A Matter of Taste

not cooking, (not)pairing flavours in the kitchen and a flawed intuition; wild garlic, chard and goat cheese tart

I stopped cooking. I watched my friend G.’s husband as he plated risotto with blistered tomatoes and fish on top for us. M.’s approach was meticulous, and I adore this new friend. I was woken up by a nerve pain and I dreamt of sizzling sunny side up eggs. At the breakfast bar of a hotel, I asked for a coffee – ‘No, Sheila, the lady doesn’t want anything.’ I heard the waitress say as she stepped away from me and back into the kitchen. I stopped cooking, but I can’t pinpoint when I did. Snacking. I snack when I walk down the road and between two acts of rain – crisps, baguette (plain), cereal bars, tangerines, they taste better when I eat them on the move.  

‘Perhaps what I want is knowing I can have tomatoes at any time of the year because I know how to cook four things very well and this ingredient is the staple to all of them because I work long hours and I don’t want to have to look up how to cook new things in accordance with yet more restrictions on my choice when I have so little control over my life anyways.’
– quote from I’m A Fan by Sheena Patel

I’m A Fan is a ticking bomb of a novel, yet the unnamed narrator never fully explodes with rage or joy or despair. A microcosm, relatable and not relatable at once; it’s a rare text whose narrative arc is on the edge constantly as it words the literacy of abuse and its language operates like a rebellious mind trapped in a toxic relationship, either with a person or a hierarchy. It took me some time to fully understand what I’m A Fan was doing to me as a reader. My friend I. was reading at the same time as me and, at first, I told her that I couldn’t put the book down, but I couldn’t fully fall for it either. I told I. that the text was keeping me at arm’s length – something about standing in front of a broken mirror. Sheena Patel has thought each word carefully and sharply, and reading I’m A Fan becomes a toxic relationship of its own.

There is more to say about the tour de force of Patel’s I’m A Fan and much has been written about it too. One thread that resonated with me in this instance is the relationship between intuition and power structures in society. How one is lured into said instinctive actions and decisions and intuition is flawed by the power dynamics and speed of societal structures – work, pay your bills, and your taxes!, have you visited your family? but watch your carbon print. there will be no public pension by the time you retire, get on the property ladder. deposit, lol. also work harder to pay your credit card bill or you won’t get a mortgage. It spirals and this is when instinct tends to cheat on intuition for the sake of survival. The said fraud instinct, or what I called ‘the edge’ a few sentences ago: that moment when a decision translates as sound-minded or the only logical next step in the eyes of others, yet something isn’t quite right inside you. This is when expectations take over desires. Like one too many spoons of mustard in a vinaigrette, it’s fine but it leaves you with an aftertaste. Tongue clicks, it stings. Until the day it derails.

salty!

A no-cooking dish: slice some bread (any will do, but I recommend toasting it if you can/want), spread butter and anchovy paste on top; sprinkle some dill and white pepper on top. 

We live by the water now. When the tide is low, I can walk on the riverbank at the bottom of our building and when the tide is high, I stand at the top of the stairs. I love the sound of the waves hitting the rocks, flirting with my feet. I stand there often. L. came with me the other night and I told him that I like living by the water, to which he responded that he understands; that he feels safe too, because we could sail away if they came for us. I responded that we’re lucky because we know how to swim. But what I didn’t say out loud is that the idea of fleeing this way scared me. I thought of Giuliana (played by Monica Vitti), who is trapped between the authoritative morality of modern life and a directing camera lens in Antonioni’s Red Desert, and says: ‘I can't look at the sea for long or I lose interest in what's happening on land.’  

Wednesday 5th April, 19:44

I stopped cooking because I lost interest in pairing ingredients together so they would work out the best of one another. I wanted pasta with a drizzle of olive oil on top; I wanted to bite into a tomato as if it was a peach, a precursor for summer; I wanted to eat mozzarella with a pinch of salt when I came back late on Monday; and I’ll always want to slice an apple and dip it into my coffee, oui oui trust me on this one. Trust in oneself, this is what ‘the edge’ takes away from a person.

