Simple truths

"Culinary art is not solely the making of a sumptuous dish; not at all! It can be magnificently achieved in preparing the most common and simple dishes.

"Do you think it is easy to prepare a fried egg without the white being tough, the yolk heated but not overdone? Have you often had fried potatoes golden brown to a turn, creamily soft inside and crusty? And the ordinary pot-au-feu of our grandmothers. Have you often tasted it with appreciation and surprise? That is when it is deliciously perfumed, soft and juicy but still firm.

"The triumph of cooking is to be able to produce the simple things so that they taste as they were meant to."

James Beard in "Delights and Prejudices"

"Appetites..."

"From the cooks in the kitchen, local island women, I ordered curried chicken or lamb stew or fried conch fritters, depending on my mood. If they were not too busy, they let me watch as they cleaned redeye fish or gutted chicken cavities, wiping scales and blood across their apron fronts and singing songs about the island, about whalers out to sea and the heartbreak of poor Josiah Moody, abandoned by his cheating wife.

"When I joined in singing the parts I'd learned, they chuckled. 'Funny child! Don't you have better things to do than watch a bunch of biddies work!' I shrugged and then shook my head, which only made them chuckle more. 'Will you sing the one about the fisherman's daughter?' I would ask.

"Usually they gave in, sometimes sharing with me the hunks of papaya or toasted coconut they munched from bowls. Then when they tired of singing, I carried my plate to the bamboo love seat against the wall of the hotel.

"I took tiny swallows of soda and poked at my conch or chunks of lamb, trying to make my supper last, passing the time until the dinner crowd thinned and I could rejoin Mother."

Pamela Moses in "The Appetites of Girls: A Novel"