NOT LIKE MOTHER USED TO MAKE
(thank goodness)
ILLUSTRATION KAVEL RAFFERTY
Food writer Debora Robertson didn’t grow up the spoon-fed daughter of a domestic goddess – and she’s not alone. To mark Mothering Sunday on 11 March, she and three other food writers recall their mum’s cooking with affection – but they won’t be handing down any recipes
food for thought.
What’s your favourite dish? Is it roast chicken, steak and kidney pie, lasagne, apple crumble? Perhaps it’s something you’ve enjoyed for as long as you can remember. Perhaps it’s a recipe you learned at your mother’s knee.
In 2016, a survey by the food assurance scheme Red Tractor indicated that two thirds of mothers cook recipes taught to them by their own mothers, a third had made one of these inherited recipes in the past month, and almost two thirds said they would hand down these precious family recipes to their own children. If this is true, we’re all probably eating a lot more brown food than Instagram might suggest.
When others rhapsodise about their mum’s shepherd’s pie or trifle, I have nothing to offer but toast toppers or baked beans. I can cook because my mother can’t. I mean, really can’t. To her, the kitchen is hostile territory where pans commit scorching hara-kiri and ovens spontaneously combust. So as kids, if my brother and I wanted to eat something more thrilling than toast, we made it ourselves. Don’t pity me. It was wonderful.