A base for one pot dishes

Only small changes in recipes can transport you from one part of the world to another. A mirepoix is the base of many French dishes and consists of chopped up onion, carrots and celery sautéed in butter. Smell this aroma and you can feel the urge to open a bottle of fine Bordeaux wine. Substitute the butter for olive oil, add some garlic and fennel and suddenly the French cuisine is transformed to an Italian one. The mirepoix is now a soffritto. Add tomato instead of celery and you can find yourself on a Spanish coast, preparing to enjoy a variety of tapas. True, these are all European cuisines but even when travelling to Thailand you find the same formula as a base for one pot dishes. Spring onion, garlic and ginger, ingredients that are widely available to us make us feel like we are in a different continent. India uses clarified butter heated over a hot burning flame. This process gives us the brown, nutty butter we know better as ghee. Fry some onion and spices in this lactose free fat of the gods and you have made a tarka. The Indian version of mirepoix.

Add some garlic and fennel and suddenly the French cuisine is transformed to an Italian one.

The need for energy and survival.

Every country or region has its own variety but, while they might have different ingredients, the process stays more of less the same. Cooking does what politics can not. It binds and connects us without judgement. This is because the aromas of cooked food indulge our most primal need. The need for energy and survival. The theory of cooking states that we evolved into the species we are today because of it. Cooked food is easier to digest, giving our body the chance to use this extra energy differently. Instead of using most of our time chewing and digesting we have given ourselves the opportunity to use our brains, to find easy solutions for once hard to solve puzzles.

Cooking does what politics can not. It binds and connects us without judgement.

Cooking and eating together gives us a sense of community

While the numbers of depression and loneliness are growing in first and second world countries we can see a correlation with the number of processed food and pre-made meals. Cooking and eating together gives us a sense of community and let’s face it, survival is easier and more enjoyable with a group to support us.

Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants.

— Michael Pollan — 'In defence of food'

Many thanks to Michael Pollan

It might seem counterproductive for a catering company to implore you to cook for yourselves but obviously we can’t come to your house three times a day on a weekly basis. When we do come over, for a party or a birthday or a simple Sunday brunch, we want our customers to be happy. Not just because we gave you the party of a lifetime but because you were happy to begin with. This is all we can hope for, for you the reader and for all other creatures of this planet.

Many thanks to Michael Pollan for his books on food and cooking. He has opened my eyes to many aspects of this seemingly forgettable part of our daily lives. I advise you to read, and buy, his books and watch the amazing Netflix special ‘Cooked’.