The Marks and Spencers duck a l’orange for two is out of the
oven. The meat is darker than I expected and there’s a slight but distinct whiff
of dog food. The sauce is of an indeterminate colour and congealing fast.
Luckily my hostess has also made a rather nice homemade leek and orange sauce,
though I’m not completely sure we need more fruit on the plate. Is it possible
to overcook a ready meal? Or was it just never that good in the first place?
I don’t like ready meals for all the ‘right’ reasons. I
mean, I’m a food blogger. I like cooking. And I like food made with fresh
ingredients, with care and with generosity. I tend to find processed food either
too salty or too bland (or, amazingly, both). You can feel that they’re
designed to turn a profit rather than to nourish and give pleasure. You really
can taste the difference.
But thinking about why I personally don’t like ready meals
has got me thinking about what I do like about cooking. Firstly, it’s a control
thing. When I’m eating at home, I want things my way. One of the things I love
about being a grown up is getting to decide whether or not to put ginger in my
stir fries. I like being able to chuck in a whole load of things I like – and
experiment with things I don’t on my own terms. And funnily enough, once it was
up to me, ginger stopped being the flavour of the devil and earned its place in
my food fair and square.
And that leads me to the second thing – if you chuck a
frozen dinner into the oven, what are you learning? I love that the more you
cook, the more you learn. And there’s an endless supply of slight improvements
to be made, of new techniques to brave and new cuisines to explore. Even making
cheese on toast, with its endless tiny variations, can lead you to experiment
and refine. It’s a fascinating process that I suspect (and hope) never ends.
However, I don’t think I’ll be stopping pimping my
supermarket pizzas with anchovies, oregano, red onion and extra mozzarella any
time soon. Best of both worlds!
What do you love about cooking?
I too think its that learning aspect that I love most, each time you make something it gets just that little bit better and more tasty! I've always seen cooking as an act of love for the other people you cook for too...
ReplyDeletePretty much the same as you I guess-the learning and the being in control. Marks and Spencer has a well undeserved reputation for good quality food. I don't think it's any different from Tescos myself but still, like you I'd rather know what I'm making.
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