As a transplanted northern Californian, one thing I can’t get my head around, is the British way of naming foods. I’ve already talked about biscuits in an earlier article, but now I want to take on other foods that don’t actually say what they are. I’m bringing this up (so to speak) because it troubles me: I cannot bring myself to eat something called a “slice”, or a “tray bake”. It’s not the food itself: anything wrapped in or blanketed by pastry has my unqualified approval. If you showed me a slice and didn’t call it that, I’d probably have it and say yum (unless cauliflower is involved).
Sunday roasts bothered me deeply, until I learnt that they always consist of a Yorkshire pudding, gravy, vegetables (please don’t say “veg”), roasted potatoes and some kind of meat. Or nut roast. Once I knew what was involved, I could tolerate a Sunday roast–but I prefer to be told in advance which roast beast is on offer. Not because of a particular preference, but because of what it’s called. Please don’t be vague about food. If someone tells you the toast has “spread” on it, you can be damned sure of one thing only: it’s not butter they’re smearing on your brown bread.
Tray bakes are my real nemesis. I don’t know why: I hope one day to tackle that with my therapist. But as a starter, there is something too casual, even utilitarian about the words tray and bake. As if someone doesn’t want to tell you the ingredients: you’re just supposed to accept it without curiosity or comment. Ok, we have the container and the method. What the hell are we eating? I picture an angry-faced, tabarded grouch behind a greasy counter, slamming a spoonful of mashed traybake onto a divided metal plate used to serve food to prisoners or military folk,
“Just shut up with yer questions and eat yer traybake!”
And for some reason, I associate traybakes with an ex-boyfriend of mine who’d invite me out for a meal and then, when the server came, announce, “I’ll just have something light”. Which ruined my appetite on two counts: being with a stingy lout, and wondering what “something light” looks like once you get it on a plate. I don’t know why he did that–we always went Dutch.
Ooh, and that reminds me of Small Plates. Does anyone else get a giant pain when faced with a menu that boasts, in effect–“We’re going to give you damn little food, and we’re going to charge you through the nose for every mincing mouthful!” Getting fruity with three pomegranate seeds on a boiled lardon. On a tablespoon of something pureed.
If I ever start a restaurant (don’t call it a “caf”), I swear, it will be known far and wide as the most generous of Big Plate restaurants–and the plates will have plenty of food on them, too. I hate stinginess.
I remember a Chinese restaurant I used to frequent, in Champaign, Illinois. The proprietor would ask, “How hungry are you today?” If you said, “Really hungry,” he’d load the plate with fried rice and egg foo young, with bean sprouts and ooh, it was lovely. If you said you were only moderately hungry, he’d give you a sufficient, reasonable portion. It saved food waste and made perfect sense. Being asked, “How hungry are you?” made the restaurant at that moment, into home. It was, in its bounty and its restraint, a supremely generous policy of nourishing.
Where was I? Oh, yes, is it too much to ask that “slices” be renamed something that might call up the desire for something tasty, savoury, crisp and light, with a flavourful filling, creamy or tomato-ey? I don’t want the gastronomic equivalent of a prison matron saying to me, “don’t ask what it is–shut up and eat your slice.” Tell me what it’s made of, what I can expect, and how it will please me. I’d rather not know the number of calories, thank you: I want to be enticed by its delicious-sounding name long before the first bite. Like spanakopita, or roasted pistachio gelato. Not a nameless floor-sweepings cuppa in a Greggs cardboard cup. Bring me the cardamom-scented darjeeling in a the hand painted Persian teapot.
Because, as well as keeping us alive, food is supposed to be one of life’s great pleasures. Let’s not turn eating, or even ordering, into a standardised, nondescript activity, like weight lifting. Nondescript food erodes pleasure. The things we eat, and the names we call it by, should describe, entice, should invite anticipation–even desire.
If you think I’m being frivolous in going on about lunch, think again. When we lose the ability to create and celebrate desire, apathy takes over, petrifies our feelings and turns people to stone. Desire is a powerful motivator for good: killing it destroys the essential, soulful part of us that needs nourishing to remain vigorous, feisty and sharp. In apathy, we become helpless. In desire, we ask, “What do I have to do to help you give me what I need?” Clearly identifying what we want bolsters us to act to get it. Settling for the unnamed roll in the bakery case is, in a sense, an evasion of responsibility.
Eating with others builds relationship. Wolfing a pasty on the way to the car park is an entirely different experience from lingering over fresh salad, hot bread and a Cabernet with your two best friends.
A great meal often ends with setting the world to rights, and the world desperately needs setting to rights by people who refuse to accept the unnamed, anonymous, the unaccountable. Pour the coffee, bring out the lemon tart and light the candles. Talk about a world where we know what we’re getting, where we’re getting what we need, and won’t be fobbed off with vague, lazy terms; no, not even for snacks.
Plan and argue and discuss the world as it is and as it should be, and stay up half the night eating, drinking, talking, maybe even singing. When this latest fiasco restarted in Iran, I texted my friend Arezoo: I was in despair. What can we do? I asked her. She answered, “Build community”. Meals–cooking and eating with each other–are the foundations of building community. Mired in conflict, our very digestive systems become disrupted: we join each other in peace, and eating together is a peace-making activity. We dine with those we trust – building community through sharing meals and conversation increases our connection and belonging, subverting the very notion of war.
You’re not going to do that with a traybake.
