Before I moved to China, I wasn’t all that keen on meat. Sure I’d eat it if it was served to me and would probably enjoy it, but I never cooked it at home and never craved it. So when I first moved to China, I would usually favour vegetarian dishes, and if I did eat meat, I’d order chicken or beef.

But in a country where pork rules, this state of affairs was never going to last long. As I became more and more interested in the food of Sichuan and of China, my eating habits began to expand, and I tried more and more meat dishes.

The time and place of my conversion to pork I can remember very clearly. It was about a year after I arrived in China, and the Foreign Languages department of the university where I worked had taken the teachers away for a weekend break to the famous Emei mountain. We were eating lunch on our last day, at a fairly modest roadside restaurant near the small and unlovely town at the bottom of the mountain. Our boss had ordered lunch (including picking out a live fish) with the kind of enthusiasm and aplomb that speaks of someone who knows and loves food and doesn't need to worry about the bill. Soon, dozens of dishes appeared at our table, showcasing the breath of flavours that Sichuan is famous for.

Amongst the copious dishes spiked with bright red chilies or pungent Sichuan pepper, there was a subtle, pale dish of cauliflower and belly pork, the meat cut into finger length pieces that were an equal mix of fat and lean. The meat and vegetables lay in a small pool of equally colourless liquid, and it looked as if it would be a very plain flavoured, rather boring dish; as I remember, on being offered some by my Chinese colleague, I was reluctant even to try it.

I will never, ever forget the moment of my first mouthful of that pork. The best description I think I've come up with is 'an explosion of flavours'. Less poetically, it was as if I had discovered a whole new set of taste buds – there was a depth and deliciousness of flavour that I had simply never experienced before. It was a moment, and I say this without any exaggeration, of personal epiphany, and had two direct and wonderful consequences: I was instantly hooked on pork, and I started blogging about Sichuanese food soon after.

So, it was with delightful anticipation that almost exactly a year ago I planned my trip to Vietnam, where pork has almost equal a status as in China. My mouth watered even at the very descriptions of bun cha, bun thit nuong, cau lau et al...and thankfully, Vietnam did not disappoint.

I ate delicious pork dishes the length and breadth of the country – from bun cha in Hanoi, to cau lau (above) in Hoian, but there are two particular porky moments which I remember most of all. The first was in the far south of Vietnam in the Mekong delta, in a small town in Ben Tre Province. On my first evening there, finding myself unimpressed by my hotel’s food, I wandered into town to find some grub. In the small square at the main crossroads, I found a tiny noodle stall, and my heart jumped for joy.

As well as just looking fantastic, this barbecued pork was giving off an incredible smell – it had been marinating in fish sauce, chili and other flavourings for who knows how long, and was cooking over a fire made from coconut (the main local crop) shells, lending the smoke an intensely sweet and aromatic quality. It was cooked quickly, and served with cold bun rice noodles, crushed peanuts and various other goodies. It was simply gobsmacking, and I went back to that stall every evening of my stay.

The second porky moment of note in Vietnam was in the capital Hanoi, and was a rather special experience all round. Through my great friend Karin, who is Swedish, I came to meet and have the pleasure of spending some time with Thoa, the chef at the residence of the Swedish Ambassador to Vietnam. On hearing of my interest in Vietnamese food, Thoa welcomed us into her kitchen, not only at the Ambassador’s residence, but also in her own home.

The wonderful Thoa.

One afternoon, Karin and I went round to Thoa’s house for a very memorable cooking class/dinner, where we learnt how to cook nem, cahn chua, and this dish of pork and quail’s eggs, a variation of the Vietnamese classic pork and caramel sauce, itself a relative of my old Chinese favourite, hong shao rou, red braised pork. It’s an utterly sensational dish, and lucky for you, me and the rest of the world, I watched Thoa with eagle eyes and wrote down a rough recipe.

Thoa's version.

Having made hong shao rou quite a bit recently, I decided that the next time I bought a piece of belly pork from my wonderful local butcher I would try to recreate this dish at home. That day came last Friday, and also happened to be the day when I learnt that I'd got a job here. So, I made this dish in celebration, and it was, if I do say so myself, a brilliant success – the moment I starting cooking the meat I was transported back to the streets of Vietnam, the heady scent of fish sauce banishing the cold January day outside. The combination of this dish, and my recent meeting of another pork-obsessive, the talented chef here, have reminded me afresh why I adore this meat so. So, enough babbling: here, in honor of the pig, the King of Meats, is the recipe.

