Whipping up other people’s recipes may be her bread and butter, but Guardian food columnist Felicity Cloake gets to be far more adventurous in her new book, as Ella Walker discovers.
Starting out behind the scenes in publishing, before realising she wanted to write herself, Felicity is best known for her Guardian column “How to make the perfect…”.
Each week, she picks a dish, tries out different recipes for it, steals the best bits and then pronounces the definitive “perfect” recipe at the end.
Though she already has another three books under her belt, she says working on her latest, The A-Z Of Eating, which draws on her own ideas and kitchen experiments, felt like she was “writing my own stuff for the first time”.
Featuring 26 chapters divided into her favourite ingredients (rhubarb and kale rank highly), she explains she set out to “explore the possibilities of the ingredients beyond the obvious” and “shake people out of
their comfort zone”.
As a result, recipes for home-made Angel Delight and mini-cheese and
Marmite donuts rub shoulders with Guinness jelly and even a Japanese
noodle version of carbonara.
“I really love Angel Delight, I don’t eat it really any more but I’ve got this
nostalgic fondness for it and I thought it must be possible to recreate it
without all of the weird preservatives and emulsifiers you find on the back
of the packet,” says Felicity, who invented her own version of the
classic butterscotch flavour.
“I think it might even be – I hesitate to say it, because it’s a bold claim –
but more delicious than the original.”
Those mini-cheese and marmite bites were born from time spent wondering why there are so few savoury donuts to be found.
“I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to donuts and I’m not a big fan of these really overstuffed, very sweet ones that are quite fashionable at the moment.
“I like them to be quite savoury and then you get that nice pop of jam,” says Felicity. “I started thinking about molten cheese, then I couldn’t resist trying it out and was so happy when they worked.
“I don’t often get the chance to cook the stuff I might be inclined to cook, because I’m always testing recipes for the column,” she adds.
Is there anything she’s featured in the past, that she did to death and now can’t eat?
“Trifle I would never get sick of but there are some things,” Felicity begins.
“I did ‘perfect’ hummus and I haven’t been able to make it since,” she admits with a grimace. “I loved hummus before but when you really overeat something, you just can’t face it.
“There are some things – quite a lot actually – that I’m taking a break from.”
Of course, there are also some ingredients she just can’t abide regardless.
“My brother used to put tinned tuna in sandwiches when he was looking after me and now, eww, the smell turns my stomach,” she says.
“Truffles I really would love to like, because they are one of those things that’s meant to be completely delicious and people go mad for them and I can’t see it.
“I was reading recently that with truffles, like coriander, there might be some sort of genetic reason why some people enjoy them and some can’t stand them,” she adds.
“Science isn’t my strong point but I do think it’s quite important for people who are interested in food to at least try and understand the chemistry behind it and why some things work and some things don’t.”
