An Open Letter

Dear Cooking Light,

I enjoy reading Cooking Light, really, I do, but sometimes you take the piss entirely.

I’m referring to the article on page 72 of this week's supplement, in which food writer Matthew Fort exhorts the joys of rummaging around in the back of the fridge in order to whip something up for lunch. In fact, the stand first of the article reads: “You don’t always have to make a trip to the shops to cook up a decent meal, says Matthew Fort. The cupboards and fridge often conceal hidden treasures…”

And what does he make? Chard and Pecorino Duck Egg Frittata.

Now, I’ll admit that said dish does look extremely yummy and the recipe looks easy enough to follow. My problem is just that I’ve frequently rummaged around in fridge to make dinner, and have never, not even once, found any chard, or pecorino, or duck’s eggs for that matter, before or after going to the shops. In fact, the only things from that recipe that I would probably find in my cupboard on a random supermarket-less day would be salt, pepper and olive oil. Hardly a filling meal, I think we’d all agree, though there’s probably a diet book about that combination available in the shops.

Now, I know that Mr. Fort does accept that “not everybody’s fridge will be as endowed with gastronomic curiosities as [his]” but I’d like to introduce the possibility that in fact nobody’s fridge will be quite like that at all. I can be fairly sure that if I did have such delicacies in my storecupboard, they would signal or warrant a special occasion, I’m sure. I - and I’m fairly confident that others similarly - don’t have the luxury most of the time of having ingredients in my fridge or pantry which don’t have a fairly immediate or planned use. I will almost never buy a pigeon breast, on the off-chance that I might be inspired to find something to do with it at some point.

If the point Mr. Fort is trying to make is about using ingenuity to concoct culinary marvels out of desperation and slim grocery pickings, I wonder if he should instead have found an ingenious way to make something tasty out of the usual last-resort contents of people’s fridges: rice, a can of tuna, mustard powder, evaporated milk, out-of-date popcorn, dubious hard lump of cheese (could be pecorino, but more likely to be elderly cheddar) and margarine with toastcrumbs in it.

Consider that a challenge…and feel free to post the recipe, when you’ve figured it out. Alternatively, if, like the rest of us, you resort to calling your local delivery service for thai/chinese food instead of grappling with the crap in your kitchen, don’t feel bad: if you rummage far enough, you’ll probably find you have some elderly soy sauce at the back of the cupboard, too.

Hungrily yours,

Carol