In 2012 a small restaurant called Honey & Co. opened in London’s Warren Street, a stone’s throw from the BT tower. Married Israeli co-owners Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich, both successful professional chefs, set up the business on a hope and a prayer, with a tiny budget and secondhand furniture. Their concept was Middle Eastern home cooking, a mix of traditional mezze with simple stews and salads, showcasing the region’s quintessential ingredients and spices: sticky-sour pomegranate molasses, fragrant orange blossom, fiery Aleppo pepper and lots and lots of bulgar wheat.

The menu featured dishes such as apricot and pistachio tabouleh, smoky aubergine dip, slow cooked lamb with saffron rice, prawn tagine with preserved lemon and a whole host of exquisite homemade pastries and cakes. With bare walls and just ten tables they described their project as “a desperate act of faith.” Five years later, with glowing reviews, several awards, two cookbooks, a deli and a grill restaurant all under their belts, I think it’s fair to say that their prayers were answered.

When it comes to food, my experience of preserving has been limited to making a batch of muesli last more than a week. When it comes to the real business, involving Kilner jars, jam thermometers and muslin, I am very much the novice. Many a time have I watched as my mother, grandmother and aunt have brewed the annual batch of marmalade, hovering over a large silver cauldron like the witches in Macbeth, and wondered what the fuss was all about. But now that I'm older, wiser and generally more confident wielding a spatula, I've come to appreciate the social and personal value of preserving; and am determined to master it.

Salt, vinegar and sugar have been used for thousands of years to make food last longer - a necessary weapon against the threat of harsh winters and poor harvests. Luckily for us, pleasure and taste were in no way sacrificed in the effort. The earliest records of jam-making date back to the first century AD, when honey was used to preserve fruit in ancient Rome. Over time, this method made its way across the empire to Britain, and appeared in various guises (such as jellies, syrups, and compotes) at Tudor banquets. Robert May's The Accomplisht Cook of 1660, a book containing recipes fit for the great and good of Renaissance England, featured marmalade and various formulae for preserving fruits and vegetables. Fifty years later, cookery schools were teaching housewives how to make pickled vegetables, and by the mid-19th century the nation was hooked on a sumptuous Indian condiment known as chutney. As sugar and spices became more commonplace and affordable, sweet and savoury preserves moved from the domain of the aristocracy to the common British kitchen. And we couldn't get enough of them. The brewing and potting of jams, pickles and chutneys became both a way of celebrating the bounty of the season, and eking out supplies through the winter.


Fast forward a century of industrialisation, pasteurisation, the invention of mason jars and the appearance of brands such as Tiptree and Tracklement's, sweet and savoury preserves are widely available and relatively cheap - there is no need to make them at home. As a result, it is all too easy to dismiss jam-making as a superfluous, old-fashioned skill, practised only by pensioners and WI ladies in floral housecoats. However, while no one is judged for using shop-bought preserves, the homemade stuff still carries a certain cultural currency, as though those who make it know how to do things properly. The way I see it, if the ability to whip up the perfect omelette is the sign of a quality chef, making beautiful preserves is the benchmark of the top-notch home cook.


For this reason, and the fact that autumn was creeping ever closer, I decided that mastering these tricksy condiments would make a very fitting end to my summer recipe challenge. First up was strawberry jam: an elemental preserve, sweet and unsophisticated, without any airs and graces. Saint Delia (with edits from my mother) provided the formula: combine equal parts of sugar and fruit, plus the juice of a lemon. Warm on a low heat "until the wooden spoon no longer feels gritty when you lick it" (my mother’s words, not Delia’s) and then set to bubble fragrantly until you have jam. Simple enough, but my hands were sweating within five minutes, everything got sticky, and for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to put a lid on the pan while the fruit was bubbling. Fortunately Mama was on hand to correct this grave error of judgement.


Still, by the time it came to remove the saucer from the freezer to test for readiness, I was thoroughly fed up and convinced that the whole enterprise was a disaster. The well-known problem with strawberries is that, due to low levels of pectin in the fruit, reaching a jam-like consistency is quite tricky: in my family, only my grandma seems to know the exact moment to turn off the heat. (My mum quips that her own efforts only ever fall into one of two categories: soup or wallpaper paste.) So I was not feeling hopeful. However, to the great surprise of everyone involved, when I prodded the scarlet dribble on the saucer, a little wrinkle appeared. It was officially jam. Hurrah! I whipped it off the hob and (without tasting it) poured it into a single jar with a bendy orange lid. It now has pride of place at the back of the cupboard, waiting patiently until we've finished my grandma's latest batch. Naturally.

