Imperative cooking: the last things
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.101. 2074L.,J0L4komk...„" PUDDING before cheese or cheese before pudding? Search the cookery columns of the newspapers and you'll find no guidance on such crucial questions, perhaps because their writers are so busy at the lucrative ritual of copying other people's recipes.
With an increasing number of them, the problem could not arise since either they do not mention cheese at all or, basing their concept of hospitality on the practice of low-budget restaurants, they see cheese as an alternative to pudding, 'Choice of dessert or cheese', and suggest that, for a change, we miss the pudding and serve instead a wonderful array of our lovely and much underrated British cheeses. They always say `underrated' and go on to drool about 'tangy' Stilton, 'crumbly' Lancashire and 'marbled' Sage Derby. These are usually horrid. Some started life horrid and nearly all are rendered worse by the disgusting way the shops keep and sell them. The same is true of increasing amounts of French cheese: bries and camemberts produced in factories and chilled so young and long they taste of stale butter. Imperative cooks know that with cheese even more than any other food, finding the right source is the crucial thing. And once it is found, they will not be so silly or ungrateful as to use it any less than once a day.
So, pudding then cheese, the English order, or cheese then pudding, the French. There is no do-as-you-like, or 'it depends': the English order is correct. For the point is that we are not dealing with the two last things but, on any half-decent table, with lots of last things. 'Cheese' is but shorthand for a list of things not necessarily brought to the table together but, unlike earlier dishes, left to pile up, an array of things to be taken, taken again, ignored or returned to at will. There is cheese itself; gorgonzola and roquefort always served together so that ritual disputes can arise about their comparative merits, provolone piccante and toma, if we are lucky some chi vre but nothing, absolutely nothing wrapped in vine leaves, studded with herbs, covered in dates or surmounted with national flags, above all nothing from Denmark. No butter, no plastic or paper wrappings, no parsley, no decorative cress. Water- biscuits (a campaign is needed to persuade manufacturers to make proper water- biscuits again with only flour and water) and Italian hard-baked bread rings with fennel. Lots of celery — not split and not that ghastly green American or Israeli nonsense but celery that is good, white and was, once, very dirty, celery which has had a frost. In season, nuts especially wet nuts, cobs and walnuts — nut crackers if you will but you'll need a pair each to avoid queues: better, hammers. Not forgetting chestnuts roasted on the fire (yes, you do lose some when they explode: that's the fun, placing bets on which ones will). Fruit, russet apples, tangerines (not seedless satsumas), figs, grapes (here, considering the cir- cumstances, a small South African flag is in order). But not only fresh fruit: crystallised lemon slices or ginger, plums you have slowly, very slowly, dried and then allowed to swell and mature in a jar of marc or grappa. Sweeties: Italian nougats in indi- vidual little boxes with pictures of the popes on and amaretti and brasiliani with the coffee.
And no messing about with fancy coffee mixtures. They may be the thing on some occasions but not at the end of a large dinner. Only one sort will do: very strong, finely ground Italian coffee made prefer- ably in an Espresso machine, at least in an Italian percolator. Away with those vast plastic machines made by German manu- facturers of ladies' hair-dryers, away with the latest smoked glass device which guarantees you 40 good-sized cups with no bother. Your guests will receive theirs in standard Espresso doses (one tablespoon- ful), though as many as they wish. No one, especially Belgians, is allowed milk. The coffee is compulsory and it is advisable to stress this when inviting guests as there are now people who are silly about coffee and you would not want that sort of person in the house. While these things have been piling up, bottles of armagnac, port, madeira and eau de vie de poires have arrived to join the wine as have the boxes of cigars and cigarettes. For any non- smokers, there are betel nuts and the necessary special crackers.
It goes without saying that the serious business of pudding should be attended to before this sort of cheese course which, of course, goes on until the guests leave or are told to go. No question: cheese is the last of the last things.
Digby Anderson
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