My Mother’s Fried Cauliflower

My mother always fried up cauliflower late at night. Long ago she had decided it—or her fluffy buttermilk pancakes—was the perfect antidote to flagging appetites, so she would make a batch after she noticed one of us had eaten very little at dinner.

During school holidays or when one of us lay afflicted with some childhood bug, it was often past eleven o’clock when she carried the tray into the TV room, piled high with bronzed cauliflower nuggets and golden lemon quarters. We ate fa