The Art of Coarse Cooking, or, Keeping your Domestic Goddess to Yourself

In the Fifties, a girl learned to cook at her mother or grandmother’s knee. It was a skill expected of a woman and such arts were passed down through the generations, usually at a large wooden, brightly lit kitchen table where you rolled out and punched, spiced and diced.

Girls were encouraged in this by being given little mini-kitchens and sets of pots and bowls. Aprons were giddy, frilly things and if you were lucky, had your name embroidered on them.

But my mother was an early feminist and believed that such a path would lead to a life of drudgery for her daughter. Her hero was Emily Pankhurst and the Imperial Hotel in Pietermaritzburg had a bar named after the suffragette, which is where I learned to drink elegantly. Not too fast, mind you. That came later.

From my grandmother, I learned how to judge a racehorse’s form and where to place a bet. If there was a kitchen table, I never found it.

I decided not to go to university, to my parents’ alarm, and to make my point I refused to take food or drink for eight hours, a record. They caved but said I had to learn shorthand and typing before I went anywhere. Part of this line of study at a local academy included office etiquette, make-up for the working girl (not that kind) and how to arrange a beautiful table setting.

So it was that in 1969 I found myself working at the Daily News in Durban with no idea how to prepare any sort of food – but boy could I make it look good. For the first year, this did not matter because I had been housed at a small but refined hotel in Florida Road where meals emerged from a kitchen, as they should.

My complete lack of skills only became apparent when I moved to a sort of commune out on Durban’s Bluff, a group of eccentric cottages that had once been holiday lets. My friend Lindsey already lived there; it was now 1970 and I felt a more Bohemian style of life would suit me.

I decided to give a dinner party for my new companions and asked the editor’s secretary, a capable woman, what I should do. As we were going to be sitting on cushions and bean bags and listening to records she suggested that I buy chicken pieces (they came in pieces? Who did that?) and cook them with dried herbs. This could be accompanied by garlic bread and a mixed salad.

I failed to ask at what heat I should cook the fowl or for how long. How difficult could this be? I managed to stuff the crusty bread with garlic butter and heat it and upended the salad into a borrowed bowl. I couldn’t remember any of the other ingredients for a salad dressing that my helper had given me a recipe for, but one of them had been wine. I drizzled that over the tomatoes. (Tassenberg, it was all the rage back then.)

When I was about to serve the food, Lindsey asked me if I had any candles. She had a very peculiar expression on her face, but I had some of those plain white candles you can still buy in packets today. They had come with the cottage whose electricity supply was erratic.

It turned out that the chicken was pretty raw and Lindsey figured if everyone ate in the dark, they would not notice. We turned up the music, lit the incense and everyone pretended to be stoned.

To this day I parboil chicken before I prepare it in any way.

It set a pattern of improvised and eccentric meals. Mayonnaise is my friend and I mix it with anything from curry powder to chutney. I have a stock dish where I throw heaps of mayo over (parboiled) chicken which I bake and serve with rice and salad. I think it looks pretty good but my family have now begged me to retire it.

On my 35^th birthday I was heavily pregnant with my second daughter and decided to give a dinner party once again. Call it the nesting instinct. I was determined to cook despite objections – why not just sit there and enjoy yourself, they coerced – but who the hell argues with a pregnant woman in mid-summer who is wielding a kitchen knife?

I made a tomato soup which I cooled and called gazpacho. I think I got away with that. The main course, not so much. I hit on the idea of mixing tins of oysters, mussels and tuna, in their sauces, into pre-cooked rice. I thought it was pretty good but one guest fell sound asleep at the table which everyone thought was a ploy not to eat another thing.

My repertoire includes a Spanish omelette, which is tinned tuna and eggs mixed with anything I can find, from chopped tomato and onion to peppers and chopped veg, topped with thinly sliced potatoes and drowned in cheese before being baked in the oven. This offering was better received when I realised you were supposed to cook the potatoes first. And as an aside, if you forget to prepare the potatoes, just throw a packet of crisps over the top with the cheese. It works like a charm.

I once stunned my friends by producing a superb Italian dish. I cunningly bought those frozen cannelloni rings stuffed with feta and spinach and disguised them in tins of Italian tomato and herbs before baking in the oven, once again smothered in strong cheese. But I hadn’t let the cannelloni thaw quite enough and they were on to me in a flash.

I am now in charge of setting the table, down to the correct cutlery for every course with the flower arrangement at just the right height and the candles offering sufficient light to see by but not to dazzle the diners.

I am surrounded by people who cook superbly. I will never have to cook another meal in my life.

My mother was right after all. DM