Imperative cooking: frying tonight
I HAVE KNOWN for some time that uni- versity students are lazy and ignorant when it comes to cooking, wasting the generous grants we taxpayers are forced to give them on soggy pasta and ready-made sauces. But I was not aware that they had taken to forming gangs to terrorise the exceptional student who does cook properly. This hap- pens, one of my correspondents explains, in the communal kitchens of Halls. He was quietly cooking a brace of pheasants when he was interrupted by a deputation demanding he should cease. A complaint had been registered with the Warden. The other students felt ill at the thought of try- ing to boil their ready-mix sauces while there were 'dead animals' in the oven.
I suppose it was bound to spread. Once government ministers, such as Mrs Peter Bottomley, make intolerance and hounding of other people's eating habits not only a virtue but a ten-year government policy, it is not surprising mere students should fol- low.
But there are other more subtle effects of health fascism in high places. The worst is that even those of us who know it to be nonsense find ourselves slowly falling into line. Thus I suddenly realised the other day that it was three weeks since I'd cooked any deep-fried food. Obviously, we Imperative cooks must watch our own behaviour to make sure we are holding the line. A self- examination, daily, is called for. Not before bed but around teatime, so that amends can be made at dinner.
But the deep-fried aberration gives me an idea. The letters I still receive from those wanting to join the Enemies of Mrs Peter Bottomley now have a common theme: what is the Club to do? Suggestions have included an annual dinner, protest marches and burning the Creeper in effigy. Let's start instead with ourselves and what we eat, making sure it stays uncontaminat- ed by, indeed goes in the opposite direction to, the evil health of the nation plan. If, for instance, enough of us can up our fat intake, we will scupper any faint chance of the plan's targets being achieved.
So out with the deep-frying saucepan and off to the butcher to get as much beef fat, especially kidney fat, and pork fat for ren- dering as we can. Then make a list of all the wonderful dishes which depend on deep-frying and a resolution to go through them. Start simply. What better than fried bread, not only with breakfast every day — there's nothing better than hens' eggs on bread fried in chicken fat — but fried bread as the Frogs have it: fried bread with rouille and fish soup, fried bread with beef in wine stews or with spinach purées. Those won- derful French beignets — of brains or aubergines or potato with salt cod — are all deep-fried too. Then to Spain, above all Cadiz, for fish: dogfish, marinaded then deep-fried, deep-fried anchovies, whitebait, prawns; or to Italy for mixed fried fish. As you go, list the subtle differences in batters, oils and fats.
On then to the East, the true home of deep-frying. Start with Indian bhajis, onion slices dipped in a batter of egg and chick- pea flour, or lentil vadees or mashed potato and spice balls. Even better, the twice or thrice cooking cultures of the Far East, where ingredients may be deep-fried then stewed or amalgamated in sauces, or steamed, sauced or marinaded then deep- fried. The best things, such as deep-fried, spiced crabs, are not one but several dishes with Thai, Indonesian, Chinese and Philip- pine versions. Pause for a while, a long while, with the Chinese books, count the number of recipes which involve deep-fry- ing and consider the sheer mendacity of the food fascists who depict Chinese cooking as an endless steaming sauna.
Above all we must reclaim the chip. It is now attacked on all sides. The food fascists would ban it. The lower classes, in collusion with the chip shops using cheap oil and mushy, frozen chips, have ruined it. And the lazy British housewife demands bas- tardised versions of it — again pre-done and ready for the oven. Few things are bet- ter than eggs and chips or steak and chips for breakfast, but the chips have to be made from raw potatoes, cut fairly thin and twice deep-fried in beef fat. I can only think of one thing further removed from the Bottomley vision of the world and that is home-made crisps. They absorb more fat and warrant more salt. You need a mandoline for slicing them and it's worth leaving the raw slices six hours or so in water to lose surface starch. Then dry them, deep-fry in beef fat and anoint with lorry loads of salt. If you put enough on, you will have to drink your Bottomley beer ration for a week in half an hour.
Digby Anderson
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