What's your Flava

“When one is busy absorbed in ones work, the very absorption affords great delight.” - Seneca

“Flow better, know Cheddar” - Craig David - What’s your flava?

Food to me is more than non-descript, tepid disappointment, delivered to your door in a brown bag, after a bit of smart phone fan-dangleberry. It isn’t a box of tiny plastic packets and aspirational photo cards, for weak reworking of a wonderful exotic dish. You shouldn’t accept it either, Life is too short for uncomfortable shoes, crap sex and underwhelming meals. For the record my shoes are fine.

When I stare at shelves of produce, my brain defaults to see dishes and menus, combined with an uncanny knack of memorising where everything is, I am one of those who goes around the supermarket in the isle order I choose! oh i don’t start on veg… By the time I have lapped back and forth through the aisles I have filled my basket with produce that will be quickly broken down into 4 to 5 family meals, with little to no wastage, and on my west country budget. We are all capable of doing this and many do without really noticing, but I want to think how it can be done better starting with asking why we should want to at all?

I have years spent observing natural systems take place in kitchens, my aim to simplify processes, removing error, and provide time for my chefs to focus on the important jobs. Once that is achieved, I then make sure we don’t waste food, get the best ingredients on time, get the best flavour out of them, and keep to a budget making us money. It will probably surprise you to know that most dishes sold over the years have cost me between £1.60 and £4.20 per portion, brownies, cookies, cakes between 45p and £1.80. you will pay 3 times that as a minimum, the more efficient the kitchen the lower running costs, so margins can be kept. So take it from me, you can eat well on a budget, and hello fresh aint that cheap

It breaks down like this: Menus have sections [cold larder, sauce, hot larder, pastry etc] each section is responsible for prepping elements of the dishes, they need to prepare the right amount for a service/week, with this they need to understand, shelf life, par levels, delivery times, prep time, service time/ food quality.

When the cheques come on, the elements are processed (heated, sliced, dressed, sauced, blow torched etc) and assembled, at their peak, on a plate. What could go wrong?

We have a term called Mise En Place.. put in place, it denotes the act of getting ready. My daily challenge was to ensure the right amount of correct ingredients were in from suppliers and the elements of each dish were ready. Using the best ingredients is a battle half won, given abundance during seasonality (and low cost) you find yourself using the same ingredients across multiple dishes. You also had to control time and cost, reduce waste and keep a standard. Elements that took time to make, needed to be re-used where possible. You would have the menus store cupboard basics: chicken stock went into three dishes, PX sherry vinegar glaze in four, spiced bread at the start, into an ice cream and dried for canapes.

The principles behind running a kitchen, fit home life, now more than ever. You don’t have the team and system so its easier to focus on three key parts:

· Knowing what foods do you and those you cook for will eat (flavour)

· What ingredients that you like go together (taste) and

· How do prepare it quickly with quality (technique)

The areas of flavour, taste and technique aren’t areas we are unfamiliar with. But expanding our knowledge of them and growing confidence in the language will build cooking confidence.

Lets look at flavour, these are the tasting notes from a Lagavulin, 16 year old single malt:

Peat smoke. Seaweed. Maritime notes. Bonfire. Ham. Medicinal smoke. Iodine. Leather. Heather. Pineapple. Salt

Tasty right? It’s my go to after I have smoked the entire contents of the first aid box. In all honesty, how many of those could you have listed if given a blind tasting? and how many would you have identified sipping it with tasting notes in hand?

These flavours were all tasted by a number of independent tasters who have trained themselves over years, probably piss heads, but ones who have made it an art, for that you have to admired them. The one I want you to think of is medicinal smoke, when was the last time you were in hospital? Do you remember the thick air, the constant wafts of cleaner and gasses? It’s a smell that brings back a lot of feelings, the primary one being oddly calm. As does the smell of a bonfire and ham, they scream warmth, comfort from cold nights, I can imagine sipping this whiskey and easily unwinding.

It might take you to your time tarmacking drives, or it might take you back to a time when you were trapped at sea, on a burning peat barge, with nothing but a can of lilt and ham sandwich. As I say we are all different.

There is no rule book or wrong answers, we all perceive the world completely uniquely. I have sat through so many menu tastings where the new seasons dishes; reworked by my senior chefs, numerously iterated to perfection, have been sent back across the pass with a healthy side of criticism: bland, musty, dish water, flat, one dimensional, insipid, rancid, did you cook this on the radiator, what have you got against Cod - what has it ever done to you? Is this supposed to be chicken? Are you feeding farm animals? Have you thought about changing career.

There have been less painful moments, therapy has helped. As the proverb states: one mans meat is another man’s poison, so as chefs and you; future budding chefs, your job is to create a meal for someone, when you don’t understand how they perceive taste, to make matters worse you only have some of the language needed to discuss what you like.

“What do you want for dinner kids?”

“I dunno”

“Great, what are you in the mood for?”

“Um, something nice”

“Nice like Italian? Indian? classic comfort food?”

“Yeah, ok”

“How hungry are you?”

“I could eat…”

We have pizza, home made.

Why can’t the conversation go like this:

“What do you want for dinner kids?”

