Nigel Slater: 10 recipes from my little black book

[Lunix I]

here is a little black book on the kitchen table. Neatly annotated in places, virtually illegible in others, it is the latest in a long line of tissue-thin pages containing the hand-written details of everything I eat. This is not one of the kitchen chronicles where I write down recipe workings and shopping lists, ideas and wishlists, but a daily diary of everything that ends up on my plate.

If I have yoghurt, blackcurrant compote and pumpkin seeds at breakfast, it will be in that little book. Likewise, a lunch of green lentils and grilled red peppers, or a dinner of roast cauliflower and a bowl of miso soup. Each bowl of soup, plate of pasta and every mushroom on toast is faithfully logged. I don’t know exactly why or when I started noting down my dinner, but these little books are now filled in out of habit as much as anything else. The notes are often made at night, just before I lock up and go to bed. I suspect my little black books will be buried with me.

I occasionally look back at what I have written, often as I change one journal for the next. One of the points that interests me, and perhaps this is the main reason I have kept the daily ritual going for so long, is that I can follow how my eating has changed, albeit gradually, over the years. There are, of course, unshakable edibles, (I seem to have started and ended each day’s eating with a bowl of yoghurt for as long as I can remember), but I also find marked changes in what I cook and eat. The most notable is the quantity – I definitely eat less than I used to – and there is a conspicuous move towards lighter dishes, particularly in spring and summer.

But here’s another thing. Despite being resolutely omnivorous, it is clear how much of my everyday eating has become plant-based. Although not strictly vegetarian (the bottom line for me will always be that my dinner is delicious, not something that must adhere to a set of strict dietary rules), much of my weekday eating contains neither meat nor fish. I am not sure this was a particularly considered choice. It is simply the way my eating has grown to be over the past few years. I do know, however, that I am not alone in this.

Edited May 21, 2019 by -Dark
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