I'm coming to the end of my week as duty cook. Generally the Systems Administrator does the cooking. This is partly an expression of a generous and nurturing character, and partly because whoever does the cooking gets to choose what we eat, and the SA likes to eat cooked meals involving meat, and does not trust me to provide them at regular intervals. It is true that I do believe that toast (with honey) or cheese with olives and oatcakes constitute perfectly adequate meals, especially on nice days when it seems a pity to waste good gardening weather doing stuff in the house, like cooking, but I am happy to be fed and nurtured, so generally the system works pretty well. However, last weekend the SA did ask if I felt like cooking at all, and on Sunday evening used the phrase 'just summon the energy to go and cook', so I said I'd cook this week. That wasn't as noble as it sounds, given that the SA was out all day on Tuesday and out again for lunch on Thursday, but I felt quite inspired, once I'd looked through some books, and it's easier to shop for ingredients across a run of meals than a single one, as you can use things up across a couple of meals, instead of being left with bits of this and that.
Unfortunately even when I cook I don't get to choose everything I would like to eat. Compromise of course runs both ways, and I daresay that some of the SA's curries would be hotter, and Pukka Pies might feature more often on the menu, if I weren't involved. However, there are foods I'm partial to that the SA can't eat, or really doesn't like, including fish, spinach, game, offal and capers. The first two produce bona fide allergic reactions, the others the SA simply finds too rich, or hates the taste.
I've read the newspaper articles saying that many people clinically tested for what they belive to be food allergies and intolerances turn out to have no such thing. My guess is that some of these alleged allergy sufferers are attributing a general malaise to a cause such as wheat intolerance, because it is human nature to want an explanation plus something to blame, and a few who say they have food intolerances simply enjoy making a nuisance of themselves. The SA is unambiguously allergic to shellfish. Eat shellfish, feel very ill, throw up, get the trots. It's pretty clear cut. Freshwater fish and mackerel have a similar effect on a smaller scale, and white fish and salmon disagree about one time in four. This is a pity, as the SA genuinely likes fish and chips and smoked salmon, but there's always the chance that indulgence will be followed by an evening in the bathroom. As a result of never cooking fish at home, I don't know how to cook fish, so I don't miss that, but I would really like to not have to skip over all those recipes involving anchovies. Spinach has the same effect as fish, which is a shame from my point of view, as I like spinach, and a surprising number of recipes include it.
My solution is to choose the forbidden foods when we eat out, and broach the occasional tin of anchovies when the SA is away. If you are wise, you will accept that there are some foodstuffs that you yourself like, but that some other people really can't eat without unpleasant after-effects. Unfortunately, attitudes to food allergies can be very odd, and there are a few unwise people who take a refusal to eat fish, or spinach, as a slur on their cooking, or their region's culinary traditions, or irrational prejudice to be combated and overcome, rather than entirely rational aversion based on painful past experience. When I was thirteen I went on a school exchange visit to Brittany, which being coastal had plentiful seafood. One of the French families took their English charge to a smart seafood restaurant as a treat. She said that she could not eat prawns, because she was allergic to them. They persuaded or bullied her into eating them anyway, presumably believing that she was just being silly, had never tried them, would love them once she did, etc etc. She came out in enormous red spots. Like she said, she was allergic to prawns. I've found the SA's fish allergy queried often enough over the years. What, not even a nice bit of salmon? Not even sole? Not even when I cook it really beautifully? I haven't yet worked out how to tell people politely that their lovingly prepared fish and the SA have sometimes parted company the moment we got home.
When I cook I can still indulge myself among all the things that the SA does eat. Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian comes out, as during the week the SA will be in for a bean stew or a vegetable bake. I like vegetarian food. I usually choose a vegetarian option in ethnic restaurants for ethical and gastronomic reasons, as I don't suppose the chicken in the chicken tikka massala was free range, and Asian cuisines tend to do vegetarian food well. When I'm cooking there will be more root vegetables on the menu, and more of them will be mashed instead of roasted. There might be squash or pumpkin, though there wasn't this week. There will be a lot less red meat, but it is not all lentils and healthy eating, as there will be more full fat dairy products.
Actually, this week's menu all got out of synch. I planned ahead, made a list and stuck to it, like you are supposed to. Then on Wednesday we didn't fancy the left over bolognese sauce with jacket potatoes that by mutual consent had been scheduled for lunch, so they became supper. This pushed Wednesday night's planned adjuki bean stew forward to Thursday, because by then I'd already bought the shitake mushrooms and soaked the beans. On Thursday night the SA was still full of lunchtime curry and wasn't really in the mood for bean stew. Thursday's planned tagliatelle has got bumped forward to tonight (already bought the fresh pasta and the cream), which leaves us long of a packet of ready made puff pastry as I hand the baton back to the SA. Luckily that keeps until December 3rd, so it can get worked in at some stage. I never believe the figures about the hundreds of pounds worth of food that the average family is said to throw away each year. Ours is a fraction of that, though when I was sorting out the kitchen store cupboard the other day I did chuck out some partly used packets of dried beans dating back to 2007-9. Once they get that old, they take forever to cook, if they ever do. It is a sign I should cook a little oftener, to use them up in time.
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