What is one of your favorite meals?

My first reaction is that this is perhaps the easiest question yet, but then as I sit down to reply it is becoming more and more difficult to answer. First of all I have to admit that I love food but more and more it is really about taste. I love to experience new and unusual flavour combinations. Rarely is there a new ingredient present in a good meal, after all there is only a limited range of meats, grains or vegetables that are readily available in the shops or at the farm gate.

The key to good taste is tied into the quality of the ingredients and the skill of the cook to bring out the flavours by choosing how the ingredients are cooked or presented. That often involves using outside flavourings like herbs and spices, salts and such things as smoke and fire, seaweed and even aging. Early on I was very much influenced by what my Mother prepared and many of the dishes she cooked were based on what her mother and grandmother cooked.

They were simple dishes for the most part as they were based on what was in season. There was not much in the way of vegetables available in the winter, just those that could be stored including potatoes, carrots, onions and other root vegetables like parsnips and turnips. The other source of vegetables and meal items were canned, either bought at the grocers or "put up" by my mother. This included lots of chutneys, pickles and fruit..

At that time there there was no refrigerators being made for the home so every meal was basically cooked from scratch. We did have a pantry, a small room off the kitchen that had a large marble shelf that was used for very short term storage. The first fridges came along in the 1950s which coincided with the wonderful invention of Clarence Birdseye who discovered how to freeze food, starting with peas. That meant you could have green peas all winter and not have to use dried peas.

In the 1960s people started to travel more and were exposed to different foods and tastes, Chinese restaurants became very popular and in my home town most of the Chinese Laundries closed their doors and their owners went into the restaurant business. These were followed by Asian restaurants, commonly known as Indian, but in reality they represented many different cuisines from the Indian sub continent. When I emigrated to Canada in 1967 I was again exposed to new ways of cooking such as the Barbeque and Fondue as well as new ingredients that were available year round at the local supermarket.

Later on as the family grew up we travelled to more countries around the world and I had wonderful eating experiences in places like Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong, Turkey, Kenya and New Zealand. I think I am very adventurous in my eating and If I am at a restaurant I will usually pick the most unusual item on the menu. Perhaps I should also say what I don't particularly like and first and foremost is pasta with tomato sauce. That's not to say I won't eat it but my preference would always be for something else.

My other dislike is having too much food put on the plate. I don't have a big appetite and too much food defeats me before I even begin. All this talking about food has made me hungry so I am off to the kitchen for lunch! Today it is going to be homemade pea soup with ham (made from home grown dried peas - though the ham is store bought!)