'Nobody Wants to Know What They Had for Dinner, Dear.'
Writing About Food
I fell in love with ice cream, when I was just five years old. It's been a long-lasting affair, mostly conducted in public, occasionally in private, in the depths of a sleepless night. It began when my grandmother, Edith, took me to Forte’s ice cream parlour, in the seaside town where we lived. It was the early fifties and rationing books were still in use. Main meals often consisted of left-over meat, potato in some form, mainly mashed, and whatever veg there was, boiled to destruction. I hated those dinners. Above all I hated the meat. But meat was good for me, or so I was told. Never mind the half-choking and retching on a piece of cold, grey beef. Such food bore no comparison to that first spoonful of soft Italian, ice cream, melting on the tongue.
It was one of our regular jaunts. Our favourite sundae was a North Pole, consisting of vanilla ice cream, sandwiched between thin, crisp wafers, and topped with raspberry sauce. My grandmother had coffee served in a glass on a saucer, I still love coffee served that way, and I had milkshake, just to complete the dairy overload. But, after all, it was the West Country. A word here about the ice cream - Forte's ice cream was white, not cream or yellow like Walls. It was nothing like Walls, which was tasteless by comparison, as were the machine delivered, curly-wurley, Mr Softies, which came later. Even now I wouldn't give a Mr Softie's the time of day. Well, maybe, but only if I was really desperate.
Going to the parlour was as much about the outing, as it was about the ice cream. Along the seafront on a fresh summer's morning, blue of the sky mirrored on the incoming tide, small foamy waves, rushing up the beach, seabirds picking at the edge, boats unhooking from trailers on the pier, the wind in your hair and on your face, children paddling at the edge of the sea, dogs chasing sticks. Then there was the parlour itself, a world away from the brown utilitarian interiors of post war years. The tables and chairs were blue cane, the tables being round and glass topped. Dominating the show was a long stainless steel, counter, with an equally long mirror stretching on the wall behind, a la Manet's, Bar at the Folies-Bergere. It was from here the Fortes reigned supreme, mother and father, two handsome sons much admired by the women of the town. There might have been a sister too but if there was I don't remember seeing her.
When I think of food and the part it played in my growing up, I think of my grandmother, for despite the dismal left over meat dinners, she was an accomplished cook who learned her trade in service. My father's favourite were her home-made faggots, made with caul from the butchers, chopped liver seasoned with fresh herbs and onions- she was forever at the chopping board. There were steak and kidney suet puddings wrapped in cloth and steamed, likewise jam roly-poly. Welsh cakes and drop scones cooked on a black griddle, pancakes crisped in hot smoking lard, and served as they should be with lemon and sugar, and my favourite, her blackcurrant tart. My brother and I often stayed overnight at our grandparent's house. It was a safe haven where we lay content in our beds on a Sunday morning, the shipping forecast drifting upstairs along with the smell of bacon frying in the kitchen.
I love ice cream now as much as I did then, though over the years I've developed a taste for pistachio, but only when it’s good as it is in Italy or France. They know how to make ice cream. Sadly, there are many pale, tasteless imitations of pistachio, so if you’re pistachio ice-cream, lover like me, you learn to live with disappointment, but to relish the occasional triumph.
A literary agent I once worked with, told another of her writers, a friend of mine, not to write about food. Nobody wants to know what they had for dinner dear, she said. Really? I can't credit it, especially now when food has become such an essential part of our cultural conversation.
The time when, the place, the feeling, are all evoked as much in taste and smell, as in what we see or hear or touch. Without fail, papaya and mango, transport me to Sri Lankan mornings in a jungle villa. A ploughman's, lunch with thick slices of cottage loaf and cheddar cheese, takes me back to the heart of home in the Quantock hills of Somerset.
Food evokes memory and place, and as such can be a really useful tool for the writer. Here is a writing suggestion from Natalie Goldberg, a big favourite of mine, it's from Old Friend from Far Away - The Practice of Writing Memoir - Write ten minutes: when did you taste a favourite fruit for the first time? You don't remember? Imagine it...imagining often leads to the real deal..'
Thanks for reading
Avril x