According to recent figures from the Office for National Statistics, there are nearly three million single-occupier households in Britain. Roughly twice as many of us live in solitude now than did in the 70s. Obviously this has its downsides: morbid self-obsession; a failure to notice you have developed the social habits of a troglodyte, only with fewer language skills; the likelihood that, by living alone, you'll also die alone, your decomposing corpse providing a last festering meal for the nine smelly cats you acquired to keep you company.
But hey, there is a big upside: you have the sublime pleasure of only needing to cook for yourself. Don't get me wrong: I like cooking for other people (and if any of my family are reading this, really darlings, nothing gives me more joy than keeping you fed). But cooking only for yourself, well now, that's the real deal. I am always baffled when anyone announces they don't bother bashing the pans about if they are the only person who needs to eat. My conclusion is they're not greedy enough. Cook for others and, however appreciative, there will always be something they don't like. They will turn their nose up at that brilliant thing you do with butternut squash, thyme and bacon. Or the excellent braised peas you make with cos lettuce. And bacon. Or the squidgy brownie with 70% cocoa solids and pecans. And bacon.
Cooking for yourself is cooking for someone you love. It's a night in with your favourite person. It is a culinary event without compromise. It is a very special kind of self-pleasure. An example. I love baking sausages on a bed of sliced onions and mushrooms. And bacon. A dribble of olive oil, a splash of balsamic vinegar, a good heat and let everything caramelise. The fat from the sausages runs into the onions. The vinegar cooks down to a sticky syrup. There are crisp bits and salty bits and sweet bits. Now normally if I am cooking this for a bunch of people I have to stop when the onions have gone golden brown. Which is fine.
But fine is boring. Fine is polite, and when I'm alone, politeness can go hang. For there's another stage beyond golden brown when the balsamic turns the onions black and crunchy. It's a kind of controlled burning. It is, I accept, an acquired taste, but it is one I have fully acquired. And so, when I am cooking for myself, when nobody else is there to pull a face or shout, "How could you?" or, "I thought you were meant to have refined tastes but it turns out you have the palate of an agricultural worker who lost their tongue to a threshing machine," I can brutalise those onions to my heart's content. I can show them who's boss. Oh joy.
If I'm only cooking for myself I can get my butcher to cut my steak a good three inches thick, while others I cook for would regard that as just too much cow (explain too much?). I can bash salted anchovies into the butter without worrying about children shouting: "Too fishy!" I can turn the chilli heat in my Thai green curry to 10, put flakes of sea salt on my chocolate ice-cream with impunity. In short I can do what the hell I like. And frankly that's worth a little loneliness. I may not have Greta Garbo's looks. I definitely don't have her figure. But when it comes to dinner I, like the smouldering Swede, also want to be alone.
