Cooking

The missing link

A core value and personal ethos around food has always been to use ingredients from as near to where I am as possible. Local food. Not for some greater good, but because the flavour and quality are always higher. It was that simple.

This is something I was exposed to long before my restaurant chef days: my grandparents' veg patches, walking to find field mushrooms, and exploiting the bounty to be found in the hedgerow. None of it was seen as foraging or eating wild. It was simply going to pick blackberries, because they tasted great.

When it became a trend

This is where food culture is shifting, or perhaps has already shifted. There is quite an intense focus on buzzwords, trends and the image they portray.

There is almost a glamour around being part of this movement, and the danger is that this becomes more of a motivation than the ethos, diluting the message to fit a trend.

Regenerative agriculture and soil health are finally getting broader exposure, as the world of farming finds itself under the warm glow of a cultural spotlight. Supporting local farms, local producers and using local ingredients is, for many, seen as a luxury: a place to go as a one-off or for a special occasion. While the price of going direct to the producer may well justify this image, there is more to unpack. There is a value beyond the cost that becomes intrinsic to feeding ourselves.

The same conversation

I find it inspiring and invigorating to listen to people who are passionate and knowledgeable about soil health, the gut microbiome, regenerative agriculture, nutrition, organic farming, biodiversity and so on. What strikes me instantly is that these are not separate topics. They are all part of the same conversation about our food system.

Passion can be like wearing blinkers. The focus, drive and determination it takes to become passionate about something often narrows the gaze, not by way of dismissal, but simply as a consequence of such intense focus. I am no different. Mine starts and ends in the kitchen.

What I notice is that most of this work looks at one side of the cycle: the growing and the producing. The infrastructure, the awareness of farmers and producers, the way they work. It is all necessary. But without the other side it is not a cycle, and it becomes academic. There has to be an outlet for all this good work and these principles. Supply requires demand to function, and demand is in the hands of the consumer. That is real power. We use it every time we choose what to eat, whether we realise it or not.

There is always a gap when it comes to getting produce beyond the point of sale. It isn't deliberate. It is simply a function of what each of these activities is built to do.

Giving it a purpose

So where does it all go? For me, the outlet is cooking.

Cooking is the final piece of the puzzle, the one that brings purpose to everything that has gone before. If the produce is not used, the effort that has gone into producing it is not irrelevant, but it is without cause. Without reason, other than to show that it is possible. There needs to be a tangible reason behind all of these practices, and the motivation has to reach beyond the field, the land and the people. It has to land with the end result of feeding life. The only way that happens is by taking the produce, adding a human touch of creative flair in a kitchen, and eating it.

This brings purpose, motive and reason to all the inspiring work, passion and devotion that has gone before.

Without cooking, these inspirational and vital conversations around the food system and our bodies remain just that, conversations. It takes following a practice and engaging in a habit for them to come to life. All of a sudden, the needle shifts, quickly and with determination.

Trying to consider soil health, the microbiome, biodiversity, organic systems, regenerative agriculture, nutrition and so on every time we want to eat is overwhelming, and doomed to fail. No one can take all that on, all the time.

What works is removing complexity, reducing friction and presenting a single package that is as tangible as it is effective. A farm shop. Veg boxes. They all hit that button.

This is why I am so energised by what has become known as farm to fork. Making choices and absorbing core values that align with taking local, and therefore seasonal, food from local producers, then making a meal, preserving and feeding friends and family, encompasses all of the greater issues in one easy, joyful little package.

All of this before even venturing down the path of how enriching the simple act of cooking is: a meditative practice where focus can be intense or drift, but is always rooted in the present.

What happened to cooking

Cooking used to be what everyone did, as part of every day, like getting dressed. Now it is a hobby, a luxury, a choice. When I say I cook from scratch, the reply is often surprise: "Oh, so you cook from scratch." I think a good deal of the advertising around food has persuaded us that we don't have time to cook, and asked why we should.

Feeding ourselves is not a choice. It is more like breathing. How we go about it is the choice, and it is a more considered choice than it used to be, with larger consequences.

I don't count ready meals as cooking. They are processed, rarely traceable to anything that resembles local, and they come from the very supply chain that so many of the people doing this inspiring work are trying to escape.

What I mean by cooking is using whole ingredients and cooking from scratch. Ingredients that are now more travelled than a teenager on a gap year. Basic skills that were historically passed down through the generations as a life craft, linking every one of us by the common thread of culture and eventually becoming part of our heritage once again.

A few generations ago, there was a divergence in how we interacted with feeding ourselves. The focus and drive pointed towards convenience, in the guise of saving us our precious time, which is where large-scale systems thrive. The consequence is detachment, and that is where we are now.

Perhaps the most visible sign of this, in the early days, was far fewer people growing food in their back gardens or allotments. Then came the decline of smaller independent shops, and the dominoes started to fall.

Time is the reason I hear most. I keep coming back to the fact that people with far less of it have always cooked. Single parents, shift workers and carers have always existed, and they have always fed themselves. Time has been precious for as long as there has been time. What has changed is what we put first. A shift in core values means we prioritise other ways of spending our time over feeding ourselves.

But what does learning to cook mean?

For the most part, current culture sees cooking a meal as a hobby or entertainment, much like any other, dabbled in when the mood arrives. Once the inclination comes and time is put aside, a recipe must be found, ingredients bought, and the process begins.

I must say that this sounds exhausting. There are far too many points of friction for this to be enjoyable, let alone a habit. Cooking is far less involved, and far less complex.

"Easy for you to say, being a professional chef," I hear you say. True, on the one hand. With large groups, complex time frames and pressures beyond the everyday domestic, being a professional makes a big difference. What it creates is flexibility and freedom: the ability to manage a workload and offload mental capacity from the physical act of cooking, so that several tasks can be dealt with at once. All of that is unnecessary for the home cook, and of no use to them at all.

For everything else, it is easy because I have practised. After nearly 30 years of professional cooking, repetition has taken the tension and friction out. What to cook and how fast become straightforward choices. A concert pianist practises until the music is second nature to the muscle memory. The hands just play, and the music flows. All crafts and activities are the same. If we cook every day, the process becomes second nature, and time stops being the issue. Anything that is not practised will be time-consuming and taxing.

So what does it mean to cook? Simple. Take a group of ingredients, have a taste for something and get going. Obviously, this is done within the parameters of craft, but so is everything. With enough repetition, failure and success, a craft develops. As repetition builds experience, confidence grows, as does a back catalogue. As this carries on, the craft of cooking becomes faster, easier and more pleasurable.

Using whole ingredients also means less waste, and using more of the base ingredient. It is often called thrifty. The truth is that the more we cook with whole ingredients, the less is wasted, and the further they go.

Closing the loop

Cooking completes the cycle and closes the loop. It is the outlet and the link from process to conclusion, and we as consumers are the only conclusion to all farming.

Make it tangible. Show it is relatable. Keep it simple.

Cooking is the missing link.

Heritage | Environment | Craft

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