An unexpected windfall of apples prompted my next foray into preserving. There's only so much crumble a person can take in a short space of time, and it was my dad who sheepishly asked if I could make chutney, instead. "Of course!" I replied, vaguely recalling my single past attempt: a blackish, sticky and figgy concoction that you could probably lay bricks with. As I don’t really eat chutney (traumatic childhood experiences involving Branston) I’ve never really been tempted to have another go. Still, my father had laid down the gauntlet and, in the context of the recipe project, it seemed churlish to reject the challenge. So off I went in search of the formula.


Nigella Lawson's How To Be A Domestic Goddess provided the solution, with a simple recipe laden with heady spices: cloves, ginger, chilli, allspice and black pepper. Nigella begins the chapter with the declaration that chutney is “a breeze to make”, and she is absolutely right: you bung apples, onions and spices in pan, add vinegar and cook "until you’ve got a pulpy mass". That's it. I therefore couldn’t understand why homemade chutney is such a rare breed: "why doesn't everyone make it?" I asked myself, “we could all save ourselves so much money!” Then I poured in the vinegar, and the reason became all too clear.


At first I quite liked the smell, and relished in its warm (albeit sinus-cleansing) spiciness. By the time I realised that it would be a good idea to open the window, it was too late. My sister complained of a headache and quickly vacated the room, my mum walked in and started coughing, meanwhile my eyes began streaming uncontrollably. It took two days for the odour to clear. Still, I got three rather excellent jars of chutney for my pains, all of which were opened (in different kitchens) and half empty by the time my grandmother said "you must wait for a few months before you eat it: it tastes much better that way." Ah well. Maybe next time.

All of this meditative peeling, chopping and stirring got me thinking about why everyone seems to love homemade pickles, jams and jellies. Perhaps they simply taste better than their industrial cousins, though I'd be hard pushed to say whether that's due to quality of ingredients and skill, or something deeper, related to the act of preserving itself.

Preserves are inherently associated with homeliness and domesticity, condiments that (once upon a time) would probably be present in every kitchen cupboard. There is comfort in their simple flavour, their sweetness and their straightforward nature: they require little effort to eat, and need only one or two accompaniments to become a meal. Forgive me, male jam-makers of the world, but homemade preserves tend to be associated with women, and particularly mothers. Perhaps this is why toast and jam or cheese and pickle sandwiches are so often named as comfort foods of choice, because they were originally made for us by the person who first gave us nourishment. And, like a mother's embrace, is there any problem a jam sandwich can't solve?


I believe that we cherish homemade preserves because they remind us of friends and loved ones. No one seems to make them for purely selfish enjoyment, but always to share with others. A jar of jam is one of the simplest homemade gifts, one that transcends social boundaries: appropriate for close relatives, colleagues and neighbours alike. True, such generosity may be motivated by nothing more than the desire to shift a glut of allotment produce, but it remains a gentle way of showing friendship and affection, one that is universally appreciated. Where words fail, jam speaks.

Yet it seems ironic that preserves are seen as lovely, homely things, given that their origins lie in frugality, not feasting. After all, the reason we preserve food in seasons of abundance is to arm ourselves against the threat of scarcity. It may now be seen as an idle pleasure, but preserving was once a necessity, a tactic to improve the probability of survival of the winter months, a long sea journey or trench warfare. And although the situation has changed in the UK, there is still something reassuring in stocking your cupboards full of jam and pickles, so you can sleep secure in the knowledge that should it come to famine, alien invasion or World War Three, there will be enough marmalade to see you through.


Preserving is thus a bittersweet practice, both a celebration of the sunshine we have enjoyed and a grim acceptance of the darker, colder days to come. A ritualistic practice at the end of the summer, preserving is a gentle reminder of the seasons and the fact that nothing lasts forever, that the August light must give way to the greyish tint of November. But by bottling and storing the bounty of the season we find a way to enjoy it for longer: when in need of a little warmth on a frosty February morning, comfort can be found in slathering a glistening dollop of apricot jam on hot buttered toast.

