Short cuts
"A PATH NOT AS LONG AS THE ORDINARY WAY"
When I was looking for quotes with which to illustrate this post I found that the vast majority I came across were extremely derogatory about short cuts. The inference was that nothing good comes from short cuts and that, not only do you end up with an inferior result for whatever you are trying to do, but also you actually take more time in the end because the short cut means you have to make good. The best of these that I saw, or rather the one that piqued my fancy, is dated 1863 and I think sums up both the literal problems with short cuts as seen by these people as well as the metaphorical ones:
"The short road I have always found is in the end the longest. There are more gates to open, more stiles to get over, something or other to hinder, and the distance we save we lose in the time we take. Set one man to go to a place four miles off by the road; set another to go a short cut across the fields, and ten to one the man on the road gets there first. And it is natural he should, for the road is the legitimate way, the one that has been tried and found the best, and by going straight on it we shall gain time if not distance." About "Going Straight On"' in The Oxford Magazine and Church Advocate (Vol. III., October 1863)
Apart from the description of the difficulties of taking short cuts, it's the emotive use of words such as 'legitimate' and 'straight' that make it plain that short cuts are considered bad. Though why straight should be bad is another matter - and indeed later I point to straight as short cut in itself. And in cooking short cuts are definitely not admired. More on that later too.
The other side of the story is illustrated by the picture at the start of the post. I don't think I need to comment on it at all - it's quite self-explanatory, practical and salutary. Interestingly though, that short cut is not really a straight line, nor is it really the shortest route to the car park - that would be slightly to the right I think, although we do not know from where the people are coming I guess. It illustrates why the snobbishness too I think, because what they have ended up with is an ugly, messy looking little track rather than the gracious sweep of a paved path. They could have got a few more car parks in too! Maybe before you put in pathways you should wait and see where people walk.
The road, and therefore the journey is one of the most used, dare we say overused, literary metaphors for life. And I actually think this is where the derogatory tone comes from. For obviously there is no short cut to life. There is no way you can speed life up - and really only children would want to. We oldies want to slow it down. However fast you may think it is passing though, you can't actually change the speed, even if you can make it seem faster by filling the time with activity. Time might seem to go slower if you have nothing to do, but it doesn't actually go slower. And really there are no short cuts to dealing with the problems thrown in your way - mostly because you have no idea what those problems are going to be before they occur - so how can you prepare yourself for them?
And what about roads themselves? The shortest distance between two points is straight and the Romans based their roadbuilding philosophy upon this. Their roads were straight - well pretty much. The photograph below is of what was marked on the map as a Roman road - but it curves rather nicely into the countryside. I guess that round the curve it probably goes straight.
Generally though the Roman roads were straight. Shortcuts, which must have taken a long time to build because there were mountains, and rivers and towns in the way. Certainly not the easiest way. After the Romans - for centuries, roads were rather less direct - they took account of obstacles and generally followed the easiest path that had been laid out first by people's feet. Now though we have the technology and the means to drive pretty straight motorways through the countryside. A fine example is the bridge that avoids the bottleneck that used to be Millau in central France. Previously you had to descend into the valley, battle your way through the town and then climb back into the hills. It could take you an afternoon. Now there is this stunning bridge. If ever there was a more beautiful short cut I have yet to see it. The bridge is a miracle of modern engineering, a money and time saver for the trucks that travel along it and a beauty to behold, not to mention the sweeping views you get from it.
And modern motorways are often not completely straight. They tend to curve gracefully through the countryside, avoiding towns, but following the Romans in that they do not avoid obstacles - they go through mountains and across rivers, rather than around them. And where there are no obstacles, as in deserts and plains - the roads are straight - as below. But even these two examples have interesting human touches - the one on the left, seems to have a parallel track in the distance - why? and the one on the right has an actual bend for no apparent reason.
Perhaps humans don't like straight lines.