Thit Kho Tau (Pork and Quail’s Eggs in a Caramel Sauce)

500g of belly pork
1 spring onion
2 tablespoons of fish sauce
2 tablespoons of dark brown sugar
100 ml of water
½ can of coconut milk
6 quail’s eggs
Salt and pepper

1. Cut the pork belly into finger-length chunks, making sure that they have an equal mix of lean and fat layers. Finely chop the spring onion, and place in a small mixing bowl with the pork. Add the fish sauce and salt and pepper and mix well.
2. Hard-boil the quail’s eggs in a small saucepan, for about 10 minutes. Allow the eggs to cool by immersing them in cold water.
3. While the eggs are cooking, in a heavy-bottomed saucepan heat the sugar and a little of the water until they begin to caramelize.
4. Add the coconut milk and the rest of the water, and then add the pork and its marinade.
5. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer. Cook uncovered for at least an hour, stirring occasionally, topping up the mixture with water if it becomes too dry.
6. Shell the cooked quail’s eggs, and add to the pot about half an hour before serving.
7. Serve with plain steamed rice.

My version.

Cam’s friend Mike is in town at the moment, and comes bearing mouth-watering tales from his current home New York. In addition to veg boxes, the Park Slope Food Coop, and Mexican food, he also showed us this photo of a recent dumpster diving haul. Apparently they got about three times as much as what’s shown in this picture.

When I was a student I also used to dumpster dive with my housemates, and it was amazing some of the goodies you could get – I remember we once got several huge fruit pies (which would probably sell for at least 10 pounds a piece) from a Kosher bakery in North London. Here in China too, where just a few decades ago people were starving, I am often amazed at how much food is wasted. With this recent report revealing the disgusting quantities of food wasted in the UK, and the grim outlook for our planet generally, it makes me mad that so-called 'developed' countries like America and Britain are setting such a bad example to poorer countries like China. I guess I just have to keep my fingers crossed for a more environmentally-aware attitude to food in the future.

I couldn’t agree more. The above quotation is from ‘A Room of One’s Own’, Virginia Woolf’s famous treatise on women and fiction, which I’m currently re-reading. I first read this book some four or five years ago while at university, but having not fully given in to my foodie impulses then, failed to take much notice of this lovely passage:

'Lunch on this occasion began with soles, sunk in a deep dish, over which the collage cook had spread a counterpane of the whitest cream, save that it was branded here and there with brown spot like the spots on the flanks of a doe.

After that came the partridges, but if this suggests a couple of bald, brown birds on a plate you are mistaken. The partridges, many and various, came with all their retinue of sauces and salads, the sharp and the sweet, each in its order; their potatoes, thin as coins but not so hard; their sprouts, foliated as rosebuds but more succulent.

And no sooner had the roast and its retinue been done with that the serving-man…set before us, wreathed in napkins, a confection which rose all sugar from the waves. To call it pudding and so relate it to rice and tapioca would be an insult.’

Surely one of the most vivid descriptions of food you’re likely to find in literature. This lunch, at one of the male colleges, provides a stark contrast to Woolf’s dinner later the same day, at Girton, then Cambridge’s only college for women. This second meal is an altogether sparser affair, consisting only of ‘plain gravy soup’, beef, potatoes and greens, prunes and custard, and finally, cheese and biscuits served with water. Girton’s difficulty in obtaining funds, because it is an all-female establishment, mean that ‘the amenities' (ie. good food) 'have to wait.’

All this got me thinking about the food provisions at Sussex University, where I studied, and which were, to put it bluntly, pretty crap. There wasn’t even a canteen. At times, there was nothing to be found except tired, pre-packaged sandwiches. Anybody who cared about what they ate invariably brought their own food. It was, as I said, dire.

But miraculously, magically, once or twice a week we were saved by Gordon and Elena. This middle-aged couple from nearby Lewes, sometimes helped out by their children or friends, would arrive on campus with two enormous paella pans, portable gas burners, spices, and dozens of boxes of chopped-up vegetables. In the hour or so before the lunch break, they would fry up the vegetables in one pan, and an accompanying bean and tomato sauce in the other. ‘Poor Man’s Potatoes’ was what they dubbed their cheap but delicious concoction, which was served in aluminum take-away boxes, heaped with fresh coriander and spicy pickles. I and my friends adored this food, and would always arrive early to ensure we got some before it all sold out (and it usually did).

