your emotional core and quickly learn that these powers are especially potent at mealtimes. The ever changing preferences, varying between siblings and age group; the fussiness (‘It’s not cooked like you did it last time’), the utter waste of time and money – I have been quite undone by feeding children. They can make cooking a horrible job, removing any chance of adventure or attempt at creativity because they hate mixtures or the sight of a green herb leaf in their supper. You are never hailed, like a chef, and rarely rewarded. After two decades of this, many parents want to give up cooking altogether. The adult children, on the other hand, are often out there in the big wide world banging on to others about how brilliant your food is.
Often I have been driven to distraction by my children’s demands. I cannot have that time again, but what I can do is pass on some experience. This chapter is all about what succeeds in my family kitchen, and it also draws on the wisdom and knowledge of others.
I have learned much, mostly by word-of-mouth, from cooks who are familiar with the daily grind of cooking for the family. The authorities seem overly obsessed with nutrition rather than cookery. Good cooking is about balancing diet. Better to teach parents food psychology: for example, how to understand the foibles of young children and the pressure they feel from their peers. Getting inside the mind of a child is far harder than boiling a pan of pasta. Learning a few management skills would be useful, too, such as handling and budgeting for the mountainous hunger of a 14-year-old boy (and all his friends).
I worked it out the hard way. Begin from the standpoint – which I did not – that you will probably not get it perfectly right. This is real, normal and expected of someone who cares about food yet is busy and not necessarily able simply to throw money at the situation. You will be proud of some weeks, ashamed at those where you gave in. But aim to balance good and bad experiences and look for an overall average in the good zone.
Many of the recipes in this chapter are adaptable, because busy people juggling work and children thrive on flexibility. The days are over when a dedicated housewife could afford a protracted row, sometimes lasting the whole afternoon, over an unfinished lunchtime plate of spinach. Instead I will often put the ‘building blocks’ of a meal onto the table, then offer things to go with it that the less fussy might consider.
A large pan of rice cooked with strips of chicken and flavoured with the hidden earthy scent of coriander seed and allspice could be served alone, but little dishes of herbs, a yoghurt sauce, toasted pine nuts, even hot green chilli is there for those who want it. Building blocks can also be cooked things that serve as a base for more than one recipe. For example, I make large quantities of a smooth tomato, olive oil and basil purée, which can be transformed into seven dishes for children and several more that will please adults, too.
Sympathy is important. Some children, school age in particular, seem genuinely scared of certain foods when confronted for the first time. Textures seem to be the greatest challenge. Often their noses will lift with interest at the aroma of sizzling onions, rosemary, thyme and garlic – but they do not want to find ‘bits’ in their food. Reward is also vital for good behaviour at mealtimes – gooey puddings in return for clean plates. Well, nearly clean anyway.
Ask yourself what you want to achieve, and set the bar a little lower. In the end, your efforts will pay off. It is a big claim, but when there is intermittent peace in the home kitchen, good things on offer and a sense of where it all came from, the adults who emerge from that home have a little more than an education, they have the tools to survive.
Busy
I imagined, with some smugness, that I would be very good at family food. A typical new mother, I privately believed others had it wrong (you only had to meet their children!) and that the realm of nurturing had been waiting for me to come along and show them all how to do it. I wonder now if this rather familiar thought pattern is activated by a hormonal switch when pregnant, in order to fog the actuality of the work ahead.
But why think otherwise? My mother set a great example and even trained me to cook. But the difference between my mother and my life now is that she was a housewife in the classic sense. Managing a healthy kitchen for children takes concentration. My children make toast and rampage through the biscuit supply as soon as they are sure I am in my office, working – and spoil their supper appetite. As a child I was not allowed to pick between meals. Like jewellery shop staff, we were kept pretty much under surveillance. When the meals came, though, they were generous and delicious.
You can set out a blueprint, which I did, then watch as various forces unravel it. As any parent in full-time employment knows, it is very hard to stick to plans, and it is no surprise, yet so sad, that cooking is killed by a reliance on ready-made food.
The children of busy parents soon discover that you are too tired to argue, give in easily and get very tetchy if, having spent precious time preparing food, they do not eat it. This can become a sport. What would I do in retrospect? Ban sugar and TV, probably, or consorting with friends who hold birthday parties in McDonald’s and are allowed to eat Oreos while doing their homework. But of course you can’t do this. Just say why you are different, and occasionally give in to show you are human. My son Jack says don’t try to be a good mother. But I do – the skill is not letting it show.
Seven plates of sweet cooked tomato
Asked to nominate a recipe that makes a difference to how my week goes, something with integrity that is economical and essentially useful, and I look no further than my store of sweet cooked tomato.
This tomato sauce or ‘compote’ imitates the best Italian in that it tastes full of fruit, sunshine and herbs, yet it can easily be made in a British kitchen. I make a large quantity of this sauce routinely and use it in many ways – seven of them regularly for the children, saving a lot of preparation time. It is at once a sauce for pasta, polenta (see page 55) and gnocchi, and needs only a warm through before using. It can be the base of a soup, a curry, a risotto (see page 395) and is also good with mozzarella cheese, toasted between two slices of flatbread or ciabatta. The recipe for the base sauce can be found in Halfway to a Meal (see page 400), with a number of ways to use it, but the ones listed here are ideal family food.
USING SWEET COOKED TOMATO IN CHILDREN’S MEALS
• Pasta and gnocchi – warm the sauce and dress the boiled pasta or gnocchi (3 tablespoons of sauce per person). To make a quick baked pasta dish, cook some tubular pasta (penne/rigatoni) and dress with a mix of ricotta and mascarpone with added grated Parmesan. Pour over tomato sauce, add more grated cheese and bake until bubbling.
• Macaroni – a more traditional macaroni can be made by stirring béchamel (see page 413), grated Parmesan and a little mascarpone into a gratin dish full of cooked macaroni, pouring over some tomato sauce, scattering over a little more grated cheese then baking at a high temperature for 25–30 minutes. See plate 5.
• Polenta – serve the sauce over wet polenta (the freshly cooked, sloppy type) or with sticks of grilled polenta (see page 56).
• Tomato risotto – for 4 people, sauté 1 grated onion in 30g/1oz butter, add 200g/7oz arborio or carnaroli rice and 300ml/½ pint sauce. Bring to boiling point then slowly add chicken stock or water (use extra butter if you use water), a ladleful at a time, until the simmering rice is tender; takes about 25 minutes. Serve with cheese.
• Tomato and spelt or oat groat soup – for 4 people, sauté 1 grated or finely chopped onion in 2 tablespoons olive oil; add the chopped leaves from a sprig of rosemary, 4 heaped tablespoons grains and 300ml/½ pint sauce with 450ml/¾ pint stock (or water combined with 1 more tablespoon olive oil). Simmer for about 15 minutes until the grains are just tender. Season and serve with olive oil. (Spelt and groats are available from wholefood shops.)
• Curry – for 4 servings of a good, not-too-hot curry flavoured with ginger that many children will like, gently sauté 1 teaspoon each of ground cumin seed, ground coriander, garam masala and (if desired) a pinch or more of cayenne pepper in 4 tablespoons oil. Add ½ teaspoon fine sea salt, 2.5cm/1in piece