The shape of coping

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This post is a tribute to Gary - from your "cuz" who promises to to always remember you, and is sure that you will remain the only person he didn't mind calling him "bruv".

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It took a lot of reflection on my part to figure out whether I should write this post or not. I had a lot of questions about this piece that didn't, then, exist. Is it too much disclosure? Is it too soon? Do I feel as if I have to? Do I feel as if I shouldn't? Save for the recipe itself, this opening paragraph was the last I wrote, and I know now that writing this helped me develop my feelings on the matter. It was as I had always suspected, food and food writing) could be a conduit to more meaningful expression.

A couple of days ago my family suffered a loss. I'm not going to go into the specifics or the background of what happened, but it was unexpected, and it was so incredibly premature. There are no good times for someone to pass away, but it's somewhat comforting at least to be able to reflect on the long-life of a departed one. However, longevity isn't everything, and there are so many people who have known his kindness, despite whatever else may have been going on.

In the past, encountering death had been expected and we had all been privileged with the ability to steel ourselves. This time, we were not so lucky. It's hard to know what I'm feeling. Sometimes I want to scream "why aren't you feeling anything?" at myself. Other times, I find myself lathering shower gel into my hair, kind of like a self-driving car speeding down the wrong road. Everything comes in inconsistent waves, so it's hard to know how I'm going to feel hour-by-hour.

I'm also very aware that I am further from the epicentre than many around me. Though I'm oscillating between sadness, meandering and shock, my ability to wake up in the morning and actively cultivate the necessary mechanisms of coping hasn't generally been disabled. As much as I can talk about the mass of loss, our shoulders are not evenly burdened. I can walk into the kitchen and access the thing that provides me with a degree of calmness and constancy. I can write, even if it is a slower process than usual.

This was laid very clear to me today. My uncle came over today; he has just lost his son, and I can't even attempt to imagine what it must be like to sit in an empty house absorbing those kind of shock waves. It's a very common practice to prepare food for those who are in the mires of grief; this seemed to me a way to use my own source of comfort to (hopefully) help someone else slightly.

I made a batch of Penang curry - a family favourite, and my first time cooking meat for quite a few years (I have reconciled this by reminding myself that I am not eating it). I had also planned to make some kind of soup for at lunch time, which I extended to my family members who were present at the time. Honestly, knowing what is appropriate food for someone who is grieving is tricky. There is no such thing as "mourning food", so we just have to try and hope for the best.

Last night, I read a recent blog post from the venerable Smitten Kitchen (white bean soup with crispy kale - link here!) which stated that the question she always had for bowls of soup was "must every spoonful be exactly like the one before?". It's a understandable question, isn't it? But, that kind of constancy seemed perfect for this context. You know exactly what you're getting with each spoonful. Perhaps monotonous for every day circumstances; comfortingly consistent for this one.

Before I go any further, I have to say that I don't think I could have written this post if I hadn't previously read the passages of the blog Orangette (link here!). Molly's writing contributed significantly to my understanding that the food we cook isn't "just food" but something indissolubly bound to our feelings and experiences. This blog almost definitely wouldn't exist without that, at least not in this form.

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Golden Parsnip Soup

Right off the bat, I have to address that the auspicious nomenclature seems incongruous with the circumstances I have just described. Yes, that's true. But it describes perfectly this turmeric-hued concoction, so you will have to forgive me (just this once). It is, indeed, the perfect colour of Autumn.

I don't often make soup, so the temptation to experiment with flavour was strong. I mean, why not sprinkle in a dash of sumac and see what happens? Maybe some lemongrass? Perhaps some chopped coriander? Of course, you are welcome to try all these things and more, but I had to stop myself; these suggestions were all coming from my usual head-space. While the spices here aren't necessarily conservative, they are mellow. In spite of my usual gung-ho attitude, this restraint definitely worked in favour of the soup. Lessons learned? Eh, maybe.

The result is a thick soup that you would want to slowly consume while sprawled on a seat attached to a large bay window (if only...) as a spray of rain assaults the outside world. It is sweet and woody, with enough of a savoury balance to ensure that no flavour dares to overwhelm. It might be worth making a large batch of this and saving it for days where a sense of quietude is sorely needed.

