It’s Sunday morning. I have stayed with my parents the previous night, and as I knew would be the case, a request has been made for cake. Two types. A traditional ginger cake and Maids of Honour. My father loves good, honest cake. None of this cupcake or whoopie whatever rubbish. Cake. The types of cakes that are quintessentially British, that no other nation really comes close to making.
These requests sent from on high are always welcome. I wouldn’t ever think to make them for me, so having an excuse to try my schpoooon at some wartime or old-fashioned recipes is refreshing.
Only problem was that there was no curd cheese (for the Maids), and the bicarb tub looked old enough to take centre stage on The Antiques Roadshow. So off I trotted to the local Waitrose.
Now then, a moment please. Waitrose. Oh what heavenly, hallowed ground you occupy both on this earth and in my heart. Your lights are not neon; they are a softer, empyreal glow. Your colours are a showcase of Farrow & Ball neutrals, not acrid primary colours that offend the retina. You are never so big that I feel my life slipping through my fingers as I complete an odyssey of the aisles. You are smaller and more perfectly formed, a size that means I leave the same person as I entered, not a hysterical, fraying shadow of my former self. Your products are enticing, your sourcing and range considered. You give (aisle) space to goods that other purveyors shun in favour of the mass-produced, characterless items. You allow smaller producers to shine.
Back to Sunday morning. Waitrose. Curd, bicarb and perhaps a basket full of other treats, in the queue at the check-out. Behind me was a gentleman. And after a few minutes, behind him appeared another gentleman with his two daughters. I am officially abysmal at accurately identifying ages, but, I suppose the girls were around 7 or 9 years old, and the two men between 45 and 55.
As with most check-out queues, there is always that quick, stolen glance backwards or forwards over your fellow queuer’s wares. A quick dip into their life. A snatched eyeful of what makes them tick. (Or is that just me?) Anyway, the two men did exactly that, but not only the food, over each other too. After a pause, the man next to me turned to the father and asked him if he had really competed in the triathlon on the t-shirt he was wearing. Yes he had actually. Pause. Did he do that kind of thing often? Oh yes, since 2009 now, yup, regular triathlete. And this year it’s an Iron Man too. Yes, in training for that. (Now. I must say that to look at him you would be forgiven for not immediately associating his physique with someone who completes triathlons, let alone an Iron Man.) Pause. The man next to me also did triathlons, and had done the triathlon on the father’s t-shirt. Pause. As I knew would be the case sooner or later, there it came. The Question. What time did he get? I squirmed quietly to myself. There was only 7 minutes between the two of them.
The conversation then continued on to the father giving forth about his strengths and weaknesses in the triathlon. ‘Transitions’ weren’t his forte; however his entry into the water was spot-on. As the restrainedly competitive conversation continued between these two mid-life-crisis men, my eyes wandered to the girls. They were happily unloading the trolley onto the conveyor, and as they went, they were identifying which items they loved, or were going to eat all of, or were not for the other one. Typical sibling chatter.
What was untypical (in my opinion), was that with some items, such as breadsticks (grissini), one girl told the other how excited she was about eating these and how she loved them with soup because they were like ginormous cretins (I think she meant enormous croutons. I failed in stifling my snigger), only to have her sibling round on her. No, breadsticks are bad. Didn’t she remember that Daddy had told them they were made of bread and that bread was bad? She personally was looking forward to the noodles and stir fry, and she hoped Mummy would make it with prawns again because prawns are nicer than meat. Perhaps in an attempt to strike back after the grissini put-down, her sibling took the opportunity to now remind her that Daddy had said prawns were bad for you because they don’t have any protein in them and that meat is better.
I could hear the conversations right there and then. Their father giving forth about the pros and cons of prawns and bread, all of it as misguided and misinformed as the rest. Breadsticks being made of bread? Has he eaten one? Did they not remind him of a cracker as opposed to a French baguette? And bread being bad for you? Pray tell, why, if bread is so bad, were there two huge farmhouse loaves in their trolley? And prawns not containing enough protein – let me guess, this is because when one is an Iron Man in training, the diet has to be protein, protein, protein.
Perhaps some of this prattle had been misinterpreted by the girls – perhaps their father had warned them against eating too much bread, or had tried to encourage them to eat more meat highlighting its benefits in contrast with something they did enjoy eating…But I can’t help to think that because he was essentially an Iron Man (in his head), he felt it was his duty to confer upon all around him how best to nourish themselves, based purely on the skewed vision he had for himself and his training.
A growing little person needs something from every food group. I would argue that a growed big person still needs something from every group, but perhaps it is less important than for the growing. The father had made a decision to train for triathlons and Iron Men, but that should remain a decision for his life. Is it right he should bestow his own opinions about his own decision on his two children? Where is the line for parents to stop at between beneficially guiding and informing offspring based on their own previous ‘life-experience’, and dictating and moulding their children based on their current life decisions that can be less firmly informed? Parents are human, and, being human can get it wrong. But there was something that didn’t sit well with me about these two young girls counselling each other incorrectly on what they were and were not allowed to eat.
With a heavier heart than usual, I left Waitrose and went home to bake. When distracted, I can often make mistakes, such as forgetting to fold in the lemon juice in a lemon cake, but luckily Mr Triathlon Extraordinaire made no impact on my work. Lo and behold Maids of Honour, complete with home-made (rough) puff pastry.
My father, my toughest critic and my baking Yoda, gave the nod of approval. And I gave a sigh of relief. He guides, he cajoles, he criticises and he (sometimes) commends, but he’s never withheld or demonised food. It is something to be enjoyed, to be looked-forward to and to be appreciated. He’s had a long-standing health issue, and through it all, the occasional honest home-baked cake provides him with a stronger kind of respite than all of his medicines do.
It is from him and my mother that I have adopted the instinct to turn to food to comfort others. Not in a I’ve-just-gorged-on-17-Galaxy-bars-and-now-hate-myself-for-it type way. That’s an immeasurably unhealthy relationship to have with food (anyway, Galaxy, why would you?). Comfort in the sense of providing enjoyment and pleasure, whether in one mouthful or in a whole meal-ful. I hope those girls grow up seeing past their father’s opinions. I hope she continues to enjoy prawns and her sibling continues to eat ginormous cretins.
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