Keep it simple, says famous food author

Press, 2 April 1985, Page 8

Keep it simple, says famous food author

Being pretentious about food is simply not fashionable, says Mrs Ellen Sinclair, who was food editor for 20 years with the “Australian Women’s Weekly.”

“It’s not good to be pretentious about food because if you spend all day cooking for a dinner party, you’ll spend all evening wanting people to appreciate the food and nothing else,” she said in Christchurch yesterday. “Food is interesting, but ' people are more important, so it’s much nicer to just serve simple food in a relaxed atmosphere.” The new trend in food is for simplicity and speed, she says. Mrs Sinclair is in New Zealand to promote her latest, 400-page recipe book, “The Ellen Sinclair Cookbook.” “I have established a new style of cooking based on my own experience," she says. “The modern woman doesn’t have time to shop and look for way-out ingredients. You want to be able to buy everything at the corner shop on the way home from work.” Eating at home is becom-

ing much more popular because of the rising price of food and, therefore, the cost of a meal in a restaurant, she says. Dinner parties at home can be simple, but still “dressed up” with a better atmosphere than at a restaurant. People still do eat out, but they then expect elaborate dishes and will pay for them. That is the role of a restaurant, said Mrs Sinclair. “A woman at home

doesn't have anyone to make her sauces for her, she cannot expect the same extensive detail.” For 20 years, Mrs Sinclair thought up new recipes each week and had them tested in the kitchens at the “Australian Women’s Weekly” in Sydney. She has published more than 30 recipe books, at least two of which have sold more than a million copies. Does a person ever run out of new recipes? Apparently not. Mrs Sinclair’s next book, on Italian food, has been finished and she has plans for 12 more. She finds more time these days to work on her recipes; she retired 18 months ago. “Now that I’m at home, I sit there at the table, overlooking the (Sydney) harbour and think about food that I like and how to make it even better.” Food is similar to fashion, says Mrs Sinclair. “It has trends — you want to know whether to intitiate a trend, drop it, or to keep up with one. “It’s like clothes — you want to buy a lavender dress but the people in the shops tell you that that colour won’t be here until next year.”

Mrs Sinclair thinks it important to have first-hand knowledge of the foods in different countries before writing about them. To find her recipes, she has travelled round the world, sampling exotic fare and talking to restaurateurs. The difference within the countries is quite noticeable, she says. For example, in Italy, there are at least three different methods of making the famous minestrone. In the north, rice is used, in central Italy it is made with beans, and in the south pasta is used. Thinking up names for a recipe is not difficult, she says. The name should indicate what is in the recipe. A book should also have as many pictures as possible, so that the cook can look at the illustration and say, “I’ll make that — it looks good,” she says. Recipes should be short, so that cooks do not tire of a long and difficult task. Last and most important, the recipe should be flexible, so that the cook can use what is in the cupboard “and not have to go and buy something exotic which you use only once then leave.it sitting in the cupboard for a year.”