Food is often linked to nostalgia, but it turns out cooking for the future can be emotive too
A Saturday afternoon and I am in the kitchen, ministering to a steaming pot of pork and chorizo stew, much as a parent might attend to their baby in the bath. I know this dish intimately. I understand its rhythms, the way the garlic and smoked paprika, the pork and tomatoes will first shake hands and then drop into a deep hug if properly introduced. As a result, I never deviate from the set method, because that would feel like choosing to walk in the wrong direction in the misguided hope of eventually finding my way home.
Except this time. Today I am making adaptations. It is forcing me to concentrate. Usually, the stew contains a tin of drained butter beans. Usually, the pork is cut into one-inch dice. Neither is true today, because this bubbling pot is not for this evening’s dinner. I don’t really know when it will end up on the table. Possibly three weeks from now, maybe sooner. I am about to be incapacitated briefly, while I become the proud owner of a shiny new hip; certainly, I won’t be able to take my regular position standing at the stove, sorting family dinners. Instead, I am cooking for the freezer. I am here, projecting a part of myself, the greedy feeder part of me, forward in time.
