The first time someone asked, it was a compliment. The second was a little awkward, and by the third, I felt pretty anxious.
I find myself saying… 'I can tell you what's in it, but not how much…'
Oh, shit! You refused the recipe. So soon after reading Small Fires, you ought to have known better! If you've yet to read Small Fires by Rebecca May Johnson, I highly recommend it.
As an intro, this interview with Bettina Makalintal explains some of the discourse in Rebecca's book around exploring the nature and perception of recipes:
Bettina: I’ve been one of those people who’s flippantly like, I hate recipes, but your book made me think about that differently. It seems like we’re simultaneously giving recipes too much authority — as you write, recipes allow you to refuse them — but we’re also not giving recipes enough credit, in the sense that intellectualizing them feels uncommon. Why do you think that dichotomy exists?
Rebecca: I’ve also had that feeling that the recipe is impinging on my voice or my sensitivity in the kitchen. It’s kind of the fear of our agency being overruled. But really, it’s a turning away from the underlying knowledge that we’re always engaging with the knowledge and labor of others.
The recipe is such a complex thing. Like, where is the recipe, and what is the recipe? Because the recipe isn’t always text. We now most commonly encounter recipes as texts in books, but it’s an annotation of a gestural process of the body. Even if you’re trying to follow a recipe exactly, and maybe even if you think you have no culinary skills whatsoever, the body finds ways of interjecting anyway, about at what point you stop cooking and whether you like the amount of salt or sugar.
Back to the question about the aubergine recipe: I commonly refuse recipes, but this is a little different. Sometimes I'm happy to perform, but this time, I am squirming as if to say:
"Don't look at me!"
I promise to share it and suggest I may even include it in the zine that the event accompanies, but the anxiety of authorship lingers long after the zine publication date.
This is partially because I think I mostly made it up as I went along… pulled from recipes you may have caught 'floating in the air'—those that have entered your subconscious through pictures on Instagram or from the lingering flavours in the mouth - but the awkwardness of my refusal suggests it might have 'sort of just kind of came about'. Sometimes, cooking is such a meditative process that I don't realise what I'm doing - a trance state.
You had gone through a regular phase of diagonally scoring the flesh, tucking slim slivers of garlic in the cracks and glazing the aubergine with miso. Still, the ingredients for this dish lean more towards Chinese Sichuan flavours. You have made this recipe a few times with variations in both the veg and liquids used. But that knowledge doesn't stop you from overthinking. The event is a workshop about vegetables, poetry, and place, and it is designed in conjunction with Sean Wai Keung, a talented poet and cook whose work spans migration, food and identity, and racist stereotypes and cliches! Sean, who is leading the workshop, suggests we make Vietnamese-ish summer rolls as part of the workshop, as he enjoys communal cooking activities at his events. You bring the aubergine dish along to bulk out the food, as you had some in the flat. Part of the reason you refuse the recipe this time is that you overthink the inclusion of the dish and its origin when the truth is probably no one really cares. The marinated aubergine dish is authentically inauthentically Asianish. And people seemed to enjoy eating it.
Could the recipe have been inspired by this?
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/sep/28/fuchsia-dunlops-fish-fragrant-aubergines
This..?
https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recipes/braised-spicy-aubergines-recipe
How about this one that I can't view:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/spicy-sichuan-aubergine-7gs57nfj9cr
I have no desire to be a recipe developer or tester; anything I include in my posts will include some element of refusal, a maximum fluidity. When tangled in my own thoughts and words and stumbling over processes, I realise it may be more interesting to play with my own senses and perceptions:
How much black vinegar do I want to use? How much is left in the bottle?
How much tingle do I want from the Sichaun oil? How much heat from the raw ginger?
Any soy you add will darken the dish, but also enhance the depth umami…
Would I want the same balance the next time?
Let’s go…. ( 'I can tell you what's in it...')
P.S. I’m feeling generous and offering 8 free annual subscriptions to loyal readers so if you wanna keep reading, email me here and I can remove the paywall for this and future posts.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Amuse to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.