It is August, the month of my great social experiment, or the summer holidays as other people call them. Here’s how it works. Each year we book a large house with too many rooms for my own family. It could be anywhere but this year it happens to be in Spain; the Spanish stay up later than the Italians, and the food is less exhausting than in France. Then we invite other families to join us. There is just one condition, beyond us all liking each other. They don’t just have to be willing to do their share of the cooking. They have to be eager to do so.
And then the social experiment begins. Because you can learn more about a friend by cooking alongside them, than through almost any other common pursuit. Certainly, you can learn more than simply by eating their food. When it comes to character assessments what matters is not the ends, but the means that got you there.
In the past, I have cooked with people who were so slow at peeling potatoes that the desire to rip both implement and tuber from their hands shouting ‘FOR GOD’S SAKE LET ME DO IT’ was so strong, I had to leave the room and sit in the toilet with the door shut and the light off rocking back and forth in the darkness hugging myself. I have felt my heart rate rise as a friend – I say friend; I mean someone I hope never to see ever again in my life – stood slugging rosé and telling a tiresome anecdote over searing steaks that were being ruined with each narrative beat of the pointless bloody story. I have watched someone put Marmite in the salad dressing. They winked at me while they did it, as though I was being let in on a secret. Yes, one of those dark, filthy secrets that you hope the tabloids will one day expose.
From cooking alongside someone, you can learn whether they are reliable and trustworthy. If we can get dinner for 14 on the table together without fuss or bother I know for certain that this is someone who will get me through the more dramatic events in life. Say, a hostage situation. From cooking alongside someone, you can learn whether they attend to the details of life; whether they sense the passage of time; whether they can refill a wine glass, keep an eye on the steaming clams so they haven’t gone into the rubber stage, and spot that the gratin is on the edge of burning under the grill, all at once. By cooking alongside someone you can tell whether they are a good listener. Because so much of cooking is about listening to the sound your food makes. A good cook can hear well done long before others can smell it.
I will happily admit that I have gone from simply liking a friend to adoring them, based on their ability to be ready with the pasta for a multitude when I am ready with the sauce. If this sounds controlling on my part, then fine. Guilty as charged. Because really what I am looking for in a person I cook with, what I really want, is someone who enables me NOT to feel like a control freak. They have done everything that needs doing without me telling them to do it. In short, what I’m looking for from the people I cook with on holiday is for them to make me feel normal. Is that too much to ask?
