Food Projects

Do you have a food project? Something that you have wanted to try or perfect for a really long time? Something that you are slightly obsessed about?

Perhaps it is something special that you want to learn to cook perfectly and that something might take time and special skill? Something such as a proper, authentic Vietnamese pho, or a classic English beef wellington, or maybe you want to learn to do an asado on a parrilla just like a proper Argentinean gaucho.

Maybe, just maybe, the pastry chef in you wants to do a Gateau St Honoré or a mole diablo with chocolate and chillies.

Maybe it is something that you want to build – from scratch with only a little help from your friends. Maybe you want to build your own tandoori oven in the garden and maybe you want to do this using terracotta flowerpots.

Or maybe you want to build a bread oven using only clay and an empty sawn-through drum like my grandfather used to do. Or perhaps it is a smokehouse in the garden with an offset fire pit to cold smoke some fish or beef or game.

Maybe you want to cook and plate your way through a special cookbook? There are always the classics: Elizabeth David’s ‘Mediterranean Food’ or perhaps ‘Cape Malay Cooking’ by Hilda Gerber.

Or if you want to cross the stormy Atlantic and break on through to the other side, you could try Aaron Franklin’s ‘BBQ: A Meat Smoking Manifesto’, all the way from Austin, Texas and a holy grail for backyard beer drinkers and brisket-loving hell raisers.

If you do not want to cook from someone else’s book, you could write your own. Maybe you can record your family recipes, or do something that reflects where you live. Or maybe you can start a blog for your recipes.

Perhaps you want to learn sous vide cooking or how to use a dehydrator properly.

Maybe it is time to have those kitchen knives sharpened and work on developing serious knife skills.

Maybe you just want to cook with your family and make time in your hectic work schedule to build a food legacy.

Maybe you want to travel and discover the difference between prosciutto crudo and prosciutto cotto in Toscano or Modena, or eat nyonya laksa in Melaka.

If you feel especially adventurous, you could always smuggle Durian fruit onto a bus in Singapore (and risk arrest) or eat balut eggs in the Philippines.

If you are in that part of the world, you have to try the waterbugs fried with chilli and scallions from the vendors on Khao San Road. You can always disinfect your mouth afterwards with some cheap but potent Mekong whiskey.

There is so much more to do in the world of food than just the act of cooking and if you want to do any of these with others, it will be fun and bring joy.

But you could also do them by yourself and contemplate the meaning of life this way.

Are you planning on going away for the holidays this year?

It does not really matter because you could always design a food project where you are and with what you have. It does not to be expensive or be elaborate, but it needs to be fun and interesting.

Do it with your friend(s) or your family, or do it alone.

But do it.

Attend a cooking class or give one.

In the words of Louise Fresco: “Food, in the end, in our own tradition, is something holy. It’s not about nutrients and calories. It’s about sharing. It’s about honesty. It’s about identity”. So just do it.

• 500 grams pork fillet, cut into bite-sized cubes

• 1/2 pineapple, peeled, cored and cut into bite-sized pieces

• 2 red chillis, sliced finely

• 2 tablespoons fish sauce

• 1 teaspoon oyster sauce