Last night’s dancing was mesmerising. Mesmerising in a sixth-form production, they’ve certainly got a bit of front type-way, with added lap dancing routines, which was some small compensation. It lasted about an hour (though it seemed longer), and then there was a forty-five minute interval before there was to be an hour more of it. You’re joking aren’t you? My companion and I went off for a beer, and then home for chicken sandwiches.
Here’s a bit more from the Where the *** Are we Going to Find an Auberigine, which will morph into The Ciabatta Years, (Short Books, next spring). This blog cannot be all high culture and pictures of trainers.
Findus crispy pancakes were a frozen product that came in boxes of four. They were a pale yellow colour, half-moon shaped, and filled with mince, or cheese, or mushroom. The cheese and mushroom varieties contained a chemical sauce rather than actual cheese or mushrooms. You cooked the pancakes by shallow frying in oil. The mince version was relatively straightforward, the cheese and mushroom varieties more demanding as they had a tendency to turn out either ‘not quite done,’ ie. still frozen in the middle, or done, ie. the filling had reached a temperature and consistency that meant it could perform the same job to the roof of your mouth as Nitromors does to paint. And this before the invention of the microwave, too (my mother is so dedicated to the microwave now that she even has one in her caravan).
Due to mother’s conscientious objections, it was me, as the eldest, who carried out most of the cooking in our house. Our father was out working all hours, and our parents were soon to be divorced: where, in the case of her children, our mother discarded her cooking duties, in the case of her husband she made a point of virtually discarding them, somehow managing to let him know that she wasn’t cooking for him even though she never did anyway.
If this sounds rather deprived - which, as food, it is - in terms of developing culinary technique there was something to be said for it. There was a skill to be learned in handling crispy pancakes. The great challenge with the product is to get the insides cooked perfectly without burning the outside to black. By improvising the exact right balance between time, temperature, and height of flame, this is possible. Once you have finessed this ability you have done well, because it is the same method that is employed in frying steak. You have given yourself a head-start for the moment when you become a short-order chef and are required to deliver cuts of sirlion and fillet to the varying degrees of finish - au bleu, saignant, à point, bien, or bien cuit - that you will be asked to produce when one day you find yourself working in the heat an à la carte restaurant.
As my confidence grew, it became a matter of pride to me to serve the crispy pancakes to my siblings just as they liked them - à point. Four pancakes into three children doesn’t divide all that neatly, so it was two-and-half each for the younger pair, and one for me. It makes me sound a saint, but this is not why I say it. I say it to make a point about chefs - they seldom eat much, they take pleasure from the organised delivery of perfect food, not from the eating of the stuff. There are some fat chefs, of course, but they are never much good. The ones to trust are those who live on nicotine, caffeine and champagne, who only take on the occasional steak sandwich when the need for solids becomes pressing.
The preferred accompaniment to crispy pancakes was pommes frites avec sauce brun, ou ketchup de tomate, ou alternatively, le Smash.
Tags: cooking






