Fixing My Own Food Systems

It's only May, but it's feeling like a tough year on the allotment already. We made a great start, and took advantage of the mild winter by getting everything cleared and the soil prepared in good time, so that it was all ready for planting and sowing come March. But March and April were so cold and windy and forbidding – and so busy for us in other ways – that we somehow still got behind with things. Now, we're just about back on track – at least we would be, but the slugs are eating everything in sight, and the warm spell we had in early May means the weeds are the healthiest thing on the plot once again. And I seem to be having trouble germinating any squashes, which is unheard of and really frustrating.

In the garden, however, I can really keep an eye on things, and the fact I'm going to be hosting one of Transition St Albans' Open Food Gardens later in the summer has provided extra motivation to make it great this year. In the garden I can do a quick two minutes' weeding here and there as soon as I see the need, and I can go out at night and pick the slugs off things. The garden brings me pleasure every day; every time I look out the window.

Yet there's one thing that's really bothering me in the garden. My March-sown spinach plants are bolting and I haven't picked a single leaf yet. My gorgeous stand of rare perennial kales has been virtually untouched all spring. My radishes are going woody. I'm somehow far more efficient in the garden than I am in the kitchen, and gorgeous organic homegrown produce actually goes to waste. Can you believe it? I'm ashamed to admit it. And it's strange because I used to have a great, great passion for cooking, and love to spend hours in the kitchen cooking up complex dishes with virtually any ingredients.

Since I quit my nice safe (frustrating, oppressive) full-time job five years ago, I feel like everything about me has changed. I see the world differently now I've learned different things about it. Some old hobbies and passions have been replaced with new ones – others are just... gone. I've struggled to fill my time, and then I've overfilled it. I don't think I have time, anymore, for a passion for cooking.

I had a bit of a revelation watching Rick Stein's Long Weekend in Bologna on TV last night. It painted a picture of a culture which still makes real, handmade food the absolute centre of their lives; where everyone spoke of the wonderful local produce, and all those involved in making food were real craftspeople. TV is always selective in what it depicts, of course, and I do wonder how true a picture it was of the place, but clearly it was different from the food culture that I know. Towards the end of the program, Rick asked food blogger Enrica Lazzarini what she thought was so 'particular' about the cuisine of Bologna. "The love of cooking and the love of food is in our DNA," she said. "We grow up looking at our granny and mother cook from the very beginning of the day, all day long". And I thought yes, that's what it takes. Growing and harvesting and preserving and cooking and feeding and clearing up and storing and composting... It's an endless cycle. It's not the first time I've thought this, but it was certainly a timely reminder. You've got to be dedicated. You've got to give time. "It's your identity," she finished. "Without food, who are you? No-one."

You probably already know that I believe fixing our food systems could fix or improve a great many of the world's problems, and that food is and must be a central focus of our lives. Yes, our identity. 

So is it a worthwhile compromise that for man to occupy himself with more advanced things he must sacrifice his health and the world's by forgetting where his food comes from? Do any of the 'more advanced things' really matter anyway? Advancement is eating the world. Industrialism consumes itself. Automation removes the need for people. Innovation consumes the innovation of the generation earlier. 'Advanced' modern factory farms are poisoning us and 'advanced' modern crops need more chemical application than ever. What is the great goal? Wealth, of course, but for what? Convenience? Luxury? The freedom to sit back and get fat and sick? The freedom to enjoy leisure activities in diminishing open spaces and polluted air? The freedom to produce art about how dreadful everything is?

I'm not about to quit everything and become a full-time home-farmer and housewife – I couldn't possibly – but in the quest to fix my own food systems I need to make time for cooking again and try to get that passion back.

There are people that think I should be doing something 'better' with my time and energy; something more 'intelligent' or 'noble' or 'advanced' or even 'useful'. To me there's nothing more noble, useful or intelligent than feeding those around me real food that is produced in harmony with the natural world; I'm already growing food for us and for the community but I just need to get that spark back in the kitchen. And 'advanced' can go screw itself.

