4 things I learned about food in 2024

Never be afraid to ask questions

The people that grow and make our food want to tell us about it. Creating food is such an involved process and those that put it on our tables by being on the front line, whether in the fields, barns or kitchens, I have found are more often than not willing to tell you about what they're doing, how they’re doing it, and why they’re doing it. By getting closer to the people who make our food we not only learn about the process and potential nutrition of the food they’re making, but also how tough it is to create something that perhaps sits on our plates for a matter of minutes - giving us an appreciation of the true cost of our food. That bag of carrots in your cupboard? They took around 3 months to grow. Crazy right?

Beans could save us all

I knew beans were important. You cannot spend most of your time cooking vegetarian food and miss this; however the bean train has really taken off this year, and with it some incredible producers such as Hodmedods (who champion the growing of lesser known beans in the UK) and Bold Bean Co. (who have shown us that buying beans in glass vs. tins really is a gamechanger for taste) have been leading the charge in the UK on how we use these tiny seeds to change the world.

Protein and micronutrient rich, they help to mitigate climate change as their production creates lower greenhouse gases than other sources of protein, are affordable to most budgets, have a long shelf life (dried, jarred or frozen) and benefit soil by helping build nitrogen into land which may be otherwise depleted from other crops. For more beany facts check out the amazing work by Beans is How; and here’s a bean-focused recipe from me too.

How sourdough really works

This year I had the absolute pleasure of spending an indulgent week baking with Richard Bertinet. From garlicky pistou stuffed rolls to the crunch of fresh baguettes, we baked kilos of dough between the ten of us and ended the week with sourdough. Spoiler alert here - bread was not my forte before this experience – particularly as the sort of cooking I focus on tends to be gluten free. Of course I know that the wonderful bacteria we find in the sourdough mother helps to ferment the bread, making it more easily digestible, but I hadn’t quite got my head around the fact that these clever bacteria can actually reduce the immunoreactivity of gluten (hence some people who are gluten intolerant can tolerate sourdough). There’s also a belief that even in non-sourdough bread, with a long enough proving time (1-2 days) that the gluten could reduce also – something I’m continuing to look into. Safe to say though I am now baking sourdough (and other fermented breads) with the fervency of someone peak lockdown and everyone that comes to stay is very happy about this.

Cooking is more than creation, it’s therapy

I suppose the big feeling I’ve had this year is that every time I step into the kitchen, whether on retreat, for a private dinner or on a lazy Sunday, once I’m there I’m in the moment. Time evaporates in the best way – it's a flow state. So many of us spend increasing ladders of time on devices, yet when I hit the kitchen, and when I see people I teach using their hands, something changes. For me it’s not about forcing people to come to realisations in the kitchen; but about creating a space where for a few hours they can forget what’s going on outside and connect back to themselves and their food on a physical level. Food really is the medicine.