Renowned culinary author Nigel Slater harbours a fondness for felines, greengage plums, and train journeys accompanied by tuckboxes. His pen dances on the paper with an eloquence reminiscent of the dialogue in Agatha Christie’s novels. Poring over tulip catalogues, obsessing over fancy pens, he nurtures a quintessential Midlands love for salted crisps – all wrapped under the shade of his still youthful, floppy hair. Slater, at 68, personifies what Evelyn Waugh described as the “creamy English charm.”
Slater decidedly states in his work, A Thousand Feasts, that he perceives no merit in documenting negativity, sorrow or distress. Instead, he devotes in excess of 350 pages to catalogue what he terms as “moments of joy.”
There may indeed be an apparent contradiction in regarding Feasts as a sequel of sorts to his childhood chronicle, Toast, which is being rereleased on its 20th anniversary to align with the unveiling of Feasts. Toast offered a chillingly humorous tale of Slater’s youthful trials, where he was on the receiving end of neglect, maltreatment and being orphaned, and employed food as a retaliatory tool. Meanwhile, Feasts is a soothing balm, bestowing upon its author those treasured childhood moments that fate denied him, be it the illicit indulgence of biscuit batter or being under scrutiny in Tokyo by a stern “eel lady”. He paints a vivid, anthropomorphic picture of his herb garden, evoking the chatty garden from Alice’s adventures.
Slater’s fascination with the Oriental is palpable, personified through his annual pilgrimage to Japan. His prose, often followed by succinct meditative thoughts, is akin to the haibun – a Japanese genre blending prose and haiku. Slater’s story of his combat with a rogue mouse, for instance, concludes with a musings on an assortment of objects – a foreign currency piece, an aged Polaroid, an out-of-place ring or an oxidised paper clip. Slater resonates with the Japanese aesthetic principle focus on the beauty in transience, epitomised by cherry blossoms, which achieve their peak beauty as they descend to the earth. This transitory joy mirrors Slater’s ephemeral delight in cooking and gardening, tinged with a touch of melancholy.
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In Japan, beauty manifests itself through imperfections, such as a chipped lacquer cup or a dish adorned with gold where cracks once were, echoing the English fondness for a jumper painstakingly mended. Feasts is fittingly imperfect. Slater, in his quirky articulation, likens the colour of cardamom to “wet, green pistachios”, though he sometimes tends to repeat himself. One might question the excessive pottery descriptions. That said, the book glorifies imperfection. While it might be uneven, it mesmerises, presenting the author at his most leisurely. The demons of his past are supplanted by benevolent spirits as he gets lost in the beauty of a fading, autumn twilight.
Mei Chin provides her insights as an independent critic.