May 2021
Updated March 2024
Cooking food should be fun and enjoyable. The food we cook should ideally be healthy and nutritious.
I’ve been cooking for over 50 years and love being in the kitchen. I haven’t been “trained” as such but try to emulate my mum (and dad), who used to have to feed me and my 6 siblings along with themselves.
I love doing the meal planning and love trying to cook something that other people will also like and enjoy. I’m not into the “picture on a plate” stuff, “its food eat it” 🙂 I’ve enjoyed learning about and trying out foods from around the world and there isn’t much I wouldn’t try but insects are off limits and thought of “jellied eels” makes me shudder 🙂 When I’m in the kitchen preparing and cooking food while listening to fabulous music from the likes of Andrea Bocelli and Gigliola Cinquetti I’m in a world of my own and love it.
My childhood food was fairly typical of a Yorkshire family in the 50’s / 60’s that didn’t have much money. Offal, tripe, pigs trotters, pork hock, neck of mutton, wood pigeon and rabbit were sort of staple. The occasional “beef” stew, beef mince and even “faggots” were just normal, these days things this are “Gastro pub” items and cost an arm and a leg. Looking back, how mother used to keep us 7 kids fed and full must have been a challenge and I don’t ever remember being hungry and not having anything to fill me up. Ok it might have been a lot of bread (oh bread & butter pudding, bliss) and potatoes or anything “filling” but we didn’t go hungry.
Pasta & Pizza wasn’t something we knew about. Rice was a “pudding” that had to be cooked in the oven for hours!
I do admit that it has taken me some time to experiment with “foreign food” but I’ve loved Chinese food since I first tried it some 50 + years ago in a Chinese restaurant called the “Mandarin”, which was in my home town of Rotherham. Back then and probably still to day goingout for a meal was a bit of a treat.
My first experience of “Indian” food was some 35 years ago and it wasn’t a good experience. We decided to try the new Indian takeaway and tried something called Korma with Pillow 🙂 rice. When we got it back home, we put the rice on the plates and then the Korma on top. TBH, it looked like the dog had been sick and the taste was awful. The bin had a good meal that day and until recent years Indian food has been called “Bombay chuckaway” or “Delhi dustbin fodder”.
Over the recent years maybe my tastes have changed or I have become more adventurous. I discovered I like “Thia” cuisines and Indian food from the Punjab / Pakistan areas. This has made me experiment and try different “Indian” foods and there is a lot I like e.g. Biryani, Dhansak and Butter Chicken but Chinese and Thia seem to sit better.
Jamaican food is (mostly) awesome, along with Japanese.
My “Go To meals” seem to be a 36 day matured Angus steak with chips / fries (British), mushrooms, Onions and Peas or maybe an “authentic” bolognese with either pasta or rice or even better a jacket spud. I’m not really keen on rice and pasta seems to be a joke. Pizza is just “cheese on toast” and I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Welsh rarebit takes some beating 🙂
I’m not really a “fish” person but do enjoy Cod or Haddock battered and with chips and mushy peas from the local “Chippy”. I do love sea food / shell fish like Prawns, Lobster, Crab, Langoustine, Clams and scallops. Squid and Octopus are just a delight. Venison, Alpaca, Ostrich and Kangaroo are definitely on the menu. I’ve yet to try crocodile but I’m told it is worth trying. I’ll have a crocodile sandwich please and make it snappy lol
Over the years, my tastes (or my curiosity) has changed and I now like to try almost anything! Cuisines from around the world are well worth exploring but sometimes the simple things like Poached Egg on toast, Cheese on toast, Beans on toast, Dippy Egg with toasted soldiers or even Chips, Egg, beans and Spam are “Comfort Foods” and shouldn’t be ignored.
Cooking should be an enjoyable activity and not a chore.
The food you eat should be how YOU like it. It doesn’t matter what the “Food Critics” say how it should be cooked or the final result. We are all different, we all like different things, the “Food Critics” are basically trying to impose what they like and try to suggest that their “likes” should be what everyone else likes!
IMO, the food you cook and eat should be nutritional and tasty, if it looks nice its a bonus 🙂