Kitchenella: The secrets of women: heroic, simple, nurturing cookery - for everyone. Rose Prince
who unchained women from household tasks, are happy with the outcome as it is. Women can now – in theory – succeed in the same jobs as men on identical pay, but they are still the ones taking care of most domestic tasks. On top of a 40-hour week, a European woman in full-time employment is doing an additional 30 hours in the home, while an employed man does only eight hours of domestic tasks. In the UK women are doing most of the childcare, shopping and housework but little cooking. Suspicious that cooking is a laborious chore involving no pleasure, many will not even attempt to learn. And it is a skill, about that there is no doubt at all. Not only does the aspirational cook need to learn how to make food taste good for others, so they will eat it and not waste it, he or she must learn how to shop in a savvy way, buying better quality food that is good value for money. It is all frighteningly daunting for beginners and there is an industry of fast food and ready meals there for the millions who are timid in the kitchen.
Diet trends show that in the UK we are eating out more and more. This immediately sounds like good news. At last, Britain has become a brasserie society, unafraid to eat out for the sake of it rather than for occasion. But, sadly, not a bit of it. On average we spend only 25 minutes a day eating – just 175 minutes per week. Calorie intake, including starchy, sugary foods, has increased dramatically in the last ten years. We buy three times more ready meals than we did then, too. This brings to light the depressing image of a Fast Food Nation. Eating lots, quickly, never cooking – just like the portrait of America painted by Eric Schlosser in his 2001 exposé.
The awful truth is that the women have a responsibility. It is an inescapable fact that women remain the main carers of families. They accept this – or there would surely have been a real revolution – and yet they are being totally irresponsible about the food aspect of guardianship. There is no position to take about this except that from on top of a very high horse, because poor nutrition is now a cause of ill health and obesity in too many youngsters. If no one says ‘it’s the mothers, stupid’, the situation will get worse.
Insisting that schools teach children to cook is not the answer unless the parents are also brought in and become involved. Attitude can only change at a pace to suit the one who needs persuasion – which is why I always detest government interference and bans. Other channels of influence are more subtle. Good food experiences are something to share between children and their parents. It is part of a child’s education and preparation for survival in the outside world as an adult, but one that must be based at least to a degree at home.
Climbing down off my immense horse, can I say that it is really not that difficult. Like any art – try not to think of cooking as a chore – the quantum of the performance is flexible. You can do something well that takes a few minutes, or spend all day working at it. Knowing two good, quick-to-make dishes and how to buy the right ingredients will make a dramatic change at home. There is no need to be able to cook everything ever invented.
TV cookery should take the blame for some of the problem. It is obviously not doing something, because while the number of people who aspire to cook rises, and these must include those who watch cookery, few actually do it. The trend is moving in the opposite direction. But if you look at the stars cooking on TV, you can see why. None of the TV chefs can really relate to the home cook’s many dilemmas. Few have to worry about a budget or a work-life balance. Few either have children or are the main carers of those they do have. Even the women are far removed from life’s reality, with many expected to simper and be more tasty than the dishes they cook. Nevertheless, watching TV remains the favourite leisure activity of both women and men in the UK, which suggests that cookery is enjoyed as pure entertainment. It would not matter, if there were not a real need to encourage cooking in the homes where it is most needed.
Juggling
Born to a Somerset farming family in 1928, my mother-in-law, Joyce, might have followed a typical path: marriage after school to a countryman, then a life combining children, housework and possibly farm duties. But Joyce, one of three sisters, was extraordinarily bright and took up midwifery in order to get a degree (one of the few ways in which a girl could finance herself through higher education at the time). She went on, determined to have a profession, eventually becoming an eminent criminal psychologist and an author. She also worked for the Department of Health. She was an early libber, really, and the world is a better place because she followed this path. She wanted to have equality, to put her considerable talent to use and to escape domestic work. She and I have long debates. She is for cheap food and convenience, yet she does cook, and her sons, who tease her about her food, also have good memories of it. Pork chops and apple sauce, easy to buy and quick to cook, are among them.
Pork shoulder chops with apple sauce
I am not a fan of loin chops. The border of fat around the edge never crackles and the lean meat can be dry. Shoulder chops, aside from being cheaper, are much juicier and the little pockets of muscle are tender for small teeth.
SERVES 4
4 small shoulder chops (on or off the bone), 1–2cm/½–¾in thick
2 teaspoons chopped rosemary
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
juice of quarter of a lemon
black pepper
To make apple sauce: 4 dessert apples and 1 tablespoon butter
Put the pork, rosemary, oil, garlic and lemon juice in a bowl, add some black pepper and turn the meat over and over again with your hands so it gets a proper coating of everything in the bowl. Leave for about 20 minutes.
Peel and core the apples then cook in a pan with the butter until soft. Mash to a smooth purée, then store in a jar until needed. Trim the slices of shoulder meat if necessary, cutting off the fat.
Heat a sauté or grill pan and gently cook the pork over a low heat for about 5–7 minutes each side, turning once. You will see red droplets form on the surface of the meat after it has been turned. When these turn clear the pork is cooked. You can always cut a little off to test it. Remove the pan from the heat, cover with foil and leave for 5 minutes for the pork to rest and become really tender. Serve with the apple sauce, fried or mashed potatoes or buttered tagliatelle noodles, and something green.
Cheese
Lucky are those people whose children love cheese. I have one who does and one who does not (except cheese on pizza) and cannot count the times I lament this. I would love to be able to enter a kitchen at the end of the day and quickly make croque monsieur (toasted cheese sandwiches), or a dish of mashed potato with cheese, or a cheese omelette. At least I’d know they were getting their protein and calcium, and at a lower cost than buying free-range meat. What is more, most cheese recipes are quick to cook.
Good cheese is easy to buy. You do not have to enter a cheese boutique to buy cheese for cooking. The generic Cheddar, Cheshire, mozzarella, Gruyère, ricotta, Parmesan and fresh goat’s cheese are more than adequate. At least, unlike other cheaper staples like bread, it does not contain additives. Even basic organic Cheddars are good value for money. I do not agree with the red health warning on cheese packaging issued by the Food Standards Agency. A little goes a long way and – especially for children who ‘go off’ milk or cannot drink it – it provides essential nutrition. It is worth finding a green vegetable or salad they like to serve with cheese dishes for balance, however, or offer walnuts afterwards, which the French (famous cheese eaters with low rates of heart disease) believe reduce inflammation in the arteries.
I could write a hundred pages on cooking with cheese, and you will find cheese recipes in other areas of this book, but these ideas please children.
• Pan-cooked cheese sandwiches – a slice of Gruyère, and a slice of ham if liked, put between two pieces of bread, then fried gently in olive oil on both sides. The French tie these bundles up with thin string like a postage parcel – a sweet idea to tempt a reluctant child,