This article is taken from the November 2022 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

---

After a lifetime of gazing into a woman’s eyes, a man ought to be able to read her mind. Though my gaze has been intense, if intermittent, for over 45 years, I still can’t divine my wife’s intentions. I ought to have spotted some malign gleam or secret strategy when she approached me recently with a culinary question.

She asks me about food from time to time — sometimes to flatter my vanity, sometimes to expose my ignorance, sometimes to vaunt superior recipes of her own or of some grand chef, but rarely to seek information. “I have small green and red peppers,” she said, credibly. “I thought of stuffing them with rice. What do you think?”

Rice is dull stuffing. I’d roast the green peppers and serve them on a purée of the red ones, having stirred in cream and prawns

As it happened, I was thinking about textual problems in the work of Albertus Magnus, but I was too alert and canny to say so. My vanity was flattered, and I was confident that my knowledge was reliable. So I made the big mistake of taking the question seriously.

“That would be delightful,” I began diplomatically, “but rice is dull stuffing. I’d roast the green peppers and serve them on a purée of the red ones, having stirred in cream and prawns. That way, you get a contrast of textures to complement the clash of colours.”

“We have no prawns,” my wife replied, with a decided air.

“Sorry,” I said, conscious that I was already in retreat. “I thought I saw some in the fridge.”

I was aware of sounding defensive and ill informed. I hurried on. “What about chicken? You always have breasts to poach for the dogs.” My wife likes to add a laurel leaf to the brew, in the conviction that dachshunds appreciate the difference. “Why not mince the chicken,” I continued, “and combine with cornmeal for the stuffing? Boursin, melted with a dash of dry vermouth would make a perfect sauce.”

My wife seemed shocked. “I can’t waste the dogs’ chicken,” she said, simultaneously expressing disdain for the dish and affirming the hierarchy of the household.

I tried to recover ground. “A good use of the rice,” I suggested, “might be to shred the peppers of both colours into snakey strips and use them for a risotto or stir-fry them with plenty of garlic to dress boiled rice.” “But in that case, I might as well stuff them.”

I could not dispute this false assertion. I was beginning to realise that I might be the victim of a trap designed for my discomfiture. To argue might be to ensnare myself. So I switched my approach. “Have you thought,” I enquired meekly, “of dicing peppers into a Russian salad?” “I have not and will not,” my interlocutor declared, scything all sweetness from her tone. “We must have something hot for supper.”

My bow of assent was deep enough to signify submission. “I was thinking,” I explained, “of ways of deploying the contrast in the colours of the peppers. They’re more vivid when raw.” I sensed an impending rejoinder and resorted to a desperate means of forestalling it.

“Most vegetables,” I gabbled, “are excellent seared under the grill with a drizzling of olive oil and a dusting of crushed garlic, so that the surface is charred. Chopped into flat slabs and served with a good scattering of coarse salt, the peppers would be admirable if treated in that way.”

Chopped into flat slabs and served with a good scattering of coarse salt, the peppers would be admirable if treated in that way

At this point, my wife’s expression became one I could interpret readily enough — it was of the kind the English call “old-fashioned”.

“That sounds to me,” she said with the timbre of rebuke, “like one of your Spanish obsessions: pimientos de Padrón.”

“Yes,” I admitted, “that is the standard recipe for the succulent little green peppers of my Galician homeland — but you like them, don’t you?”

“That,” came the reply, “is not the point.”

It was impossible to ask what the point was without sounding rude. My adversary seemed to be evading the sacred rules of debate. My failure to convey the versatility of the marvellous vegetable that we were due to eat that evening made me boil with annoyance, as if peppers were too hot a topic for mild minds.

I heard the pleading — almost whining — in my voice as I suggested, “You could scatter a tiny pinch of cayenne to emulate the sense of danger that makes the occasional bite of pepper fierce and punishing.”

“No need to make a martyr of yourself,” was the sentence my Salome pronounced. “Never mind,” she concluded, retrieving sweetness of tone. “I’ll stuff them with rice.