The last time I cooked for Elizabeth David she threw the food out of the window.
‘What in the name of God is this muck?’ she asked me in disbelief.
I couldn't blame her. She had only just arrived back home after a long absence in the Foreign. She was appalled by the food she found on her return. The war was over but not the rationing. Even so, I thought my soup of water thickened with flour and flavoured with white pepper was rather good. Thanks to her though, I did come to see quite quickly that food could reach more heady heights. I slipped the main course of corned beef toad-in-the-hole into the bin whilst she wasn't watching and thought it best not to even begin my speciality of custard made from lard, flour and water. Just as well really, as I wasn't sure I had enough flour left anyway.
‘Must I do everything myself?’ she mutter, and began to empty her shopping bag on to the kitchen table. A tin of tomatoes. Then an onion. ‘Not so fancy after all,’ I said to myself, ‘we can all make boiled onions and tomatoes on toast, Miss Smarty Pants,’ but blindsiding me she asked me to peel the onion and chop it.
She pulled out a bunch of some green leafy thing she called parsley but it it wasn't anything I recogized as parsley. The leaves were flat for one thing and greener than any grass I'd ever seen. Too green. The scent from the leaves jumped out at me. Not to be trusted.
This was followed by a bizarre little bulbous thing shaped like the top of one of the Kremlin towers. Garlic apparently. I felt sure a nasty pong lurked beneath the paperlike skin.
Then came a tiny vial of dark orange filaments and finally a little jar of red flakes she had brought back from Egypt called chilly. Just like a foreigner to not be able to differentiate a noun from an adjective.
‘We’ll need wine but I brought back plenty from Italy and France, so we’ll be fine’ she said. ‘Be a dear and get me the olive oil.’
I wasn't surprised she had an earache. It must have been awful to be abroad so long.
‘Well? What are you doing just standing there? I need the olive oil.’
‘But I need money for the chemist.’
‘Chemist? What drivel are you talking, girl? Olive oil, I said. There, on the shelf,’ she said, pointing. I went and pulled down a bottle of what looked like liquid sunshine. Was she going to cook with this? I thought it was for ear infections. I held the bottle and staring at it, a warmth came over me. Was it a magic potion?
When I turned back to the table she was watching me with a smile that she straightened right out when she saw I had caught her looking. But she softened somewhat.
‘Will you bring me the mussels from the fridge?’ she asked, nearly adding please. I knew from earlier on, when I was cooling the flour for my soup (a little chef’s hack of mine), that there were only two things in the fridge. A bowl of black rocks sitting in water and her handgun. I was pleased I couldn't get it wrong. A gun is a gun in any language so the rocks must be the mussels.
‘That's everything, so we can begin,’ she said. ‘I’m going to let you into a secret that has been hidden from you until now.’
The oil, I thought. It was magic.
‘I know what you are thinking but we are going to turn these things in front of you into a new world, one you will be able to roam at will when you know how.
‘First, we’ll toast the saffron,’ she said, picking up the little vial and emptying the filaments into a pan. ‘We’ll gently heat it and it will dry out a little then its flavour will be able to infiltrate everything else.’
I didn't have the faintest idea what she was talking about but soon an aroma rose up out of the pan and all of a sudden I was surrounded by colours - purples, oranges, reds and yellows. The growing warmth I had been feeling took me in its arms. Fields and fields of little flowers raised their faces to the sun in an endless blue sky. In the distance, across a vast plane, windmills stood, waving at me. Outside the window the drizzle, relentless in its descent, smeared the grey houses opposite.
‘Are you ready for me to go on?’ she asked, smiling at me, chopping the parsley.
I nodded.
‘Now we add oil to the saffron and heat it, then the onion and when it’s soft we’ll add the garlic, then the parsley and chili.’
I had peeled the garlic, certain I would vom, and as soon as it hit the pan a smell, wet and pungent, the very essence of food, filled the room. A wave of wellbeing now filled me, new warmth spread across my body, beneath my dress. I watched her.