A note on a equipment is perhaps warranted. My cooking very rarely features anything that could be referred to as equipment, apparatus or otherwise. I am probably overly suspicious of kitchen devices, and am too often inclined to think "whaaaa? But I can do that myself?" as well as being very anxious around spending money. Because of this, I don't own a soup maker (though, I have seen one in action, and they are mesmerising in the same way a washing machine is). I do own a stick blender, but in the name of ease did not use it. You, however, are welcome to use whatever device makes you feel happiest!

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Ingredients & Method

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Serves 3-4 people

• 5 large parsnips

• 2 cloves of garlic

• 1 inch piece of ginger

• 300 ml of vegetable stock

• 1 tbsp of soy sauce

• 400 ml of coconut milk

• 2 tbsp of turmeric

• 1 tsp of cumin

• 1 tsp of paprika

• 1/2 a tsp of chilli powder

• 1 tsp of maple syrup (optional)

• 1 tsp of sour cream (optional)

• A few leaves of parsley (optional)

Slice the top and bottom sides of the parsnips and peel the skin off of them. Roughly chop into medium sized chunks. Put these to the size.

Crush the cloves of garlic and finely chop and slice the ginger into small pieces.

Over a medium heat, warm 1/2 a tbsp of vegetable oil in a wide saucepan before frying the garlic and the ginger for 1 minute, being careful not to burn them.

Add the parsnips to the saucepan and stir with a wooden spoon. Take care to bring the spoon to the bottom of the pan, before raising it to the top. This will ensure that the parsnips are evenly coated with the oil.

Prepare your vegetable stock. When choosing a vegetable stock, I don't think it's hugely important which one you use - however I would err away from ones that are particularly salty. If you have a pre-made vegetable stock lying around then all the better! However I wouldn't dream of requesting that you prepare one from scratch in the interests of making this soup. If needed, make your stock weaker, rather than overly potent. The stock is meant to be the savoury base of the soup, rather than a dominant taste.

Add the soy sauce to the prepared vegetable stock before pouring on to the parsnips along with the spices and stirring everything together to combine into a burnt-gold coloured mixture.

Bring the saucepan to the boil before turning down to a low-medium heat and simmering for 15 minutes. After this time, check that the parsnips have softened and, if so, proceed to blend them into a soup. At this point, the simmering pot may smell bitter; do not be alarmed! The spices will mellow out as it cooks.

Here is where you need to think about both the equipment you have in your kitchen (as well as what you're willing to wash up at the end of the process) and the consistency you want the soup to be. Using a stick blender will result in a smoother soup. However, using a potato masher (as I did) will give you variably sized chunks of parsnips throughout, which to me feels like the heartier solution.

If using a masher, repeatedly press down on the chunks until loosely combined. The mixture should now resemble a thick puree.

Once everything has been combined, add the can of coconut milk and stir into the soup, loosening up the texture. At this point taste the soup. If you would prefer a touch of sweetness, add a tsp of maple syrup. If you think the spices need adjusting, then do so at this point (how you adjust them is up to you, of course!)

Once you are satisfied with the way the flavours are balanced, bring the soup to the boil before taking off the heat and spooning into bowls. It may look like it isn't enough to feed four people, but do bear in mind that it is quite a dense concoction. On serving this to four people, two couldn't finish their portions (out of satiation, not revulsion). The density means that the soup is good by itself, however a roughly cut chunk of bread wouldn't go amiss either.

Optionally, swirl in some sour cream and scatter with parsley to broaden out the taste. However, served without garnish (I hate this word, but I hate the word topping even more) it is reassuringly comforting.

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Adjustments

• Instead of parsnips, other root vegetables or perhaps even gourds could be used. There are many possibilities for this, but might I suggest butternut squash, pumpkin or swede (rutabaga)?

• Spices can be changed to suit your tastes. Not even going to suggest how. That one's on you!

