You hear about the shouting, the “oui chef”, “non chef”, the “behind you!”, the sweating fury, the expletives. Hardly anyone ever tells you about the joy, the electricity flooding your sleep-deprived veins, the camaraderie, the banter. They don’t tell you about the plate of food on the pass, seared just so, the final curl of a sprig of something green, like a swagger, the dot of emulsion that makes your arm ache while whisking until it glistens. A good Saturday night’s service and there is nowhere else in the world you would rather be than in that kitchen, armpits chafing with yesterday’s sweat, fryer oil fragrant in your hair.
You burn the insides of your wrists often, the tender skin, accidentally on purpose, speed being of the essence. In a kitchen of men and boys, there is more to prove. Whatever they do, you will do it better.
A girl I once met told me that only masochists were chefs. I laughed at the time, but perhaps she was right?
My first job was as a kitchen porter. All five foot nothing of me, desperate for part-time work. I liked the look of the menu but had never cooked anything of merit in my life. My calories mostly came from pints of Guinness and Marathon bars. Hauling the crockery, scouring the black pans, those 24kg sacks of maris pipers I had to cut into chips, a knife longer than my arm. Terre à Terre in the Brighton Lanes, a minute from the sea, and they taught me how to cook, how to eat, how to worship butter. I learned, above all, to ask questions. What makes a soufflé rise? Break it down, tell me exactly. How do you poach the perfect egg? How do you do it 50 times in a row?
If you wash the pans and dishes fast enough, push yourself until muscle hits bone and stings, down that third double espresso, you get to stand by the open door and watch the chefs at work.
Joss, the pastry chef, would sashay past me, smile, flourish the plate in her hand and talk me through it. She recognised the greed in my eyes. Orange and almond cake served in warm slabs, soft peaks of vanilla-flecked chantilly, fat raspberries, a drizzle of something sticky, borage flowers at a star-struck angle. Sometimes, if I was lucky, she would give me a spoon and five minutes by the ice-cream machine. Freshly churned ice-cream – achingly cold, soft-sweet, melting in your cheeks, oozing down your gullet, hitting the backs of your knees.
Let’s see if we can’t get you in here, she said.
On my days off, I baked cakes for every occasion, watched them rise and fall, picked myself up: come on, try it again. The good ones were hacked through the middle, filled with a cloud of vanilla cream, blackberries buried in lewd amounts, dusted with demerara icing sugar.
In a few months I made it to commis chef. You learn to run when you’re a commis, to predict the needs of every chef in the kitchen, to use a knife until calluses appear on your palm, to grate and slice your own fingers, to work, head down, feet apart, shoulder muscles knotting. You taste everything but it’s a delicious tease. You are not allowed to cook, not for a long time.
For the first month, I washed herbs, learned how to dry and store them, tie them into decorative bundles. You repeat the same task every day, over several months, and you learn, distil, refine.
After six months of downing 7am espressos in one gulp, often half asleep, the muscle memory of your tasks are etched into your exhausted body. There is another you, who dreams of running the pastry section, who secretly researches assiette of lemon, and adds an extra pinch of sea salt to the chocolate truffle mix when no one is looking. But there is something almost elegant about the way your body remembers yesterday’s rhythms.
When friends praise my discipline, I always tell them it’s not in my nature, that I had to learn. Easily distracted, I need the rigour of repetition. When I finally opened my cake shop, treacle & co (now treacle & ginger, under a new owner) in Hove, paint still drying on the woodwork, my own kitchen, my own recipes, the stakes were higher. I would finish late at night, Radio 4 in the background, warm sponges cooling on a rack, quinces simmering to jam, half an eye on the butter browning for tomorrow’s madeleines.
For dinner: hot toast, cold butter pushed into it with my fingers, Marmite, slices of bright green avocado, a prick of lemon, a poached egg leaking yellow. Maldon on everything and plenty of it, crushed to a fine dust between two palms. The stainless steel of the workbench cold on my back, my body worn out, sliding down the tiled walls, legs splayed, to eat.
I had varicose veins at 30.
You know you should go home, have a bath, talk to a friend, but no, two quick gingerbread loaves, another tray of burnt-butter biscuits, that one on the floor you swoop still hot, still burning, into your mouth. Clean the oven, the fridges, mop the floors and suddenly it’s past midnight. How your body reeks after a week of double shifts, ripe and bitter and feral. Your secret self. It can be a gift, I think. If you allow it to unfold.
Nowadays, I finish work in time for dinner. By work, I mean that I write, or think about writing, or I read, or make notes. I don’t know how long I can sustain this life, financially, but for now it seems to do.
How did this happen, this welcome slowing down, shifting from living in my body to disappearing into my brain? I remember it clearly, a trip to India, a month off work and I wrote every day, scribbling, nib scratching against paper, imagination like tinder. There was that electricity again, the pen vibrating. What can you do but go with it?
Food is magic. Bursting purple figs bought on the side of the road in Istanbul and devoured, chin all sticky, are magic. Words can be magic, sentences more so. James Baldwin’s Giovanni gorging on cherries in the Boulevard Montparnasse and spitting the pips at his lover is magic.
I like to start work early. To sit at my desk with cups of tea, write a sentence, write two, scribble, get stuck, delete, think about my next meal. I cook differently now, mostly for myself, or friends and family, and always more slowly. The characters in my novel, Moth, are always eating, always cooking. Food brings family members together, the hearth is the lifeblood that sustains them when Delhi, after partition, unravels. Writing the novel while travelling through India, downing thimbles of sweet chai and binging on street food, I knew food had to feature heavily.
For my working lunch, I dice an onion, sweat it down with minced garlic and chilli, in a bath of olive oil and butter. A mirepoix of carrots, leeks and celery next, a handful of cherry tomatoes, throw those into a pot and reduce to a caramelised mass before adding beetroot, larger dice, for colour, a handful of butter beans that have been soaking overnight, puy lentils for earthiness, a bay leaf, a star anise, water. A parmesan rind, if I have one, is akin to buried treasure. Boil, simmer, skim. Write a paragraph. Finish with a riot of seasonal greens, Maldon, a squeeze of lemon. Eat at my desk, the bowl warming my lap.
I spend my days thinking. I burn myself less. There is no doubt that I would not be a writer if I hadn’t been taught as a commis chef how to graft, head down, determined, washing all those herbs, desperate to cook.
Moth by Melody Razak is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson (£14.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
