Good Food, Bad Food
I can’t pinpoint the exact “epiphany” moment when I realized my destiny in this world is to cook food. And it was always a question of mine: what in my life, aside the natural tendency, led me to become a chef? Maybe it wasn’t about one moment but there were a lot of indications.
The late 90s – early 2000s weren’t exactly the pinnacle of finesse. I have a lot of high school photos that prove this exact point: wide-legged jeans, lots of colorful lycra tops, and dresses with such bizarre designs that you couldn’t be sure if you were wearing them upside down or inside out. And then, of course, there was the emo trend, but let’s not even go there.
The same lack of finesse could be found in food during that time. Growing up in Cyprus, it seemed like everything was about making money from, let’s be honest, pretty average food. For example. have you ever been on a school day trip by the beach and the food that you PREORDER A WEEK AHEAD, was half a dozen questionable fried calamari rings or a chicken burger sitting between two lifeless buns, with one sad lettuce leaf and a warm-ish tomato slice? If you’ve had this experience, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. I don’t need to mention the state of the fries, right?
It was also around that time that Knorr soup sachets made an appearance in the supermarkets…damn they were NOT good. That horrible texture and taste still haunts me to this day. A chicken noodle soup should NEVER come out of a 60gr sachet.
Cookbooks were written on how to make what I call “pyrex fridge desserts” – whip some vegetable fat, add sugar and canned fruit and let’s call it a triffle – and “fancy” Chinese food was nothing more than lemon chicken out of a jar.
If there was one person that really showed me what good food should taste like then I have to say it was grandma Alexandra. You might be thinking “how cliché” and it’s fair enough. But her food always tasted the same which is an art of its own, she never took shortcuts and never stopped cooking. Jars of preserved fruit are filling up our fridges all those years, her pastitsio was simply the best I ever had- my cousin “blamed” her for not being able to enjoy anyone else’s pastitsio – her chicken and lemon soup could heal everything, even a broken heart. It was food I enjoyed and took for granted, and I’m not saying this in a bad way but because it was a constant in my life, something I could always rely on. And now that she has passed, the memories still linger in my brain and taste.
It was only the last couple of years, especially after COVID that I discover what real, traditional Cypriot food is. The enforced physical distance was the catalyst to start looking deeper into my roots and beyond those questionable, badly fried, calamari rings, that once represented Cypriot cuisine for me.
As I’m typing this, I’m having an epiphany. Maybe I became a chef because, deep down, I knew food could be so much more than powdered minestrone and salmon vodka pasta. My grandma showed me this.
When I decided to make cheese, halloumi didn’t even cross my mind! Why? Because of that feeling of resentment for very average food.
The roots I ran away from all these years, are now coming back full circle, but in the way I want them to be - without shortcuts. As for the cheese I make, even though it’s not a halloumi per se, it still honours the traditional technique of halloumi making. But most importantly, it brings back memories.
Until next time,
Alex