Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. A couple of hundred have contributed since 2009 on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.
This time it is Dennis Howlett, a serial contributor to this series. In the past he has written about his home-brewed beer and his model tanks. Now retired, he has taken up cooking with gusto and posts photos of different meals he has cooked multiple times a week. Here he covers a wide range of cuisines:
“I read somewhere that if you can read then you can cook. That’s only partially true.
As a post WW2 child, brought up in a climate of austerity, I understood from an early age that putting out a good plate of food from humble ingredients is an important skill. Mum made sure of that by entrusting me with the weekly local market meat, fish and veg shopping list on a tight budget and a list from which I was not allowed to deviate. 60 years later, I still shop for food the same way, albeit with some wiggle room.
More importantly, mum taught me how to cook basic foods but equally important, introduced me to Chinese and Italian dishes at a time when these were novelties. I fondly remember the highlight of my summer holidays as a weekly trip to the Chinese restaurant close to her office where we feasted on chicken curry or sweet and sour pork. At the time, it felt like the height of sophisticated indulgence.
Then life got in the way. From my late teenage years, until about 10 years ago, I rarely cooked.. While I never lost my passion for good food, my excuse for not cooking on any regular basis was that I was too busy building a career. Even so, there were occasions when I’d take over the kitchen and attempt to serve up a good plate of food. My long suffering partner, Jude says my main skill was using every pot and making a mess.
All that changed when we returned to the UK about six years ago and restored a Georgian house. After more than 20 years relying on Jude to feed me (when I was home), I pledged to be the cook of the house. That gave me the excuse to build the kind of kitchen I wanted, along with all the toys I’d like to have to hand.
As an aside, while we lived abroad there were several important influences I picked up. First is that French and Spanish cooking is all about living according to the seasons and regions. You don’t get strawberries in December as you will in the UK. On the other hand, living according to the seasons means the produce is always at its best in the seasons when it’s available. Each region has its own season and if you travel in those countries then you get to sample amazing flavors. Raw oysters in Brittany accompanied by a glass of Muscadet sur Lie is to die for. The same goes for bouillabaisse in Marseilles. In Spain, cherries are in May, no other time of the year.
Second, country cooking in France and Spain is all about simplicity designed to bring out the best flavors possible. In Spain then forget paella, think grilled hake with a plain butter sauce. In France, think about a wood fired brassiere searing a cote de boeuf, topped with a pat of herby butter. In the US, think slow smoked Boston butt. In short, those countries showed me how to appreciate simplicity as the base for developing great dishes.
Finally, we come to measurements. Most cookery books muddle ‘cup’ or ‘teaspoon’ measures along with imperial/metric. I found this frustrating as a person used to dealing with financial and technical precision. Why? Because regardless of what I cooked, I couldn’t get consistent results. It wasn’t until I was gifted Heston Blumenthal’s ‘Historic Heston’ at a tech event (where I got to taste Blumenthal’s food) that I realized cooking IS a science with art overlaid. In short, measuring according to a single system is vital to both achieving what the recipe author had in mind but also the key to consistently serving up something that works. If I have one tip to readers, choose your one measurement method and stick with it.
Like most folk I know in the tech field, I love my ‘toys’ and the kitchen is no exception. But if I had to choose one it would be my cook’s knives. I acquired several of these while living in San Diego. They’re Kramer design made from Damascus steel, at Zwilling’s Japanese factory. Insanely expensive but with care will last several lifetimes. I’ve promised to gift them to my son who is a talented cook in his own right.
But it’s never that simple. Each oven is different, each hob has different controls and all ingredients are at slightly different levels of freshness. These are variables that need managing as much as the variables in any sales forecast. Just as sales leaders check in with their sales agents, a cook has to check in with his/her food as it cooks and therein lies a great joy. Sales leaders will say ‘test, test, test.’ Professional chefs will say ‘taste, taste, taste.’ It’s a part of the process I enjoy because it helps me to understand how flavor develops during the cooking process.
Over the last few years I’ve become conscious of the need to do my bit to preserve the production of great ingredients rather than relying on factory farmed supermarket produce. That translates into my investments in sustainable potato farming in the Ukraine and UK meat along with carbon zero herb production and a vegan restaurant group. Whether those investments pay off is secondary to knowing that I tried to help.
I regularly support local food production because it helps me get the best ingredients at their best. I also support a local butcher who uses farms within 12 miles of its shop location. My one concern is fish. Brexit nuked the UK fishing industry from an already weakened position. Many species we saw when I was a child like gurnard and pollack have all but disappeared from markets. Online sources try to fill the gap but it is turning out to be a tough challenge when the price to consumers has increased by up to 30% over the last year.
All this means I pay more than the average person for the foods we consume. Here’s the upside. The flavors we enjoy are an order of magnitude better than I could achieve using supermarket ingredients. That, in turn, means we use fewer ingredients than we would otherwise consume. All good for the waistline while satisfying the need to put good food on the home plate.
A bugbear of mine was getting hold of good bacon yet that’s so easy to make at home. Most shop bought bacon has too much water coming out of it during cooking and is so salty as to mask or overpower the taste of the meat. A 50/50 salt and sugar mix is the basis for a great home cured bacon using cheap belly pork that can be ready to cook inside five days (at a pinch.) I don’t save money when measured against the supermarkets but I get the flavor everyone loves. If you’ve never tried it then you’re missing something special. Try it, you’ll be amazed.
Recently, I’ve tried my hand at making sausages with ‘variable’ results. In 2020 I attended a course for boning out a leg of pork to create a ham with the trimmings used for sausages. In the UK, the tradition is to add cereals to sausages yet I find that a tad off putting. Instead, I prefer traditional recipes that avoid adding ‘bulk.’ In that context, my ‘old fashioned’ Cumberland sausages have worked well. The real difficulty comes in skinning up the meat. I’ve yet to master that technique to achieve a consistently good looking round of sausage but then presentation is my weakest skill.
Despite my best efforts, my food often looks like it’s been thrown on the plate rather than presented with any sense of artistic expression. My buddy Sameer Patel reminds me that ‘we eat with our eyes.’ In my case I hope my guests are at best short sighted.
During the last year, I’ve turned my hand to bread baking. In principle, bread is easy. In practice, it takes a lot of skill, especially if, like me, you’re trying to make sourdough based recipes. Sourdough is supposed to be easy but it isn’t. Making the sourdough starter takes some practice and my results to date have been ‘on and off.’ In part I think this is because I haven’t mastered the science involved (and there’s a LOT of science to bread baking) but that’s OK. I have time and I’m not quitting.
As I said early on, cooking is a combination of art and science. The science comes in the combination of ingredients and cooking times. The art comes in the creative combination of ingredients and presentation. I’ve not got that balance solved. But I will get there - one day.
I'm blessed to have spent time in countries whose cooking traditions are different to my own and from which I have learned and from which I continue to learn. I have even tried my hand at cuisines from places I have not been to – here is an Indian curry - keema (minced meat) with peas and potatoes) and nankhatai cookies.
While my cooking tends to the simple, I appreciate the complexities involved in fine dining. Some people save for a great annual holiday. As retirees, we prefer to indulge in a couple of fine dining experiences during the year. For the end of 2022 that meant an unhurried 8 course themed Sunday ‘disco’ lunch with wine pairings at HOME in Leeds. While HOME isn’t Michelin starred, it has two well deserved Michelin Rosettes.
My final thought for anyone who aspires to cook is make time. Cooking great food doesn’t happen quickly. You need time to prepare and cook. Trust me - it’s worth the effort when your family, friends and guests smile. It’s a great antidote to the frenetic lives many of us live.
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