Where's A Masterchef When You Need One?

Food drives me mad at the moment.

There are three fussy eaters to feed; four if you include the German exchange student who is staying with us at the moment; plus one vegetarian (me). That can mean  up to four different dishes being prepared on any given evening.

Eddie and Gilby want bland, bland and more bland. The blander the better. Anything with any kind of flavour is off the menu. Gertie is a little more experimental, finally, having gone as far as a chicken korma. But they don't like the same bland. Although they will all eat vegetables, there isn't a single vegetable that all three will eat.

So mealtimes are not fun.

I think back to my own childhood, where food was definitely not fun either.

My memories may be skewed, but it seems that Mum didn't really cook for us as the primary audience; she cooked for the customers in the pub restaurant. I picture her cooking up batches of shepherd’s pie, browning the mince in enormous industrial saucepans (cauldron-sized to a child) before transferring to individual portions in impersonal, identical, mini brown casserole dishes by the dozen. Or sizzling portions of scampi in lethal commercial deep fat fryers that were NOT TO BE TOUCHED.

There was no sense of finesse. Nouveau cuisine was still a channel away. Making chips for the next few lunchtime and evening sessions could take an entire afternoon (until she was introduced to Mr McCain by Nurdin & Peacock). Everything came in giant packaging from cash and carry: tubs of powdered stock the size of camping gas tanks; shoe-box sixed margarine tubs; blocks of cheese three Encyclopaedia Britannicas thick.

There was an industrial microwave oven, its lights and alarms worthy of a nuclear plant. When it began its incineration of food it sounded like a 747 on a runway.

And then there were RULES. Different coloured chopping boards for dairy, meat and bread. Nail brushes at the hand washing sink, strict temperature controls, certain pans for certain products, a specified number of items that could be dried with a single dishcloth  before bacteria multiplied to epic proportions.

The kitchen was a tense place. My father was once overheard asking through gritted teeth whether my mother would like the kitchen ‘moved two inches to the left’ in a strained impersonation of his comic hero and fellow endurer of the vagaries of the hospitality industry, Basil Fawlty.

Because pub opening times were not really conducive to family life there were not actually mealtimes as such. One had to forage for oneself, while of course maintaining strict adherence to the RULES, and only using food which was no longer any good for customers.

So food was fairly bland for me, too. Pot noodles were good. And I perfected the art of the French bread cheese sandwich. Mostly because it hurt no one, required only two chopping boards and was very filling - if not exactly nutritious. I did have to be ‘trained’ to cut the bread at exactly the right angle, but once I had mastered that I was allowed to use up grated cheese (curling up at the edges and sweating a little having been left out over the busy lunch period).

I therefore arrived in the adult world with a slightly warped perception of what constituted a meal. Food was fuel. It was functional, and economies of scale were more important than taste. Its consumption took place standing up around a stainless steel prepping surface, or a plate might be hastened through a busy bar underneath a paper serviette to be eaten on my lap.  I could happily lay a table but rarely sat down at one to eat convivially; a fact which was brought to the fore when we had to ‘practise’ sitting down to meals as a family before the German exchange student came to stay when I was 15. Thankfully that didn't have to be repeated for the current one. Eddie, Gilby and Gertie can happily sit down at a table; they just might not eat what is put in front of them.

I also had few culinary skills to speak of. The act of cooking was not a thing to inspire love. Mum was certainly not terrifically impressed when she was given a collection of carefully collated kitchen utensils as her Mother's Day gift from me one year. Cooking was all about science and hygiene.

At least until I met and married a Masterchef, who finally revealed its art. He needs to do the same for our children.

On Hearths. And Mothers.

I have been parenting for twelve years this week. Gertie will celebrate her birthday with a meal at a local restaurant with friends. Very grown up. Very exclusive. In the sense that no adults are allowed. Only at the end to pay the bill.

It follows, though, a bit of a soul-searching weekend. Eldest Gertie has been unrelentingly stroppy and demanding, middle Gilby seems to be in a permanent rage, and youngest Eddie even more than the usual law unto himself. Where have we gone wrong? There was much handwringing and lament. And some consoling wine.

But yesterday! They were immaculate. All day. Morning and evening and bedtime. Eddie went to his gymnastics class without a single murmur of dissent, and on first asking to put his shoes on. First asking! Gertie and Gilby collaborated on a housework project that meant I walked back into a sweet smelling, vacuumed downstairs, with all the laundry put away. I'd only asked them to clear their things after supper. I quite literally didn't know how to respond. 

So. One whole day in twelve years seems to have gone well. (We won't mention today.) Hooray for parenting! Hooray for Hearth-mother!

I chose the name 'hearth-mother' as a reaction against the earth-mother types that I met when pregnant and when Gertie was first born. The ones who were winning at motherhood: those who managed to breast feed incessantly without any effort, and then shredded roast lamb and purée artichoke for the baby whilst serving up four unmushed courses for their partners; the ones who did complex crafting with their precious offspring with endless calm and patience while playing a musical instrument and learning Mandarin themselves; and, most offensive of all: who always had immaculate make-up. I never really picked up makeup again after childbirth, so how women had time to put on a 'full face' was astonishing to me. They seemed there just to make the rest of us (well, mostly me) feel bad.

Going out, as in 'leaving the house', back then was just - well - too hard. Going out with a baby was a massive mission, a feat well beyond my limited capabilities. It was all I could do to sit by the fire, and er, tend the hearth.

Blogposts over the years have regularly been about the funny, silly, awful, brilliant things that the kids do, often alongside barely disguised allusions to my sustained parenting inadequacy. No doubt research could prove a connection between the two.

But I am currently reading Mythos by Stephen Fry, and in discussing Hestia, Goddess of - well, the Hearth, he explains:

In our less communal age of central heating and separate rooms for each family member, we do not lend the hearth quite the importance that our ancestors did, Greek or otherwise. Yet, even for us, the word stands for something more than just a fireplace. We speak of 'hearth and home'. Our word 'hearth' shares its ancestry with 'heart', just as the modern Greek for 'hearth' is kardia, which also means 'heart'. In Ancient Greece the wider concept of hearth and home was expressed by the oikos which lives on for us today in words like 'economics' and 'ecology'. The Latin for hearth is focus - which speaks for itself. 

So. Turns out Hearth-Mother might be a bit of domestic goddess. Literally. Not this one, obvs, but in name, and, on the eve of Gertie's twelfth birthday, my heart (hearth) is singing.

Currently reading: Mythos by Stephen Fry