Three happy coincidences, in chronological order:

I.
I found sweet cauliflower sprouting on reduction and I bought a pack. L. added a handful of them into the asparagus orzo he cooked for me and our friend V.: a good surprise. I had never tasted this kind of cauliflower before – a small spark of intuition found its way to me in the overly bright aisle of a supermarket. I was hungry when I saw it.  

II.
I visited my friend I. at her house, and we sat outside like two old friends who hadn’t seen each other nor the sun in a long time. Back in her kitchen, I picked a copy of Niki Segnit’s The Flavour Thesaurus from I.’s bookshelf and I read:
‘Following the instructions in a recipe is like parroting a pre-formed sentence from a phrasebook.’
Right there, I was reunited with a forgotten agency – individuality. There are pre-filled structures, but taste is mine and flavours will tune in with my palate in a way it wouldn’t do for anyone else. Saltiness, sweetness, sourness, bitterness, savouriness, it tastes different for you than it does for me, or from one day to another. Culture and habits formed my taste, my present re-informs it, and turbulence like medication and inflammation levels divert my taste buds on occasion. The matter of taste is a patchwork and so is my mind, one intuition swings after the other, and I swirl between flavour families and negotiate my rhythm.

III.
It’s wild garlic season and I love how it makes goat cheese tiptoe in my mouth. I also know how to make a savoury tart and I have puff pastry in the fridge. I bought the rolled pastry almost three weeks ago but surely these things don’t expire promptly, right? I need to believe as much, so I’m cooking a wild garlic, chard and goat cheese tart:

setting up, listening

1 ready rolled puff pastry sheet, at room temperature
1 bunch of chard, harder stems removed and boiled until tender
1 bunch of dill, roughly chopped (optional, I was keen to use it as it looked beaten)
1 generous handful of wild garlic, roughly chopped
1 medium/large egg, at room temperature
1 tsp of Dijon mustard (à l’ancienne)
150g log of goat cheese, at room temperature
1 tbsp of almond milk, unsweetened
black pepper

Drain the boiled chard well (you could use a kitchen towel or a potato masher) and set it aside to cool. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 180C fan. Unroll the pastry sheet and fit it inside a tart mould. Prick the base of the pastry a few times with a fork. Leave aside.

In a bowl, mix the wild garlic and dill. Set aside. In a separate bowl, mix the chard, egg, mustard, three quarters of the goat cheese (roughly chopped), almond milk and the pepper. Combine the dry and wet ingredients into one bowl and mix well with a wooden spoon (to avoid tearing apart the wild garlic).

Spread the mixture over the pastry shell homogeneously. Slice the final quarter of goat cheese and spread the slices of cheese on top of the tart. Bake in the oven for 35 minutes, or until cooked and golden.

It’s garlicky and breathy, (to me) it tastes like a countryside walk.

a good bake

Last weekend, our friends C. and T. came over for lunch. You must have guessed by now – L. did most of the cooking, but I made the vinaigrette for the fennel and blood orange salad (olive oil, malt vinegar, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper) and I think it tasted good. I watched everyone taking a bite of their food and I felt as if I had put on high heels for the first time ever. It made me aware, but a good and confident awareness. We talked about the food.
‘I’d have never thought of this combination,’ one said.
‘I love to cook ____ with ____ .’ Said the other. And just like that, for a moment, it felt possible to fill in the phrasebook again.

A tentative list of other food combinations I like to keep going:
-        cavolo nero and borlotti beans
-        Puy lentils and chard
-        baccalà and leeks
-        garlic, butter and parsley (or maybe it’s the smell of them hanging out together in a pan that I love)
-        cannellini beans, tuna and red onion
-        beetroot and feta cheese
-        lemon and rosemary

I cook, I bite, I taste; I cook. 

Margaux

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