Food and Me

The photo above captures a moment of moments: Classic Samantha Coutts (me) has more food on her face then in her mouth.
Everyone has a story about food, so I thought I’d share mine. I am a food enthusiast and passion for food formed where most do, with my family.

Now, we are not your big Italian family with Nonnas (I can only wish), or a French family with freshly cooked pies sitting in our windows (sorry that’s just how I imagine French homes) we’re just a family that likes their food.

My Nana is a fantastic cook – taking most of her specialties from the classic cookbook ‘Common Sense Cookery’. Her lemon delicious pudding is enough to knock your socks off. My Grandpa was into the preserves and spices, making chutney upon chutney to perfect the recipe, and trying the menu items at Indian restaurants with the 5 star hotness rating.

Being surrounded by people who loved food at such a young age it was hard for it not to catch on. My mum probably having the most effect on my respect for food. Doing a commercial cookery course and working as a chef for a couple of years, she taught me a lot of what I know.

Occassions for our family are always centred around food. Food acted as the trajectory for the days events. Nana always brings more then she should, Mum’s always putting something different and unusual on the customary cheese plate, and my Auntie putting a Holland spin on the usual meat and three veg.

After high school it was apparent that I needed to make a decision with what I wanted to do when I grew up. Food seemed the only logical option. So I enrolled at Tafe culinary school, under a full years certificate in commercial cookery.

With my crisply starched uniform on I looked like I chef… but I had so much to learn. My year consisted of ongoing preparations of stocks, sauces, batters, cakes, tarts, pulling apart huge carcasses of meat, chopping vegetable upon vegetable, cooking meat upon meat and serving dishes I never thought I could produce. It was a year of discovery.

There is something so rewarding in cooking, like any trade you have an end product that is physically in front of you, that you made with your own two hands (and the aid of some fancy equipment and a not too shabby recipe). You can be a creator, an experimenter, a risk taker all in the simple combining of ingredients and cookery methods.

This is where foods excitement comes from for me, we are the only animal that cooks its food, and we’re extremely good at it. Every day for me steams with the possibilities of 3 new meals, (maybe a couple more if I’m lucky). It is only with food that I wear my heart on my sleeve, it is only with food that I can bare all. Food is what I’m about, its where I want to be and its what I’m good at. Food and me are like two peas in a pod, and I plan on it being that way for a long time.

So I guess this article is a tribute to food, for making me the person I am today.

Comment below and tell us what sparked your food obsessions and loves!

By Samantha Coutts