Welcome to Tarquin's Gastronomy

Tarquin's Gastronomic Delights and Tasty Treats

A Lifetime of Eating, Exploring, Cooking and Occasionally Regretting the Menu.

My relationship with food did not begin particularly promisingly.

Indeed, for one reason or another, I didn't really begin eating properly until I was about two and a half years old. Considering what followed, one might reasonably conclude that I have spent much of the subsequent six decades attempting to make up for lost time.

Fortunately, I grew up in a family where food, cooking and hospitality were very much part of everyday life.

My father could cook, as could a considerable collection of grandmothers, aunts and uncles. Family meals were therefore about rather more than simply putting something on a plate. They provided an early introduction to different ingredients, cooking methods, family traditions and the considerable pleasure of sitting around a table with people who knew what they were doing.

I was also fortunate enough to experience an unusually wide variety of restaurants, hotels and eating establishments from a young age.

Foreign holidays introduced me to different cuisines, unfamiliar ingredients and ways of preparing food that were rarely encountered in the average British household of the time.

Looking back, I realise just how fortunate I was. At the time, of course, I simply assumed that everybody enjoyed the same opportunities and that everybody was equally happy eating anything from tripe to caviar.

As I eventually discovered, this was not necessarily the case.

My years at boarding school provided another education entirely.

Unlike children who endured only school dinners, we had school breakfasts, school lunches and school suppers. Three opportunities a day to appreciate the catering arrangements of an educational establishment — or to develop a considerable enthusiasm for alternative arrangements.

Consequently, the prospect of being old enough to go camping independently was enormously appealing.

By our early teenage years, we could venture into the fields, and later travel farther afield to neighbouring villages, pitching our tents and preparing our own meals.

For once, we could cook exactly what we wanted, when we wanted, without anybody insisting that we finish something of questionable provenance before leaving the table.

There was occasionally a suitable accompanying tipple, too, although I suspect the school authorities might have interpreted the word suitable rather differently.

From the Dining Table to the Professional Kitchen

At seventeen, I began serving lunchtime meals in a public house.

It was there that I discovered one of the most important lessons in hospitality: the customer does not necessarily share the tastes of the person serving them.

What one diner regards as a delicacy, another considers an affront to civilisation.

I began to appreciate that food service involved considerably more than carrying plates from the kitchen. Presentation, temperature, portion size, cleanliness, timing, value and the expectations of individual customers were all essential considerations.

Over the years, those early experiences developed into a professional career in hospitality, incorporating food and beverage management, restaurant operations and the practical challenges of satisfying customers with very different expectations.

Eventually, I found myself running my own restaurant in Kerala, southern India.

There was something wonderfully ironic about this particular development.

Having spent years in Britain enjoying Indian restaurants and the extraordinary variety of dishes from the subcontinent, I had travelled to India and opened a restaurant which, amongst other things, served English food.

One might reasonably ask why somebody would travel thousands of miles to India only to order an English meal.

Yet people did, and learning to understand precisely what customers wanted, rather than what I thought they ought to want, was another valuable lesson.

From Sam's Café to the Savoy and Raffles

My gastronomic adventures have never been confined to grand dining rooms, nor would I wish them to be.

From dining at the Savoy Grill at the age of fourteen, to grabbing a bite at Sam's Café in London after a long day selling pictures in my twenties, to enjoying a sumptuous banquet and sipping Singapore Slings at the legendary Raffles Hotel in Singapore, my experiences have taken me from the wonderfully ordinary to the gloriously extravagant.

And I have enjoyed both.

For a memorable meal is not necessarily the most expensive, nor does a famous name guarantee a wonderful experience. Sometimes a modest café can provide as much pleasure as the grandest dining room.

Indeed, some of the finest memories are associated not with polished silver, immaculate tablecloths or elaborate menus, but with the atmosphere, the company, the people serving you and the sheer pleasure of the occasion.

What a world. What extraordinary flavours. And what a wonderful flavour of life itself.

There is always another dish to discover, another table to sit at, another story to tell — and, with a little luck, another glass to raise along the way.

A Continuing Gastronomic Education

Tarquin's Gastronomy, written by T. J. Gray, brings together these professional experiences with a lifetime of personal culinary adventures.

From childhood meals and school dining rooms to traditional pubs, grand restaurants, street-food stalls and kitchens across the world, this is an exploration of food through history, travel, culture and experience.

There will be recipes, restaurant reviews, professional observations, family recollections, memorable meals and accounts of cuisines encountered over more than half a century.

I remain remarkably willing to try unfamiliar foods.

Indeed, my culinary curiosity has even extended to insects in Thailand.

The cooked varieties were one thing. The rather more adventurous experience of eating something that was still very much alive, wriggling and apparently reluctant to participate was quite another.

I should confess that several fortifying libations were required before undertaking that particular experiment.

I can now report, with considerable confidence, that I have absolutely no intention of repeating it.

But that is part of the fascination of food. We discover new tastes, revisit old favourites, learn from different cultures and occasionally establish, beyond reasonable doubt, that something is not to our liking.

The accompanying book and this website will grow together, combining historical recollections, professional knowledge, independent reviews, recipes and future culinary discoveries.

Throughout, the guiding principles will remain unchanged: good food deserves appreciation, good cooking deserves recognition, and genuine quality should never be confused with an extravagant price.

Above all, this is a celebration of the pleasures of eating, the people who prepare our food and the extraordinary variety of experiences available to anyone willing to explore.

After all, life is far too short to eat badly. Although, in the interests of research, I have occasionally made an exception.

T. J. Gray
Tarquin's Gastronomy