. I think we should eat healthily. And I cook Fool’s Platinum. Until next time, I remain yours humbly; A glutton; a previous fat kid; a cook; A Spectator