My name is Cat, and I cook things. I also collect recipe books of all types, but especially old ones.
A few years ago I acquired a number of old family cookbooks, including my great-grandmother’s handwritten notebook. I only really knew her as quite an elderly lady, so I asked my grandmother, her daughter, what kind of cook she had been in her heyday. Her response: “She was a good plain cook, lass, a good plain cook.” It might seem like faint praise, I suppose, but it stuck with me.
In my experience people gravitate towards good, plain cooking. And by that I do not mean flavourless, or unseasoned or otherwise bland food – just the kind of food that, whatever culinary tradition it comes from, is based on good ingredients cooked simply but well. It’s home cooking, and street food, and core dishes.
I do cook elaborate things. I enjoy eating and looking at very cheffy sorts of things in restaurants and on television.
But what I aspire to be is a good plain cook.
