Authenticity

It is possible to be a little obsessive about authenticity. Those obsessives who assert, for instance, that cappuccino should never be drunk after 11 in the morning. Or that cheese and fish do not go together.

I have no difficulty with people putting into a meal whatever ingredients give them pleasure ... but my hackles are raised if someone asserts that it is a particular dish when it is in fact something possibly delicious but completely different. Quiche Lorraine, for example, should have double cream, eggs and bacon. Not cheese. Not onions. And Elizabeth David says so.

I feel the same way about Tricolore. Tomato, mozzarella and basil. NOT avocado, which is perfectly pleasant but is not an ingredient of Tricolore and does not go particularly well with mozzarella. As I was writing this, I mentioned I was writing about Tricolore and, immediately, the enquirer said: “Mozzarella, tomato and avocado?”

But on the subject of avocado, there is, in my view, no one authentic way of making guacamole. And the same is true of gazpacho - which does not even have to have tomatoes in it. Indeed, given that it came into existence long before the Spaniards sailed for the New World and discovered tomatoes in the process, some might say that tomato in gazpacho is inauthentic.

Sea bream

Buried under cubes of ice in a polystyrene box, looking mournful, he was about to be my lunch. "Dorade", the waiter told us. The disappointing taramasalata beforehand was fortunately not a precursor. Crispy skin, white meaty flesh and boiled potatoes, beans and carrots which I dressed with olive oil, lemon juice and salt. I ate him peering at faint mountains across the Aegean. The little black cat that came to join our table was treated to a little chopped Calamari and the remains of the Taramasalata.

Onion vinegar

The best chip shops offer a choice of vinegar. There is the common brown sort which used to be called malt vinegar but now comes in bottles labelled "non-brewed condiment". And the clearer, slightly green sort which I was told by the man in the chip shop in Canterbury was onion vinegar: the stuff in which pickled onions are stored.

As well as looking different, it has a more interesting flavour, and soaks far better into the chips and batter than the malt variety. Of course, the purist would say that it is wrong to call these vinegars at all because vinegar means sour wine. Hence our being lumbered with "non-brewed condiment". And I have tried shaking wine vinegar on to fish and chips. It just doesn't work. Just as a green salad with oil and malt vinegar is an abomination.

Batter

I should look up where this word comes from in the context of cooking. It sounds violent enough: cod that's been beaten up, anyone? It has the same lip-smacking, tongue-tooth clashing sounds as one of its ingredients, butter.

There is something immensely satisfactory about the way that it turns from liquid into crisp solidity, hardening into the shape of the thing it surrounds; somehow it enhances a dish by simplifying it. Think of a flaky tempura prawn; the best I ever found were in a Japanese shop, now sadly closed, in Chinatown. Or fish from a fish and chip shop. And there are those little bits of loose batter that they'll give you for free if you ask. Perhaps the ultimate in simplicity is the white ladleful turned into a golden pancake. Pancakes which should never be merely crisp, but crisp and melting.

Bur it can be dull, something to chew through, such as bad Yorkshire Pudding. Then, of course, it can be a disguise for something horrid: spam fritter, for instance. Or it can make something utterly unhealthy even unhealthier: deep-fried Mars Bars (do they really exist?) and even deep fried pizza: yuk is not a word I often use as I try to recognise that it is reasonable for others to love food that I detest, but: yuk.

Scallops

This has nothing to do with the seafood but it does concern something I have only ever found in a fish and chip shop. I should be slightly more accurate: in fact, I have come across the scallop in a handful of fish and chip shops, but only in Coventry, where I was born, and York, where I went to university.

More chip than fish, the scallops I have in mind are discs of potato, dipped in batter and then deep-fried. Their shape, size and the addition of batter gives them, in my view, an utterly different taste and texture to chips. I would not wish to suggest that you replace "a portion of chips" with a scallop, but instead, have it as an extra item, like a gherkin or a pickled onion. And if that sounds excessive, what are you doing in a chip shop anyway?

My Favourite Café

When we lived in Coventry for the first seven years of my life, we used to shop in the Precincts. One of those terms like "ring road" and "dual carriageway" with which I was very familiar due to regularly hearing it. But I did not know exactly what it meant.

The precincts spread far and wide and, doing a morning's shopping, we would range over them, going into shops here and there, retracing our steps on occasion. Sometimes the sight I longed for came into view, from a number of different angles. But it would be a very rare occasion that we would venture in.

My favourite cafe was round. It was on the highest level of the precincts and to reach it you had to walk up a ramp. Walking up it, the lower levels of the precincts far below, was almost like crossing a moat to reach a castle. Inside, it was a Wimpy bar. These were the days before McDonald's persuaded them to get their act together and so there was, for example, a ketchup-encrusted plastic bottle on each table in the shape of a tomato.

I would tend to have the same thing: a Shanty fish: an orange breadcrumbed square, with chips. I looked at but never tried the strange round frankfurter thing with bits sticking out. Puddings, too, were out of the question, beg as I might, but I would look longingly at the photographs on the menus with wordy descriptions of what was on offer. The idea of a Banana Longboat thrilled me, with its piles of "cocktail fruit" and scoops of vanilla ice cream. Then there was the "Brown Derby" which I used to pronounce as though it rhymed with herby. A sort of doughnut, I seem to recall, smothered in chocolate sauce. And the Knickerbocker Glory: basically ice cream and more cocktail fruit in a tall glass.

More often than to my "Favourite cafe", if we ate out at all during these shopping expeditions, it would be to Elizabeth the Chef we would go: a steamy, bustling coffee-scented place that was altogether more sophisticated than the frankly greasy and tatty Wimpy Bar. But it didn't have the tomato-shaped bottles on the table, no Shanty fish, and no Banana Longboats.

Herrings Alethea

Alethea was my mother's first name. This is the first recipe in the "fish" section of her recipe book and it is written in red biro in handwriting I don't recognise but may be an earlier incarnation of hers.

At the foot of the recipe in brackets is my mother's maiden name, A. Weiss, followed by a word that I cannot read. Next to the name "Herrings Alethea" in different-coloured ink is an address: 111 Woodstock Road Oxford. Was this something she cooked when working as a secretary in Oxford before she went to university? Strangely, someone has crossed out the recipe. But it is still legible and, for the record, here it is below. I don't remember ever having eaten it.

Cut and fillet 1 herring for each person. Lay flat on floured board and place slices of garlic, dabs of French mustard and a few drops of lemon juice. Clean 1 small sweet pepper and a couple of tomatoes, fry them lightly in cooking oil along with a few very thin slices of onion.

Place a few teaspoons of this mixture inside each herring, roll it up and place in a greased baking tin. Plcae remains of tomato/pepper mixture on and around fish and then pour about half a cup of milk over them. (The roes should be chopped up and placed inside the fish.) Season and bake [?] in a low oven until fish is tender.