Table talk

This week, our critic weeps over a plate of pasta in Bristol

William Sitwell at Pasta Ripiena in Bristol

IT WAS AT A LUNCHTIME in about 1994 that I began to reassess my relationship with food. Specifically, it was a woman called Sophie Lance who did it. We were in The Fire Station – a restaurant next to Waterloo station in London – and she cried over a piece of fish. A bunch of us around her looked concerned as she breathed in deeply and wiped a tear from her eye. But there was, she reassured us, no distress. These were tears of joy. The fish, you see, was soft and tender, and just perfect.

I’ve never forgotten this because for me, food was historically more about trauma than pleasure. Growing up, the only thing that I actually enjoyed eating was my mother’s chocolate cake. But there was never enough of it to offset things like rubbery cabbage, hard carrots, chewy mince and macaroni cheese.

I dreaded meal times. My parents were so worried about my lack of eating and bony physique that I was fed spoonfuls of some green and gooey liquid called Minadex to compensate. So tears of joy? With food? Not me.

The years rolled on. Food culture, restaurants, the entire scene improved and exploded. Cabbage and carrots became edible, and then delicious (I’m still avoiding macaroni cheese), and I found myself part of the food world, eventually making a living from eating – indeed living to eat.

And I can now say that I have twice shed a tear at the joy of food, not its misery. The first time was in Paris – at a