‘Don't even think about it, young lady,’ she said. ‘Not my thing. Pour a glass of this white wine in, will you?’ she continued, refilling her own and handing me the bottle. I poured it into the bubbling, yellowy green concoction in the pan. I’d had quite a few compliments on my gristle rissoles in the past but this was something new, something exciting. A word floated up - delicious. I didn’t even know that I knew what it meant. I was speechless. She noticed my delight and I felt another shift in her demeanor towards me. ‘Add the tomatoes and we’ll make some noodles for the soup.’
I looked at her blankly.
‘Noodles? Pasta? Good grief, you don't even know that, you poor girl,’ she said, under her breath. ‘Well, never mind, great things lay ahead of you. Where’s the flour?
Flour. At last something I understood. Was making noodles a foreign term for thickening a soup? I took what was left of the flour down from the shelf but instead of stirring some water into it and then stirring the paste into the tomatoey soupy stuff, she made a dough with it. She rolled it out into a long snake, cut it into fat little slugs and then rolled them into long thin worms.
I didn’t want to embarrass her so I said nothing and was glad when she turned away from them to put a pan of water on to boil. For the Bisto probably. But no. She salted the water and dropped all the worms in. All of them! Then she added the mussel rocks to the soupy thing. A second or two later they began split and reveal themselves. They weren't rocks at all but live things that opened up most shamelessly. I wanted to look away but couldn’t drag my eyes from the spectacle.
I thought I would faint when she lifted the wormy things into the soup and began to toss and shake it all together.
She ladled it into two bowls and without being able to stop myself I began to eat.
Ms David laughed at me.
‘Your eyes,’ she said. ‘They look like they would pop out of your head.’
I sat there in a dream. Crystal clear waters lapped over my feet, half sunk in yellow sand. I saw white islands off the coast. The sun was on my legs.
The last time I cooked for Elizabeth David she threw the food out of the window.
‘What in the name of God is this muck?’ she asked me in disbelief.
I couldn't blame her. She had only just arrived back home after a long absence in the Foreign and was appalled by the food she found on her return. The war was over but not the rationing. Even so, I thought my soup of water thickened with flour and flavoured with white pepper was rather good. Thanks to her though, I did come to see quite quickly that food could reach more heady heights. I slipped the main course of corned beef toad-in-the-hole into the bin whilst she wasn't watching and thought it best not to even begin my speciality of custard made from lard, flour and water. Just as well really, as I wasn't sure I had enough flour left anyway.
‘Must I do everything myself?’ she muttered, and began to empty her shopping bag onto the kitchen table. A tin of tomatoes. Then an onion. ‘Not so fancy after all,’ I said to myself, ‘we can all make boiled onions and tomatoes on toast, Miss Smarty Pants,’ but blindsiding me she asked me to peel the onion and chop it.
She pulled out a bunch of some green leafy thing she called parsley but it wasn't anything I recognised as parsley. The leaves were flat for one thing and greener than any grass I'd ever seen. Too green. The scent from the leaves jumped out at me. Not to be trusted.
This was followed by a bizarre little bulbous thing shaped like the top of one of the Kremlin towers. Garlic apparently. I felt sure a nasty pong lurked beneath the paperlike skin.
Then came a tiny vial of dark orange filaments and finally a little jar of red flakes she had brought back from Egypt called chilly. Just like a foreigner to not be able to differentiate a noun from an adjective.
‘We'll need wine but I brought back plenty from Italy and France, so we’ll be fine’ she said. ‘Be a dear and get me the olive oil.’
I wasn't surprised she had an earache. It must have been awful to be abroad so long.
‘Well? What are you doing just standing there? I need the olive oil.’
‘But I need money for the chemist.’
