“not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted”.
And food does count.
Preparing food with patience, honest labour and love counts. Growing fruit and vegetables counts. Sharing a table with friends and loved ones counts. Celebrating with a cake counts. Traditional herbs and teas count. Ancient preserving techniques count. Local markets count. Local dishes and delicacies count.
Along the way, in the race to fuel the human race, we forgot what counts about how food is produced and how it can nurture and heal us.“You are what you eat” never was so important in an age where our food quality has become so poor that obesity and nutrition related poor health is epidemical.
When cooking I keep things local, natural and seasonal. I focus on stuffing in as many nutrient rich ingredients as possible and shy away from “empty calorie” ingredients. I look to traditional recipes and local foodlore for inspiration. I believe that cooking is not difficult nor does it require fancy gadgets. I believe that with a little thought to our scarcer and scarcer resources you can make two or three dishes out of the same set of ingredients, fill the oven up and improvise with leftovers – in fact many recipe ideas stem from looking at things in my fridge!
I grew up in Great Britain but then have variously wandered, worked and lived in Eastern Europe, the CIS, Turkey and the Balkans. The magical histories of fermented pickles, sweet cheeses, translucent pastry sheets, abundant sunshine ripened fruits and veg, home made wine, “palinca” and “raki” and frugal cooking methods when fuel was and is scarce in this region inspire me.
Rachel Sargent