Dining in the Dark

At the weekend I got to tick off an experience that has been on my foodie 'to-do' list for some time – 'dining in the dark'. There are a few restaurants all around the world now that offer this unique experience, and I went to 'Dans le Noir' in London with a party of ten for a friend's birthday.

On arrival our orders were checked – everyone is served a fixed surprise menu but we had pre-ordered our choice of fish, meat, vegetarian or 'special' mixed menu – and we were instructed to leave all our belongings in secure lockers in the bar area – no phones or cameras allowed in the dining room! The ten of us were lined up with our hands on the shoulders of the person in front of us, led into the dining room, and 'shown' our seats one by one.

Our waiter was blind; in fact all the waiters were – a no-brainer when you consider the implications of training waiting staff to do everything in pitch dark, but it added an unexpected poignancy too. And it really was pitch dark, even after two hours at the table when some of us thought our eyes might have adjusted enough to see just a little!

It's obviously extremely disorientating sitting in an unfamiliar room in complete darkness with the hubbub (din!) of a dozen other dining tables filling your ears, and without visual cues it was not at all easy to communicate with anyone except those closest to me, but it didn't take too long to get sort of orientated; there was Eddie on my left, the end of the table on my right, my glass of wine, cutlery, glass of water. (Pouring glasses of water from the jug provided was a challenge!) And then the food arrived...

We all very quickly realised it was virtually impossible, without seeing, to approach a plate of mystery food with a knife and fork, and most of us ate with our fingers most of the time – a common choice, apparently. Again and again, conversation turned to the challenges blind people must face.

My expectations of eating in the dark had been split: on one hand, they say that when one of your senses is taken away you experience the others more acutely, but on the other they say you eat largely with your eyes...

I certainly experienced the textures of the food more acutely. As a child I was very squeamish about strange food textures, and without any visuals to anchor my idea of what I was eating I felt perhaps even more so. There was some sort of cold pastey stuff, firm on the plate but squidgy and melt-in-the-mouth, and salty to taste. Paté, it must be, but is paté always this slimy? What does it taste of? Is it really paté? What if it's something else? I found some toast on the plate, and manoeuvred the slice of paté-or-whatever-it-was onto it. Ah, that was better. There was some salady stuff on the side too. A few leaves of rocket and a cherry tomato... an onion, roasted just enough to mellow the flavour, but what a strange feeling when the layers all slipped apart between my teeth... a baby carrot... and something else I couldn't identify at all! It was round... firm... with the texture of a cooked radish perhaps, but the flavour...? I couldn't tell. And what was this left over in the corner of my plate? Oh. There I was eating chutney, on its own, with my fingers.

The main course followed, as main courses do, and in the spirit of a taster menu we were each served three different dishes – three small piles on each plate – and a little taster of each told me one was fish and two were meat. (This was the 'special' menu.) I tackled the fish first, and texture-wise it was a real struggle, with a few lumps of firm fishy stuff – I thought perhaps squid – in some kind of sauce or dressing, and then underneath a big squidgy lump of something I couldn't identify at all. I told myself it was a big piece of cooked tomato and it went down... The two meat dishes were much more enjoyable; on the right, tender chunks of stewed meat and veg, full of flavour. It tasted like beef, but richer... Venison perhaps. On the left, a meat I couldn't identify, on a pile of vegetable shreddings that I also couldn't identify. I thought at first the meat might be very well-flavoured chicken or pork, but no, the texture wasn't right for either (though it was very tender and soft) and it seemed rare in places. I enjoyed it though!

Dessert was easier to identify; something creamy in a ramekin – passionfruit pannacotta, I thought – and a side of mixed berries topped with a blob of chocolate moussey stuff. Thankfully it was much easier to use a spoon when the food was contained in a ramekin, with no chance of inadvertently pushing it off the plate!

