Imperative cooking: the post-mortem
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THE Daily Telegraph has a cookery col- umnist called Smith. Mr Smith wants pre- paring and eating food to be 'fun'. While he is not clear on the exact source of `fun' — he mentions 'trying things out' more than once — he is very clear about what isn't `fun'. Cooking has to be a labour of love and he wants more love and less labour. In his first column he promised recipes with 'no extra efforts', offered freezers to 'ease your work' and advised making your fishmonger clean your fish for you. A recent column exhorted readers to cook and freeze their 'festive fare' by the 12 December and eat out of the freezer over Christmas thus avoiding the 'aggrava- tion' of cooking and ensuring a 'work-free Christmas'.
For Imperative cooks, of course, the work is essential and pleasure is found by in- creasing rather than avoiding it. But there is another matter. Mr Smith is right to point to the `fun' found in eating the food with friends and, beforehand, quite a long time beforehand in the case of his Christ- mas, in preparing it. But what he, and many other writers miss, though it is very pronounced in the New Year dinner party season, is the enormous `fun' had after guests depart.
No sooner does the door shut behind the dear friends, than it's re-charge the glasses and open the post-mortem on them. `Oooh, I thought they'd never go. Do you realise Richard was talking about the staff shake-out at his office for over an hour. Poor Susie (his wife): she looked so fed up. Do you think he's always like that?. And we've got to go back to them next Satur- day. Do you suppose the shake-out will be over by then? Perhaps he's not like it in his own home. . .
The best p-ms start with something which happened at dinner, an abrupt change of topic, a put-down, his shake-out monologue, then speculation about the whys and wherefores — and here's the crucial rule — using as evidence only other events of the evening. No privileged, extraneous knowledge: 'I think he was doing it to cover for her. Did you notice how washed-out she looked and she was drinking like a fish. That brandy is finished and she was the only one drinking it. I think there's something wrong be- tween them.'
'Perhaps, but they were all right earlier and right up to the swordfish. It must have been something which happened between the fish and the Navarin. What was the conversation then? Was that when Michael was describing that Aids case?'
P-ms become more complicated and pleasurable when guests leave, as they usually do, serially, those knowing the hosts best staying longest. Then each post- mortem can be re-opened and revised as each inhibiting presence is removed: `David, I couldn't say so when Anne was here but it was her going on about their son's exams that did it. Susie's had that awful trouble with Duncan at school. . . And then after this speaker and her hus- band depart: 'Wasn't it awful the way Penny kept going on about the school business. Susie's not the slightest bit wor- ried about Duncan. That's all sorted out. Susie told me. What's fascinating is why Penny is so obsessed with it. . .
Imperative cooks will want to play varia- tions, conducting autopsies on their guests bizarre eating habits, what they ate, left, tried to leave without being seen, but most of all on their talk about food. On such fragments are built speculations of what they eat at home. For how they eat out and talk about it tells you much more about than does the food they serve for dinner parties. Sometimes they volunteer in- formation: 'How splendid. Fresh ancho- vies. We never have anchovies. Actually we don't have much fish at all except, well trout and plaice.'
Then, there are the tell-tale expressions of delight at what would be mundane in any imperative household, 'Can I have some more of this delicious home-made bread?' or just the sight of Nigel devouring same, desperate to stock up before his return to the damp, straw-infested bowel activator from the health shop.
The main food pleasures are indeed in preparing and eating. But for talk and thought, post-mortems are hard to beat. While the last bottles empty and the last guests depart, the two resident chief coron- ers are left alone to put the final layer on the tiers of theories. These are the truly precious moments. Almost 'fun'.
Digby Anderson
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