“Thank you for asking Pappa, we are so grateful for all your hard work looking after us, it will be remembered, and we will repay you when get grow up. And you have our word we will move out when we are 18.”

(no harm in setting the bar)

“Thank you babies, now what are you in the mood to eat?”

“I don’t want anything to filling, but feel I need something spicy to clean out my senses, something clean and refreshing, I am tired and don’t want to feel bloated. Not to fancy, just something I can collapse in front of the TV, switch off and escape.”

“I know just the thing.“

We’d have pizza. Homemade.

Only kidding, I would have felt the feeling that was painted, I can visualise with a number of senses, what eating that will be like. The familiar sounds of the kitchen: the knife crunching through to the board, fridge door sucking shut, with a reassuring ‘fup’, sudden sizzle as cold items hit the oiled pan, tightening up and giving off aromas as the sugars catch. Air filled with the scented steam. Spoons clinking, occasional curse words, as hands are bit by flying fat and sharp corners of knife blades. The smells, the feeling of a warm bowl in one hand, weighty, the rough ceramic finish isn’t going to slip. spoon, not deep enough to hold a decent amount of fluid and annoyingly lacking in weight, navigating the bowl in the other hand, darting from item to item, ensuring each mouthful is slightly different to the last, but each equally surprising.

The sharp and sour tastes, heat that stays and enough fat to help everything linger, mouthfeel. Something to chew on, the fresh and crisp bites leaving your feeling healthy. Flashes of heat, rushes of warmth inside and out. Sated, familiar feelings. All meanings being applied to that experience are constructed based on the only reference we have, past experiences.

There is no detail on what I have cooked above, not a single ingredient. But I know it has conjured up an image, feeling, memory of a meal. And for each of you it is probably different. Habitually we all have our unique experiences built on our food environment, cultural and social norms.

Our lack of language in this area probably explains the popularity of visual platforms such as Instagram, pinterest and ticktok in selling food. I remember a day when we just had ready meals whose selling point wasn’t too far off my own dating app profile:

The contents of the package no way resembled the photo on the front.

You will only want it when you have no other options.

It will be underwhelming, leaving you with a sense of regret until after a few weeks, you will go back and try again.

The language barrier kicks in again when we eat out. I haven’t paid my internet bill, turns out it is cheaper for me to move around cafes and jump on their wifi. As I write, in front of me is a brunch menu.

Miso Squash omelette, rose harissa, pickles, and parmesan.

Salt beef, sauerkraut, mustard, and cheddar croque madame

Take these two dishes, firstly they lean on cuisines from all around the planet, it’s a fantastic example of how far our food world has come, it sounds good, I think, creative yes, got a good few top trends in there, I am sure they look great on Instagram, what will they eat like?

Let me re-write them as I see them…

Miso Squash omelette, rose harissa, pickles, and parmesan.

Firm fleshed Squash, with a nutty, buttery, and sweet flavour, baked in an umami, salty and tangy rich paste, caramalised to bring out more bitter notes in the roasting process. That is then baked slowly in warm velvety rich omelette, The eggs providing the fatty and protein dense mouth feel. Proper home comforts. But the salt, umami, fatty big taste needs knocking back, so it’s served with harissa and pickles. Harissa provides a peppery, smoky, citrussy and subtle floral notes that clean the palette, whilst adding some richer deep heat, easily cushioned by the buttery notes, also providing a contrast, making every subsequent mouth full of omelette richer than the last. The pickles provide a crisp, cold, and acidic bite, wakening the senses, and cleaning all fatty deposits from your mouth. Making the squash appear firmer and egg smoother. The parmesan adds nothing, a hard lemony and mildly nutty cheese doesn’t need to be on the plate, its probably just a seasoning, why not list salt and pepper! If you are wanting to add a cheese then go for a chalky young goats or sheep’s cheese with honey, adding a kick of sweetness and strong chalky texture to stand up to the harissa. Which is in danger of dominating the dish.

Salt beef, sauerkraut, mustard, and cheddar croque madame.

Salt soft strands of beef, wet, sharp, fermented cabbage, vinegary heat and cheese, all of which have a high amount of acidity. This feels like reflux and heart burn with a prolonged greasy taste in my mouth, the heat from the mustard being increased by the salty, sourness of the sauerkraut and saltness of the cheddar, hiding any subtle mustard taste, but just standing up to the fatty salty beef. If it has kept the fat, if it’s dry then this dish falls flat. It just feels like two strong flavours going toe to toe and drowning all others out. Comfort food, you want the shake a hang over or crash into a sofa. But you don’t want to taste anything else for the next few hours. But why fry the sandwich that is already heavy? Rubens uses Swiss cheese, which is mild, sweet and nutty, stringy when melted and lower in fat content. It’s rye bread fresh, which has a nutty, malty flavour and strong absorbing texture. Adding a richness to help the beef.

I ordered a coffee. None of those descriptive terms are un-familiar, but I hope you get a better idea of what it would be you are about to eat, and most importantly what the experience eating it would be like through your sense of taste.

I don’t write menus like this, or speak like this in the open, I like having friends. My inner monolog does it on it’s own.

Speaking of which more next week, This weeks wittering’s were brought to you by the music of Craig David and a coconut latte.