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a healthy church...transformingLIFE

Tasmanian Anglican

November 2004

 

Editor's Angle - The secret of sauce

by Sheelagh Wegman

 

 

Recently I read an 'un-put-downable' book about a young boy with Asperger's Syndrome.

One of this boy's obsessions is that he will not allow any one kind of food on his plate to touch another. Carrots must maintain their distance from peas; peas must never collide with chips. If they slide around and touch, the boy screams and refuses to eat. Separateness must be maintained; each food must be isolated, each flavour entirely alone; no scope here for development into a rich and satisfying dish, where carrots still taste like carrots and peas like peas, but somehow taste richer and warmer in combination with other ingredients.

I once heard a famous French chef declare, 'the secret of any dish is in the sauce. It enhances and binds the dish together.'

A good sauce or gravy will blend the sharp flavours with the mild, the hot and spicy with the smooth and subtle, and develop a flavour entirely of its own, yet still redolent of the different ingredients it has absorbed. Such a sauce can make all the difference between just filling the stomach or relishing a feast. Mere eating becomes 'dining'.

One of my delights is to come home after a long day and open the front door to the warm aroma of the evening meal, ready to eat. The slow crockpot or big cast iron casserole has been simmering quietly all day, softening, blending, mellowing, transforming the ingredients into a unique combination that warms and satisfies the body as well as the soul.

Bit like a healthy community, I reckon - lots of individual ingredients, united by a deep-flavoured sauce. Real nourishment.