• This recipe IS vegan, however you will have to choose not to use the sour cream at the end (which is optional anyway). However, if you did want to use an alternative, I think a plain vegan yoghurt would be great - perhaps even a coconut flavoured one? I say this tentatively, however!

• Instead of vegetable stock, you could use chicken if that is what you have/prefer. I'm sure other types of stocks could be used also. This can apply to vegetarians too, as some meat flavoured stocks are vegetarian friendly!

A recourse to comfort

The "what", the "why"...

What is comfort food? Well, Webster's English Dictionary defines... no, don't worry, I'm not going to sink quite that low.

Anyway, Wikipedia defines comfort food as "food that provides a nostalgic or sentimental value to someone" and, rather more insultingly, "may be characterized by its high caloric nature". I'm glad to declare that this little patch of cyberspace pays no heed to such quibbles. Plus, I think I'm more interested in the how rather than the what.

In 2017, an article entitled "Comfort food: a review" was published in the International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science by Charles Spence (find it here) which traced the term back to a 1966 news article which coined the phrase in relation to emotional stress. In this circumstance, the dish/food prepared serves as the counterbalance which alleviates the consumer from their wretched state. I would argue that 50-years later we don't need a near-trauma to occur in order to warrant this kind of food; indeed as chronic stress takes hold of more and more of us, I think the recourse to comfort is something increasingly sought after.

As if to echo my thoughts, Spence's article goes on to discuss the drive for organisations (corporate or otherwise) to try and market towards a comfort seeking audience. This ranges from office-workers rocking up to a convenience store at 9pm hoping to find a boxed mac n' cheese, to astronauts who crave textures and flavours which remind them of the planet they drift 400 kilometers above. It seems that mealtimes are now another artery of life through which we need to inject some calmness, and even nostalgia.

What is comfort to me?

Over the years (by which I mean five or six, maximum) I've had trouble grappling with the idea of comfort food. When I started out at university and first begun the habit of cooking for myself every night, I felt somewhat scornful to the concept of "comfort food". It seemed to me as if it were a particular canon of foodstuffs, with mashed potatoes and chicken soup (neither of which really took my enthusiasm) at the vanguard. Undoubtedly, I must have had meals which I often cooked that made me feel better after a particularly troubling or anxiety-ridden day, which were more often than not during my undergraduate course.

Over time, my attitude to these kinds of things softened, but it wasn't something I ever really engaged with or consciously thought about. I think moving to London brought the food-as-therapy theme into a conscious position in my life. Not that living in the capital is a pre-cursor for therapeutic intervention, but the city has a habit of wearing you ragged, whether that be in body or mind. It certainly does for me.

As someone who finds cooking a familiar comfort (and, yes, I am aware of how lucky this makes me - to have a hobby which is also intensely functional) this inevitably led me to think of cooking and eating as a way to response to both need and desire; not just cooking something that "seemed" nice. This was the trail of thoughts and feelings which led me back to the concept of comfort food.

Initially, I had trouble thinking of what "my" comfort food was. I'm sure it's somewhat monolithic to believe that everyone has one and only one, as if it were ordained by some independent committee before birth. Indeed, my method of becoming calmer would be to cook something that had been on my mind throughout the day, I didn't feel like I had a go-to. Mac n' Cheese has always been a favourite of mind, but too much of an involved eat for me to be truly comforting (at least, that's what I want it to be). Mashed Potatoes require too much effort for them to not be a textural meltdown. The obvious options seemed closed to me.

However, I eventually came to a simple staple that seemed so very familiar for me. Something that was a constant, and would be virtually the same every time I cooked it. I could still exercise my shtick of "responding to need" by adding and subtracting as appropriate. I found my ultimate state of comfort after taking a bowl of leftover rice (from what I think was some form of Thai Curry - which YES there will definitely be a post for) and adding some soy sauce and sesame oil. That was all that was needed, and it felt homely, uncomplicated and exactly what was needed to feel like I was on solid ground.