Of course, no amount of jam can really preserve the light and optimism of the summer; it only provides a memory, like a faded photograph. The seasons march on and life continues on its twisty, unknowable path, with many a winter storm to blow us off course. But the giving and serving of jam is a beautiful reminder of the one constant in our existence, the one that lasts beyond all seasons and lifetimes. Love.

The decision to stop eating meat was far less difficult than I had imagined. I was introduced to the idea at university while living with two vegetarians, both of whom had equal respect for the planet and their stomachs. In a cramped student kitchen I tried tofu for the first time (I remember thinking it was subtle, silky and soothing) and realised that there was a whole world of cuisine out there that I had not yet experienced, one that was rich in variety and flavour and deserved more attention. Weekly flat dinners included a host of new and exciting dishes: tamarind-laced dhal, creamy laksa and scorchingly spicy Nepalese noodle soup. The food was interesting, satisfying (never once did I think 'this would be perfect with a lamb chop') and, crucially, delicious.

My curiosity and taste buds now piqued, I practically dismissed my student survival cookbook and began to research new chefs and recipes of my own. A host of what were once alien ingredients now started appearing regularly in my weekly shopping basket: broad beans, sesame oil, curry leaves and smoked paprika, to name but a few. Over time, I created my own little repertoire of meat-free dishes to which I returned again and again. Plenty of those initial experiments are best left forgotten (the parsnip tagine was a particular low point), but I was enjoying myself so much that by the time my final year rolled around, I was ready to give up sausages and steak for good.


No one else in my immediate family has renounced the pleasures of the flesh, and, while they have always respected my choice, they have not always been entirely convinced by it. Many of the iconic dishes of my childhood feature meat (stuffed vine leaves, kibbeh,  pasta al ragù, scaloppini Milanese), and it has been hard to assure my folks that a life without these dishes is not inherently lacking. I have worked tirelessly to prove that a meat-free diet does not mean a lifetime of nut cutlets and indistinguishable vegetable gratins. My aim remains to demonstrate that cutting out meat is not restrictive but enriching, opening the gateway to a whole new galaxy of gastronomy.

The trick, I've found, is to take vegetables from the supporting act to the star of the show, creating a selection of dishes so tasty and satisfying that no one notices the absence of meat. This summer's recipe challenge has been an ideal opportunity to try out new things on my suspicious guinea pigs, and so I have recently turned to three vegetarian cookbooks for inspiration: Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi, River Cottage Veg Every Day! by Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and A Modern Way To Cook, by Anna Jones.




There was a packet of green beans lurking in the fridge the other week, and I was sick of the sight of them. I tend to rely on beans as a last minute green fix, cooking them quickly and without much fanfare. It was high time to do something more interesting and Yotam Ottolenghi was the natural solution. His award-winning book Jerusalem marked a turning point in my kitchen: he taught me to be more adventurous with flavours (the spice rack has never recovered) and that it really is possible to 'make miracles' with vegetables. I can always rely on Ottolenghi to use ingredients in a way I wouldn't expect, and so to resolve the green bean conundrum I turned to Plenty, a book I purchased in a wholly selfish move for my mother last Christmas.


Plenty is a collection of Ottolenghi's vegetarian recipes, divided by ingredient. Luckily for me, there is an entire chapter devoted to green beans. This recipe involves blanching the beans, along with mangetout and peas, and mixing them in a bowl. Nothing new there, then. The twist is the dressing: you gently heat coriander and mustard seeds in oil until they 'pop', and toss them immediately with the veg. Among several extra seasonings are nigella seeds, a spice with which I am lately obsessed, but whose subtle flavour I still struggle to describe - it's lost somewhere fragrant between pepper, coriander and sesame. The final addition is tarragon, which I almost never use, as it only ever seems to be paired with chicken - not particularly helpful. I now know that it it lends a pleasing aniseed note to the potential blandness of the beans. Served alongside a simple tomato and bulgar wheat pilaf, the salad was an absolute hit. The whole dish is best described by Ottolenghi himself, as one that offers 'a good balance of clean freshness from the beans with the punchy complexity of the herbs and spices.' He's right: the sweet and crunchy greens were the perfect foil for such a hefty dressing. The flavour combination was utterly unexpected: spicy yet subtle, zingy and fresh. I'm now desperate to buy green beans so I can make it all over again.




