A Composition

I think last night - with reference to the subject of the previous post - that I actually composed a dish, rather than conducted another person's recipe/score. Certainly I had no written source to work from, nor experience of eating a similar dish.

With some white and rather pappy hot dog buns to use up to make room in the freezer I decided to make a bread and butter pudding, but had none of the dried fruits or peels that would usually go in one. What I did have was plenty of walnuts, so I went with them.

Butter was mashed up with the walnut oil normally reserved for salad dressings, and two tbsps of Tia Maria (one of those things that seem to turn up in the drinks cabinet with nobody aware whence they came) to make it a coffee and walnut version. Walnuts broken into small nibs were put between the two layers of buttered bread, some of the liqueur poured on the upper layer of bread, a Tia Maria rich custard mix poured over the lot, and the top sprinkled with sugar and a bit more cinnamon. Cooked at 180C for 45 minutes it came out beautifully risen and browned.

The Dear Leader (may her enemies writhe in agony) was kind enough to say it was good, and after a pico second's persuassion graciously accepted a second helping. We'd only eaten a salad as the first part of the meal, so little or no guilt was suffered.

It would be (and will be) improved with a very strong expresso used to up the coffee flavour (like a tiramisu), and next time I make it I'll pound some walnuts to add to the custard (just milk, beaten eggs and some sugar with a tsp of cinnamon) and thus increase the walnut flavour too - what we ate last night was rather too genteel, but it was also extremely enjoyable: the texture of the slithery base contrasted as it should with a B&BP with the slightly crisp top, and the flavour was very coffee and walnut cake.

Conductor and composer. Where's my bloody knighthood? Maybe I need to work on my orgasm-while- smelling-a-fart face.

Composer or Conductor?

It struck me recently that as cooks we fulfil one of two roles: we are the equivalent in music of the conductor, or the composer. Both are honourable occupations, though I think most of us would hold the composer in higher regard. I get the impression few conductors would share that opinion, however.

When I follow a recipe (I rarely weigh out every ingredient, but use recipes as guidelines) I am being a conductor, taking the ideas of another person and making the best of them, putting my own personal twist on them. I have to balance the ingredients, as the conductor balances the sections, though at the end of the meal I don't do my Mark Elder last chord face - think having an orgasm and simultaneously smelling a particularly noxious fart.

It is far, far tougher being a composer. There are very few new things in food. Many that are claimed as new are either a) not; or b) bloody awful - some of the now long past nouvelle cuisine horrors for example. When I started to consider this topic I tried to think of any dish I had actually created, and even those that may fit the bill, like a crab and pumpkin soup, tend to have been a variation on a theme, as it were.

Looking again at the comparison of music and food I've come up with some matches:

Beethoven: A huge rib of beef, satisfying, timeless, done to perfection.
Tchaikovsky: Poire Belle Helene (named for an Offenbach opera btw) with much too much chocolate.
Boulez: Fish heads with asparagus, mango and porridge prepared in a concrete mixer then thrown at a wall by a blind man wearing boxing gloves - and if you don't like it you are clearly a useless idiot.

Back to being a conductor tonight. I must dig out my mutton dressed as lamb black polo neck.