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If you asked me if I’m a ‘foodi’ I’ll abruptly answer no. I like good food, I like fresh home grown food, I like wild food. I like to cook with good ingredients, but that in no way makes me gourmet, artisan or bespoke. They’re all adjectives which make me cringe. If you walked up to Javier in Spain or Antonio in Italy and described them as gourmet they’d scoff at the very concept. Just because one eats chorizo, manchego, peccorino, jamon or sopressa salami it does not immediately brand them with the very western concept of a person so obsessed with food, the only time they stop talking about food is when they stuff their face with foie gras and foam laden 40cm white plates. That is a ‘foodi’. A person that can afford the luxury of eating out a few times a week at over $100 a pop. This I something far out of my reach. I just can’t afford it, and even if I could I’d shy away from this approach to food. My view of food is that it should be amazing, and be cooking with backyard grown produce, wild food, well raised local meats mixed with the traditional ingredients from the Spanish and Italian menu. With this approach the food so far is touring out pretty alright.
This approach to keeping the food simple and true can be applied to making bread. I’m so intimidated by making fancy bread, because the reality is I just want basic bread. There are so many options from so many cultures, and I love to buy great French or Italian bread when I’m in town, and thats fine, for me when it comes to making the stuff my approach is still very simple.
When I make a loaf its a plain old country job. Nothing ‘gour-met’. Anyone could make it. Thats the thing I like about poor mans cooking, it’s accessible for everyone. Thats what real food is. Simple to make and often made delicious purely because of the fresh ingredients used, the best of which appears to be coming straight from the back yard.
Meals like this one are not hard for me to acquire. It’s more of that rabbit back strap, grilled with a serve of morel mushrooms cooked with home cured jamon and backyard sage. These are all ingredients with wild or made at home. Nothing fancy or gourmet, just delicious.
Hey,
Firstly I want to say love your blog, kinda been my life on and off for the last 12 years. But want to add a comment about eating out. We eat out a lot, we can’t afford it, but we find inspiration all over. We live in McLaren Vale, and are spoilt for great food and wine and more importantly GREAT produce. I find that, for some even eating out once in a while brings inspiration. Especially when many restaurants are now using local and sustainable produce. It educates as to what is possible and how amazing it can be. I celebrate eating out as much as in…they inspire each other. Nothing better that getting amazing rabbit and realizing you can actually catch and eat that yourself. It is not rocket science..it just takes one or two steps. Start by growing your own herbs…then the rest comes. Love your work…enjoy.
Ifan & Mo
I lik eating good food with people, but I can’t afford the expensive stuff. I love eating good food with other people, but we seem to have a culture of making good food out of reach for the average Joe. My trips to Europe showed me that not far off the tourist trail you could find really good food at restaurants where the idea was to serve good food at a reasonable price….the purpose of going out was to be social not to spend a fortune on the meal. I like that concept. It’s accessible for the commoner……like me.
It’s not about the cost….but I find sadly that simple food has been replaced by shocking food. I always loved being in Italy, and the small family restaurants, where good company lifted the experience and senses. We need to get back to that, and I feel that we are..in my (adopted) region, emphasis is more focusing on honest food and well treated food and wine. I feel the cog is in reverse, and for the better. In the Second World War, in the UK, people were never healthier, they grew their own veg and reared their own meat. I say bring back that culture, even if its in your back yard. Enjoy what we can provide, and thought that appreciate food more. But agreed, the Social aspect is amazing. Through that we all support and barter food, wood and sustenance. I feel things changing. I am happier for it. I also add that my partner is a chef, at an amazing restaurant, and I am a winemaker in training at an amazing cellar…we are privileged in how we live. But that’s our choice to live how we do..but my appreciation of her knowledge and my experience makes for a good sounding board. It takes a conscious step to say…”hey, I will live better”, and the rewards come within days. Cheers Ifan & Mo.
I’m stoked by that response!!!! Brilliant. You’re spot on.
Thoughtful words and beautiful photos! That bread might be plain but it looks incredible :)
Love the photos! My Gran had a similar bowl and she was an amazing home cook. Love the toilet roll idea – what mix do you use to raise the seeds? Hope the bread recipe is in the book!
Yep the basic loaf is in there. My partner say’s it’s to dry a mix but it works for me. In any case you can add a little water ;-)
There you go…the barter on experience and knowledge. Even digitally we live better if we try, and share. It’s not a movement yet..but it soon will be Buy sustainable, think what we do, buy once and for life. Longevity and quality is the new new, poverty no longer masquerading as style, but as sustainable desirable, and a reversion to the classic. Makes me smile. Give me one pair of well made boots for 20 ethically dubious trainers. I rest my case.
My Mary, like you, makes her bread simply. Seems to me that’s how it should be. It is, after all, bread. And simple has acquired such a poor reputation. Seems a shame. There’s such easy joy in simple.
As always, Ro, such a delight to visit here.
That bread looks so good. Could you post the recipe for it? I’m a non-cooker trying to learn how to cook/bake and I’ve always wanted to make my own bread.
Cheers! Couldn’t agree more.
I love this post. You echo exactly what I’ve been thinking for some time now. Simple has become a fad really, propagated by some disillusioned idea of peoples who think that if everything in their house is whitewashed and wood and they shop at whole foods and pay outrageous prices for ‘Organic’ foods and ‘all natural’ items that they are living a simple life. I think it has to do with the illusion that people believe things that cost more money have more integral value, when in reality it’s all just an attachment to a false sense of value. Things made with our hands, with time, and love, have more value. I love reading your blog because it takes me back to when I was a very poor little girl living with my father in the south Florida swamps, living off of hunted rabbit and fish, no electricity,living on a dilapidated sailboat and squatting out old warehouses. I think I ate better back then than I have in years! Thank you for being here on the internet. It is really appreciated!
You’ve expressed exactly my own thoughts of food. The number of times I’ve had friends over for a meal and they’ve concluded with something along the lines of ‘You’re such a foodi, you should enter …(insert popular tv cooking competition)’ and then their look of utter bewilderment when I follow up with ‘I enjoy cooking too much to do that to myself’. Many of the blogs I used to follow were so caught up in the indulgence, of going to a place and parting with that money for the ‘it’ meal where someone makes a dessert that looked like eggs benedict but tastes like a chocolate souffle and was made from a single origin flour harvested from the mountainous regions of Tasmania. I enjoy the act of making food almost more than I do eating it, I enjoy making food for others even more and it has nothing to do with praise or pretension. Cooking well and simply for me is an act of love and respect both of the food I’m making and the people I’m cooking for, why would I want to tarnish that by making it about fashion or the unreality of a tv environment?
Just delicious, indeed. Saw a nice piece about your cookbook somewhere—maybe on thekitchn.com? Congrats!
I have bad news for you. You ARE a gourmet. By what I read of your blog you have an appreciation of fine food and wine. I suspect where you (and certainly I) part company with the currently accepted meaning of ‘gourmet’ is where the bills get high and the food travels from afar. In my experience, the best of food is always seasonal, local and simply cooked. That usually results in a gourmet experience.
Best,
Conor
In my experience, the best of food is always seasonal, local and simply cooked.
Spot on, Conor.
Great blog!
Just wanted to comment that the way you describe yourself (in which I also recognize a lot of myself) actually seems quite close to the term “Foodie”. My impression is that “foodie” is meant as something less snobbish than gourmet, something closer to a love for all food.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foodie