This was the first vegetarian cookbook I owned. Unlike Ottolenghi, who maintains a careful distance from the diet debate, Whittingstall adamantly asserts the positives of cutting down on meat consumption. 'Call me power crazed' he says, 'but I am trying to change your life, here.' I can't say that the book has had such an impact on me, as I hardly needed convincing of the benefits of vegetarian food, but it has provided a useful bank of sturdy, reliable recipes, with comforting, uncomplicated flavours. Whittingstall also makes the valid point that vegetarian food becomes so much more interesting if you stop seeking to simply replace meat (ie. swapping your mince for TVP) and just ignore it instead - freeing you from the shackles of the 'meat and two veg' structure. Once you've done that, he argues, you 'can get on with the 'life-enhancing business of enjoying the extraordinary range of fresh seasonal vegetables we can buy... cooking them in a whole range of new and exciting ways.' Hear hear. 



Given that Whittingstall is, in his own words, 'a notorious carnivore' I felt the book was particularly appropriate for winning over vegetarian sceptics. I handed it to my sister, and asked her to pick out something that she'd be interested in eating. To my great surprise, she opted for one of the simplest recipes in the book, a 'store-cupboard supper' involving boiled potatoes (a paradigm shift as far as she is concerned) and yet more green beans. The process is straightforward: you boil new potatoes in salty water and throw in the beans for the last two minutes. In the meantime, you gently fry slivers of garlic in olive oil, adding in chopped black olives. You then mix the two together and dress with torn basil, lemon, salt and pepper. That's it. I'm not sure I agree that it tastes like a 'deconstructed tapenade' as Whittingstall suggests, but it certainly has a lovely Niçoise nuance to it. The flavours are simple, unfussy and aromatic: summer food at it's best. We ate it alongside 4-minute eggs and a crunchy green salad, and my sister had not a bad word to say. Result. 





A Modern Way To Cook is my latest vegetarian compendium. Clear, concise and uncluttered, Jones' recipes are full of interesting new ways to get the best out of veg, without spending hours slaving over the hob. Unlike Ottolenghi and Whittingstall, Jones is a full-time vegetarian, and you do get a sense that this is 'straight-up everyday food' that someone committed to meat-free eating would want to make regularly. I particularly enjoy her algebraic approach to staple recipes, providing a basic formula on which the cook can improvise - suggesting both a practical mind and a thorough knowledge of what makes a dish work. 


This was the first recipe I made from the book, when, at a last minute family get together, I needed to find a meat-free meal for me, while my relatives enjoyed beef-stuffed aubergines. Given the time and space restraints, it needed to be quick, fuss-free and economical with kitchenware, all of which Jones caters for brilliantly. This recipe is essentially an unorthodox ratatouille, created by charring grated courgettes under the grill, followed by onion, garlic, tomatoes and jarred red peppers. Meanwhile, you pan fry chickpeas in lemon zest until golden and crispy. Then you mix it all together and serve. Job done. The whole concept felt thoroughly 'modern': the reworking of familiar flavours with a time-saving, yet taste-boosting technique was a stroke of brilliance. Unusual, yes, but my, was it moreish. I put this down partly to the contrasting textures: crunchy chickpeas set against meltingly soft veg, but I had no complaints on the flavour-front, either. The faint hint of charcoal from the grill, combined with the sweetness of the peppers tasted like the quintessance of summer. I loved it, and the notable absence of leftovers (given that I'd followed a recipe for four) suggested that all the carnivores at the table did, too. They just couldn't keep their forks to themselves.

Now, I'm not under the delusion that any of these meals were enough to wean my family off meat for good, nor was that ever my intention. But I think they all served as a useful reminder that, when it comes to mealtimes, focusing on vegetables is hardly a sacrifice. In fact, it's bloody brilliant.

I think I speak for many when I say that the current weather in the United Kingdom is absolutely appalling. I look back on the long, hot days of summer 2016 as a half-remembered dream, when I walked to work in short sleeves (has anyone else forgotten what their bare arms look like?) and spent my lunch breaks outdoors. Ah me. This year I have barely managed three days without a vest, and dare not venture out without a raincoat. And yet, frustratingly, it still looks and smells like summer. Nature has reached its verdant pinnacle, everything seems green and good, and the markets are overspilling with the bounty of the season: punnets of tart raspberries and swollen purple cherries, sacks of fresh peas and ginormous bunches of spinach with leaves as big as my face. Meanwhile, the mercury is stuck at 15℃ and it continues to pour. I want to soak up the season, get my fill of sunlight to see me through the dark days of winter, but this capricious island climate continues to thwart me.

