For a Dutch audience, the film Toast and its protagonist Nigel may need an introduction. Not many people in the Low Countries will know the British chef / TV cook and writer Nigel Slater. So high time for an introduction of Toast!
Nigel Slater
Kitchen in Rosemary’s Baby Toast is the name of Nigel Slater’s autobiography, and the movie Toast keeps the story close to the book. Watch the movie and you’ll get a pretty good idea of Nigel Slater’s background. He grew up in Wolverhampton with parents who, to put it mildly, both lacked culinary skills. Nigel developed his love of food, vegetables and cooking all on his own, also out of a certain need for comfort. When his mother dies of asthma, he engages in a fierce cooking competition with his (though brilliantly cooking) stepmother to win over his father’s love. Love finds its way through the stomach, but so does hate, we learn. The film ends where Slaters’ career begins, in the kitchen of the Hotel Savoy in London.
Straight from the can
Spotted dick cake in a can In the film, Slater struggles to tolerate the food of the English lower and middle classes in the 1960s. While preparing to write the book, Slater tried to remember the taste of that food. He shopped for Smash mashed potatoes, salad sauce, and ham in a can (with jelly), steamed Heinz cake in a can (pictured) and Fray Bentos Steak Kidneypie. Unlike his childhood, he loves that food now, simply because it evokes memories of days gone by. In the movie, even warming the cans in boiling water goes awry. And for that reason, the Slater family always ate toast with butter.
But English cuisine certainly exists
Shepherd’s Pie (left) and Porkpie (right) Not to worry, Cinema Culinair uses fresh produce and cooks truly flavorful English recipes. English cuisine had a dubious reputation, but some signature dishes are truly delicious. The Dutch think a pie is a pie, but Shepherds Pie (lamb with mashed potatoes) is hardly comparable to a pork pie (pork mince in a dough crust). We follow Nigel Slater’s recipe for his Shepherds Pie, including its own little variations. And who else but a British cook could come up with a recipe of making tea? Eating during the movie Toast, is nothing less than a lesson in British food culture.
Writing about food
Sandwich with raw steak and pickled blueberries by Nigel Slater Slater thinks England is now overcompensating for the fact that British food was always a joke. Now everyone has to cook everything themselves and even the pubs are turning into “gastro pubs. Food is not in the British genes the way the French or Italians have it, he says; “The British are not passionate cooks. We are a nation of recipe followers ‘. Slater started writing about cooking and did just that: writing good recipes for a magazine. He wrote hundreds of them, and he writes as if the food speaks: “Blueberries with an underlying piquancy from red wine vinegar, juniper and rosemary works splendidly with cold roast pork. I spooned the inky-blue dressing over crisp, pinkly pickled onions and thin slices of rare beef and sandwiched it all in a suitably giving brioche bun.” Nigel Slater in The Guardian Slater also often adds a personal touch to writing about food. Food is all about memories and culture, and cooking is not a scientific skill, according to him. In fact, Slater has never really been a professional chef, he admits, much preferring to cook for a small number of guests, rather than with a professional kitchen brigade. He currently writes his scrumptious recipes for The Guardian.