In the end though, Poor Man’s Potatoes’ popularity proved to be its undoing. The university catering services realized that they were losing business to this outsider, and Gordon and Elena’s license to serve on campus was revoked. There was a brief campaign to bring them back, but in the end, faced with the brick wall of university bureaucracy, Gordon and Elena gave up and found other places to serve their food.

My friends and I have reminisced many a time about Poor Man’s Potatoes, which was fuel for much of our thinking, loving and sleeping while we were at university. Virginia Woolf would, I think, have approved greatly of Gordon and Elena, and so, in grateful thanks to them, here is my own interpretation of their legendary dish.

Poor Man’s Potatoes

For the potatoes:
Potatoes, cooked
Cabbage
Onions
Any other vegetable you happen to have lying around
Garlic
Coriander seeds
Cumin seeds
Fennel seeds
Turmeric
Any other spice you fancy
Cooking oil

For the bean and tomato sauce:
Any bean (kidney, butter, chickpea are all good), cooked
Tomatoes or tomato puree
Onions
Garlic
Paprika

To serve:
Fresh coriander leaves
Spicy pickles

1. Chop all the vegetables into bite-sized chunks.
2. In a pan, fry the onions and garlic. Once slightly brown, add the garlic and paprika, and then add the tomatoes and beans. Turn the heat down low, cover and leave to simmer.
3. In a large frying-pan or wok, fry the onions and garlic. Add the potatoes and all other vegetables, mix well and stir-fry until cooked.
4. Add the spices to the vegetables, mix well and cook for a couple more minutes.
5. Serve the potatoes with a generous topping of the sauce, fresh coriander, and spicy pickles on the side.

Yesterday’s Observer Food Magazine contained a lovely article about foodie men and their mothers, and got me thinking about my own early cooking experiences.

Like Hugh Fernley Whittingstall, the first food I made totally by myself were peppermint creams. I was about 8 years old when my after-school childminder, Joy, gave me my first taste of these simple but moreish treats. I liked them so much that I immediately got her to tell me how to make them, and did so, by myself, the very next day.

And of course, like Hugh, Gordon Ramsey and the rest, my mother was a huge influence. Long before she taught me how to make such basics as a roux sauce, spaghetti bolognese and from-scratch salad dressing, I sat and chatted with her while she cooked our evening meals, and must, just by watching, have absorbed a great deal without even realising it.

By about 10, I could make a decent sponge cake single-handed, and it was around this time that I was given my first cookbook, Roald Dahl’s Revolting Recipes. This magical book, illustrated by long-time Dahl collaborator Quentin Blake, includes such gems as Stink Bugs’ Eggs (from this blog’s namesake, James and the Giant Peach)…

…Butterscotch, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory…

…and, of course, Bruce Bogtrotter’s Cake, from perhaps my favourite Roald Dahl book, Matilda.

The funny thing is, I don’t think I ever cooked anything from this book as a child. Funnier still, I nonetheless absolutely loved it. Though the recipes were just a tad too hard for me at that time, that didn’t stop me from poring over the wonderful photos and illustrations, and I remember very clearly how I would often take it down from the cookbook shelf in the kitchen to read while I ate breakfast

While I was home at my mum’s this summer, I realised that this book is perhaps the biggest reason why I now love cookbooks as much as I do. I still enjoy flicking through a cookbook while I eat, and though I may not actually have made many recipes from some of my favourites, they are nonetheless, as the Amateur Gourmet says, among the first things I would grab if my house were on fire.

So, in memory of childhood cooking, cookbooks and Roald Dahl, I present to you the recipe for Bruce Bogtrotter’s Cake. I may not be able to cook it right now (good dairy products and chocolate being rather hard to find in China), but at least I can drool.

