FROM THE DESK OF Roland Rocchiccioli – April 4, 2019

Are we now so lazy that we want our food cooked and delivered to the front door, and for supermarkets to peel our vegetables?

The headline read: ‘Online food delivery company collapses and customers go hungry’. Really? Customers going hungry?

That is too preposterous. The solution is simple. Peel your own vegetables, and cook your own food! It is the most wonderful therapy, and the pleasure derived from preparing and eating a delicious, nutritious, home-cooked meal is immeasurable. That some people find cooking to be a bore is a conundrum. It is not difficult: the simple application of heat to raw produce. What could be simpler? It is not splitting the atom.

The joy of preparing the ingredients, following a recipe – simple or complicated – and then serving it to other people – is so good for the sense of personal achievement. Sadly, the days of dinner parties on a Saturday night are a thing of the past. It was a monthly ritual, and on other weeks you were invited to someone else’s house. The whole day was spent preparing. A typical menu would have been frozen mango daiquiris on arrival; avocado and prawns as a starter; a beef eye fillet or salmon Wellington was always a great success; and a hot chocolate soufflé, or a traditional Tiramisu, for ‘afters’, garnered praise of the highest order. The cheese (and it invariably included a ripe Stilton or a strong gorgonzola) was eaten with sliced fresh pears and dates, quince jelly, and bunches of big, juicy Muscatels, and washed-down with a good Australian Rutherglen or Taliancich Tokay or Muscat.

A favourite Italian menu was prosciutto and rock melon; spaghetti marinara made with fresh seafood, and not the imported frozen ‘mixture’ you buy in supermarkets; and a zabaglione with fresh raspberries, and, as a real treat, served with a glass of French champagne.

Curiously, so many people require a nutritionist to tell them what they should, or should not, eat. It is so simple: fresh fruit and vegetables, some meat and fish, eggs, milk, cheese, salads, legumes, beans of all kinds, and wholemeal bread with lots of grains; and nuts. In the days of yore, the secondary school curriculum included, ‘Health and Hygiene’. No – it was not about washing your hands after going to the lavatory; it was about healthy living and eating a balanced diet; the benefits of exercise; the food pyramid; simple and complex carbohydrates; protein; fats; vitamins; and the required daily basic four and seven food groups.

During the week at boarding school they fed us an Oslo salad for lunch. Originally, it was given as an experiment to school children during WWII. It was basic but nutritious, and so easy to prepare families began using it as an occasional main meal. It consisted of lettuce, grated cheese and carrot, tomato, beetroot, unpeeled and sliced cucumber, a boiled egg, and two slices of wholemeal bread with a scrape of butter. For us, the boarders in the 1960s, it was supplemented by baked beans, grated cheddar cheese, jam, vegemite, or salad, brown bread sandwiches. After school and before sport, there was a cup of tea and fruit. Summer and winter we started the day with a bowl of raw oat porridge and unpasteurised milk (the dairy was across the brook, and when the grazing cows ate the spring clover it tainted the milk. We all complained – to no avail!), and a cooked breakfast: fried eggs; mince; baked beans; or tomatoes and onions, on toast.

Of recent times I have, by force, altered my diet. I am eating even more healthily than ever I did. Mind you, I have never tasted Coca-Cola, and never eaten a fast food hamburger. I ate KFC, once, back in 1969. I have never felt the compulsion to repeat the culinary experience.

If the prospect of cooking your own food holds no appeal, think of the savings. That should be encouragement for everyone!
Roland can be contacted via [email protected] and heard every Monday morning – 10.30 – on radio 3BA.