I have therefore come to the conclusion that, in the absence of light, we must make our own sunshine. And given that I lack the omnipotence to actually achieve this, I find food to be the closest available substitute. If it doesn't feel like summer outside, I must simply recreate it in the kitchen. So when the wind is howling, I eat as though I were sitting in a sunny Italian garden, the sun warm on my neck, cicadas humming softly somewhere in the background. And to create a believable illusion, authentic ingredients are required.  



Growing up, I quickly came to appreciate the importance of a reliable foreign supermarket: visits to my grandparents usually involved a trip to the Middle Eastern delis in Slough, followed by a long stint at a shop known solely as The Italian. It was the one vendor Nonna (my grandma) trusted to buy her coffee and parmesan, and, for a long time, was the only place she could find panettone for Christmas and pandoro for Easter. The shop was skinny and cramped, with a few short aisles piled high with jars of olives, tins of tuna, stacks of Mulino Bianco biscuits and more varieties of pasta than I ever thought possible. Just walking around was like a holiday in itself.

With storm clouds gathering outside, I decided it was time to seek out another such deli closer to home, and find my own little corner of la dolce vita in the home counties. Thus on a Saturday afternoon in July my sister and I set off in the pouring rain, hoping to seek a little sunshine at L'Isola Buona - a family run delicatessen, specialising in Sardinian produce. And we got lost. Twice.

"This is definitely the post code" she grumbled, as we reversed out of someone's driveway. "We must have missed it." After going back on ourselves, we realised that we had driven past the shop twice already - hidden in what may just be the country's most depressing industrial estate. Only a weather-beaten sandwich board, sticking out hopefully into the road, advertised its presence. We turned in and found a nondescript warehouse, a small shop attached to one wall, and a deserted car park. Not exactly what we'd expected, but the single window was lined with giant tins of tomatoes, which seemed like a good omen. 

My sister has a complicated relationship with potatoes. As far as she is concerned, they are only acceptable in a few choice forms: French frites (no chunky chips, thank you, too potato-y), crushed with copious amounts of olive oil and salt, or diced and roasted with piles of crispy golden onions - an Italian speciality from our Nonna. All other preparations (such as boiled, roasted or mashed) are strictly hors de menu in our house. These predilections have perhaps had less impact on my family as they might your average Brits, due to our widespread ethnic roots. With Italians, Maltese(rs), Syrians and Greeks on one side and Iraqis on the other, rice, pasta and pitta have always made up the majority of our carbohydrate intake. (Although I do hasten to point out my allegiance to the flag via my wholehearted devotion to oats.) As a result, we rarely buy potatoes, that mighty staple of the Great British Diet.

In all honesty, I have never felt that we were really missing out. Quite frankly, enduring a year of university catering, in which potatoes appeared in all manner of horrendous guises three times a day, was enough to put me off eating them for a lifetime. I couldn't really understand the feelings of comfort and warmth that potatoes seem to generate in my countrymen and women. I mean, they're fine, but are they really worth getting gooey and emotional over?

After reading the umpteenth potato paean in a newspaper this May (when the food world goes weak at the knees over the arrival of the first Jersey Royals) I concluded that I probably needed to give the humble tuber a chance. But how to sneak them into the trolley without my sister noticing? And, more importantly, how to prepare them in a way that wouldn't generate noises of disapproval? I was stumped. And so, naturally, I did nothing. But two months on, and several days into my recipe challenge, I decided that enough was enough. It was time to bring spuds to the kitchen.

At the time, my sister was in the throes of revision, spending hour after hour poring over complex-looking medical textbooks. She told me on numerous occasions that meals were the highlights of her day. No pressure, then. I realised that the only way to make potatoes acceptable to her was to include them in a meal full of her favourite things, and, if nothing else, to dress them in a mixture so thick with spice and flavour as to render them practically unrecognisable.

