{"id":6701,"date":"2016-09-19T16:27:44","date_gmt":"2016-09-19T15:27:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/?p=6701"},"modified":"2016-09-19T20:27:45","modified_gmt":"2016-09-19T19:27:45","slug":"recipes-as-autobiography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thedomesticsoundscape.com\/wordpress\/?p=6701","title":{"rendered":"Recipes as Autobiography…"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was working on my book, the KNITSONIK Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook<\/em>, I realised that the creative part of my brain \u2013 the one I use for writing prose, editing sounds and designing knitwear \u2013 is the same part I use for cooking. At the end of long work days, I often found I couldn\u2019t come up with any clever ideas for dinner. As a result, I ate several laughably uncreative meals during that project; the low point being a hula-hoop wrap created by tipping a bag of hula-hoops into a plain flour tortilla that I then scrunched up and ate\u2026 (I cannot recommend this meal).<\/p>\n

A week or so after my book went to print, I had a sudden inspiration to make a beautiful Caribbean-inspired fish stew containing spices, shellfish, rum, limes, peppers, pineapples and rice with fresh coconut mixed in. As all the colours and ideas for this meal flooded my mind, I realised that my creative projects and cookery draw on the same finite mental resources and that I\u2019d not had the bandwidth to dream up tasty dinners while spending all day thinking about yarn shades and patterns. I also realised that if all my artistic energies are going into a project on which I\u2019m working, I probably need a fall-back plan to avoid repeating the horrors of the hula-hoop wrap \u2013 a Bill of Fare, if you will \u2013 to tell me what to eat when I find myself out of ideas.<\/p>\n

Accordingly, earlier this summer, Mark and I sat down to compose a rotating three-week meal plan. Once a week we look at what\u2019s ahead, adjust The Plan to accommodate any outings or visitors, and buy in our ingredients. It\u2019s been going well so far and there has been no call for savoury snacks in tortillas since we started! The project has made me think about what we like eating and how our menus are connected with other aspects of our lives. <\/p>\n

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A sample menu plan!<\/p><\/div>\n

For instance, I feel the presence of the ducks in our schemes as it\u2019s unlikely we would eat so many omelettes or so much avgolemono* unless we had a constant supply of duck eggs to get through… (thank you, Honey and Pretzel!) also, earlier in the summer, we also ate many bread rolls made with kefir** after my parents got me a culture kit and I discovered what a superlative rise kefir gives to an otherwise plain bread roll… Kefir was one of the wondrous discoveries I made on my Estonian travels in 2012 and began to drink here when I found it is stocked in all the local shops that sell Polish fare.<\/p>\n

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The duck buddies – a constant source of eggs!<\/p><\/div>\n

The influence of the blogosphere is also ever present; I follow Jack Monroe on Twitter<\/a> (we cook from their book often), while the Rendang was inspired by a blog post on the subject written by a friend of ours<\/a>… for my birthday this year, instead of cake, I made these sinful confetti cookies after becoming transfixed by images I saw on the Smitten Kitchen<\/a> blog:<\/p>\n

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O Happy Food Colouring Laden Magnificence!!!<\/p><\/div>\n

The Japanese Wineberries and Mulberries we ate earlier this year from the garden are both the result of us finding these fruits on bushes and trees elsewhere and deciding we must plant them at home…<\/p>\n

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Japanese Wineberry bush, just before the berries came out<\/p><\/div>\n

…All of which is to say that what we eat each day is highly personal and also richly descriptive of how and where we live and shop. Our food reflects our families and upbringings; the influence of culture and travel; some of what we read online; and what is available to buy locally. Recipes are like co-ordinates that fix us in time and space and, like many of you I suspect, the current globalised food market means that, for better or worse, we are less tied to the timings of seasonal produce than our forebears.<\/p>\n

As you may know, I\u2019ve spent a great deal of this year exploring the life of Catherine Dickens for Hearing Catherine<\/a><\/em> \u2013 a collection of sound pieces produced for the Charles Dickens Museum to coincide with their exhibition: The Other Dickens, Discovering Catherine<\/em>. My thoughts today are very much influenced by the work I have done for that project based on her cookbook, written in the early 1850s and titled What Shall We Have For Dinner? <\/em><\/p>\n

Catherine\u2019s book has bills of fare (suggested menus) at the start, for between two to twenty persons. At the back of the book there are more detailed instructions on the preparation of some of the dishes. Armed with this tome, I am sure that nobody would have had to succumb to the Victorian equivalent of the hula-hoop wrap!<\/p>\n

Like our rotating three-week plan, Catherine\u2019s book helps us to understand aspects of who she<\/em> was; the influence of travel and her familial origins; the availability of various ingredients in London; and of some of Charles\u2019s favourite foods (toasted cheese!). I keep thinking of this wonderful passage from Lillian Nayder\u2019s insightful tome on Catherine Dickens:<\/p>\n

In her study of kitchen writings, Janet Theophano describes recipe collections as autobiographies and importance sources of women\u2019s history, \u201ca written legacy of [women\u2019s] art and their lives.\u201d\u2026Catherine\u2019s volume helps us understand the experiences she valued and the ways in which she defined herself\u2026 She draws on her time abroad when she explains how puddings are prepared \u201cin many parts of the continent, as well as throughout Switzerland,\u201d while her recipes for Scotch broth, Scotch minced collop, and Kalecannon, like her measures in Scotch pints as well as English quarts, identify her country of birth and make use of its standards and culture. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For Hearing Catherine<\/em>, I drew heavily on Catherine\u2019s book, and the pieces that you can hear in the kitchen and in the still room at the Charles Dickens Museum at 48 Doughty Street<\/a> are based upon it. In my work the text is read by Rachel Moffat in a style reflecting the authoritative tone of Catherine\u2019s writing, and Catherine\u2019s words are accompanied by recordings of me attempting to recreate her recipes on a working Victorian range. <\/p>\n