COIMBATORE: On my birthday this year, my husband presented me with White Heat by Marco Pierre White. I have been a big fan ever since I saw him on Master Chef Australia .
White Heat is a big book — its cover in sepia tones, grainy and dramatic, where Marco — with craggy cheeks, unshaven chin and Byronic locks — presents his side profile to us. He is in his chef’s apron. Of course, when that photograph was taken he was much younger and the enfant terrible of chefs who had already earned three Michelin stars in quick succession.
But that’s not why I am writing this. It is because Marco Pierre White sounds uncannily like my mom. And I mean this in the nicest possible way. It just shows that, no matter where they come from, people who enjoy cooking and feeding other people think the same way.
You know how sometimes you just have to come back for second helpings, then some more. Not just because the food is tasty, but because there is a warm buzz associated with what is on your plate that wants you to extend the feeling. I am sure that is exactly what Marco Pierre White was thinking when he set a challenge asking the Master Chef contestants to serve their childhood on a plate.
Think about it. How often do we actually serve up our childhood memories on a plate? More often than we realise. Every time I make rasam — no matter how manic a time I am having in the kitchen, even if it is just for a second — I remember walking in after school to the smell of rasam that my mom would mix into the rice and give me. For Marco, the smell of chamomile triggers memories of his mom.
On her part, my mom has a story to tell about almost everything she cooks. And again like Marco she thinks, “The biggest mistake is not making enough”. Marco says that in the show! “Add another fistful of rice, cut just a few more vegetables, I think we need one more dish...” My mom’s worst nightmare is no leftovers. In her book, that means people have left the table hungry. Ergo, always cook extra.
“You can tell how good a cook is by how well he does the simple things,” says Marco. Most of us have grown up with simple food. But nourishing and healthy and often no-nonsense. It is the same food we go back to when we crave comfort, when we are feeling blue, or even when we are feeling especially happy. Sometimes, I make that rasam I told you about and serve it with hot rice, ghee and may be a papad or two. Just that. And it never misses the mark.
P.S. Marco and I were both born in the same year.