‘Chemist? What drivel are you talking, girl? Olive oil, I said. There, on the shelf,’ she said, pointing. I went and pulled down a bottle of what looked like liquid sunshine. Was she going to cook with this? I thought it was for ear infections. I held the bottle and staring at it, a warmth came over me. Was it a magic potion?
When I turned back to the table she was watching me with a smile that she straightened right out when she saw I had caught her looking. But she softened somewhat.
‘Will you bring me the mussels from the fridge?’ she asked, nearly adding please. I knew from earlier on, when I was cooling the flour for my soup (a little chef’s hack of mine), that there were only two things in the fridge. A bowl of black rocks sitting in water and her handgun. I was pleased I couldn't get it wrong. A gun is a gun in any language so the rocks must be the mussels.
‘That's everything, so we can begin,’ she said. ‘I’m going to let you into a secret that has been hidden from you until now.’
The oil, I thought. It was magic.
‘I know what you are thinking but we are going to turn these things in front of you into a new world, one you will be able to roam at will when you know how.
‘First, we’ll toast the saffron,’ she said, picking up the little vial and emptying the filaments into a pan. We'll gently heat it and it will dry out a little then its flavour will be able to infiltrate everything else.’
I didn't have the faintest idea what she was talking about but soon an aroma rose up out of the pan and all of a sudden I was surrounded by colours - purples, oranges, reds and yellows. The growing warmth I had been feeling took me in its arms. Fields and fields of little flowers raised their faces to the sun in an endless blue sky. In the distance, across a vast plane, windmills stood, waving at me. Outside the window the drizzle, relentless in its descent, smeared the grey houses opposite.
‘Are you ready for me to go on?’ she asked, smiling at me, chopping the parsley.
I nodded.
‘Now we add oil to the saffron and heat it, then the onion and when it’s soft we’ll add the garlic, then the parsley and chili.’
I had peeled the garlic, certain I would vom, and as soon as it hit the pan a smell, wet and pungent, the very essence of food, filled the room. A wave of wellbeing now filled me, new warmth spread across my body, beneath my dress. I watched her.
‘Don't even think about it, young lady,’ she said. ‘Not my thing. Pour a glass of this white wine in, will you?’ she continued, refilling her own and handing me the bottle. I poured it into the bubbling, yellowy green concoction in the pan. I’d had quite a few compliments on my gristle rissoles in the past but this was something new, something exciting. A word floated up - delicious. I didn’t even know that I knew what it meant. I was speechless. She noticed my delight and I felt another shift in her demeanor towards me. ‘Add the tomatoes and we’ll make some noodles for the soup.’
I looked at her blankly.
‘Noodles? Pasta? Good grief, you don't even know that, you poor girl,’ she said, under her breath. ‘Well, never mind, great things lay ahead of you. Where’s the flour?
Flour. At last something I understood. Was making noodles a foreign term for thickening a soup? I took what was left of the flour down from the shelf but instead of stirring some water into it and then stirring the paste into the tomatoey soupy stuff, she made a dough with it. She rolled it out into a long snake, cut it into fat little slugs and then rolled them into long thin worms.
I didn’t want to embarrass her so I said nothing and was glad when she turned away from them to put a pan of water on to boil. For the Bisto probably. But no. She salted the water and dropped all the worms in. All of them! Then she added the mussel rocks to the soupy thing. A second or two later a crack appeared and they began to reveal themselves. They weren't rocks at all but live things that opened up most shamelessly. I wanted to look away but couldn’t drag my eyes from the spectacle.
I thought I would faint when she lifted the wormy things into the soup and began to toss and shake it all together.
She ladled it into two bowls and without being able to stop myself I began to eat.
Ms David laughed at me.
‘Your eyes,’ she said. ‘They look like they would pop out of your head.’
I sat there in a dream. Crystal clear waters lapped over my feet, half sunk in yellow sand. I saw white islands off the coast. The sun was on my legs.
Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_David
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw185433/Elizabeth-David
delightful
I can smell it ... thanks ! Must go back to my writing about her bookshelf !