My father was a stickler for the most carefully cooked rare steaks and roasts, and there was often palpable tension in the air come Sunday lunch, when my mother endured Betty Draper levels of pressure to get it all right, and all on the table, hot, at the same time.
One Christmas day, my father even managed to persuade the family to swap the traditional turkey for a rib roast and Christmas was almost cancelled during the ensuing rebellion. Once in a blue moon, or so it seemed, my food heaven would appear instead of the usual bovine hunk. A large roast chicken, stuffed with bread, onion and parsley, and accompanied, I guess to my father’s relief, by beef-flavoured Bisto-enhanced gravy.
It’s no wonder, then, that when the first Staub cocotte or Dutch oven, came into my life in France in my early 40s, it was a real love match. I had somehow completely bypassed Le Creuset and slow-roasting or casseroling on the stove top or in the oven in a closed pot were simply not in my repertoire. (The only large pot I owned was a, or pressure cooker, given to me, alongside a stout cookery book, by my then future mother-in-law.
To add to the appeal, the black cast iron makes for a beautifully photogenic background for all that it cooks and is more than chic enough to be brought to the table. The lid is so heavy it feels like you are sealing an ancient tomb when you slide it into place, encasing the ingredients perfectly to cook in their own juices and flavours.
And as I change kitchens again, my trusty Staub will of course be making the journey. But I at last have a hankering for some Le Creuset, not a closed pot, but a beautiful, 28cm wide, open braising dish with handles, in their creamy beige “meringue” colour. It looks so good, and suits the quicker, more visible way of cooking I’m interested in these days, allowing me to brown nice chunks of fish or meat on the hob before finishing them off in the oven.