There is no doubt about it: cookery is the modern witchcraft. Day and daily, images of cooks sprinkling a little bit of this and a little bit of that into saucepans to conjure up delicious food (or so they tell us) confront us on our screens. We are supposed to believe that we too can practise such sorcery by undergoing an apprenticeship before the screen.
The broadcasting companies are no doubt delighted with this cheap source of television. They are legion by now: Can't Cook, Won't Cook; Ready, Steady, Cook; Pot Luck; Consuming Passions; Wan Can Cook; Cuisine le Mairin; Cuid is Comhra; Who'll do the Pudding?; Credible Edibles.
(Indeed, I can exclusively reveal that I too am developing my own cookery project with TnaG. It's called Bia as Cannai and is the story of one man and his tin-opener).
This island is in danger of going under the waves due to the pernicious influence of these programmes. We are undoubtedly becoming heavier and heavier while watching these food alchemists work their magic. After all, who actually has the time to take any exercise when there is the danger that one may miss something?
Exhausting exposure
I also believe that people sit glued to the box for hours on end and then simply put on the pan for a fry-up or ring out for a pizza due to the sheer exhaustion of cookery exposure.
Add to that the fact that cookery programmes have their own arcane and specialist trance-inducing vocabulary. The Periodic Table is a simple list in comparison with some of the spices and vegetables that confront us. Things are chopped and added in such a cavalier fashion that the simplicities of quantum physics are welcome. Watching modern chefs is akin to the techno-babble that is a constant on Star Trek, for example. Terms such as pattern buffers, warp-plasma relays, inertial dampeners absolutely nothing but are said with such panache that they sounds as if they must.
Similarly with cookery-babble. Verbs, nouns and adjectives that sound vaguely familiar assault the ears. Things are chopped and sieved and shredded and steamed and diced - but not as we know it. The finished product leaves the panel members in a state of drug-induced high. Hmm, says one panel member. Panel member number two is even more shrill in showing appreciation. Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm. My God, it's sick.
Fry everything
I have a very simple food philosophy: throw it all in the wok and fry everything until it stops twitching. And that includes vegetables.
Oh yes, I'm not ashamed to admit to owning a wok. After all, what is a wok but a Chinese frying pan? And there is no Northerner worth his salt who doesn't know how to wield the pan in hunger. But given the snobbery that is so much part of cookery, you can't admit to having a frying pan. "Putting on the pan" marks you out as uncouth, uncultured.
Consider this little conundrum, however: I fry sausages in a pan and am regarded as being a caveman. I chop up the same sausages into little pieces, fry them in a wok with some ginger (fresh, of course) and I become Renaissance Man. By simply changing one pan for another, I reinvent myself. It is nothing less than culinary cringe.
The wok, I admit, is a little more versatile than the humble pan. It's wonderful deep bowl can be filled with oil and used to fry chips. That's eclectic cookery, that is.
Pink meat
But to return to the philosophic issues, take another example of the way in which we allow others to dictate the dynamics of cuisine. The French leave meat pink. It is a horrible practice which has spread throughout the "civilised" world. If you ask for your meat well done, you can almost hear the sigh of anguish from the chef in the kitchen. "Is there someone from Belfast in the restaurant?" he asks. "Yes, chef," comes the reply. "Oh, well, not worth arguing with him then. They know no better."
Admittedly, Belfast is not Paris, but we know that all meat should be cooked to a nice shade of brown. Not black, not pink, but a nice mahogany hue that lets you know that what's inside is hot and won't give you the runs. French practises have been aped in the mistaken belief that French cookery is superior to ours. This is nonsense. French chefs don't cook food all the way through because it is their act of existential rebellion. "No, I am a man not a machine," says the French chef and, in protest, he refuses to finish the job he started. That's why the meat is never cooked properly. It has nothing to do with taste.