The Original Jamie Oliver by Jennifer Ballantine Perera
In a ‘slight’ move sideways away from a Gibraltar-based food culture, but certainly not away from Gibraltar, nor food, the focus of this piece is on the select collection held at the Garrison Library on gastronomical delights.
I was already acquainted with a number of cooking manuals such as Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, first published in 1859/61, and the most informative On the Extravagant Use of Fuel in Cooking Operations, by Frederick Edwards (1869), also author of Our Domestic Dwelling Places: A Treatise on the Ventilation of Dwelling Houses (1870), but was less so of the small collection of books by the eminent chef Alexis Soyer (1810-1858), a Frenchman who went on to become one of the most celebrated chefs of Victorian England. Alexis left France in 1831 to join his brother Philippe, who had moved to England some years earlier and was working as a chef for the Duke of Cambridge, Adolphus Guelph. Once in England, Alexis established himself with the landed gentry and nobility and soon became a chef de cuisine of note. In 1838 he was offered the position of chef at the newly established Reform Club, where he helped design the kitchens with Charles Barry. His move to the Reform Club cemented his fame and in 1846 he published The Gastronomic Regenerator: A Simplified and Entirely New System of Cooking, with over 2,000 ‘practical’ recipes amongst which is Calf’s Head a la Constantine and Galantine d’Anguille. Also in the book is an engraving on kitchens at the Reform Club, the design of which gives us some indication of the sophistication of Soyer’s mission. Alexis seems much like
the Jaime Oliver of his day (although Jaime’s recipes seem much more straightforward) in that he sought to bring about improvements to people’s diets by introducing a far more technical approach to the preparation of food. Also at the Garrison Library are The Modern Housewife or Menagare (1849) and Soyer’s Culinary Campaign (1857), written following Alexis’ mission to the Crimea after becoming concerned with the plight of soldiers in the field. Alexis became alarmed after reading reports of the dreadful conditions in the hospitals at Scutari and Balaclava, where poor rations and conditions were leading to soldiers dying of food poisoning, malnutrition and cholera. During his time in the Crimea, Alexis worked closely with Florence Nightingale to correct the dietary and food regimes in the hospitals. He was also responsible for Soyer’s Field Stove, which the British Army was still using 120 years later. It seems quite obvious now, given Soyer’s interest in improving the conditions of soldiers in the field, why the Gibraltar Garrison Library, a library so steeped in military heritage, retains this compact yet wonderful collection on Soyer’s cookery books and manuals. All that now remains is to share some of his recipes with you. For example, and given the significance of spinach to a number of Gibraltar’s traditional dishes, the following are Soyer’s impressions on the green leaves. SPINACH: This vegetable is very light and very good for invalids. It must be washed in several waters, after having been well picked; then put a quarter of a sieve of spinach to a gallon of water and three ounces of salt,
boil for ten minutes till tender, drain and sieve, press a little with your hands to extract part of the water, chop it up fine, put in a stew pan, with a quarter pound of butter, a teaspoon of salt, half ditto of pepper, put on a fire with a drop of warm broth for a few minutes, and serve.
At that time, soldiers were given their food rations directly, where they would put metal buttons, or pieces of metal in the meat, so they could recognise their food after it had been cooked, Soyer immediately put a stop to that practice. Soyer organised that each regiment had a trained chef who’d collect all the rations and prepare food for the men (this gave birth to the Army Catering Corp., many years later) using his Soyer’s Field Stove, which could cook food in any weather conditions. He devised new diets for these regiments. The ‘Morning Chronicle’ said of Soyer, “That he saved as many lives through his kitchens as Florence Nightingale did through her wards.”
Three Generations of Lunches by Richard Cartwright
The Dockyard `hooter’ goes, it’s exactly twelve noon and it’s time for lunch. Time’s up at 1 p.m. on the dot so you have to be back… pronto!
I remember how some would stay on site, especially the Spanish workers. They had brought their `costo’ or lunch with them. Many of us however, would go home in a hasty fashion, for the midday meal. My workshop was situated well into the Dockyard precinct and together with my work mate Ken, I would walk all the way up to La Calle Castillo (Lower Castle Road) and Ken, up to La Calle Comedia (Castle Street and on to Castle Ramp) for our meals. We made it in twenty minutes and lunch was waiting on the table.
Sometimes it was vegetable soup followed by stew. Or `rosto’ followed by meat and pota-toes. There was never a pattern of set meals per day of the week, so you never knew ex-actly what to expect. It could be Shepherd’s Pie or, contrastingly, potaje, artichokes, (al-kachofas – not my cup of tea), minestra or some other dish. ‘Local’ dishes were some-times accompanied by panisa, a kind of calentita with a much heavier consistency! Macorrenes con tomate, or tomato-ey or `yellow’ (saffron) rice dishes would also appear on the lunchtime table. And there was always a piece of fruit to follow – hence my love for fruit today!
`proper’ meal in the evening or vice versa. My son Marvin is a 45-year-old senior banker. For him, business lunches and dinner ap-pointments are not uncommon, so he could end up eating more `proper’ meals than we used to in the 50s and 60s. His average week includes two or three business lunches and a sandwich, filled roll or wrap on the other days. Sandwich bars and snack food takeaways are the name of the game nowadays and any number of office workers can be seen waiting their turn to be served at these outlets.
Right out the door at twenty to one and Ken would be waiting for me on the steps below. A couple of minutes to one would place us entering our Dockyard workshop. That was the routine, Monday to Friday, without fail. And we never suffered any digestive or physical disorder or sickness, despite all the rushing about. In those days – I think very few families would do both now – we would still have some-thing cooked for supper. It might be freshly cut chips, a bit of ham and an egg, or a ham/cheese omelette and chips. The stressful trend of modern day life these days means that wives or partners have to work – not least because there’s a mortgage to service – so you may have a snack at lunchtime and a
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My granddaughter Tiana is five. Lunch is provided for her in school. Chicken or tuna and rice, sausage and mash accompanied by broccoli, peas or carrots, a yogurt and an apple (or another piece of fruit) will see her through her school day. I think kids’ favourite, `chicken nuggets’ should, ideally, be discouraged! During break time, she opens her bag for a biscuit snack and a nutritional fruit juice or a bottle of mineral water. Evening cooked meals, I imagine, are dependent on what the days’ eating arrangements have been.
Life’s `modern day’ obligations and pressures have certainly brought with them a change in lunchtime eating trends and for most of us in Gib, `calamares rellenos’ or `potaje de coles’ on the midday, lunch table are a thing of the past! Wednesday 13th June 2012 • Calentita Press 4th Edition