Self-soothing meatballs?

rosemary
1 day ago
6 min read

"any shovel-handed buffoon can roll a gob of mince into a rustic ball." Bunny Banyai

So I said I would return to the meatball book and here it is - Around the World in 80 Meatballs by a lady called Bunny Banyai. A strange name - well the surname - and hard to pin down an origin, but I think somewhere in the book she mentioned Russia or Ukraine as an ancestral connection.

Even stranger, however, is why this particular lady is writing a cookbook, for although she is indeed a writer, cookbooks are a new venture. And as far as I can see there is no cooking background, other than the one we all have - a need to cook for our family. In this case a partner, two daughters and a step-daughter. But that's OK and perfectly in tune with the subject of meatballs. After all there is not any food much more basic than meatballs. Particularly if you have a loose definition of meatballs that includes stuffed cabbage and a kind of cottage pie.

Below are her previous books, which according to her publisher come from a series called Girls Guide to the World, although I suspect that this might be a label that the publisher has applied after the event.

She is one of those people who have been writing from a very early age, and those three books were written in response to some of the things happening in her life at the time. Moreover she felt that it was not 'real' writing - "It was not proper writing; it was content." After COVID and the last of those three books - Anxious Girls Do it Better, she took a job answering 000 calls - a draining experience about which she wrote in The Guardian and also on Lee Kofman's website where she says of its effect on her writing, which she had temporarily discarded:

"An increasingly loud voice in my head told me that maybe it was time to accept that the best use of my time did not have to literally involve saving lives, and that there is worth in other, less urgent pursuits. And that thought made me feel as sad as anything ever has."

And so she wrote about meatballs - her way of self- soothing - "The lesson of my story: be the writer that you are, not the one you feel you should be." Which is a similar response to that of Denai Moore whom I wrote about the other day and her new enthusiasm for making sandwiches. For Bunny Banyai it was not just finding her own self-soothing form of creativity:

"writing it was an unexpectedly emotional and life-affirming experience. There is so much to be angry and sad about in the world-every time I look at my phone, I think about that Succession episode called Shit Show At The Fuck Factory-but the people who contributed to this book reminded me of everything that’s good. Love, family, meatballs."

There are so many creative people, it seems to me who were deeply affected by the COVID pandemic, and the subsequent upheavals the world is currently experiencing, who have eventually found their own happy place. Many of them finding it with food in some way - although I admit that this is probably because that is what I mostly read about. If I was into sport or fashion or art I'd probably find the same response but in a different area.

I was given this book as a Christmas present from my older son who was probably taken by the title - as would I have been - because those kebabs I wrote about yesterday might have been the family's second favourite dish but the top is - Robert Carrier again - Spaghetti and meatballs. Well I know he didn't invent the dish - but that's where I found it. And of course there is a version in this book - shown here and called Polpette in sugo - not as much sauce as in 'our' version, and the sauce is a little different, but the meatballs are almost identical - just no grated Parmesan in the mix - a Robert Carrier touch perhaps. But then it's a classic home dish is it not, and so I'm sure that everyone has their own particular way of doing it. Home dishes like this are often made without an actual recipe after all.

Why choose to write about meatballs however? Well possibly it's that comfort thing:

"Their application knows no bounds: how do we get vegetables into the mouths of children who have a one-line list of safe vegetables? In a meatball. What do we give our loved ones after a painful tooth extraction? Soft, nurturing meatballs, What do we cook when cost-of-living expenses bite? Thrifty, flavoursome meatballs. And if that's not compelling enough evidence of their virtue, minced (ground) meat also helps to minimise food waste, as it utilises trimmings of meat that may otherwise be destined for the bin." Bunny Banyai

I've marked several recipes in the book with post-it notes, and indeed I think perhaps my first attempts will be two appropriate occasions, according to her theory of when they are most needed. The first is a family reunion dinner a few days after the return of my younger son and his family from their six week exploration of Italy and Greece. As I said they all love meatballs so I might indeed give them meatballs - but some different ones. Maybe Boulets de Liège from Belgium, which features a rich beer based sauce, or Korme kofte from Pakistan, Syrian Kofteh berenji or Kotelatai in dill-spiked broth from Lithuania? The second occasion is lunch for a friend who will have very recently returned from extensive dental work - the dreaded root canal therapy, (why call it therapy?), so I need to steer clear of the chewy. The nurturing aspect of meatballs will be very appropriate.

Alas not many of the recipes are online - but SBS has three - Pulpety with cold beet salad from Poland and which she professes to be one of her favourites; Ciorba de periosare (sour soup with meatballs, from Romania and Ćulbastije (meatball bake with bechamel sauce) from Serbia - and that may well be another option for the family.

And you're probably getting a picture of how global the selection is. Which she explains thus:

"To my mind, nothing you can serve at a dinner table better represents the interconnectedness of us all than the universally recognised, universally adored meatball in all its countless guises."

Moreover each recipe has a story attached because so many of them come from people with a story. It's an Australian book - another plus - and so the opportunity for stories of food from just about everywhere abound. Some of them did not have photographs and so I went to Google Images, and found that virtually every one has many pictures and so are obviously well-loved dishes, that I may well look further into some time in the future.

There are so many tempting recipes in this book - I could have a go at almost every one. Not quite but almost, so here are just a few more pictures of some of those that I bookmarked - Frikadellen and rahmspinat - meatballs and creamed spinach - Germany - the first recipe in the book - how could you not be sucked in?; Gola kababa with charred onions - Pakistan; Ash-e-inar - Iran - a soup with pomegranates; Kefta b'zeitoun - Algeria - lots of green olives and harissa in this one; Polpettine al limone - Italy - this one looked lovely but was a bit fussier and involved wrapping in lemon leaves (I have none, although she did suggest bay leaves instead); and Albondigas Mama Papa in white wine sauce - Spain - the sauce has almonds too and last but not least - Ghanaian meatball stew - another of her own top three.