1970s PRIVATE LIFE
9184 - Entertaining2 – Food
For most of my adult life, I have always been something of a gourmet and a lot of a gourmand; I have always eaten too much for my own good, and hence my diabetes. But I first started out cooking for the two of us soon after we were married. I proceeded thereafter to be the chef for the family. I suspect this is because, being initially a scientist (and especially, in this context, a chemist), I enjoyed putting together the recipes.
I was most influenced by Elizabeth David, and have used her recipes more than any others -- though I occasionally switch to Delia Smith since her recipes are well worked out. But, as I said, the Elizabeth David recipes of French provincial food are the mainstay of my menu. The recipes I have used most frequently are Coq au Vin and Boeuf Bourguignon. Chicken curry also makes an entry, but from a 'Good Housekeeping' book. The other standby is Mrs Beeton. Mostly, though, we ate junk food earlier in our marriage. When I met her, Pat's staple diet -- and favourite dish -- was baked beans on toast. Her haute cuisine was mushrooms on toast.
As soon as the children came along, they tended to dominate our eating. Chips and fish-fingers were our staple, with frozen peas. In the early days our main excursion into luxurious living was to buy frozen food; typical of our peer group at the time. Later on, however, we moved on – with our peer group - to fresh foods. I suppose this was also in answer to my worsening diabetes. Again in line with the fashions of the times, we gradually phased out, in particular, tinned food -- though frozen food also eventually took a hit.
In terms of eating out, we simply haven't done much of that together. I suppose this was because, early in my career, I did a lot of expense account entertaining. This meant that when we went out in the evening, which we could afford to do before the children came along, I was comparing the cheap restaurants we can afford to go to with the five-star restaurants where I'd been entertaining during the day. The result soon was we didn't go to restaurants in the evening.
In terms of the restaurants I used to go to in the 1960s, the favourite restaurants were those with French cuisine. My favourite one, the Au Savarin in Charlotte Street, was in fact a combination of Greek and French cuisine. I can't remember the exact recipes, except that they depended upon superb sauces -- though my boss, as described elsewhere, insisted on having steak with deep fried onion rings! At that time we generally ate French cuisine, where we also enjoyed such places as the Savoy and the White Tower.
When I got to IBM, and especially to Biomedical, I entertained consultants regally all round the country. These various medical consultants used to know the best restaurants in their area. Thus, I ate at restaurants where the then up and coming chefs later became world-renowned chefs. Again, it was largely French based.
My favourite restaurant, though, was then a small restaurant in Sutton, near to the Royal Marsden Hospital. I ran a large number of seminars at the hospital, and took the attendees off for lunch at this restaurant. It was a French/Italian restaurant, and my custom became important to it. The food was good, but due to my importance I was able to specify the menu and enhance its quality. In particular, I remember regularly having lobster with fresh strawberries as the desert -- in midwinter when, at that time, strawberries were rarely flown in from California.
At the Open University my only real exposure to good food was travelling around the world with the BBC; and then I paid for it myself . On the other hand, we still ate at Roger Verge's second restaurant on the Cote d'Azur, where his cuisine minceur was superb. In the US we ate at some excellent regional restaurants, but the majority of the restaurants there seemed to believe quality was set by adding more sugar, so that I felt sick quite soon after many of the meals. Indeed, I literally developed an allergy to restaurant food; such that even as I entered the door of a restaurant I started to feel sick. It was a couple of years before I lost this allergy.
In the US as long as you stick to steak, however, you do well. In particular I love New York Strip Steak, which they do superbly well. Indeed, my favourite meal of all, at least now, is a medium rare steak.
We have only ever eaten fish and chips as take-away food; and even then rarely. We never have pizzas. Nor do we usually have Indian or Chinese take-aways; though we do like these cuisines in restaurants – but now have to avoid them due to our diabetes.
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