Renewal in the bleak midwinter
"Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home." Edith Sitwell
Well my good resolutions were all for naught and I only managed three or was it four? posts whilst away on holiday - and, even worse, I have been back for almost a month and not touched this blog. And I see that it is now 5 days more than a year since I began it. The reasons for the big gap are fairly obvious I guess - I was on holiday and preoccupied with having a holiday and also with writing about it on yet another blog. (Why do I think people are interested in my ramblings?) And then when I got back there were lots of things to be caught up with - now done and so, at last I can return to my food blog. I have missed it.
I have a long list of potential subjects - some of them arising from the holiday - and some just ideas that come into my head from time to time - mostly from the usual sources of media and reading of some kind or another, and also from shopping and eating.
Today's topic was not on this list but sprang into my mind on this particularly bleak midwinter day - we are only reaching 8 degrees today which is pretty cold for Melbourne, and it is raining on and off, so my plans for a walk have been put on hold. And it seems that Game of Thrones is finally reaching winter too - though we shall not catch up with this until its screening is over and we can buy it online.
So winter it is. A time for log fires, comfort food and home according to Edith Sitwell. Well is it? Log fires - yes - and we have plenty of wood to supply fuel for the fire and David with exercise. Comfort food too. But for home? Almost everyone I know tries to escape at least some of winter by going to the northern hemisphere or the tropics for a prolonged holiday - as far away from home as possible. As we have just done. So home is not everyone's first thought. Our initial reaction to winter is to escape it. And aren't we lucky that we have the means to do so? But then after the holiday, our initial pleasure at escaping extreme heat in southern France (in this instance) and experiencing coolness again, soon evaporates as we quickly find ourselves in several layers of clothes huddling near the fire with a blanket over our legs, and looking forward to summer. Let's face it we as a species are probably never happy with the weather - though we should be. It's certainly an endless and complaining topic of conversation.
"What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness" John Steinbeck
But we should celebrate the seasons. How boring to live in the tropics where the weather is always the same - day in, day out. And most cooks do. My readings of Nigel Slater's diaries have been raving on about comforting stews - and today a bacon and sausage suet pudding - a twist on a very British dish. Solid but comforting. You will find that all of the foodie magazines are also into comfort food - casseroles, soups, puddings, at this time of year. Part of it, of course, is to do with the seasonality of fruit and vegetables - what is available in the shops. But, of course, these days you can get most things virtually year round, although it is still true that the seasonal offerings are cheaper and of higher quality. I would have said tomatoes are always good and always available - but Cyclone Debbie took care of that. They are horrendously expensive at the moment because the crops in Queensland which supplies most of our tomatoes at this time of year, were destroyed. I must say I'm a bit surprised because I thought that there were greenhouses everywhere growing tomatoes all year. Maybe it's just commercial exploitation of a scarcity.
"Seasonality in winter doesn't have to mean sleep-inducing stew-like, starchy casseroles." Yotam Ottolenghi
But mostly it's to do with tradition - winter means casseroles and soups. They warm us up - though no more than a cooked summer dish would. But whilst we may not fancy ice cream, salad or cold soups in winter, there is no reason we couldn't eat summery things like ratatouille, barbecued anything or paella. Indeed they might make us feel more summery. And, in reverse, duck confit and cassoulet - wintry dishes if ever there were any, featured widely on French restaurant menus this northern summer.
But it is difficult to get away from that feeling of needing comfort food in winter isn't it? For me it's a fasting day today so I can't look forward to anything much for dinner tonight, and, yes, I do find it more difficult to fast in the winter than in the summer. So why do we apparently eat more in winter than in summer - and the evidence says we do.
I had a quick look at the science of it all and it seems there are a few theories as to why we eat more and crave comfort food in the winter. (1) - it might just be our primitive brain storing up food against the scarcity of winter. (2) The brain actually makes you feel happy when you eat high fat, high calories food - and the cold weather might make you more depressed than usual so you turn to comfort food. (3) Less light prompts us to eat more food and faster. (4) Lots of holidays with traditional foods which are fatty and calorie rich - not true for us Australians. (5) Also not true for Australians because Christmas is in summer for us - these comfort foods are associated with good memories, and eating the foods brings back the memories. (6) The blood requires nutrients and in cold weather your body temperature is lowered so the body feels it needs more nutrients to warm itself.
But spring is not far away - and everything is green. In Australia we do not have the true bleak midwinter because our trees do not drop all their leaves. They remain the same grey green all year. But the gorgeous yellow wattles begin to bloom in winter, followed shortly thereafter by the blossom on the fruit trees. And I see, that the flowering cherry at the top of our drive is just beginning to flower. False hope I fear as September - and spring - is still over a month away. Still it's a start.
I for one, cannot shake off the desire for comfort food. I bought some corned silverside the other day - suddenly I was overcome with a desire for boiled beef and carrots and dumplings - which I am sure would not be attractive in summer. It seems we cannot shake off that primitive brain thing.
Anyway - I'm back and vow to keep writing something every day.
People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy."
Anton Chekhov
