I’m not a bachelor anymore. However, I’m glad I spent some time fending for myself, because that’s how I learnt to cook.
Actually, now that I think about it, that statement is factually incorrect. I moved out when I started my first job, aged 21, but I knew how to cook before that. In fact, as a scout, I participated in competitions that required the ‘patrol’ to prepare a three course meal from fresh ingredients in a camp kitchen over an open fire.
Most teenagers can manage sausages on a BBQ, but the rules of the completion required us cook a starter (soup from memory), a roast chicken and three vegetables for main and a steamed pudding for dessert.
The first year, we lost points for not being able to show the shells of the peas, thus not being able to prove that the peas were indeed fresh. The first year, our steamed pudding would have made a better weapon for blunt force trauma than a dessert.
But in subsequent years, we managed to build the eating area and kitchen out of spars and tarpaulins, set a trestle table with a rudimentary bush inspired centrepiece and nail the soup, roast and steamed pudding on an open fire.
I rarely cook three course meals these days, and it’s not the kind of cooking that you do for yourself, but I see those competitions as the equivalent of training at altitude – once you’ve done it in the hardest conditions possible, it’s hard not to succeed with the conveniences of a modern kitchen.
So I’ve decided to blog the occasional recipe. Some will be quick ‘bachelor’ meals. Some will be favourites of my wife, and some will be traditional recipes that might otherwise be lost.
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