I have a bunch of deadlines, a to do list as long as my arm, so naturally I’ve just spent an hour writing a weird rap about my favourite food. I blame my friends for filling my timeline with their yummy cooking, which is making me hungry. This is pretty much just a list of food, with a brief note on why I would never eat a crow and what we will do when the chickens rise up.)
My dreams are filled with a really good boar Ragu with fresh tagliatelle, or a really beautiful piece of grass fed well reared bloody filet mignon, dripping with mustard and with garlic spinach on the side. But in reality that’s an Italian job, meaning a holiday thing, and I always feel horribly guilty because I love cows, a hangover from my country childhood, sitting reading in fields while the cows mooched lazily around me, ignoring me, except to moo half heartedly if I stood up too fast, but maybe not that guilty because my iron levels are trashily low, always have been and the once a year holiday craving for steak is debilitatingly real. I always plan not to give in but always do, dribbling. It’s monstrous. No guilt about the boars, they’d eat me if they could, as a waiter once pointed out. None of this in any way a position I plan to defend, it’s indefensible (but delicious). A more everyday loveable treat would be pickled herring, which I don’t eat often cos it ruins your breath for days but I eat two pots back to back straight away if I know I’ll be alone for a few days, if the kids are with their dad, say, and I have no meetings or any social plans, raw fish sliding off the little wooden hook, falling apart in your mouth, bloody love it, also scrambled egg and a tiny bit of really good, really thinly sliced smoked salmon (fresh lemons, pepper) to flavour it, on buttered chewy half sourdough toast. Also love home fried chicken (chickpea flour and olive oil works best for me, with a dusting of Parmesan to make the surface chewy, or possibly doused in fresh lemons and dollops of hummus, a few leaves, or chicken and chickpeas in a tomatoey pepperonatoey stew, eaten like a soup with crusty bread, which I’ve made so often that the kids have gone off it, maybe roast chicken stuffed with fresh lemons and garlic and Rosemary, cooked until it’s almost too done, with rock salt seasoned roast baby potatoes and salad and dark green pesto gravy (fresh pesto mixed with the cooked meat juices) or in winter with finely chopped Brussels sprouts fried in fresh ginger and garlic and olive oil, lots of black pepper, or a nice spinach and Parmesan omelette, sliding butterly into a twisty baguette. Maybe a good freshly made moussaka (not made by me, I hasten to add, who can be bothered stirring that stupid but delicious cheese sauce for hours) with a Greek salad and flat bread, grilled vegetables and baklava and good black coffee to wash it all down. I’ve decided I must like moussaka because it reminds me of my dad’s shepherds pie, so I should probably just hang out with him more often rather than literally sacrificing lambs. I’m obsessed with a local Italian who do a great parmigiana. Aubergines melting with cheeses and delicious tomatoeyness, with a nice crunchy curly salad and a glass of crisp cold Pinot Grigio (no idea why the Italians came to cold and rainy England, but our tummies thank them). If I have a takeaway I’ll get sushi and Edame, some gingery pak choi in soy sauce, but I’ll include those lovely battered prawns with sesame seeds which probably aren’t even authentic for all I know, who cares, they’re delicious. They’re secretly the reason for the takeaway, love a prawn. I love squid too but I’ve tried not to eat it ever since I learned how smart squid are and how hard they try to escape us, poor bastards. Just thinking about them navigating nets and traps with craft and skill, only to be turned into calamari. A pretty humiliating come down for their amazing alien brains. I eat a lot of chicken, it’s true, but in my defence I have never eaten a really clever bird, never knowingly eaten a crow for instance, I have a clear preference for stupid and/or unrelatable creatures it seems, so long as I’ve checked first that they didn’t live or die cruelly. Again, indefensible to kill things at all, even if they’re stupid. Although a chicken once pecked me really hard when I was four, so I think the chickens probably had it coming. But I won’t try to defend the frank immorality of this position either. So like every centrist I’ve now pissed off both sides, both meat eaters and vegetarians with my guilt and my killing, but perhaps one day I will be eaten by lions, so karma will come around and the vegetarians at least can take comfort in that. It wouldn’t be the worst way to go and I would hope that the lions would enjoy the meal and not find me too stringy or dry. Anyway. These are my favourite foods mind. To be clear, I can go veggie for days on end if haloumi, grilled veg, avocado and delicious salads are involved, especially in summer. And porridge. I love porridge. Maple syrup and soft bananas. So good. Yum. I’m not averse to a biscuit. Custard creams mostly. But I only tend to want them when I’m sleep deprived, and eating my feelings, with lots of English breakfast tea to keep me awake. Really fresh nectarines. Nothing better than biting into a fresh plump in season nectarine which explodes ripely straight down your sleeve and chin, oh Lord. I look at this list and think how lucky I am to eat so well. I always have, somehow even when I was broke, although in those days there were more vegetables from the market, and no meat, just a lot of eggs and tinned fish. I was also considerably slimmer, so maybe I’ve just gone downhill, nutrition wise. But genuine food poverty, of the kind I’ve never known, kids going to sleep hungry and malnourished, anaemia from their poor diets, is one of the worst things going on in our country right now, maybe THE worst thing, and utterly indefensible in a thriving first world economy like ours where we all post our lunch at the drop of our hat. I understand my luck, my pure undeserved luck, and my children’s, that we get to eat this way. That we get to have all this good nutrition (except for the custard creams of sadness, obviously). My grown up daughters already understand that food is so much more than fuel and they cook for their friends and partners already, really delicious and nourishing meals, which pleases me immensely. Food is love and you just can’t have too much love. Or too much nourishment. A vegetarian reading this will see only a catalogue of small deaths and a serial murderer, not exactly love. I have no excuses. When the chickens rise up, as they must, I’ll be first against the wall. Although my preference would be the lions, I’d be wasted on chickens.
