I love food. I would give anything to be the type of person who, when presented with a tray of chargrilled fish eyes thinks, “ooh, great, thanks.” But I’m not.
I’m becoming fascinated with the idea of disgust — how it’s a visceral feeling within you. You don’t just have a distaste. Your body physically recoils, tears fill your eyes, your skin prickles, your throat closes up. That’s true disgust. It’s an amazing reaction. It used to save our lives.
I usually crave salty, fermented, aged, almost-but-not-quite rotten flavours. I love cheeses, cured meats, breads, beers, wines and ciders. I love spice and heat and bitterness. I told myself for so long that I was fussy; a picky eater. As I build up the tasting thesaurus inside my brain, I realise I was just putting cold hard facts before flavour. I was scared of reality, and the grimness of cooked things, rather than my desire for their tastes, and the journeys they would take me on.
So I ate a softshell crab this week. I liked it, but wanted more salt and a lot more heat. I’d tasted it, rather than thought about its body, soft and helpless in its molted state. It doesn’t sound like it, but that’s progress.
Other stuff:
I think this beautiful, mournful, soaring, heartbreaking essay by CJ Hauser called The Crane Wife has changed how I will write forever.
I found out about Bangkok’s current fixation with private fine dining experiences while I was reading this relaxed interview with Cristina Bowerman, who has some unique ideas of the “sense of place” everyone’s obsessed with at the mo. Funnily enough, her ideas were a total juxtaposition of what the very polished NYT article about Thai private dining expressed. She said: “I don’t want guests to be able to pinpoint where something is from; it must be an organic whole.” I like that.
The enthusiasm and excitement Lilian Min has for mangosteens and her wonder at Etsy becoming a marketplace for rare tropical fruits is infectious. The last line was my fave.
Jonathan Liew is so good, so engaging, that he makes me care about sports. This time: tennis.
I really liked this piece on natural wine bars and tinned fish from the SFC. It made me hungry and thirsty.
Take a sec to enjoy these stunning, dremay, angsty photos of teenage Appalachian Ohio by high school students.
I’ve just realised that pretty much all of the above are from American publications. I blame my sudden obsession with east coast immigrant-American cooking and food culture thanks to the film Always Be My Maybe and a fifth rewatch of Ugly Delicious.
My stuff:
If you didn’t see it already, I wrote about one of my favourite subjects for Ferment mag — how do you know the historically-brewed beer you’re drinking actually tastes like it would have done back then?
I’m working on a few articles at the moment, but nothing’s been posted up in a while. Check back next week for more updates, I guess.
I went to a photography class last week run by Matt Curtis (shoutout) and I really enjoyed learning about how looking at photos that inspire us can help us become better photographers. I love the idea that beauty can install itself in you, ready for you to use it at a later date.
ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATION © DANIEL GRAY-BARNETT
I looked through The Crane Wife for a perfect illustration, and it turns out,
this is the only one. I imagined the rest. That’s how good it is.