Food for thought

There's always room for cake!

Food is right up there with oxygen and water as part of life’s essential requirements, and human beings are understandably somewhat obsessed with it. I spend the best part of my day thinking about food: what to buy, what to cook, who in the household doesn’t like avocados or cheese, and has everyone had their “five a day”, preparing food, cooking it, and cleaning up afterwards. It's a wonder I ever have time to write.

My household has grown temporarily larger over the last few weeks, with the welcome addition of my step-sons. This also means the dynamics of dinner time are vastly different as there are two extra sets of likes and dislikes to contend with. I am always amazed at the variation in tastes that a family will produce. The three boys are all attending soccer and cricket camps over the holidays and I am already exhausted at the things I need to remember about who likes what sandwich filling, what colour bread is acceptable, who needs the crusts cut off, who hates butter, who loves Marmite and who needs persuading to eat fruit. But what I find most difficult is trying to describe the taste of something to someone else. Two out of the three boys are reluctant to try anything new, and particularly if it is green, and I have had some interesting conversations in the supermarket whilst trying to buy food that everyone will eat.

Do courgettes taste like cucumbers?

Why not, they look just the same? What do courgettes taste like then?

What do marrows taste like?

What do plantains taste like?

Are avocados sweet, because they look disgusting?

Etc etc etc...

I have failed, for the most part, in coming up with satisfactory answers to some of these questions, because I can’t seem to find the words to explain to a twelve year old that an avocado is more than just a squishy sludgy-green vegetable that’s nice in a salad. The screwed up faces on my audience were enough to convince me that I am terrible at describing food.

I am always amused and intrigued by descriptions given to wines. I think wine tasters are brilliant at finding the words to describe something that we cannot concur with until we have tried it for ourselves. Although when I was younger and less experienced I was always disappointed that a red wine that boasted of warm blackcurrants did not taste of Ribena. Joanne Harris is also brilliant at describing the taste and smell of chocolate in her novel Chocolat. I should, perhaps, revisit this book if I want to get a handle on describing food.

The other strange thing about food is the way a certain taste can bring back memories. The other day I took the boys to MacDonalds for lunch and had, for the first time in many years, a Filet of Fish meal. For those of you who have not experienced this delight, it is an odd combination of fish, tartare sauce and cheese, in a very soft bap. With the very first bite of this delicacy I was transported away from the Liffey Valley shopping centre back in time to 1989, to a MacDonalds in the West End of London. It was 2.00am and I had just left a nightclub with some friends and we had had such a good time we had wanted to eek out the fun a little longer and so we bundled in to the restaurant and sat for ages, giggling and gossiping and wishing we didn’t have work the next morning. Oh happy days they were – in the British Library!

Olives marinated in garlic, lemon juice and coriander remind me of Casablanca. I eat them whenever I want to remember the feel of hot sun on my face. Reestit mutton soup, or salt beef bannocks will always conjure up Shetland.

But as well as conjuring up the past, we also use food as a language in its own right. A box of Belgian chocolates bought at the airport on a business trip, says “I thought of you while I was away – at least once!” The delicious aroma of a home made curry, cooked from scratch, says “I appreciate all the hard work you do,” and a lopsided chocolate birthday cake, decorated with jellytots, marshmallows and magic candles means “you are the best child in the whole world!”

I may not be so good at describing how something tastes, but I have definitely mastered the language of food in other ways.