Not the neverending nineties.

It is not the neverending nineties.  They are not vegetarian dishes without imagination, they are delicious.  We call them classics – like a well dressed aunt.

And I have seriously well dressed aunts.

As a recovered vegetarian I used to and still laugh at the predictability of most vegetarian offerings in power player focused restaurants.  Power players in that fish or beef headlined the offerings like a dinner table where one person dominates the conversation. I’ve been to many a (wedding) banquet where the non-meat eaters main course, one could smell the fungal words even before the server uttered them, was a mushroom risotto. The chefs did not want for imagination or taste, maybe just a spectrum of it.

That writ, there are things that have been held on to because people will not let them go.

My first memory of a meal that brought cheese into me like Cupid’s arrow direct to the gut was at Salty’s, a pub in Yarmouth on the Isle of  Wight. I ordered blue cheese and bread for lunch. Looking back it was probably meant to be a shared dish but my enjoyment did not know that. The combination of good bread and cheese still delights me. If I returned to Salty’s, I think I know what I might order some twenty years later. 

Therefore, I hope that I do not become so difficult a creature as to forget those food unions that give and gave me joy and, when I fall off my high horse request for innovation, humbly bow in thanks.

I made a list and have been most delighted to realise that these classic combinations are always innovations of the particular.

For starters, goat cheese and beetroot; white soft curds against the biting red of the beet which bleeds it’s way in. If you have a dinner party and you are not sure what to offer – go ahead, cook a beetroot bomb shelter salad, but good luck choosing a recipe – there are so many.

River Cottage roast the beets with thyme and garlic and finish th salad with redcurrant berries. Down in County Cork they undermine the vegetarian focus and add black pudding – sure tis pudding? Or in America they seem to love candied nuts, and so do I (though I am not sure about the cinnamon). And for a different game altogether, play with Ottolenghi of London and Jerusalem who purees it all up.

Come il cacio sui maccheroni.  The cheese on the macaroni, and for those of us who don’t know how delicious good pasta is, it is the Italian equivalent for the icing on the cake. Good Pasta has wonderful flavour and needs very little dressing (note dressing, not costuming) and so some of the favourite recipes are the simplest. 

Carbonara - Felicity Cloake discusses the variants rather well. 

Macaroni and Cheese, here she finishes with a recipe close to what my mother (of five) used to make. 

Bold and brilliant, cheese and pepper in Rome’s cacio e pepe and, in relation to Dublin’s current accommodation crisis, this garlic and chili recipe is traditionally made without cheese as the rent in Rome was such that they could not always afford the cheese icing.  My Italian tells me that this is not true, but tall tales and histories are another time loved union.

It could be like Cloud Atlas where these food souls appear again and again through time and space, finding each other in unique combinations. Here are a few more for the roll call. Cauliflower or Broccoli and cheese, Beer and Cheese ( or a nice washed-rind or cheddar and a pint), Apple and Cheese (school lunch), Egg and Cheese (omelettes or, the omelette in a pastry, Quiche Lorraine), and just to remind you that it is not always bread and cheese – sometimes they put it in it, Pao de queijo.

And so a bow, may these classic combinations live for another day, tonight’s supper – Buffalo Mozzarella with Tomato and Basil. Carpice? Caprese.