Opinion

What’s the secret to making delicious meals? Forget about recipes and just add more butter

Nell Frizzell
I learned to cook by watching my mother, who flew around the kitchen in a flurry of post-work efficiency. She never measured a thing, but she taught me what it takes to feed people

Thu 6 Jun 2024 06.00 EDT

I don’t follow recipes. In fact, I think anyone who does is a giant baby.

[...]

Watching her in the kitchen was, I imagine, a little like observing the boiler room of a turn-of-the-century battleship: fires spitting, clouds of steam, incredible smells and loud banging. But it taught me what it takes to feed people. Being there, helping her where I could, showed me that every meal should involve something dry, something wet, something green; a carbohydrate, a protein and lots of veg. To this day, she uses butter and salt like other people use water. As a result, everything she makes is delicious.

People who can’t make a bowl of pasta or a cake without poring over a book or a website make me feel like a flat tyre. It’s food, not science. There is no single “right” way. Like kissing, cooking is something you have to practise until people stop gagging.

Nell Frizzell is the author of Holding the Baby: Milk, Sweat and Tears from the Frontline of Motherhood