Thursday 16 May 2013

13th August 2010 – The Last Supper




It was my turn to prepare my Last Supper for the masses. There were going to be 20 of us around the table that night. I had never cooked for 20 before. I didn´t really have a clue what quantities I was dealing with. I was supposed to cook a meal from my country of origin. I didn´t fancy cooking shepherd’s pie and wasn’t sure what other options I had, so I played up my Indian heritage and opted for a curry. Besides, wasn’t chicken tikka masala the UK’s favourite dish? A curry would let me use lots of fresh, good-quality products. And so I set to work, finely chopping onions and aubergines and tomatoes and cooking them long and slow with spices and oil until they all merged, before adding courgettes and lentils. I knew that there were vegetarians around the table that evening, and in any case, I was in my comfort-zone with these ingredients. 

For dessert I decided that a fruit crumble would be easy, tasty and very British. But I didn´t want to make the conventional apple crumble. I thought long and hard. Coming from Wakefield and the rhubarb triangle, I suppose I should have made them one with stewed rhubarb; Instead, I went in a gourmet direction. Soon I had 3 huge tureens of half-cooked nectarine, apricot and amaretto on the table, and set to creating the topping with flour, butter, golden caster sugar and ground almonds. They turned out to be easily the best crumbles I had ever made. 

There was no rice left; I had blithely assumed that there would be enough since there had never seemed to be a shortage of it, but we had finally exhausted Hannah´s inexhaustible supplies. Suddenly Sophie came into her own. She had been hovering intermittently throughout the day, offering to help, but I had been quite happy to be left to my own devices. Faced with a lack of appropriate carbohydrate though, was to prove invaluable to me: she knew how to make chapattis. While the diners sat outside, snacking on saucisson sec and olives, she showed me how to mix the flour, water and oil to make the dough, and we rolled out what seemed like hundreds of small flat circles. We part-cooked them in a piping hot dry frying pan, ready to be finished off at the last moment on the open flame of the hob. That was exciting! The little breads puffed up like balloons, and the hot air inside cooked the dough from the centre whilst the outsides took on a mottled, charred appearance. We put a little knob of butter on top of each whilst they were still hot, and took them out to the waiting farmers, along with two vast vats of curry. I was complimented on my cooking that evening, and I took real pleasure from playing hostess.

Saying goodbye to my satisfied companions, I knew that it was highly unlikely that I would see any of them again. Hannah, Nell, Sophie and Abelard would be going to market with me in St Étienne tomorrow, from where I would catch the train. I felt no sorrow at leaving anybody from Edouart´s farm, for no reason other than that I hardly knew them. Of those whom I was leaving from La Range, Raphael and Evelyn had been good company, but I wouldn´t miss them. Theotim and Francis were too young for me to have formed a close attachment, and though I was grateful to Joao having agreed to adopt me for my birthday, it was Nathalie and Marta whom I thought I might miss at a push. I was glad to have spent time there with them, despite my initial difficulties; but equally I was happy to move on.

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