Foods that changed my life

Mackerel.
Caught in Little Haven Pembrokeshire, at the harbour right by the house where my grandmother was born. Bought off the boat, taken back to the tent (actually, looking back, why did we stay in a tent when we had hordes of relatives we could have stayed with...?). Cooked on a camping stove -- fried in a tatty old blackened frying pan that went with us in camping kit. Bread and butter. Fish tasting of the sea. Ditto a pile of sprats once. A crispy skin and lots of rich flavour.

Actually, I bought some sprats when I was in Tesco buying pencil cases (as you do) the other day. The fishmonger clearly thought I was a bit odd because the amount I wanted was twice what he thought we’d need for two PLUS he said he could never eat the whole of a fish like that. Yuk! How could you? I don’t know why exactly, but I really felt like crying. But I cooked the sprats when I got home, in a seasoned flour and served with brown bread and butter. FAB.

The picture of mackerel above is by me'nthedogs at www.flick'r.com Thank you!

Pheasants

A friend had shot them (my grandpa used to poach them around the Mendip hills-- very Danny the Champion of the World, don’t you think? As a child, I thought this was fantastic: I digress) and Ned and I plucked them into a bin bag while watching telly. Then I gutted them. Well larded with bacon and cooked quite quickly in a hot oven. And really not so dry. Spat out the shot. Some of my friends think I’m weird, but I cannot understand why.

Aloo

That is, a potato in Hindi -- and many other Indian languages. Lovely big floury potatoes, cooked in a tomatoey curry sauce by my auntie Joan at the various London houses of my childhood. Copied by my mum. I still crave this now and it’s what I cooked the day of my mum’s funeral, just for myself. And contrary to popular belief, heartbreak and grief sometimes stimulate a mighty big appetite.

The Pie and the pottage

Whenever I get down to the Brecon Beacons and my extra special auntie, you can smell the pie or the potage as you end the descent down the track to the house. Steak and kidney pie, or potato, cheese and onion pie, a soup made with split peas and ham stock (pease potage, really) or cawl (that’s welsh for soup) with lamb, carrot, potato and swede or turnip. I like to add pearl barley to mine. It’s comfort for me; it’s home. I’ve had some years of vegetarianism and some as a pescatarian. But I think it’s home and hearth that bring me back to dishes with meat in them.

Crabs

As a child, brought along by my cousin Michael (this time, it’s St David’s Pembrokeshire), boiled and torn limb from limb, with the help of hammer and various items from my uncle John’s toolkit. Clearly I was a bit of a savage as a child. We’ve had great whole crab in more recent times at the Royal Standard, which is right on the beach at Lyme Regis. Top tip! How can people leave the brown meat? My boys displayed the crab shells by the house and have taken them in to show and tell. Hmmm.

Winkles

In a paper cone, accompanied by a cork stuck with pins to,well, winkle them out. Eaten in Ireland and Ramsgate and never forgotten. Ditto, litle pots of prawns from the boats in Ceredigion, hoping we’ll see the dolphins jump in Cardigan bay.

Street food

I was helping an eight year old child with homework the other day and counted up the number of countries I’d visited. It was 29. I am intensely grateful. We talked about food. What sticks out? Cos I like those spicy things you make for me. Vietnamese spring rolls, with little cellophane wrappers and big fat handfuls of coriander and mint. Pho, aromatic Vietnamese broth, with the wonderful aniseed smell I love so much...hmmm...chicken kebabs and noodles with freshly ground peanuts over the top in the backstreets of Calcutta. Things cooked in front of me, essentially. And contrary to popular belief, it’s not the street food you have to worry about if you’re fretting about amoebic dysentery. High turnover; cooked quickly. That’s my theory and I stick to it.

My mother’s roast chicken Sunday lunch

Say no more. And I’m afraid that, for nostalgia’s sake and because I’m not a food snob, I do love a bit of paxo stuffing. But the chicken has got to be a free ranger. Also, a chicken sandwich for tea, butter dripping down your arm as you eat because in it there might also be some fried leftover Sunday veg.

Mushrooms

Now, most of the time, I don’t really think about them. But something etched im memory is the camping thing again. Mushrooms gathered early morning, mist on ground, mid Wales (Cymru: God’s country, you know). The blackened frying pan again. Big field mushrooms, fried in butter, toast. Swoon.

Oooh this is shameful but Ambrosia rice pudding straight out of the tin?

Now, when I’ve been broken hearted, I’ve actually eaten this (not with my hands -- there being such things as limits, of course) in a dark kitchen in front of an open fridge (for the light: it’s companiable, you know). And I don’t want to put you off, but I’m not sure that I’ve ever made a rice pudding I’ve loved as much. Same goes for Heinz tomato soup, which must be eaten scaldingly hot and taken from a mug.

Cheese. Eggs.

A proper boiled egg and soldiers; a camembert, really ripe. Actually, lots of cheeses -- but I like strong flavours, so I’ll write more on them later. Hmm...not a great omelette fan but a really good poached egg? I’d be yours, of course. You know what? It’s lunchtime. I think I WILL have a boiled egg.

Oranges and others straight from the tree...

Now, I am so much more a fan of vegetable than fruit. But I will say this: fruit straight from the tree. In the case of the orange, from the garden groves of a family in the Jhelum valley area of Kashmir (Pakistani Kashmir, that is.) Rhapsodically sweet. A revelation. Also, my foraging as a child could come in here, too. When sent to pick peas, I would always take a plastic tumbler and eat --well, almost drink-- tumblerfuls of these sweet peas, straight off my father’s lines. Victoria plums from the tree in my grandfather’s orchard, damsons and the little waxy apples that my father grew, their trees all surrounded by unruly grass in which sprouted tribes of early purple orchids. Happy days. I’m getting all Marcel Boulestin on childhood food and gardens. Don’t know who he is yet? You’ll have to read my book!

Mangoes and barfi

Now, when I want a mango, I really want one. And not any old mango, but a Dussheri, a Sindhri mango or an Alphonse. I’ve got my Bengali uncle to thank for this one. And I’ll refer you to the older woman’s crumpet, actor and natural food Terence Stamp (no no: he was my mother’s fantasy man): the only place to eat a mango is in the bath. Obviously not with your clothes on. And if it’s a feeble kind of mango, the point of this will probably elude, anyway.

As a child, I think it was partly the little shiny bit of tinsel at either side of the mango that appealed. I still adore this. Same with the boxes of barfi --that’s a South Asian fudge-- that uncle bought for me and which I have always bought when in the right county or at a sweetmart here. It’s the grainy texture: sweet and milky -- like nothing else you’ve ever eaten, perhaps. It’s the coconut one for me, probably. And ideally, they’ve got to come in a box with some snazyy illustrations, possibly featuring the odd Bollywood scene.