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While my own trained skills lie in the art of food and butchery anyone who has ever worked behind a counter will tell you that over time you acquire a certain ability to read body language and detect mood. I can spot people staring at the chill cabinets with a bewildered look on their faces. I can often read it as that bothersome internal question \u201cWhat the hell will I get for the dinner tonight\/tomorrow\/next Tuesday\/whatever?\u201d It is often a pained expression and one that suggests cooking is a chore best or a necessary evil at worst.<\/p>\n
Engaging this particular breed of shopper in conversation you can usually sort them out in seconds with a few hints and tips.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t take long for the smile to return to their faces and one idea from inside the counter tends to spark a number of ideas in their own heads and suddenly the furrowed frown disappears.\u00a0 Further probing often reveals that they do have a genuine interest in cooking but don\u2019t particularly enjoy it because of lack of time.\u00a0 This suggests that cooking is long and arduous as opposed to a contemplative and enjoyable creative recreation that has the added benefit of nourishing our nearest and dearest.\u00a0 We probably don\u2019t think long enough on the words we use, but that very word, \u2018recreation\u2019 means to do something that \u2018re-creates\u2019 us.\u00a0 In other words it lifts us up, nourishes our souls and sends us back to our normal routine in a better state of mind; in a word \u2018re-created\u2019 in order to start again.\u00a0 Now many believe it is the eaters of the meal that get the best of the recreation and not the providers or cooks.\u00a0 I beg to differ.<\/p>\n
First of all let\u2019s look at the time element.\u00a0 Most of us complain about lack of time and yet research tells us that an average individual can spend a staggering 25 hours a week watching television!\u00a0 Ironically it is possible that several of those hours are spent watching programmes about food.\u00a0 Having watched Jamie, Nigella or Gordon in the kitchen we are so exhausted from all their work that we drag ourselves to the kitchen and prepare that TV dinner we bought earlier. We need to reconnect with real food.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t want to do it from scratch there are plenty of things to help along the way. At JWB for example we do a range of freshly prepared foods and meats that don\u2019t take any length to cook.\u00a0 They can be accompaniments or the star of the show, there\u2019s plenty to choose from.\u00a0 I think what most of those TV programmes fail to demonstrate is how quick and easy it is to rustle up real, tasty food without a professional kitchen and every gadget under the sun; try an omelette and test the theory of real fast food.<\/p>\n
We have been seduced by the packet and pouch language of \u2018instant\u2019, \u2018quick\u2019, or \u2018express\u2019.\u00a0 Celebrity chef Valentine Warner recently commented on such food advertising and said, \u201cThese are words that encourage a loss of knowledge and indicate an unwise dependence on having things done for us\u201d.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t agree more.\u00a0 The other thing that is quite sad is the loss of experience in handing down skills from one generation to another.\u00a0 There is something very natural and lovely that takes place between a parent and a child when teaching them a skill and particularly a food skill.\u00a0 Baking cookies, boiling an egg or peeling and preparing vegetables can be a tremendous time with the added benefit of something good to taste at the end of it.\u00a0 Teaching someone to open a pouch or how to pierce some plastic with a fork before bunging it in the microwave doesn\u2019t even come close.\u00a0 Nobel Prize winning Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, captured this elegantly in his poem, In Memoriam, which was about his mother.<\/p>\n
When all the others were away at Mass <\/em> So while the parish priest at her bedside <\/em> Of course we would probably claim that if we don\u2019t have time to cook, we certainly don\u2019t have time to mess around with children in the kitchen!\u00a0 Dear oh dear, where are our priorities?\u00a0 We send our children out into the world, educated as best we can, warned about the dangers of sex, drugs and rock and roll and yet we never check to see if they can make themselves a meal.\u00a0 Obviously they are well able to roll up at a chip shop and ask for something, but that\u2019s not really the point.\u00a0 If they are unable to identify food in its raw state or assemble ingredients for a recipe then that knowledge will be a lot more difficult to pick up as an adult or perhaps a closed door to them forever.\u00a0 No doubt they too in their busy grown up lives will say that, just like their parents, they don\u2019t have time to cook! I encourage you to find your cooking mojo again.\u00a0 Don\u2019t see it as a chore but as a time of creativity and recreation and pass that idea of pleasure to your children.\u00a0 For that reason the recipes below are simple and fit very nicely with our idea of \u2018fast\u2019, \u2018express\u2019 and \u2018quick\u2019 but without an overly processed product in sight. I welcome your feedback to pat@jwb.ie<\/a>.<\/p>\n We hope you enjoyed reading this post by Pat Whelan of James Whelan Butchers. Pat is a 5th generation butcher, cook book author and the director of \u00a0James Whelan Butchers with shops in Clonmel, the Avoca Handweavers Rathcoole and Kilmacanogue, Dunnes Stores Cornelscourt, Rathmines and Swords in Dublin.\u00a0Sign up to our newsletter for more updates from James Whelan Butchers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While my own trained skills lie in the art of food and butchery anyone who has ever worked behind a counter will tell you that over time you acquire a certain ability to read body language and detect mood. I can spot people staring at the chill cabinets with a bewildered look on their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\nI was all hers as we peeled potatoes. <\/em>
\nThey broke the silence, let fall one by one <\/em>
\nLike solder weeping off the soldering iron: <\/em>
\nCold comforts set between us, things to share <\/em>
\nGleaming in a bucket of clean water. <\/em>
\nAnd again let fall. Little pleasant splashes <\/em>
\nFrom each other’s work would bring us to our senses. <\/em><\/p>\n
\nWent hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying <\/em>
\nAnd some were responding and some crying <\/em>
\nI remembered her head bent towards my head, <\/em>
\nHer breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives– <\/em>
\nNever closer the whole rest of our lives. <\/em><\/p>\n