Finding the love of my life: food
I am writing this while my lamb shanks are in the slow cooker, with a glass of red in my hand…
For as long as I can remember, I have always loved food. I mean, REALLY loved food.
Who have I got to blame for such a (expensive) passion? My family. Unquestionably. We all, it seems, share an inherent appreciation for great food; an appreciation that withholds preconceived judgement and embraces all flavour combinations, cultures and seasons.
But food isn’t just about satiating our hunger- it’s redolent effects can transport us to a different time and place. It can evoke strong memories, perhaps reminding us of childhood or someone we have loved or lost. Mealtimes in my house are almost like a spiritual ritual. From the prep to finally the washing up: it is special from start to finish- and it is all hands on deck; a brilliant means of family bonding.
Growing up I was fortunate enough to be able to travel and experience life outside of my home country. I have travelled extensively within Europe and certainly beyond. By immersing myself in different cultures and being open-minded, I have really had a chance to broaden my ‘culinary’ horizons from early on.
I have had the opportunity to try sophisticated, intricate flavours that perhaps not many people my age have. I have been able to experience authentic, culturally traditional staples and witness unique culinary practices. So, recently, it dawned on me… why not turn my passion into a career?
People say being passionate about your career should be a given but often this is only as feasible as the passion is sustainable and lucrative. Thankfully in my case, I feel becoming a food critic is a realistic goal. It combines my two chief passions: food and writing, and food is a commodity which is unlikely to suddenly run out and render me out of a job overnight. In fact, as of 2018, the global food service market was worth a staggering US $3.4 trillion.
The thought of getting paid to travel the globe, trying and reviewing the most prestigious restaurants and ingredients… frankly that’s a dream. Perhaps one of my fondest memories of food comes from a holiday I had in Italy in 2009. I will never forget this meal. Eleven and a half years on and it still sticks out in my mind.
My family and I were staying in a villa on a farm owned by a tight-knit extended family in the rural Italian countryside. It was located in the hills near Pescara on the East coast; beautifully unspoilt. The restaurant on the farm, which me and my brother dubbed ‘The Flightpath Restaurant’ all those years ago, was also family-run and even conscripted the help of the younger generation of the family.
I remember I had made friends with son ‘Gianluca’, who was just ten years old at the time. We would be playing together in the warm Italian sun when he’d suddenly get called in for his evening duties by ‘mama’, and he’d have to leave to go and pick veg from the vegetable garden, peel potatoes, set tables and so on. Of course, I was too young to understand; I just wanted someone to play with. But there’s something quite beautiful about having the whole family doing their bit. You wouldn’t see that sort of unpaid, voluntary family involvement from such a young age over here nowadays.
That night, we went for dinner there. I distinctly remember how hungry I was. Italians usually eat dinner very late because they have ‘siestas’ through the blistering hot afternoons, so we got there and were seated at around nine p.m. I remember I had a starter of rabbit (yes, I had a mature palate for a nine year old), and a main course of spaghetti meatballs. Nothing fancy; simple, honest, hearty food. However NOTHING was simple about the flavours: not in as much as the combinations were daring, but simply the quality and vibrancy of the ingredients was such that they could be left to speak for themselves without pompous embellishment and unnecessary convolution .
It was just the most authentic, rustic, quintessentially Italian food I‘d ever tried: ‘mama’ style cooking in the truest sense. Everything just tasted so fresh and organic; the tomatoes in the Pomodoro sauce were so delicately rich and sweet, perfectly ripe, with an apparent freshness from the basil which paired together in beautiful matrimony. The meatball was a beautifully light texture, meaty and gamy. The resulting symphony of flavours were just… vibrant.
And why did everything taste so fresh and organic? ALL produce was home grown on the premises; picked and prepped that same day. Even the the olives from the farm’s groves were pressed on site to make their own olive oil. They even made their own goats cheese from goats on their own pasture land. It doesn’t get much fresher than that.
