THE FOOD BLASPHEMERS
When does adding a bit of this and a bit of that to traditional dishes tumble over into a total lack of respect for a culture? And how fine is the line between propriety and food snobbery? Food writer Debora Robertson explores an often heated culinary debate
food for thought.
Recipes, like families, have lines of love and attachment which stretch across centuries and continents. Sometimes their history is mired in conflict and conquest, sometimes it’s borne from passion or an accident of location. And just as your sister might drive you mad, God help anyone who criticises her or suggests she might be improved in some way. In that situation, many of us resort to defensiveness at best, claws-out full-frontal attack at worst. How dare anyone criticise our dearly beloved or have the temerity to suggest that they might be improved? So it is with recipes.
In our own homes, we might add a few odds and ends to a dish to use them up, but those are home manners, not for public consumption. We might sometimes take a classic dish and tinker with it a bit, but let’s not talk about that in front of strangers, ok?
If you have any doubt about the outrage that can be provoked by adapting cherished recipes, reflect for a moment on the furore in 2016 when Jamie Oliver had the cojones to add some chorizo to his paella.