Preface

This book was born out of a curious emotional entanglement with food from the earliest years of my childhood. It is part envy and part admiration for the chef’s talent – a state of mind which once prompted Chris Oakes to accuse me of being a ‘frustrated cook’ when he ran the kitchens at the Castle. Cast in the fourth generation of a family of hotelkeepers and restaurateurs, I grew up over the shop and so my mother had no need to cook. Indeed our flat at the top of the hotel did not even have a kitchen because our dining room table was admirably served by a dumb waiter. Good food appeared like magic at the press of a bell. Did this make me pitifully deprived or disgustingly privileged? Either way, it has made me oddly timid of my own abilities in the kitchen – I have a passionate interest muted by a detached involvement which has turned me into something of an armchair chef and gastronomic voyeur.