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Soy & Sesame Rice Bowl

Today absolutely felt like the right conditions to make this. In fairness, this concept had been on my mind for the previous two days and I had thought of allocating some time to prepare and write. However, it felt this afternoon like the elements converged perfectly to create the

conditions for this rice bowl to be prepared and consumed with genuine desire, rather than being produced as a procedural mechanism for my writing.

It was a rainy morning; beginning with a dense fog (NOT a mist, as was pointed out to me by my treasured housemate Rebecca) enshrouding the buildings around us as they became horizon-line silhouettes. The rain began as a small incursion, evolving into a downpour, before retreating once more and burnishing the midday gleam with a silvery tinge. The conditions were laid for a withdrawal to shelter and a bowl of something which tasted of assurance and stability.

Admittedly, this rice bowl was adapted from the simplicity of the three-ingredient soy/sesame/rice combo, but this was a reflection of what I felt like eating, as well as what was available to me. I think that almost every ingredient in a rice bowl is subject to being swapped out for something different, which is perhaps what makes it such a comfort. I know that I declared cauliflower the "blank canvas" of foods in my first post, but I think rice might just have a greater claim to that incredibly auspicious crown.

I think it's worth reviewing some of the ingredients I've added to the mix here; although this is very much a negotiable blend, some clarity is needed. I used a Japanese seasoning called furikake here which I got from a fantastic spice shop called Spice Mountain (find them here or at Borough Market if you're passing through). Although blends of furikake vary to an extent, my version consisted of roasted sesame, seaweed and lemon salt.

Another thing I added was sushi nori. I've found this in most major supermarkets (not just in London, but also in the mid-sized down from whence I hail). This roasted seaweed that mostly comes in sheets, and has a savoury, somewhat briny taste - also known as umami. While the most common use of this is to wrap sushi rolls, I tore a sheet of it into pieces and used it as a topping.

I think its needless to say that measuring quantities for a meal which would usually be eyeballed is a somewhat dissociative process. My usual instinct for this would just be to go with what feels right, but I think that going ahead and doing it demonstrated to myself that it's not impossible to do both. There exists a lot of snobbishness around cooking from recipes, and I don't particularly wish to engage with that. Recipes are helpful and reading them is instructive even if you don't then go ahead and use it. Challenging our own kitchen habits is a process that can only result in improvement.

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Ingredients & Method

Prep time: 5 minutes.

Cooking time: 20 minutes.

Serves 1.

• 100g of white rice

• 1 tbsp of vinegar, lemon juice or shaoxing wine

• 1 spring onion

• 1 tbsp of dark soy sauce

• 1.5 tbsp of vegetable oil

• 2 tsp of sesame oil

• 1 sheet of sushi nori

• 1 tsp of furikake

• 1 large egg

• Salt

Bring a small saucepan of water to the boil and add the rice. Generally, the ratio of water to rice should be 2:1 but it doesn't really matter if this isn't precisely followed. Once the water

has come to the boil, add salt and either vinegar, lemon juice or shaoxing before pouring in the rice. Bring to a medium simmer and cook for 10-12 minutes.

While the rice is boiling prepare your toppings. Finely chop the spring onion, separating the green parts from the white parts. Set aside and tear the nori into small pieces.

Once the rice has finished boiling, drain and set aside. Heat 1/2 a tablespoon of oil in the saucepan the rice was in before adding the white parts of the spring onion and frying over a medium heat for 1 minute.

Add the rice back to the saucepan and mix until the spring onion is evenly distributed. Add soy sauce and sesame oil, once again stirring to ensure even coverage. When the rice is piping hot, deposit it into a bowl to cool slightly while the egg cooks (it will taste better if it does not sear your tongue!)

Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a frying pan. When the oil is hissing and bubbling slightly, crack an egg into the oil. Cook the egg through. If the outsides are cooking faster than the centre, you can try spooning some of the hot oil on to the inside of the egg - but be careful to avoid cooking the yolk too quickly as this is best runny!

Once the egg is done, drop it carefully on top of the rice, before adding your prepared toppings. Eat with whichever utensils you prefer (I prefer chopsticks).