An English meal was out of the question (far too conspicuous) and so, perhaps counter-intuitively, I opted for Middle Eastern. I have no recollection of eating potatoes with my Arabic relatives other than Aunt Bessie's Easy Roasties, so external help was required. I turned to Marlene Matar, a Lebanese chef who has recently published a brilliant anthology of Syrian food in English. The book features a recipe for a basic potato salad, describing it as the kind of staple dish that can be altered and played with to suit the tastes and larder of the cook.

Matar does not specify a type of potato, and so, in a nod to drooling food writers everywhere, I bought my first ever bag of jersey royals. The first problem was working out how many to cook: how to ensure that we were not left with piles of potentially unappealing leftovers to make our way through? It took an embarrassingly long time to decide, as, not being seasoned potato-eaters, we were unsure of how many we would eat. Eventually we came to a decision and I tipped them resolutely into a pan of boiling salted water, jammed on the lid, and waited. Watching potatoes boil is about as enthralling as watching someone painting a fence, so I turned my back on the stove and focused on the important bit: the dressing.



Middle Eastern food suffers from the connotation that it is extremely complex and full of obscure, hard to pronounce ingredients. While there are numerous dishes that really do require hours of hard labour in the kitchen (forming kibbeh, or rolling vine leaves, for example) many staple dishes are, in fact, very simple, relying solely on quality ingredients, one or two choice spices and fresh herbs. Matar's potato salad is no exception; the seasoning requires only cumin, allspice and Aleppo pepper, with plenty of lemon juice, olive oil, and a handful of parsley. It's ready in a cinch, and you can make it in the serving dish - ideal for those of us sans dishwashers.

Unfortunately, my ever-expanding spice collection does not yet extend to Aleppo pepper (nor ras el hanout, zhoug paste or noomi basra, but I'm working on it) and so I opted for Matar's helpful suggested substitute - paprika. The result was a terracotta-coloured dressing, ever so slightly smoky, with a nice bite from the cumin and depth from the allspice. I politely ignored the inclusion of chopped white onions, as, until I can guarantee as sweet an allium as those that are sold in the Middle East, I would rather spare myself the discomfort of tasting nothing else for the next 12 hours. The spring onions worked fine on their own, though, their sharpness foiled by the addition of diced red pepper.

Back on the hob, the potatoes gurgled and spurted out jets of starchy steam. Concluding that this was a sign they'd had enough, I drained them and set about the tricksy task of chopping them while still hot, flinging them into the dressing with red, blistering fingers. Upon tasting I decided (as I often do) that it needed more of everything, and so, with faithful recipe allegiance now thrown decisively out the window, I began to re-season it maniacally. Soon the potatoes had taken on a burnished red colour, their flesh softened and glossy in the oil. They certainly did not look like any other potatoes I'd ever seen, nor did the flavour bear any resemblance to the non-descript starchiness with which I associated them. Instead, they offered a creaminess and unexpected sweetness, contrasting nicely with the vibrancy of the dressing. It was a moreish and (yes, I admit it) surprisingly comforting combination.

To avoid total disaster should my sister not agree, I went overboard with the rest of the meal, serving the salad alongside wonky rings of aubergine, griddled and marinated with herbs, smoky-salty flat beans and a spiced lentil stew that I made up as I went along. We sat down, my sister's forehead wrinkled in mild distrust. She picked up the dish and inhaled. "Smells interesting," she said in her I'm-trying-to-sound-positive-but-what-on-earth-have-you-done voice. Ever cautious, she served herself a scant tablespoon of potatoes while I looked on nervously, face flushed and clothes spattered.

I am pleased to report that after careful consideration, my discerning diner agreed that, although boiled, these were potatoes like no other. There was nothing to be done about the texture (still a major sticking point), but the flavour got a resolute thumbs up. This I considered a victory, and perhaps an entry point into an exciting new world of potato-cookery. Who knows what delights are now in-store? "Don't go getting any ideas," she warned me, swiftly cleaning up her second portion. "I still don't like potatoes." But then she moved on to thirds, so I'm feeling quietly optimistic.

Day Two: Sunday 25 June

The strangest ideas occur to you in the middle of the night. High on the success of my first new recipe attempt, I lay awake in bed, trying to recall the name of a dessert that my Iraqi grandmother used to make. Why I was thinking of dates mashed with spices at 2 in the morning is a mystery, but once the idea was embedded I couldn't shake it off.