Bruce Bogtrotter’s Cake
Serves 1 to 8
From Roald Dahl’s Revolting Recipes

Cake:
8 oz (225g) good quality plain chocolate
6 oz (175g) unsalted butter
6 oz (175g) self raising flour
4 oz (125g) caster sugar
6 eggs, separated, yolks lightly beaten

Icing:
8 oz (225g) good–quality plain chocolate
8 oz (225g) double cream

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F, 180°c or gas mark 4.
2. Line a cake pan with baking paper and butter the bottom and sides of the paper.
3. Melt the chocolate in a Pyrex bowl set in a saucepan of simmering water or in a microwave on low heat. Mix in the butter and stir until melted.
4. Transfer to a large bowl and add the sugar, flour, and lightly beaten egg yolks.
5. Whisk the egg whites until stiff. Gently fold half of the whites into the chocolate mixture, blending thoroughly, then fold in the remaining whites.
6. Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake for about 35 minutes. There will be a thin crust on top of the cake, and if tested with a toothpick the inside will appear undercooked (don't worry, the cake will get firmer as it cools). Remove from the oven, and let cool in the pan on a wire rack.
7. While the cake is cooling, make the icing. Melt the chocolate with the cream in a heavy–bottomed saucepan over lowest heat, stirring occasionally until the chocolate is fully melted and blended with the cream. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.
8. When the cake is cool enough to handle, remove it from the pan and discard the wax paper. The cake is prone to sinking slightly in the middle, so flip it upside down before icing by placing a plate on top and carefully turning over the cake pan and plate together.
9. Carefully spread the chocolate icing all over the cake with a spatula. Allow the icing to cool and set slightly before serving.

One of the many delights of my recent visit back to the UK was how much I enjoyed the food. Living in China for two years, it's easy to forget that there is a whole world of other wonderful food beyond the borders of the People's Republic. But though of course I was expecting great things from France and even London, I certainly did not anticipate the foodie heaven than Edinburgh turned out to be...

Edinburgh is one of my favourite cities in Britain, and my connection with it goes back quite a while - I worked there for a month at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2005, and have been back almost every year since. This time, I visiting my great friend Peggy Hughes, who I worked with at the Book Fest and who is now a busy busy bee on the Scottish literati scene. Knowing about my love for food, she and her lovely partner Colin took it upon themselves to give me a one-day food-tour of their city, and in doing so totally turned around my previous favourable-but-not-amazing foodie impression of Edinburgh.

We started at the Edinburgh Farmers' Market, which Peggy, who will herself admit is not the biggest foodie, is nonetheless a huge devotee of due to the infamous Hog Roast. It was a beautiful morning, and what with being festival time as well the market was packed and bustling. While Peggy headed straight to the aforementioned stall,

I chose first to sample the wares of one of the market's success stories, Stoats Porridge. This ain't no ordinary porridge; this is, if such a thing exists, gourmet porridge, exemplified by my own choice of Stoats Cranachan: porridge, fresh rasberries, toasted oats and single cream.

It was sublime, and for me at least, took porridge to whole different level.

Though my hunger was somewhat abated by this oaty delight, I still had room enough left for something I spied at one of the very first stalls - homemade Scotch eggs.

This is no supermarket junk foodstuff, but the real thing - crisp breadcrumbs, surrounding a deliciously savoury sausage meat mixture, itself wrapped around a huge, rich duck's egg.

It really was fantastic. Years ago I heard a radio program about real Scotch eggs; it must have piqued my interest for I remembered it at the market, and was so excited to try something that is usually pretty gross, but done properly is just brilliant.

And the fun didn't stop there! After the market we went for a little peek at Edinburgh Books, the magical shop that hosts some of the events at Peggy's festival, West Port; and after that, a trip to my old favourite the Mosque Kitchen.

This was but an hour or so after the market however, and I really wasn't hungry enough for a full meal. Luckily, rather than miss out on one of the best (and cheapest) meals in the city, I had the inspired idea of asking them to serve my dal in the tupperware box I'd brought along to the market for any takeaway purchases (that I didn't end up making).

The lovely mosque folks obliged; my dal was totally yummy, and even yummier eaten an hour or two later when my appetite had returned.

But it didn't end there, oh no. Much, much later in the day and accompanied by other friends, I made a trip to the wonderful, inspirational Susie's Wholefood Diner, where I ate many a delicious meal during my various visits to Edinburgh, and to where I was eager to return.

The friends I was with were, in fact, rather reluctant to eat at Susie's, and I had to insist that they would like it. Once they'd tasted the fantastic, homecooked vegetarian food however, they were of course won over (though you will have to imagine it for yourself because the dining room was too dark to photograph!).

Finally, close to midnight, it was time for my last supper: wonton soup at the Szechuan restaurant under Peggy and Colin's apartment. I won't go into too much detail about it here, because I will be doing so elsewhere soon, but needless to say, it was perhaps the perfect end to a perfect day. I guess a foodie is a foodie, wherever she is.