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Adjustments

As I have hinted fairly strongly throughout this post, there are numerous adjustments that can be made here, and I actively encourage you to try and change this around based on your own personal taste. Might I suggest, however, that the rice, soy sauce and sesame oil remain a constant? It would take a lot of convincing for me to approve removal of the egg, also (aside from veganism and allergy) I have a few ideas of what could be done with this.

• If you have kimchi to hand, I can't rhapsodise enough about the combination of earthy soy, nutty sesame, creamy egg and sharp kimchi.

• If you are prepared to be more involved, the flavoured rice would make a great base for stir-fried or braised vegetables.

• More flavours could also be added to the rice to broaden the range of the bowl; garlic, chilli and ginger would be a good place to start but I am sure the possibilities are endless.

Counter-intuitive neural pathways (but make it Autumnal).

Some of our habits and associations stay with us; we don't feel any need to reorient or challenge them. Others, we may adjust or even forge new lines of thinking that, through an often uncomfortable or difficult process, may approach intrinsicality. Now, this narrative could be used to undertake a revealing dissection of the psyche and social habit, however I have my mind on something slightly more benign (this is a food blog after all; the second post, might I add).

Take, for example, Autumn. For a long time, I've associated this season with comfort and softness, whether or not that is reflected within my life experiences. For example, sitting in a Starbucks as I type this with a flat white, gentle music and a cloudily-restrained glow of sun seems somehow connected to the turning of the leaves, though with a rational head I'm sure that's not how seasonality works. But, a stressful day in the office? I have a much easier time putting it down to extraneous circumstance (which, I might be less inclined to do in the Summer). Clearly, this is a tenuous grasp of reason, but at the same time I don't think there is much of a reason to challenge this?

However, there is also the flip-side in which habitual behaviour is challenged, sometimes unconsciously. I started baking around the time I finished my undergraduate degree, just under three and a half years ago now (yes, that gets weirder with every year that goes by). While I was at university I cooked a lot and discovered the extent to which I enjoyed it, but never once baked.

I had absorbed the idea that baking required technical precision to the extreme, especially when compared to the flexibility of cooking. It was as if I thought some kind of council of heat-resistant baking spirits would convene within the oven after you put a cake in there to bake and perform some kind of audit; if the quantities of required ingredients were marginally off-ratio, then you wouldn't receive their sanction and the process would be unsuccessful. Clearly, absurd, but so was the prohibitive apprehension I felt.

Though, saying that, I couldn't say what changed; I can't recall what my first bake was, but I remember that it must have been fine. Reading cookbooks which included recipes for cakes, breads, pastries (okay, these still send frissons of fear cascading down my spine) must have made me curious to try, and given how I'd always been attracted to honesty in food writers, I felt like I was in safe hands. Eventually, an uneasy relationship with baking was forged.

While I could follow a recipe, however, I didn't expect anything to become intuitive, or to have a "stock recipe" that I could make over and over. Now, that doesn't mean that I have quantities or method committed to memory, but it does mean that I feel comfortable enough to estimate the quantities needed to make something and introduce different ingredients into the mix; that came in the form of banana bread.

In reality, this isn't surprising. Banana bread is fairly simple to put together (simplicity? in baking? 22 year-old me is scowling with scepticism) and also comfortingly Autumnal - yes, that concept underpins all of this! So, the sequence here was clear; comfort to eat begets (eventual) comfort to make, which eventually begets the comfort to experiment. And, that, is the protracted neural pathway which brought me to this intuitive creation.

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Maple & Pecan Banana Bread

This is the kind of recipe which could have only been conceived during Autumn, or within a haze of indignant Autumnal nostalgia. When I did a cursory Google search about this, I found an article from Time magazine (link here) with a headline that proclaimed the maple & pecan combo as the "new Fall flavour"; the successor to the ubiquitous pumpkin spice. However, this puzzled me - since when is maple and pecan new? How is pumpkin spice the ancestor in this situation? I have many questions that I don't think are going to be resolved here! All I remember is being aware of the union of maple and pecan from a very young age.