Throughout the meal I was constantly shocked that I couldn't identify more flavours. I usually consider myself to have a pretty sensitive sense of taste, and I can often pick out subtle flavours that others can't. In the dark, the most prominent flavours by far were simply salt, sweet and umami, with a few notable aromatics (carrot, rocket, some of the fruits), and there seemed little complexity to any of the flavours at all. Was it just bad food? Are my tastebuds way less sensitive than I think? I think it was down to a sort of stress and overwhelm; the room felt extremely noisy (whether or not I was merely more aware of the noise), sensations of texture definitely overrode sensations of taste – arguably touch is the more important sense, I suppose – and the primary challenge was just getting the food eaten at all! Forced to eat clumsily, without being able to distinguish the different components on the plate (and many of the ingredients, it turned out, unfamiliar or less familiar) I was virtually unable to analyse what was in my mouth properly. I was interested (and relieved) to read in another blogger's account of dining in the dark (by Helen Barnard at Bomboloni) that this was her experience too; she wrote "This far out of my comfort zone, my sense of taste was not heightened, as expected, but rather went into a kind of emergency mode whereby only basic senses such as sweet, salty, bitter and savoury were registered, along with vague temperature differentials." A confusing and unsettling experience!

Back in the lit bar area we retrieved our bags and coats and were shown the menus, with photographs of what we'd just eaten. My starter – that slimy, salty paté – had been foie gras, and apparently there had been a fig on my plate. How had I missed a fig?? The fishy main was lobster and oyster – both a big surprise (I love lobster, but didn't think I'd ever find myself eating slippery, gooey oysters – ugh!) – the stewed chunks had indeed been venison, and the mystery meat was delicious bison! The shredded vegetable I hadn't recognised was celeriac – something I'm not very familiar with at all. The 'passionfruit pannacotta' had actually been mango and cardamom pannacotta (Cardamom? I hadn't detected that at all!) and the chocolate mousse had been white chocolate – I'd never have guessed!

I felt cheated! I'd eaten foie gras and not been able to savour it properly?! I never thought I'd find myself eating foie gras at all – I certainly wouldn't have chosen it (though I was relieved and encouraged to find, in this fascinating article, that foie gras production may not be nearly as bad as we think these days) – and I certainly hadn't thought it as wonderful as people say it is. I'd eaten lobster and not enjoyed it because I hadn't been able to identify the texture? Those who chose the meat menu, incidentally, had unknowingly sampled wagyu beef – supposedly some of the finest beef in the world! I realised I probably paid more attention to the bison than anything else, because both the texture and taste were very pleasing and because I couldn't recognise it and wanted to figure out what it was.

I think I can safely say that food is more enjoyable when you can see it!

For £52 I'd actually eaten surprisingly little food, though £13 is for 'access to the experience' and they do obviously use some premium ingredients in the dishes! I felt the experience could have been greatly improved by reducing the sound level in the dining room, with more space between tables and perhaps booths or something to deaden the noise.

But despite my reservations, it was a thoroughly fascinating, unique and powerful experience, and something I would recommend as I'm really glad I've done it. As I left the restaurant I said I wouldn't want to do it again, but after mulling it over I think it would probably be less stressful a second time and I might be able to relax and enjoy it more.

You'll have to pardon the pictureless post, for obvious reasons, but there are lots of pictures of past menus on Dans le Noir's website here if you'd like to take a look!

Now, this wouldn't be a complete or honest review if I didn't tell you that 30-40 hours after our meal in the dark (and just after I'd drafted the above), four out of the five of us who chose the 'special' menu developed food poisoning. I try not to judge a place - or anyone or anything - on a single incident, and accidents will always happen occasionally, but I can't quite get over the irony that this is the one dining experience in which we had to put complete trust in the chefs and staff to serve us food that was acceptable in every way, and food poisoning is pretty much the ultimate betrayal of that trust. A great shame, which has dampened my recommendation for the restaurant somewhat. But let the recommendation for the experience still stand. It will remain a memorable and fascinating one.

UPDATE: The restaurant refunded the cost of our meals. They said they'd had quite a few complaints that night and investigation showed it was a bad batch of oysters *shudder*. They have since decided never to serve oysters again!