From Typewriters to Soup on a Sofa
via muscle memory, bowls of all ages and The Gentle Art of Cookery
Dearest Gentle Reader,
I hope all is well and you are enjoying the gorgeous month of October as much as I am. I am afraid that I haven’t written to you as much as I should but I seem to be struggling with getting my thoughts out of my head and onto virtual paper. I almost wish I could write this to you on an old fashioned typewriter, bashing away on a keyboard, organising my thoughts ahead of time because I never could manage to use that weird typewriter correcting tape. I actually learned to type on a typewriter, by which I mean the actual old machines, not a word processor and every keyboard I have used since has had reason to regret this. I am, I must confess, extremely heavy fingered but I hit the space key with the side of my right thumb with automatic speed, style and panache only used by those who have ever earned a living from copy-typing. I double space automatically after every full stop too, I can’t help it, it is fully in my muscle memory and even regularly being punished for my actions by various Apple operating systems has not rid me of it.
Do you think there is a sort of muscle memory for food and seasons, as deeply held as my space bar double tapping habit? As soon as the nights start to draw in, as soon as the colours of nature start to change then it becomes almost automatic to start buying ingredients for soup or other foods that come in bowls. The bowl is the sign of autumn food to me. It holds all the best foods for this time of year, rich spicy chicken soup served ramen style with noodles and eggs in a deep sided, thick bowl held close to the chest with one arm as you slurp assisted by your other hand holding the spoon.
All that deliciousness and no time spent afterwards googling stain removers, or a bowl of sage, chestnut and butternut squash risotto covered with a medium snowfall of grated parmesan. That would need a shallower wider bowl to ensure full parmesan coverage with a wider rim to balance some sort of garlic bread item on the side. You could choose either type of bowl to dish up fragrant, buttery basmati rice accompanied by what could be loosely labelled mushroom stroganoff, heavy on the garlic and sour cream at the very least..
These bowls warm you up from the outside whilst the food warms you from the middle out, leaving you feeling more serene, gently comforted. Those of you that were reading my letters this time last year may remember that there is an actual scientific reason for that: apparently our brains struggle to realise the difference between actual warmth as provided by your delicious bowl dinner and social warmth. Eating hot food from our bowl of choice has also been proven to increase warmer thoughts about other people. These are all foods that have very useful leftovers even if only destined for an office microwave at lunch. You could be fancy and make arancini, those delicious cheese stuffed crunchy yet tender rice balls from the leftover risotto or at least attempt it. I made some once following a recipe for oven-fried arancini. I think you might be one step ahead of me….
I could blame my risotto recipe but it is glorious so I shan’t, I could blame the arancini recipe which looking back might actually be a crime against Sicilian food or even my oven which plays a little fast and loose with its thermostat. Anyway, what I got was a sort of rectangle of crispy, gooey cheesey rice where everything had collapsed and then melded together. It was still very edible but not the perfect large nibbles served in a bowl surrounding a pot of home-made garlic pesto mayo that I had envisaged. In the end I just drizzled the mayo over it Jackson Pollock style and dug in. Thinking about it, some of that incredible sauce they drizzle over those wonderful Japanese pancakes - okonomiyaki - would have been an amazing addition both in flavour and for visual impact.
That muscle memory I mention, maybe it is just for bowls and then we know what suits us best to put in them. We instinctively know that warm foods, hugged close to the chest whilst curled on a sofa or dished up generously to partners or family or guests will make a lot of small irritations or anger disappear instantly. How could you be sad when faced with a big bowl of mashed potato, gloriously yellow with butter? Most people’s bad mood will at least alleviate a little when handed a soup bowl full of ingredients just screaming that they will bring you the nutrients that you know you desperately need, but will also taste delicious.
Do you fancy some bowl history? I discovered recently (although the discovery is over 12 years old) that pottery fragments discovered in Xianrendong cave in Jiangxi province in the south of China have been confirmed to be 20,000 years old! These were likely to have been pots or bowls! Previous findings were only 18,000 years old by the same team but in the Hunan region. The 18,000 year old fragments have been identified as definitely coming from a bowl. This was the forefront of a new technology! The ability to cook food in liquid in a pot over fire was a huge step. Proteins and starches could now be broken down and the nutrients and fats released were captured in the resulting broth rather than being lost in the fire. It meant there was a dramatic increase in the quantity, quality and variety of foods available.
Bowls were also very popular with the Ancient Egyptians and some were gorgeously decorated especially the beautifully coloured bowl from Tunakhanum’s tomb but I must admit that the ones I love best are the Egyptian bowls with feet from around ca. 3700–3450 B.C. They are absolutely adorable and almost certainly not used for soup, but were quite possibly placed above a tomb to present offerings from the living to the deceased which was a common funerary ritual in Ancient Egypt. I suppose the dead might have enjoyed soup but possibly preferred a garlicky falafel. I hadn’t even considered a bowl of falafel until now but I can picture it, with the feet and without the funerary connection with some fluffy pitta bread and yoghurt mint & chilli dip. Falafel are perfect for bowls as well as in wraps as all spherical food simply cannot be trusted to stay on a plate where it is put.
The Ancient Greeks and Romans were also big fans. I particularly enjoy a bronze greek bowl and a Minoan double handled bowl or a glowing Roman terracotta bowl with a cheeky raised fish decoration. I wonder if the ancient peoples who owned these bowls found themselves drawn to bowls of hot food when the weather started to change. Are they the source of our instinct to use crockery and food to warm ourselves when the leaves start to fall?
We haven't had a vintage recipe in so long so I thought I’d treat you to two warming soups from the `Gentle Art of Cookery”. First published in 1925 by Olga Hartley and Hilda Leyel, who was acknowledged as a connoisseur of food and wine in London society, and the book is based on menus she served to her friends.
It is a gorgeous book full of ideas and recipes that were unlikely to be made by a conventional contemporary English cook, but many may be more familiar to the 21st Century British reader.. The recipes are arranged in alphabetical order under the main ingredient because, as she points out, it is better to shop first, and buy what is best and then decide on dinner rather than the other way round. I can’t choose my favourite recipes but there are a surprising amount of appetising and imaginative vegetable dishes. She uses a significant amount of herbs and is clearly familiar with European and Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and North African cooking. There are chapter headings you would expect interspersed with surprises like ‘Dishes from the Arabian Nights’ and ‘Flower Recipes’. It is well written although some of the social commentary is difficult to read looking back from our hopefully more enlightened times.
I have recently found out that this was the first cookery book that Elizabeth David owned and she gave it the following compliment “I wonder if I would ever have learned to cook at all had I been given a routine Mrs. Beeton to learn from instead of the romantic Mrs. Leyel, with her rather wild and imagination-catching recipes” I hope you make and enjoy at least one of these dishes in a bowl you are holding close to your chest, whilst trying to balance a book and eat at the same time.
So with that, Gentle Reader, I must bring this letter to a close. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch via the comments or via any of mysocial media profiles/my website . If you have enjoyed this and would like to read further such nonsense and have not yet subscribed, please don’t hesitate to subscribe for free at the button below. You’d be very welcome and it would be a joy to write to you.