Free Mission: Cook! by Robert Irvine Page A

sneering opinion of the phrase “English cuisine,” which has persisted up until just the last few years.
    My mother, Patricia, was a typical English cook. That meant that in the span of a week, we usually ate lots of tinned and processed foods, our mains were inevitably indifferently cooked, and starches were plentiful but invariably bland unless smothered with salt or butter or English mustard. Fat was welcome; bright green color on a plate was not. Desserts were sweet puddings. I often subsisted from day to day, once I stood tall enough to reach the icebox, on boxes of cereal drowned in gallons of milk. Fresh was an adjective seldom applied to ingredients in our house. Special attention was reserved for anything that resembled or was reputed to be a vegetable. These were boiled mercilessly until pulverized, and with extreme prejudice.
    But my mother was a born roaster.
    Whether she chose to roast a chicken, a joint of beef, a goose, or a whole turkey, it was always delicious. The aromas would permeate and anoint the household as anticipation built toward the climax of its presentation at the table. The skin was crispy and perfect, the flesh tender and succulent, juicy, and bursting with flavor.
    Robert as a young boy
    Therein lay the redemption of the typical British cook.
    I remember participating in the preparation of Sunday dinner at about age ten. Our kitchen at that time was simple, neatly tiled, small but comfy and functional. In fact, the ancient Aga range was the source of most of the heat in the house, which was not all that unusual in our neighborhood then. I can remember often scrambling out of my room in winter through utterly chilly hallways to the crispy, comforting warmth provided by that oven. My mother would dry the washing on a line by the range, and it was her practice to heat water on the stovetop for the children’s baths when we were all small enough to be scrubbed in a big tin washtub on the kitchen floor.
    I would help my mother “prep,” often with my sisters, dressing the roast the night before. Mom would rise early Sunday morning and put it in the oven. The scents would make their way through the house, greeting me when I rolled out of my bed. My father, Patrick, would nearly always leave to play a round of golf. I would busy myself tending to the grass in the garden, or playing soccer with my friends.
    The man of the house would arrive back at home at exactly 2:30, and dinner would be on the table. Mom would usually serve three or four different kinds of potatoes with dinner. My dad has an Irishman’s fascination with every kind of potato imaginable. My mother’s roasted potatoes were delectable and memorable. She would parboil them first, then roast them to a faultless golden brown, salty and crunchy on the outside, moist and soft on the inside. Sides would include mashed carrots or peas, Brussels sprouts, turnips, or parsnips, cooked to death. You had to eat them to get to your dessert, and the price was well worth paying. Treacle custard, spotted dick, or steamed pudding might be on the menu, all excellent.
    Mom plated each of our dinners and served us individually. Our plates were piled high and we feasted. Those meals remain some of the most satisfying in my memory. I was a kid who ate as much good food as I could get my hands on, but I always left room for dessert. On that score, I usually managed to grab my father’s dessert as well. The man simply overestimated his capacity for potatoes and ran out of room.
A PERFECT SUNDAY DINNER AT THE IRVINES’
    T HE SUNDAY DINNER IN ENGLAND IS MORE THAN JUST FOOD; IT’S A TIME when families sit and dine together. It’s the end of the week, and the wholedinner turns into a ceremony. It is the weekly celebration of an Englishman’s house as his castle. Sunday dinner means as much to an Englishman as does Mass to a Catholic.
    A great Sunday lunch might consist of an appetizer, like shrimp cocktail, followed