We do like to take short cuts though. It was another walk day, which started this line of thinking. At the end of Sweeney's Lane there is a fairly steep little hill and the road, curves around the worst of it, taking a longer path. If you are on foot you can cut across the corner created by this curve, and there is even another tiny short cut beaten through the long grass to cut off a bit of the walk up. The photos below are not very good and don't really show it - you can't see the grassy track because of the grass - more dangerous I guess as there might be snakes. But it's shadier and slightly shorter, so I take it to conserve energy. Although maybe I don't conserve energy because it's a bit steeper.
Another interesting thing I found out about the word shortcut is that it does not appear to have been used before 1560-70. There is no complicated etymology - it's just a made up word from two ordinary words. But why does it not appear to exist before 1560? Surely people took short cuts! So what did they call them? I find this really, really strange.
And so to food. Well I am supposed to be talking about food. Shortcuts in food. And this is where there is a huge amount of snobbery. In my previous post on cans and tins you will have read Elizabeth David deriding their use and there are no end of people going on about how you can't cook really good food by using short cuts. Which, of course, is simply not true. Modern chefs use no end of gadgets and machines with which to achieve their gourmet delights. And if they are not short cuts I don't know what are. They probably also have access to wholesale quantities of prepared ingredients - well maybe the very top chefs prepare their own, but I bet most cafés in Lygon Street, for example, buy in their tomato sauce. Previous generations had no such things - they had kitchen hands who did it all for them. Take this one step further, as Delia Smith does in her book How to Cheat at Cooking - and you have a cornucopia of prepared ingredients sitting on your supermarket shelves thanks to the "million and one servants around the world beavering away, preparing quality foods designed to help us with our cooking at home." And yes, maybe some of those people preparing those foods are not being paid much and work in terrible conditions, but not all of them, and not forever, because as countries develop they lay down rules for better working conditions. The people eventually demand it. And it is work - without it they may well starve.
But back to Delia and her book. Delia Smith would not describe herself as a chef - she is a cook not a chef. Though she does have a restaurant at the Norwich Football Club. And she has made millions from her food activities. She is a very canny businesswoman. But I love her recipes. They work. They are not too complicated and they are always just a little bit different. And did I say delicious? A bit like Jamie Oliver, though in a different sort of way. This particular book, I have found less useful because it is very British and relies on a whole lot of products available in Britain but not here. Well - not readily anyway. Nevertheless the principle is valid. With the judicious use of quality prepared ingredients you can achieve great things in a short space of time.
She is preaching to those who think they cannot cook - how can anybody think that? Personally I think it is just a matter of having the right recipe books. She is also preaching to those without time - an increasing number it seems of the younger generations, although they do seem to have time to eat smashed avocado in cafés. Which I guess is the real problem. Café society has taken over our western world. We can get good food out in trendy little cafés pretty easily. And it's very convivial. Though not cheap. So it's only available for a few.
And maybe Delia's approach too is only available for those with money. For prepared sauces, vegetables and other things do cost much more than doing it yourself. And I have to say that she does stress that the prepared things to help must be of good quality. And it's amazing the things she suggests. Not being one to buy prepared foods and sauces, I was amazed at the things that seem to be out there - frozen chopped onions?! She does have a point about frozen vegetables though - they are very fresh - frozen almost straight after picking - and fish too - frozen on the ship as it is hauled from the sea.
So should we use short cuts. Well we already do - through the machines and gadgets that we too use. It's not just the chefs who have them. And even the most fastidious of cooks most likely uses the odd can of tinned tomatoes or beans, packets of pasta, sauces such as Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco, butter, milk, bread ... Who makes their own butter these days? And Delia herself says in here introduction, "What's included in these pages is not going to win you any Michelin stars". But that's not what everyday cookery is about is it? It's about feeding yourself and your loved ones in an enjoyable but nourishing way. So as in just about everything - MODERATION. Some short cuts in cooking are good, but don't go too far and end up eating rubbish food that will make you obese and give you diabetes.