Something that bothers me slightly about banana bread discourse, is the idea that it is made for the sole purpose of avoiding waste - a laudatory initiative, but I feel this overlooks two important conditions:

1. Banana bread is delicious. When I have made banana bread, it is simply because I've wanted banana bread. The narrative around it makes it seem as if it is baked through circumstance, rather than being the product of desire.

2. Bananas in their raw form are controversial. However, banana bread seems to win over both sides of the great banana schism, with only the true polemics remaining unswayed. Not every banana bread lover will necessarily have ripe bananas to hand.

Staying with the second point, a lot is said about the need of the banana to be overripe; most commonly it is said that the riper the banana, the better contributor it will be. This isn't necessarily untrue - a riper banana will produce a smoother mixture. The problem here is that ripe bananas aren't something can always be easily bought. If you are part of the demographic who doesn't often have ripe bananas to hand then stick with this; I have a solution for you.

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Ingredients & Method

Prep time: 25 minutes

Cooking time: 55-60 minutes

Loaf

• 100 g of unsalted butter

• 130 g of caster sugar

• 2 eggs

• 2 ripe or softened bananas (see below for softening method)

• 225 g of self-raising flour

• 1 tsp of baking powder

• 3 tbsp of maple syrup

• 50 g of chopped and toasted pecans

Icing

• 90 g of mascarpone

• 2-3 tsp of maple syrup

• 1/2 tsp of salt

• 10-15 pecans (to decorate)

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius (355 degrees Fahrenheit). Grease and line a medium-sized loaf tin and set aside.

Measure out your pecans and chop them into small pieces before placing them into a frying pan or a skillet. Dry fry the pecans for 5 minutes to bring out a toasty aroma, before setting aside to cool.

Take your bananas and use a fork to mash them into a paste. If your bananas aren't ripe then microwave them for sixty seconds with the skin unpeeled. This will make the bananas soft enough to incorporate smoothly into the rest of the mix. If microwaving the bananas, leave in the fridge after mashing so they aren't still hot when you mix everything else together.

Measure out the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder and maple syrup into a bowl, and follow with the cooled banana and the chopped pecans. Mix for about 1-2 minutes or until combined to form your cake batter. This is known as an "all-in-one" method, and it reduces the amount that the cake mix needs to be stirred, thereby reducing the aeration of the cake. Banana loaves have a fairly dense texture, so this should minimise the amount of air that is introduced to the mix.

Once the ingredients have been completely combined, pour the batter into the greased and lined loaf tin, making sure the top of the cake is smooth. Put in the oven and bake. After 55 minutes bring the loaf out, insert a clean butter knife into the centre of the cake; if the knife comes out clean then the cake is done. If not, give it another five minutes. If in doubt, remember that a slightly under-baked banana loaf is better than a slightly over-baked one.

The load should be a shade darker than golden brown, mildly domed and have a somewhat tectonic crack running down the middle.

Leave to cool in the tin for 3-5 minutes before running a butter knife down the sides and turning out on to a cooling rack. The temperature inside of the cake will ensure that it will still be cooking for a couple of minutes after being removed from the oven, hence why it is best not to remove from the tin immediately.

While the cake is cooling on the rack, start making the icing for the top of the cake. Combine mascarpone, maple syrup and 1/4 of a tsp of salt into a bowl. Taste the mixture, and add another 1/4 of a tsp of salt if you think it calls for it. Whisk the mixture for 3-5 minutes until it has stiffened and increased in volume.

Once the cake has cooled completely, spread the mascarpone mixture thickly on to the loaf and smooth out with the back of a knife. It is very important to wait until the loaf has cooled to room temperature, otherwise the icing may melt and run off. Once the cake is iced, take your whole pecans and arrange them on to the loaf however you wish! This cake is best stored in the fridge.

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Adjustments

• It is not necessary to ice the cake if you would prefer to eat it plain. Banana bread without icing can also be toasted and served warm with butter or marmalade (or, whatever topping you'd like really!)

• The mascarpone could be replaced with whipping cream, however I would suggest you half the quantity of maple syrup.

• If you cannot find pecans, walnuts would be a very similar replacement and pair well with the flavour of maple.