Food History

Today I have a cold.

Actually, I’ve had a cold since last Thursday, but I saw it coming, knew I was going to be travelling to Sydney and I packed extra tissues and tablets and I dealt with it. I posted a bunch of things in advance (eg this) so that you wouldn’t be inconvenienced while I was cavorting on the beach. As it was, I didn’t even see a beach, though I did get a bunch of old comics from Supanova (a pop culture convention) and I plan to mine them for what they say about food, sometime in the future.

I didn’t explore food history apart from the comics this time in Sydney. I ate pizza and Chinese takeaway and roast chicken. My friends and I ate Italian pastries, but we didn’t explore any strange food byways. It was a research trip for the science fiction side of me, to be honest, and the only food research I did (apart from those comics) was finding out more of the family history contexts for a paper I’m writing.

Now I’m back from Sydney and the cold is doing its best to annoy me before I shrug it off. I have sniffles and miseries and general ick.

So what does the person with cold give to those happy souls who are cold-free? Well, one of the small things that came out of my conversations with my cousin is my grandmother’s (she of the 1950s handwritten book you’ve been enjoying) particular way of cooking potatoes. This is pure comfort food, the sort none of us make any more because it makes us think of heart attacks and obesity.

Roast potatoes

Peel your spuds. Take a knife and make a series of slits that reach at least half way into the potato. You end up with a series of serrations and with the remaining (uncut) potato holding it all together firmly.

Now, this is where your heart may protest. Make sure your potato is well covered in fat (preferably suet). This especially includes the slits. Put your potatoes in to roast, preferably in with a roasting chicken or piece of beef. Every now and again spoon the juices from the pan over those potatoes. Cook until they are dreamily crisp and fragrant.