Eddie’s food gripes: those food purists who make a fuss about a stock cube
Adeline (nickname: Eddie) loves food, lots of it and often, both at home and out. Usually that goes well, but sometimes it doesn’t. In the series Eddie’s food gripes you can read about the latter. This time: those food purists who make a fuss about a stock cube.
The family member spooned the tomato soup into their mouth in large scoops. Leek sliced by hand, meatballs seasoned and rolled by hand, hours of simmering, and a little help with the base from the supermarket. It was truly the best tomato soup they had tasted in a very, very, very long time. How did I make it? Well, leek sliced by hand, meatballs rolled by hand, and then I faltered a little.
Had I cheated with my base? Should I have simmered tomatoes for hours, strained and puréed them? Was my soup less tasty because I had cut corners? I quickly confessed to the little help with the base, and judging by the ‘ooh’, I could have sworn that the family member in question found it just a tiny bit less tasty. Shit.
My very own grandmother
The other day, while aimlessly scrolling through Instagram, I saw a chef declaring war on the stock cube. It essentially came down to calling it a form of culinary decline. If you used such a flavor enhancer, had you really cooked it yourself? Remarkable, because in my 35 years of life, there are only two people I have seen make a proper stock from bones—or whatever else can be used to make stock—entirely from scratch. 1) The chef at the restaurant where I worked for quite a few years, and 2) an overzealous friend who thinks he should really have been a chef.
Even my very own grandmother simply throws a stock cube into her pea soup.
Simmering bones
In all honesty, people: who has the time for that? Of course we make a decent pasta sauce ourselves from canned diced tomatoes. Just as we pore over the ingredients for a divine curry. But make our own stock? What a palaver. I can already see myself standing over that stove for hours, above simmering bones and carcasses, and then straining it until I’ve got an ounce of chef-worthy stock.
Which I would then use as a base, because it is what it is.
Secret recipe
To all food purists: let us happily chuck those cubes into the pan on a weekday. At least this way, you can be sure we’ll never top your recipe, while we’ll only be grumbling about those simmering bones around Christmas. Although I do have a tactic for that: just say it’s the secret recipe. Just like my grandmother does with her pea soup. No one dares claim that a Maggi cube is what makes the difference.
Also read:
- Eddie’s food gripes: flavor combinations that make absolutely no sense
- Eddie’s food gripes: those people who don’t like anything
- Eddie’s food gripes: the battle with cling film
