Root Stem Leaf Flower/Time by Gill Meller
Two titles by the very talented Gill Meller
When we started doing research for our blog, one of the first things we did was start reading cookbooks. Hundreds. Of. Cookbooks…
But I gotta tell ‘ya- it was a blast! As you poked through each book, you start to get this wonderful look into the soul of a person. In this case, a chef. This particular chef is named Gill Meller. He is also a poet, a forager, a family man and what I would truly call an artist. He paints with his garden. He looks under rocks and into the sea for food treasures all the while reflecting on the memories that spring forth with the food from the earth.
These books are unusually gorgeous as well as dreamlike and introspective. It is not lost on me that this is also a fantastic collaboration with the publishing house Hardie Grant for their creative and super charged off-shoot Quadrille. They seem to understand Meller’s vision exceptionally well, allowing him to create and to be himself. Or at least they know enough to give him the head space to create and to collaborate as he wants and he needs to. Their guidance in his brand is palpable and strong in the best way.
The life force of the book is created by two people. Andrew Montgomery the photographer and Chef Meller himself. Their collaboration is ethereal. The food sort of appears organically when you flip the pages. Rather like flipping through moments rather than recipes. Even the shape of the hard covers (particularly in the case of Root Stem Leaf Flower) is different. It is much longer than it is wide. The paper pages feel like a book from another time. A little rougher and thicker than usual, these books very easily go from your kitchen library shelf to a coffee table to a bedroom night stand to be enjoyed like a novel or a set of short stories. This is not just a book you use periodically and forget about. This is wonderful reference material that you will want to revisit again and again to make you wish you lived on the British seaside where you could munch on scrumptious and juicy gooseberries every single day- in season, of course! So don’t just leave it in your kitchen to languish until you need an interesting veg dish. This is a living, breathing manual on how to address vegetables of all types.
I am not a vegetarian, but the ethos discussed in Root, Stem, Leaf, Flower: How to Cook with Vegetables and Other Plants makes me want to run to the nearest Farmer’s Market, explore and ask questions. Make no mistake. This chef is cutting edge. He’s a teacher. He seems comfortable with French and Italian as well as English and German food. Neither fancy meals nor pub comfortable meals seem to deter him. It doesn’t seem to matter for this guy. He lives in a larger than average landscape of culinary gastronomy. But it was his metamorphosis from the sausage-rolled, English comfort food chef cooking at a country hearth into this contemplative, nutrient ethical and seasonal farm-to-table food artist that makes him so compelling. It takes a profound understanding of intuitive and practiced simplicity and restraint to cook the way he does. He lets gooseberries, beetroot, sorrel and a plethora of edible flowers and herbs sing by showing you how to get the most from them— without disrupting what they already and naturally have to offer. Working with nature and not against it is not as easy as it sounds. But when you read through and make some of these recipes, it all becomes clear. This guy is like the chef version of Yoda. He’s a food whisperer. A modern day master.
The book is broken down into seasons starting with Spring. Each recipe is defined at the bottom of the page by the use of a fun little qualifier using the words Root, Stem, Leaf, Flower where one or more of these words are set in bold to let you know what the principle ingredient defines itself as. The first recipe, A Tart For May, is defined as “Stem” with a very humble statement about a grant he received from The Prince’s Trust that he used to start a tart kitchen where he could bake tarts and sell them at the local farmer’s market. And I must say, this is a tart to celebrate all tarts: gorgeously fresh and absolutely brilliant.
Reading on, I literally chortled when I read his description under the title of his deliriously yummy recipe Sweetcorn, Rosemary and Smoked Cheddar Soufflé.
“Is the soufflé on the brink of extinction?... You’ll occasionally spot one, or if you’re lucky a small group of them (known as a troupeau de soufflés), living off the kindness of a few diners. This image... shows one of the rarest and most beautiful soufflés ever documented. Please pledge your support today.”
The opposite page has an incredible picture of said “tucked into” soufflé by photogra-phenom Andrew Montgomery. I shan’t use the pic here. As I have said to almost all my friends at this point: just buy the book.
What? You want dessert? How about Blueberry, Honey and Lavender Mess? As Chef Meller says, “It’s worth growing lavender for.” Or a Blackcurrant and Lemon Cheesecake with Fennel Seed and Lemon Thyme? C’mon! You had me at fennel seed…
Meller’s humor and humanity shine through on every page. He’s cheeky as well as thoughtful. It was so refreshing to read a cookbook that can do both of these things. Keep in mind that this cookbook expresses the deliciousness and grandeur of the simple vegetable in its simple season and in a fresh new way: I think the man is genius.
But wait, I also bought another book of his entitled Time: A Year and a Day in the Kitchen.
What I need to explain here is that my partner and I have been kicking around a very Proustian idea for a cookbook based on lost memories and lost time. So when I started reading this book I knew that I had found a kindred spirit. Anybody so willing to explore the veil between seasons and moments has to be a poet.
But Gill Meller is an actual poet. Each chapter starts with a lovely poem setting the tone for what’s to come in that part of the day. There are also poems in Root Stem Leaf Flower. Light and jaunty words about the emotional life of kale or a rib of rhubarb sounds silly, but it is this sort of poetic and vegetal anthropomorphism that I can get behind. We get a glimpse of how Meller sees the world. Only a true artist would look at the world through the eyes of a pepper struggling with its Scoville level!
There is an eloquence and gentleness in this book as you explore times of year and several of this chef’s inspirational kitchens. He breaks chapters into Morning, Day and Night and in each chapter he moves through the seasons Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. The book explores artistic inspiration as it relates to seasonal cooking and the desire to relive memory through food. Again, this man’s power of simplicity is a force to be reckoned with. He is definitely not afraid to riff within the confines of it. He even tells you he is perhaps pushing the boundaries and he might be the slightest bit nervous because of it.
Take his Autumn Wild Mushroom & Sausage Chachouka, for example. He doesn’t slap around the same old spicy tomato sauce, onion, paprika, chili peppers or cumin or garlic. Instead, we find sage leaves, sausages, mushrooms, crème fraîche, butter, extra virgin olive oil, and thyme. He makes no apologies except to speak of a moment’s hesitation he has before he cracks the eggs into this version of a chachouka. Honestly, there are no apologies necessary. It is heavenly. And “why haven’t I done this before” scrolls across your mind’s eye as you tuck in.
With recipes like: Chicken Livers with New Potatoes, Ricotta and Sage, Pickled Cucumbers with Dill & Oak and Parsnip & Oat Porridge with Dates and Honey- there seems and endless list of foods I never before thought to put next to each other. But each entry speaks to his effortlessness and to his uncanny ability to know about how some foods just like certain fascinating friends with them and how some foods just like to be alone.
The simple beauty of caramelization on food is also something to be recognized here. There are may photos showing you how the vegetable has given up its sugars for a caramelized coat. In other books by other chefs, these pics look like something post apocalyptic or at the very least something like poor St. Joan on the funeral pyre: post pyre. AND we are not looking at a perfect, little tourné de cucumber forced into a football shape and bathed in butter and chervil as in French cooking. The character given by this sort of caramelization hearkens an evening of cooking at a fire and not necessarily in a saute pan. Photographer Andrew Montgomery makes this caramelization look like ethereal candy.
Inspirational kitchens, poetry, seasonal ingredients at their perfection and a Poet/Chef guiding you through the dreamlike aspects of time…
I’m not sure what else one needs to know or value in life.
Time by Gill Meller with photos by Andrew Montgomery is nourishment for your poet soul.
