Early memories, evening events and porcini risotto...

This blog post is eventually going to end with some copy relevant to porcini risotto and a simple little radicchio salad, but first let's take our clothes off and streak naked across the inner fields of our youth...

(In our heads. Please don’t really take your clothes off.

Oh alright, if you must.)

This morning, as I drove to work, I found myself clicking into that unconscious revery that only happens when you’re doing something you’ve done a hundred times before; something that requires only cursory attention (perhaps it’s a South African thing that might account for our high road accident rate — or perhaps my high road accident rate).

A train of thought (now forgotten) led me back to a small litchi farm just outside Nelspruit, circa 1985. I must have been 4 or 5. I remembered the grand old farm house we lived in around that time, girdled by the kind of extravagant viranda you hardly ever see outside of decor magazines these days. I remembered the many delights (a ready supply of ripe litchis, endless hiding places, highveld thunderstorms), terrors (snakes, spiders, BOP TV) and comforts (crickets at dusk...), but my memories of that time centre not so much on any of these, as on Mavis, who used to help my mom out with household chores.

And when I say help out, I mean inflict rampant destruction.

Once, she washed the toaster in the sink. With dishwashing liquid. Another time, she tried to defrost the fridge freezer with a chizel and hammer (resulting in a burst pipe)... I only learnt of these (among many) incidents later, when I was older, but I didn’t find it hard to believe that my mother couldn’t bring herself to send Mavis packing because she was just so, well, likable. (Plus, I think she actually lived on the farm, and was married to the gardener, so that might have had something to do with it.)

This fabulously large and jolly woman always (and I mean without exception) had a never-ending supply of Cadburies toffees in her pockets — you know, the ones with the chocolate centre — which she dispenced to my brother and I with flagrant disregard for our dental health. She taught us how to suck the nectar from honeysuckle blossoms, and which wild berries we could eat straight off the trees...

Later, in my early to late teens, I was exposed to various colourful (green noodles) and adventurous (black pudding) dishes through my parents’ passing infatuations with various cuisines, and I’m so grateful I was. Whenever I went to stay at a friend’s house, I was kind of perplexed by the bland, overcooked or plastic food they ate: tinned peas (ack!), Smash (people actually choose to eat this after they’ve left boarding school?), overcooked steaks (read: old boot), soggy cabbage (disturbingly redolent of men’s lavatory).

I guess I was one of the lucky ones.

What early food memories stand out for you?

On a completely unrelated matter, I feel I must share with you this rather fabulous one-man show I went to see two evenings ago. If you’re in Cape Town over the next week or two, do yourself a favour and check out Rumpsteak — especially if you love food, French food in particular (and let’s be serious — who doesn’t?). Actor Gaetan Schmid plays all the characters in an imaginary upmarket French restaurant: the slutty waitress; the snobbish maître d’; the camp pastry chef; the savage butcher; the ecstatic sauce-master; and a few others. The sound effects are brilliant, and the Gaetan himself is hilarious.

AA Gill has this to say about French food: ‘At its best, it’s like being massaged by a troupe of can-can dancers smeared in duck fat.’ While this observation might not quite prepare you for Gaetan’s particular brand of physical comedy, it certainly sets the mood.

Rumpsteak is on at the Intimate Theatre until 29 May (click here for details). (Plus you get a 15% discount on your meal at Society Bistro across the road if you present your ticket, so that’s nice.)

Just for fun I asked Gaetan to answer a few questions for our edification:

1. What is your earliest food memory?
Gaetan: A summer holiday with my mum, my dad and my brother when I was about 6 or 7.
We had chargrilled mielie on the beach … in St Tropez. Just thinking about it, I smile of contentment.
Probably that’s why I love going to the restaurant with my son Matteo.
And to look at his face when he tries something new... He gives me the thumbs up while chewing and his eyes not leaving his plate.

2. What is your favourite dish to cook and eat?
Gaetan: To eat: Steak Tartare. Or like we call it in Belgium: Américain Préparé. 'Prepared American'. Don’t ask me why. Whenever I go back to Belgium to see my parents, there is a lot of raw minced beef waiting for me in the fridge. For the first three days I eat it morning, midday and evening and my wife Lara winces.
To cook: Pollastra Catalan. Catalan Chicken. Lots of stuff to chop, fry and let simmer for a long time in a big round earthenware pot. And let magic happen. From when I was a penniless theatre student in Paris.
Whenever my Catalan buddy made a bit of money, he spent it in the food market to cook Pollastra Catalan with his Belgian buddy: me. Another smile on my face.

3. What inspired Rumpsteak?
Gaetan: During the Edinburgh theatre festival we had hectolitres of red wine late at night in an Italian restaurant. I sat next to the open plan kitchen. It was a high testosterone experience. Much more stimulating and inspiring than all the theatre I saw during the day.

4. Have you tried any traditionally South African food? What did you think of it?
Gaetan: I had a 'Smiley' (sheep's head) late at night in Langa [township]. Lots of heads to choose from in a big barrel full of boiling water... A bit like a witches brew. The 'chef' had a big laugh when he saw the two 'whiteys' arriving at his 'restaurant'. Mandla, my friend and host, offered us the best part: the eyes. A real delicacy. Tasted like bone marrow.
Luckily we had a lot of brandy before in the shebeen next door. When I couldn’t sink the balls anymore, Mandla said I was ready for a 'smiley'. He was smiling too, the bastard.

5. Sweet or savoury?
Gaetan: Savoury, definitely. I fell in the sweet cauldron when I was a child. Like Obelix.

6. Which food/s do you absolutely detest?
Gaetan: Raw green peppers. Meringue. And badly prepared 'andouillette'. I’ll let you Google that one to understand (and vomit).

7. Have you been to any good restaurants in Cape Town? Which was your favourite?
Gaetan: Societe Bistro for the great atmosphere and the only place in South Africa where I had a sexy black pudding canapé.
Den Anker (a Belgian restaurant at the V&A Waterfront) when I miss home, where I eat Duvel and Toast Cannibale (Américain Préparé on toast. Don’t ask). Willoughby for the oyster shooter — it beats a Bloody Mary when you have a hangover.

And now we come to the copy relevant to porcini risotto and a simple little radicchio salad. (Do I need more continuity in my bog posts? I’m beginning to wonder...)

Last night was a typical winter’s evening in the Mother City: thrashing wind and sheets of rain... And once I fixated on the idea of risotto, I was not going to settle for anything else. I know porcini risotto is about as original as a Hallmark card (yes, your first impression was correct: that doesn’t really  make sense), but hear me out: I’ve had a rather fraught relationship with risotto.

The first one I made was a lemon risotto, on my own at home getting sloshed while watching Sideways for the third time (don’t delay, watch it today, one of my all-time top 10) — it was an epiphany. But since then it’s always gone a little awry: too stodgy; not properly cooked; chalky; bland... I’m not going to give you a recipe for porcini risotto (there are, like, a billion on the Net), but I will point you in the direction of an article in the Guardian that helped clarify a few things. For instance, I had not heard of carnaroli rice — it’s 100 times better than arborio in my books. Cooks quicker and more evenly. Also, beating the crap out of the risotto at the end when you add the butter and Parmesan helps to give it that lovely glossy texture.

I served it with a radicchio salad (dressed in crumbled Cremazola, red wine vinegar, olive oil and a little wholegrain mustard) and bruschetta – it was a perfect, perfect vegetarian meal.