The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - The Telegraph Magazine
Feed a crowd
A Telegraph family feast
A DELICIOUS LUNCH, eaten in the garden of a beautiful house in France, with the people you love best in the world, is a dream. Cooking that lunch for 36, on a stove that takes three hours to come up to temperature, with an oven door that has to be held closed by a luggage strap, is more like… well, for Pascale Smets, no problem at all. A former fashion designer and now the owner of a homeware shop, Pascale, at New Street Market in Woodbridge,
Suffolk, Smets is the wife of the Telegraph’s beloved cartoonist Matt Pritchett. They have four children, Edith, 25, a cartoonist for the slownews website Tortoise; Mary, 23, a ceramicist and jeweller; Henry, 21; and 17-year-old Dorothy.
Smets herself is one of five siblings, all of whom have large families. ‘My sister Benedicte has four children, my sister Zazie five, and my two brothers each have three, all now giants,’ she says. ‘It was magical for them growing up, to come here for the holidays.’
‘Here’ is an 18th-century house on the banks of the Charente river, which Smets’ parents bought 33 years ago, just before her father, Luc, an economist, retired. There are family members living in Spain, South Africa, Belgium, Germany and France, and the clan, minus two cousins, have gathered at the house to celebrate Luc’s 90th birthday. There is swimming in the river and the annual barefoot football match, played in bikinis or shorts. ‘Someone usually breaks a bra strap or a femur,’ says Smets. ‘Luckily there were no trips to A&E this year.’
But there are tasks, too. Smets is super-organised and a great cook. She is also a good delegator. Every summer for
Smets and one of her sisters take charge of the food, and everyone is given a job to suit their skills
her father’s birthday, she and one of her sisters or sisters-in-law take charge of the food, and everyone is given a job to suit their skills. Her brother-in-law Martin tends the Argentinian-style barbecue, and her niece Esther has made a spectacular cake. (‘She has been working in a Parisian restaurant kitchen, doing puddings and first courses.’)
Smets was 19 when she met Matt. They were introduced by neighbours because he was already at Central Saint Martins art school and she had just won a place. She would later design for Daniel Hechter in Paris, Jean Muir in London, and then her own label, and has also written a novel with Benedicte. But preparing and presenting food has always been important to her. ‘When I was working in fashion I would come home after a long day and cook; it’s incredibly relaxing. Cooking occupies your hands and your mind, just to the level where you’re not worried about stuff. I read cookbooks like other people read novels, and when the family is at home I go through them on a Sunday morning and write menus for the week.
‘My view of entertaining, which was my mother’s – I got everything from her – is that the food should be very simple but lavish,’ Smets explains. ‘I’d much rather give people lots of nice chicken than a little bit of decorated quail.’
She chose salmon for this year’s feast. ‘Pa likes fish,’ she says, ‘and wrapping it in vine leaves protects it from the fire. When you take off the burnt leaves, the skin of the fish peels off too.’ Smets has a collection of platters and bowls, some antique, some from her shop, which she uses to complement the food.
‘Growing up, our family was one where anyone could drop in for any meal,’ she says. ‘Matt says when he first met [them] you had to shout in sound bites, and as you were talking someone might steal the sausage off your plate.’
‘I was overwhelmed at first by that great mass of people,’ he admits with a grin. Now he keeps an eye on his plate. Instagram @pascaledepascale; pascalestore.co.uk
‘My view of entertaining, which was my mother’s, is that the food should be very simple but lavish’