At some point during this feast, my mother's friend enquired about my own culinary skills. It led me to think back upon my own lifelong relationship with the kitchen. My first experiences of proper cooking were, as is probably predictable, in school home economics class. I have always been a slow worker where meal preparation is concerned and it is likely this very trait was borne from these classes. We once had to make a sausage hotpot (or it may have been casserole. I have an irritating tendency of getting my own real memories mixed up with old plot lines in Coronation Street). The boiling pan of water had bubbled away even before I had fully prepared the ingredients. I was behind everybody else in the class so didn't want to get even further behind by heating another pan of water. In my immature haste and determination to utilise the bubbly residue remaining at the bottom of the pan, I threw the carrots in whole - unpeeled and uncut. This became the source of much amusement for my teacher and fellow school-chums at the time.
Another assignment was to make a fruit crumble. The one I created was quite a successful fruit crumble too. One of the ingredients we had to take for the recipe was 'a pinch of salt'. Not quite sure of the definition of the word 'pinch', my mom had rammed one of those little sealable plastic bags that people use to keep drugs in completely full of salt (had I realized the visual relationship at the time, I could have probably made a fortune out of the 4th Year boys. Home Economics would have been my favourite subject). Unfortunately, whilst transporting my otherwise successful fruit crumble home in my schoolbag, the little plastic purse still contained so much salt, that it burst open all over my dessert.
I'll never forget my Dad's face as he tried to soldier on with his salty pud to show some loyal support. He was never one for showing encouragement with words and was determined that he could do so by using his belly. He only surrendered after the tears started to roll down his cheeks. As a child, sights like this tend to give your confidence a bit of a knock. Thinking back now, this was about the same time his doctor started prescribing him with blood pressure tablets.
When I moved away from home, my mom was no longer there. I lived with three other guys - friends of mine of a similar age (I think it would have just been awkward having my mom live in the house too). It suddenly became necessary to become more imaginative in the kitchen. This wasn't driven by any competitiveness with my housemates, but was more down to simple logistics. When four young men live in a house together, there are perpetually few clean condiments or utensils. Most of them are sitting on a work surface coated with dried bean juice, or lying in a washing-up bowl full of an experimental soup. To get anywhere near making an elaborate meal would cost you at least an hour in the sink beforehand. It was around this time that through necessity, I invented my signature dish of "Stuffed Peppers with Super Noodles". Like I say, it was all down logistics. All you needed to prepare it was a plate, a knife, a kettle and an oven.
Luckily most of my ex-girlfriends seemed to take great pride and art in their culinary skills. I realise how saying this makes me appear like a patronizing, stereotypical male chauvinist slob, but I never once expected 'a meal on the table when I got home' or anything (in fact they shouldn't have worried their pretty little heads about it - Honestly, I'd have just been just as happy if they'd prepared me a cheese sandwich ready for my arrival. What a waste of time and effort they went to. I'll never understand women. God I'm so lonely). Nevertheless I am eternally thankful, because these women were all great teachers to me. Much better than my real Home Economics teacher, who ironically received a salary for the job, but was more actually preoccupied by laughing at unpeeled veg.
Thankfully (and at long last), I am a much more competent cook and now have a fair grasp on a respectable variety of dishes. I am getting better all the time. One day, I shall even invite every woman over who has ever cooked me a meal and finally repay them the favour. Obviously in real terms this isn't practical, for it would effectively be a dinner party where most the guests consisted of my ex-girlfriends and my own mother - and I fear such an occasion might be marred by a weird and uncomfortable atmosphere (if anything, it would have been even weirder than inviting my mom to live with me and my mates).
But I genuinely still wish to pay a mark of respect to all those wonderful women who at some point filled my belly with their work. And what better way to pay tribute than making a resolution to return back to the beast that had sapped me of all my culinary confidence in the first place?
In this blog, I hereby vow to tackle a re-match with the sausage hotpot. I will exorcise my ghosts by mastering the dish to an unprecedented level. Then I shall follow it with an impeccable fruit crumble. It will be an immaculate banquet. I just need to think of a starter. I've never really made starters before. I have no recipe ideas. I need one quick. Otherwise it may have to be stuffed peppers with Super Noodles.
