At the French Film Festival this year, there’s a beautiful food movie The Taste of Things . This historical romantic drama, set in France in 1889 on a country estate, delivers a parade of exquisitely executed French haute cuisine. I have no doubt that the food and wine budget was eyewatering by anyone’s means.
By the end of the movie I think the entire audience would have signed up for Dodin’s pot au feu, for the bone marrow alone, or Eugenie’s show-stopping seafood vol au vent, or her omelette norvegienne , as baked alaska is known in France - two tender sponges sandwiched with home-churned icecream, encased in rosettes of golden flambeed meringue. Food has this magical way of transporting us and right now, you might think that rich, heady French cooking would be exactly the order of the day to fend off winter’s cold. However, instead of opting for the butter and cream-laden pleasures of French haute cuisine, I find the best means to elevate my mood in the face of these long cold winter nights (and avoid that sluggish feeling you get when you eat lots of heavy rich food), is to fire up my palate with some spice.
The fiery heat of a chilli has a fabulous way of kicking endorphins into action, delivering a little lift, that’s so appreciated at this time of year when the days are nearly at their shortest. Capsaicin, the tear-forming, mouth-burning, heat source of the chilli (found in the greatest concentrations in the white pith), causes your brain to produce endorp.
