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FT editor Roula Khalaf has chosen her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
I’m not a sentimental person. Yet, as I ease into my new bed here, along with the inevitable nerves and ill health, I feel a comforting sense of security that things are right.
Long before I became a food writer, or when I had even the slightest inkling of such improbability, the first article I published in a national newspaper was for the FT. At the time, I worked in publishing as an editorial assistant and as a book reviewer for periodicals, academic supplements, and literary magazines. Driven by the innocent optimism and brazen energy of youth, I cut up my fledgling book review and sent it (along with an apologetic cover letter admitting my shortcomings to my defense) to a proper major literary editor. So Anthony Curtis from the FT sent me a book to review. I can’t remember exactly what the book was – a Latin American novel by the magical realist school that was all the rage at the time – but I do, unfortunately, remember describing it as “strange and labyrinthine.” Shame will never leave me. A smart person might be wise not to say this, but if we’re going to spend time together here every month, it’s best not to keep secrets.
I bring these things up not only to draw a pattern for trying to make sense of life, but also because I know that I am here by chance, as much as it feels important to me to find a home here again. It’s certainly a happy coincidence. I had no intention of becoming a food writer. I wrote my first book, How to Eat, not because I wanted to change careers (my neurotic, fear-motivated and dependent habits suited me to a life as a columnist and critic), but because I felt that cooking had been taken over by professional chefs, and that the kinds of things we do at home, no matter how immature, were being undermined and disrespected. The chef’s technical skill, perfectionism, and precision are impressive, and the resulting dishes are undoubtedly exquisite, but it’s not the kind of practical model for home cooks. I wanted to write honestly about cooking in terms of the unconditional fuss of eating, and in doing so explore the language of food, what it means to us, and, perhaps most fundamentally, why it matters.
I wanted to investigate the language of food, what it means to us, and perhaps most fundamentally, why cooking is important.
It’s true that the food landscape has changed beyond recognition since 1998, when this book was published. In theory, the internet has democratized food, but in practice it has too often turned it into gaudy performance art, a trajectory that Ruby Tando charts with acuity and wit in All Consuming: Why We Eat the Way Now Eat. I’m the most voracious person I know, but even I find the constant stream of images and dizzying repetition of food to be so overstimulating that it almost suppresses my appetite. Yes, we know we can protect ourselves by not spending too much time on our phones, but the digital food space has its own scary charms. I’m not in a position to ridicule either. After all, I’m contributing to it. Food is so beautiful that I don’t want to paint it, photograph it, or make it into a movie. However, the image can only touch the surface of the food. Words allow us to see food in all its complexity. At least, that’s what those of us who write about food secretly believe. This is the challenge that struck me from the beginning. How can abstract language convey this realm of feeling and the depths of emotion? Answering that question is what drives us all forward, and why I’m particularly happy to be here, in a place where questions like this still matter.
But despite this, what I value more and more is the sheer physicality of cooking. We’re all here, our hearts buzzing and popping, living our lives behind screens. Cooking is a way of establishing oneself as a body in the world. Cooking requires the intellect to be freed from the confines of the mind and anchored in the senses of touch, taste, and smell. But cooking also responds to deeper needs. Just as I was about to start this column, the husband of one of my oldest friends passed away. I’ve loved her since I was 18 and loved him since I was 30, and the only way I could legitimately express those feelings was through cooking. We made meatballs, cakes, and rice pudding. Nothing flashy or twisted, just food that comforts the person eating it and comforts me as the chef.
So, I have explained in a roundabout way why I came here, but I would like to end by giving you something to take home as a reward. To make classic rice pudding, heat the oven to 140°C, grease a 1 liter or slightly larger dish with butter, pour in 600ml full fat milk and 150ml double cream, stir in 45g caster sugar and about a teaspoon of vanilla, then add 90g pudding rice. Pour 45g of melted unsalted butter, grate nutmeg on top and bake for 2 to 2 1/2 hours. There’s no place for sultanas in the rice pudding I make (doesn’t everyone know that you shouldn’t put anything that requires chewing in rice pudding?), but what you do with it is your own business. After all, that’s the point of cooking.
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