NOTED
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bauersyndication.com.au
I PITY THOSE WHO DON’T HAVE MEMORIES of eating
tuna mornay. When I lived at home, Dad would cook it for
dinner every Monday night in a large, oval-shaped Pyrex
dish. He had it down pat – the perfect unctuosity, the
crunchy breadcrumb topping, it was all there. Tuna mornay
was part of dad’s repertoire. A few of the recipes he used
came from an early Jamie Oliver title (well before nutritional
panels started appearing in his
books), but for the
most part he cooked
from a collection of
clippings stored in
a ringbinder.
Somewhere along
the line, cookbooks
became much more
than a compendium
of things to make
and eat. They
became projections
of desirable
lifestyles – the
rustic charm
of Provence,
the warm
and fuzzy
domesticity
of the
home baker,
the ascetic
piousness of the gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free life of
“healthiness” and a whole lot more.
As newlyweds with a blank slate ahead of us, Mr Gee
and I were suckers for any kind of cookbook, so long as
the pictures had rustic platters and micro herbs in them.
We had books on French, Greek, Chinese, Japanese,
Modern Australian and “Health” (yes, I classify this as a
cuisine of its own). We had books on baking, fermentation,
foraged food, food you could make in 30 minutes, food
you could make in 15 minutes and food that comforted(I never used that one – the pictures of the food were so
beautiful that the idea of replicating them was terrifying).
The first problem with most cookbook recipes is that
they’re expensive to make. I could have paid off my
mortgage with all the money I’ve spent on kaffir lime
leaves, only to use one from the packet. I’ve also been a
victim of food fads: there’s a jar of chia seeds in my pantry
that’s a remnant of my chia
pudding days – coconut-
flavoured snot, sweetened
with three cups of rice malt
syrup, anyone? My friends
still laugh at me for breeding
scobies and making
kimchi in bulk.
Preparation time
also makes most
cookbooks useless
between Monday and
Friday. After serving
a few weeknight
dinners at eight o’clock,
I realised the dishes of
my cookbook fantasies
were actually the perfect
recipes for hangry tiffs
with poor Mr Gee.
I’m sure that the one
part of us that never lies is
our palate. I’m half Greek;
I get antsy if I haven’t had food with oregano in it for a
while. Mr Gee comes from a Chinese family and feels the
same about rice (he’s been known to have it with lasagna).
We eventually discovered that nothing was easier for us to
cook, or more pleasurable to eat, than the food we grew
up with. So, we’ve given away most of our cookbooks
and put together our own ringbinder of recipes. A typical
weeknight dinner for us now is souvlaki and rice (only half
an hour to prepare), but now I think of it, I must ask Dad
if he’ll share the recipe for his tuna mornay. RFOR A FIRST-TIME HOMEOWNER THERE SURE IS
A LOT TO LEARN! CHRISTINA GEE TELLS IT LIKE IT ISreal living169