Flavour (con)fusions

Why blue cheese and chocolate should never be eaten together

Me at the start of my chef’s career in 1989. As crisp and crinkly-new as my just-out-of-the-packet chef’s jacket.

I’ve been around kitchens for a long time, a very long time. Three and a half decades to be exact. The young woman in the photo above had no clue what her life was going to be like, nor where her career would take her, nor have the slightest inkling of the sheer volume of food she would prepare in her life.

Flavour combinations have always been a bit of a thing for me, in every place I’ve worked, so I thought I’d take you for a walk down Amnesia Lane to explore the interesting, the tasty, and the downright mad ideas of flavour fusions I’ve heard of over the years.

Starting my apprenticeship in a country hospital, the food was pretty staid, healthy, and traditional. Fish and chips on Fridays, roast something on a Sunday lunch. We always had a ‘main’ meal, and a ‘light’ meal, for patients to be able to choose whether they ate well or just a bit. One of the ‘light’ meals we prepared approximately once a month was crumbed lamb’s brains with bacon and gravy. Personally I thought it was a complete waste of good gravy and bacon, but it actually looked pretty good. But then anything looks good crumbed and deep fried. Well. That’s disputable.

I don’t know if this is real, but I’m not eating it.

After three years at the hospital, I moved to a pub. To split shifts, late nights, and misogynistic chefs. Oh the joys.

Again, in the early-to-mid 1990’s, things were pretty sedate in pub food. I remember the head chef of the pub making the first tiramisu that I’d ever seen. I’ve made heaps over the years because they’re just so unctuous, but this one was the first. I know you’re supposed to dip the sponge fingers in a syrup or a coffee liqueur (I dip mine in a combo syrup of coffee and cocoa) but this chef I worked with must have emptied an entire bottle of some sort of alcohol onto the sponge fingers. When he let me taste some, I actually coughed it back up because it was so strong. ‘You can’t serve that!’ I said, spluttering. ‘Already have,’ he said smugly. The nineties were also the birthplace of one of the most ridiculous food crazes I’ve ever lived through - Molecular Cuisine. A dish full of foams, spheres and gels leaves the diner wondering if he ate anything at all. Thankfully I never worked at a restaurant which required me to faff about in the kitchen, reducing a steak to the consistency of an egg white!

I spent almost two years in the UK after leaving the pub, and worked at a Christian linguistics school where missionaries came to learn how to break down sounds into written symbols, and then travel out to remote communities around the world and translate the Bible with them. I learned to cook very English food (not surprising) encompassing lots of sausages, floomphy puddings, and the occasional International Day, overseen by the wonderful multicultural volunteers who helped in the kitchen. I never ate them, but I remember seeing a sign for chips with curry sauce. I could never make up my mind if that was a good combination or not.

I want one, and I don’t want one. Chips with curry sauce.

Upon my return to Australia, and the subsequent thirty years that have passed, I’m pleased to say I’ve tried lots of ‘new’ things that everyone now eats as if it’s always been around. I did the catering for a wedding season at a very trendy winery, and while I was preparing twenty million miniature Russian Blini pancakes, which would later have a dollop of sour cream and half a teaspoon of salmon roe on it (bleurgh…) part of a 300-guest wedding canape selection, in the restaurant kitchen alongside, the chef there was boiling cream and sugar with a mad mix of whole spices. Cardamom, star anise, cassia bark, vanilla bean, (and possibly something else I’ve forgotten) to make chai-spiced panna cotta. Never heard of it before then, but boy, have I made them a few times in the years since? (YES!)

‘True’ flavour fusions of different nationalities is always an interesting mix. It’s nothing new - look at the Vietnamese Bahn Mi - a fabulous fusion of a French baguette with pâté and mayo, filled with the addictive flavours of pickled daikon/carrots, coriander, cucumber, chillies, and fall-apart roast pork (and its crackle omg)

Surely you’ve considered eating a Butter Chicken Pizza? An Indian/Italian fusion that actually works - mostly I think because of the whole naan bread and curry thing, which translates to a pizza base. Kinda.

Tex-Mex is an old combo, where the colourful flavours of Mexico dance around with the heavily meat-oriented diet of the USA.

Have you heard of Korean Tacos? I hadn’t until I started doing a bit of reading for this article. These tacos are filled with Korean BBQ-style meat, kimchi, and spicy gochujang sauce, and they actually sounds pretty good to me.

I’d try this! Would you? Korean tacos.

Odd foods that go together well -

• Cheddar cheese and apple pie

• Avocado in a chocolate mousse

• Watermelon and feta

• Peanut butter on a spoon - oops, that’s just me

Odd foods that no human should be putting near their mouths -

• Vegemite, ice cream and maple syrup on pancakes. Just. No.

• Blue cheese with chocolate cake. Sacrilege. For the chocolate cake. The blue cheese should just go in the bin where all the other rotting food belongs.

• Sardines and custard. I think I’m feeling a bit queasy now.

• Fried dim sims with chocolate sauce. Oooo…not for me.

• Bananas and pesto. Bleurgh…

What’s an odd food paring that you’ve eaten or seen someone else eating? I’d love to hear from you :-)

Until next week,

Maggie xx

The Book Bit!

The Book Bit was usurped by a recipe last week, but I still managed to finish reading the book I was wading through, and was thoroughly glad I persisted with.

I was given this book last year as a gift at a book swap Christmas in July ‘do’ with my writers group. I started reading it and was quickly swamped by the two narrative timelines - two young women messing around with doors to other worlds. I got mixed up with which girl was doing what, and was seriously considering throwing it across the room putting it aside. But then I persisted and about a third of the way in it was like OH MY GOODNESS ARE YOU KIDDING!?!?! And I loved it after that! January is the name of the main protagonist who goes on an excellent journey of self-discovery and adventure, and who I was literally cheering on by the end of the book.

Highly recommend!