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November
Appears in
By Rowley Leigh
Published 2018
The lyf so shorte,
The craft so long to lerne
– Geoffrey Chaucer, The Parlement of Foules
Reading through these essays and looking for a theme or title for the book, I came across the phrase ‘a long and messy business’. It actually referred not to cooking but to eating. Talking about green curried lobster, I wrote ‘Eating them was a long, protracted and messy business. Just the ticket really.’
A friend of mine goes to a street café and orders black pepper crab whenever he visits Singapore. Fiercely piquant and incredibly messy, the big chunks of crab, shell and all, are bathed in a fiery, sloppy sauce. He then goes to his hotel and has a shower. In the Grand Central Oyster Bar in New York, they give you a naff bib to wear while you eat their lobster.