A quick conversation with my dad confirmed the name that had escaped me: halawi, a play on the Arabic word halwa meaning sweet (both noun and adjective) and halawiat, a generic term for dessert. Both words cover all manner of spreadable, sugary delights, but the recipe in question comprised (to the best of my memory) of melted dates that are mixed with fennel seeds and left to cool to form a thick, fragrant paste. My grandmother (Bibi, in Arabic) always kept it in an ancient Carte D'Or ice cream tub, and would bring it out at the end of a meal for a final, sweet hit. You can eat it on its own or with khobez bread, but my family have always preferred to spread it thickly on plain crackers, such as Bibi's cherished water biscuits. This is a delicate business, as halawi is solid stuff; put too much pressure on the knife and the whole thing is liable to crack into a hundred fragments, leaving you with sticky fingers and a lap full of crumbs.

I'll be the first to admit that, as a child, I couldn't stand halawi: why would you ever want to ruin dates with something as yucky as fennel? And why did it smell so much? No, I only wanted choc-ice for dessert, thank you, and so would turn my nose up at halawi whenever it was offered. Meanwhile, my dad reached for cracker after cracker, lost in nostalgia for a time when he could eat it every day, when the dates came, not wrapped in clingfilm, but in baskets, fresh from the back garden.

Unsurprisingly, my dad's memory extended only to his experiences of eating halawi, not to its preparation, and so I called Bibi to get the recipe first hand. To my relief, she seemed to have no recollection of my disdain for the dish (or was at least polite enough not to mention it), but was instead delighted to hear that I was interested in making it. When I asked if she would give me the recipe she laughed and said "there isn't one". Halawi is one of those family dishes that is always present in the kitchen in some form or other, but is so well known, and has so many variations, that no one has ever felt it necessary to write the recipe down. It turns out that the fennel seeds, my defining memory of the sweet, are by no means obligatory (I had to prompt her to mention them at all) and that sesame seeds and rosewater are also optional. In a final traditional-family-recipe cliché, after hanging up the phone I realised that Bibi had neglected to pass on any instructions related to measurements. You use the dates you have and tailor everything accordingly. That's it.


So off I trotted into the kitchen, the recipe in my head, as it seemed in the spirit of the dish not to need to write anything. There was a squashy packet of Medjool dates lodged at the back of the cupboard, and I pitted them in turn, a slow but surprisingly therapeutic task, even though it makes your fingers a gooey mess. As I worked I imagined how different it would have been to make halawi in Bibi's tiled kitchen in Baghdad, homemade yoghurt dripping gently in a corner, molasses boiling on the stove, with the hot desert sun burning relentlessly through the open window. Back in drizzly Britain, I tipped the fruit into a frying pan on a gentle heat, prodding it impatiently with a wooden spoon to encourage it to soften. Little by little the unfortunately brown and sticky pile began to give, rendering a textured paste to which I added ground ginger and fennel seeds. I neglected to add the traditional cardamom as I didn't have any, and, unlike my Iraqi  relatives, don't see the need to add it to every dish in the kitchen. (Sorry, Dad). Merely opening the bottle of rosewater reminded me of dinners at Bibi's house, where it makes its way into all sorts of dishes, even plain boiled rice. Only a drop is enough to scent the entire kitchen, and my sister (whose superior olfactory capabilities make her the ultimate recipe tester) came along to investigate.

Teaspoons in hand, we carved away at the unattractive-yet-fragrant brown blob, and closed our eyes to taste it, trying to work out what was missing. After much deliberation, and adding a little bit more of everything, we concluded that it tasted good. Not the same as Bibi's, but good all the same. As I scooped it up into an appropriately battered plastic tub to harden, it occurred to me that the curse of the inherited family recipe is that, no matter how hard you try, no matter how strict a recipe you follow, it will quite simply never taste the same as you remember. Food is bound up in so much more than just method and ingredients: flavour is tied to feeling, to fellow diners and the environment in which a meal is shared. It's true that this realisation can leave you, like Proust, bitterly disappointed that the taste of youth cannot be experienced anew, but sometimes I think it's for the best. The past is a different country; ultimately, what matters is the here and now. After all, six-year-old me couldn't stand Bibi's halawi. But my own? Well, 20-something me likes it just fine.