Summer is here - I admit it

"Summer food has to be easy food. It should make you feel as if you're on summer holidays even at the end of the working day, with simple but stunning meals, that call for nothing more than throwing a few lamb chops on the barbie, cutting up some ripe tomatoes, putting out fresh mozzarella and tearing up a few basil leaves." Jill Dupleix

"Summer cooking implies therefore a sense of immediacy, a capacity to capture the essence of a fleeting moment." Elizabeth David

It's a hot day and so will tomorrow be, so today I finally admitted to myself that summer is well and truly here, by putting away most of my winter clothes and bringing out the rest of my summer ones. There are always a few of each hanging in the wardrobe - this is Melbourne after all. Nevertheless I don't think I shall be needing the really thick jumpers until winter and I don't have room for everything.

I have just two cookery books with the word 'summer' in their title, one by Jill Dupleix called Summer Food and the other called Summer Cooking by Elizabeth David. They are both small, like the dishes they describe. They are two of my favourite books. Elizabeth David's was written in 1955, Jill Dupleix's in 2010. A gap of almost 60 years, so I thought I would see if anything had changed, bearing in mind also that they were written on opposite sides of the world as well as in two very different eras. I also think I shall ruminate on what summer food really means to 'ordinary people' like me.

In her Introduction to Summer Cooking Elizabeth David takes the opportunity to have a long rant about the evils of frozen food - frozen food being the thing of the moment back then. So incensed is she that she barely mentions summer food. This is condensed into just one paragraph and really, just one sentence:

"My object in writing this book has been to provide recipes ... with emphasis on two aspects of cookery which are increasingly disregarded: the suitability of certain foods to certain times of the year, and the pleasure of eating the vegetables, fruits, poultry, meat or fish which is in season, therefore at its best, most plentiful. and cheapest."

And then she goes on her rant for a couple of pages. I mean she is sort of right but she gets very worked up about it.

But really nothing has changed much because every cook from those in Coles Magazine to haute cuisine gurus still go on about keeping food seasonal, as well they should. I have long been an advocate of buying things in season because they are indeed not only at their cheapest then, but they are also at their best. I think the difference is that, at least here in Australia, we can now eat some fresh fruits and vegetables all year, thanks to the climatic range of the country and also to modern farming techniques. They don't have to be frozen. For myself I only use frozen peas, and frozen berries - though I only use the latter for things like ice creams or coulis. I do use my freezer for meat though because I tend to buy it in large quantities so that I always have something on hand.

Jill Dupleix, doesn't moan about the evils of frozen food but she is also a fan of keeping things seasonal and gives a 'hot list' of what is good in summer. Just in case you didn't know. Well maybe some people don't. I think this book was a giveaway with The Age so I suppose it was aimed at a fairly wide audience - though I don't think the urban poor tend to read The Age. However, like Elizabeth David and almost every food writer that exists, she emphasises the need for quality produce:

"the best time=saver of all is simply to buy good produce in the first place. You need real tomatoes that smell and taste like real tomatoes - taut-skinned, green-stemmed, perfumed, ripened on the vine before picking and left with their stalk intact, which helps them last longer. ..." Jill Dupleix

For yes it is summer - and it's often too hot to think of slaving over a hot stove. And that barbie is not really allowed here in the summer - well not a wood fired one anyway - and a gas barbecue is really just a gas cooker outside isn't it? Which is why most books about cooking summer food have endless recipes for salad. I'm not a huge fan of salad, though I do feel guilty about this, and I also tend to have some green salad after our main course, every day. It's something I learnt to do in France. But on the whole salad is too much like hard work to eat somehow. And to much hard work to prepare as well - all that chopping and slicing. I know I'm not logical. It's not harder to crunch through crispy salad things than it is to chew through a steak but nevertheless I do somehow feel it's hard work. But isn't it amazing how many salads can be concocted from the most unlikely things? These days roasted beetroot and cheese and nuts are de rigour. I doubt they were in Elizabeth David's day.

If fresh is one of the words to describe summer food - the others are 'quick' and 'easy'. And that's tempting when it's hot. And that applies to barbecues, stir fries and similarly rapid cooking. You don't want the oven on heating up the house do you? Interestingly though, cauliflower seems to be a bargain at the moment - and that is generally thought of as a winter vegetable.

"It is hardly surprising that inexperienced cooks and hostesses do not stop to think whether a cassoulet of haricot beans, sausages, pork, and bacon, or an enormous dish of choucroute garnie are suitable for a hot summer evening." Elizabeth David

And, of course, here in Australia we still do the roast turkey at Christmas. Last Christmas was torture. The temperature was in the very high 30s and the oven was pumping out heat for hours. This year it's only going to be 20 though - so all good. As long as we don't have a Christmas flood. However, I suspect that the Christmas turkey tradition is changing in Australia to a seafood banquet instead. And a ham cooked in the Weber or just served cold as is. We'll be sticking to the turkey for some time to come.

And yes summer is holidays. Well that's what you would think if you Google it. And yes the children and students are on holiday, so their mums and dads take some time off work too - but not the whole holidays. There are a whole lot of people working all through the holidays - some of them just to make your holiday worthwhile. Which is another reason for the quick and easy. You arrive home hot from your car, or the train or bus and then you have to cook dinner. No wonder bought cooked chicken does such a roaring trade in summer. I succumb myself sometimes. You can make a really nice pasta salad with it. Mind you on reflection we want quick and easy in the winter too - we are just as tired at the end of a long day - just not as hot.

Summer food done well can give you a sense of holiday, of relaxation and part of this is being able to eat it outside. We often eat our summer dinners outside on our terrace and it always makes me feel like I'm on holiday. Particularly if there is a glass of wine in the mix as well. White or rosé of course.

"After all it is summer. You are on holiday. You are in the company of your own choosing. The air is clean. You can smell wild fennel and thyme, dry resinous pine needles, the sea. For my part I ask no greater luxury. Indeed I can think of none." Elizabeth David

She was talking about the Mediterranean but substitute the smell of gum trees instead of pine and it could be here.