Olivia Potts

I don’t know about you, but my brain has felt like soup for the last week. If I were to see you in real life, I would probably say to you ‘My brain feels like soup; does yours?’ and then ten minutes later I’d ask the same question, because my brain is soup and I am incapable of normal human behaviour. I am, it turns out, not made for heat. Or at least, not made for it in a context where I’m required to work and commute and make decisions and reply sensibly to emails, rather than lie in the shade on a sun lounger reading a trashy book until it’s time to go out for dinner and cocktails. In England we are simply not made for such scorching temperatures.

In one sense, a madeleine is simply a small cake. In fact, it’s an extremely classic cake, made with the genoise method. But there’s more to a madeleine than that: the proportions of madeleines, their miniature nature and scalloped shape, mean that they have a perfect contrast between their slightly sticky, almost crisp outside, and impossibly light and soft interior. Traditionally they are made with browned butter, which does what browned butter does best, bringing depth and complexity to a straightforward sponge. The dark muscovado and honey in the recipe elevate these little sponges from a miniature cake into something really special. The holy grail when madeleine making are those characteristic bumps in the centre of the cake, sitting like pregnant tummies.

Some dishes are just meant to be shared. I’m not talking about those items you buy on a hangover from the corner shop that sanctimoniously declare ‘meant for sharing’ or ‘share size’ on their passive aggressive packaging (I’ll be the judge of that, cheese and onion crisps and chocolate fingers). I mean something that you’ve invested energy and love into, something which demands to be passed around, praised and enjoyed; something impressive and delicious. A homemade cassoulet. A perfect chocolate cake. A batch of scones. A gala pie. The moment of cutting into a gala pie, and revealing the perfect row of eggs suspended in meat minced by your own fair hands is one of serious culinary pride.

I have never been a huge fan of cold soup. It has always seemed to me to be contrary to everything good about soup: soup is inherently warming and cheering. It demands large portions and an accompanying doorstep of bread. Who on earth would want to chill it down and serve it in tiny portions – and without bread and butter? Madness! Historically, I have made an exception for gazpacho and salmorejo on the basis that they hail from hot countries, and that they aren’t thickened with dairy. But I drew the line at what I thought of as hot soups served cold. Vichyssoise was doubtless the worst of them: give me a vat of hot leek and potato, but spare me the cold stuff. Sometimes, we don’t get what we want, we get what we need.

There aren’t many veggie stews that can lay claim to being immortalised in popular culture. Fewer still that could then complain about being grossly misrepresented. But then ratatouille is no ordinary vegetable stew. Ratatouille is a Provençal dish, made by gently cooking aubergine, courgette, and red peppers, with a tomato sauce flavoured with onion, garlic and herbs. It is, in many ways, extremely simple. But for all its simplicity, it remains the subject of confusion. If you watch Pixar’s Ratatouille, you will see the terrifying food critic, Anton Ego, reduced to a Proustian state of rapture when served what we are told is ratatouille, making him recall his childhood and his mother’s cooking.

I don’t know about you, but I find that many of the things I enjoy eating most in the summer, those things I crave when the weather is blazing hot or just plain muggy, still require some level of cooking. Those chilled soups, or sticky ribs, or even ice creams still mean standing over a hob or a barbecue or turning on the oven. Mostly, I embrace it: a hot means to a greedy end. As someone who finds relaxation in baking and cooking, I’m not big into no-bake dishes. I’m willing to turn the oven on if it means soft, baked fruit that I can chill and serve with swoops of cool softly-whipped cream, or to light my barbecue if it means beautiful, charred fish alongside a sharp, zingy dressing.

It’s thought that meatballs were brought to Sweden by King Charles XII. After a disastrous attempt to invade Russia in 1709, he fled in exile to the Ottoman empire. There he fell for a dish very similar to the Swedish meatballs we now know and, when he returned from exile five years later, he took those meatballs back with him. The meatballs grew in popularity and eventually became so closely associated with the country, that they took on the ‘Swedish’ name. But it would be disingenuous to write about Swedish meatballs and not mention that bastion of storage, that flatpack palace: Ikea. It’s no exaggeration to say that Ikea brought the Swedish love for meatballs to the rest of the world.

Early summer crops have been delayed in many places this year, thanks to the brutal rain and cold that preceded the recent heat wave, but finally, we’re starting to see tiny tomatoes, baby figs, and the first perfectly formed pea pods bursting into life. Of course, when it comes to seasonal eating, you can argue that it’s best to keep it simple, to allow the produce to ‘speak for itself’ – but, there is little that butter, shallots, and little cubes of smokey, fatty bacon can’t make even better. And that’s where petits pois à la Française comes into its own. The name rather gives it away: it’s a classic French dish, showcasing the best of the season’s first peas.

I am a big fan of a tea break. I don’t mean afternoon tea or high tea (although I’m never going to say no to a finger sandwich or a tiny cake), and I don’t mean a mug of tea at my desk or standing up in the kitchen while I do something else. I believe passionately in the restorative powers of just sitting down for fifteen minutes with a mug of something hot and a plate of biscuits. Tea and biscuits have always held an important place in my days. When I was very little, I had a Spot the Dog tea set that, every morning, my mother would fill with warm milk when she made her own morning brew. At college, our librarian insisted on tea breaks in her office to carve up the days of studying – or, in my case, procrastination while waiting for the bar to open.

If, like me, you’ve watched every episode of the Great British Bake Off (twice), all the professional series, Junior Bake Off, and the celebrity charity episodes, you might need to look further afield for your next fix of television baking competitions. Fear not, because the GBBO franchise is wide-reaching: the format has been sold in 20 territories, and I have found myself hooked on the French offering: Le Meilleur Pâtissier (‘The Best Baker’). At first glance, it appears identical to the British version. In a tent, bedecked with bunting, a bunch of amateur bakers are collected together at pastel-hued baking benches.