‘Whoever we are, food unites us’
Tom Parker Bowles had just enjoyed ‘the best breakfast he had ever had’ at the Galle Literary Festival: egg hoppers, dhal, fish curry and two sambols.
It is a rather gratifying comment because Tom is one of Britain’s most recognised food writers, frequently spotlighted in publications such as Tatler, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, Country Life, the Mail on Sunday among others.
Tom Parker Bowles at GLF: Savouring the spices
Tom’s passion for food was nourished by an idyllic English childhood. He grew up in three country houses in Wiltshire amongst hedgerows, woods and gorse heaths with younger sister Laura and their parents who, unusually for that milieu and time, were always there for the children – mum Camilla (nee Shand; today England’s Queen) rearing them on ‘good plain English food’ – roast chicken, cottage pie, a salad well-tossed etc., rustled up from the garden of their father Andrew, a military officer who was Silver Stick in Waiting (a formal bodyguard) to Elizabeth II.
But Tom is no ‘armchair chef’ and enjoys rolling up his sleeves to cook. “It relaxes me, and makes me happy,” and wherever he goes “whether Mexico or Sri Lanka” he always returns loaded with recipes.
Despite having had his first taste of chilli or of any spice at twelve (having only ever tasted Tabasco sauce in a Bloody Mary before), Tom is a huge fan of the fiery condiment and says he cannot have enough of Thai, Mexican and Szechuan food.
As someone who makes a living eulogizing (and criticizing) food, for Tom food is ‘everything’- “a prism through which you see history, health, wealth, happiness”.
“Everyone has to eat. So whoever we are, wherever we are born- it unites us. Even if you are no good at the language, you can always go and point at a string hopper and go ‘yum’. The primal basic connection you have through food doesn’t need a language.”
In his book ‘A Year of Eating Dangerously: A Global Adventure in Search of Culinary Extremes’ written 15 years ago, Tom enumerated some of the most outlandish dishes he savoured – “from cold blood soup in Thailand to dog soup in Korea- (fortunately now banned)”.
“I’ve eaten pretty much everything- pig’s anus, pig’s penis, every insect…” and “while some may not be to my taste, that’s not to say they are ‘wrong’ or ‘right’.”
As for British cuisine, he does not make apologies for its reputed blandness. He does not gainsay those tourists who flock to England to eat an ‘awfully bad, overpriced’ pie or ‘an awfully bad Scotch egg’, ‘and go home saying ‘oh British food is awful’’. But this, he says, is really a matter of ingredients for British food is based (and best done) only with ‘the best ingredients’ and their signature dishes – good roasts and puddings – can, in all fairness, be quite delightful.
Tom laments that the English lost their touch with the land following the Enclosure Acts while early and massive industrialization did not help at all and these combined led to a people with a “poor culinary history”.
He garnered a lot of insights to his island’s gastronomical portrait from having written ‘Full English: A Journey through the British and their Food’, an account with “West Country cider brewers to Yorkshire tripe dressers” covering “fish & chips in the North, Balti in the midlands, and snail porridge at the Fat Duck”.
While this is Tom’s maiden visit to Sri Lanka, he is no stranger to our own food, given that he is steeped in the cosmopolitan food scene in London. “In London you have four areas where you have Sri Lankan communities and where there are Sri Lankan communities, you have good food and good restaurants.”
There is Harrow and Wembley in the northwest and Tooting and Croydon in the south. “That’s where you get introduced to hoppers, stringhoppers, black pork curry, or roti…”
“Among smart restaurants there’s the small group called Hoppers which really I think are the pioneers in showing the British how beautiful, how exciting, how vibrant Sri Lankan food is… There’s also Paradise in Soho.”
“I don’t call Sri Lankan cuisine a trend because trends come and go. Once you taste Sri Lankan food, you don’t want to go back. You have got everything- you have got India, Indonesia, a bit of the Dutch- and all these spices that are uniquely Sri Lankan…”
Verging on fifty, Tom who is ever ready for many more culinary adventures, lives in London with his wife, two daughters
aged 13 and 16, and their dog.
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