Looking at food with much clearer vision
My world is suddenly crystal clear. This makes me think about the appearance of food.
The fact that my world is suddenly crystal clear because my eye person says I must wear reading glasses to use the computer rather than normal glasses is irrelevant. It’s a pain, because I can no longer just swivel to catch something on TV – I have to swivel and change glasses. This means it’s easier to dream about the look of food rather than to turn round and watch TV. Is this a good thing? Aren’t I already just a tad too obsessed with food?
What sort of things am I dreaming about instead of checking the news headlines? I’m thinking that upper class English food in the fourteenth century probably looked just a tad cooler than a lot of upper class French food. The recipes we have focus just that much more on the looks of the food in the English recipes, you see. Parsley was used to give a fresh green look, and saunders* to enrich the colour of meat stews.
I was thinking about the effect of the work of rabid gardeners like John Evelyn on the look of a dinner. He loved herbs and fresh vegetables. One day I’m going to investigate just how long it took before the looks of salad greens started to change the looks of the dinner table. By Jane Austen’s time it definitely did: the main course was just not complete in the south of England without a salad .
I’m curious about the change of generations. What did the older generation think of when ten dishes on a table was replaced by lots of little bits of things delivered to a diner’s place? Did they feel underfed? Did their eyes miss the laden board?
My idea of a good meal changed when I stayed with close friends in Japan, many years ago. They taught me that the eyes eat just as much as the stomach. I feel far more full with a small meal where my eyes are satisfied than with a big meal where they aren’t. I blame Kazuko and Yukiko for this. If any of them want the thousand and one meals owing to them for teaching me this important truth (and saving me from being obese, to boot) I would be immensely happy if they got in touch. That’s the other thing that clear vision does: it makes me miss the friends I saw last time I could see this clearly (or was that the time before? I grow old, I grow old – so old I quote TS Eliot in a food history blog!).
Tomorrow I may give you some more biscuit recipes. One can never have too many historical biscuit recipes.
* related to sandalwood, but a richer redder colour, and much easier on the digestion.
February 14th, 2008 at 1:01 am
The “eyes” diet trick is serving on a smaller plate. I hate the large empty-looking plate, mostly empty and “artfully arranged” food.
February 14th, 2008 at 1:10 am
What my Japanese friends did was have lots and lots of dishes, but very small amounts of each, so the eyes saw a feast and the taste buds tasted one, but the stomach didn’t receive more than a normal meal.