Ever since I can remember, I always had a taste for the bizarre.  Food combinations that pregnant women wouldn’t dare crave.  In order to satisfy my bizarre craving, I always need something savoury with a hint of sweet.  I start each morning with 2 slices of granary toast, one with Marmite (You either love it or you hate it!) and the other slice with honey.  Ultra-sweet honey and uber-salty Marmite, an equal presence of sweet and savoury.  Although I don’t have a sweet tooth, I do crave food combinations that contain both sweet and savoury in order to satisfy my cravings.   

For instance, I think red meat just begs for some kind of acidity to cut through it’s intense meaty flavour.  Ladies and Gentleman, please welcome the guest star for this meal…fruit!  Not what immediately sprung to mind?  Well, let’s face it… It’s not exactly an uncommon combination, is it?  Persian food is littered with savoury / sweet combinations. Anything from lentil rice with raisins (Adas polow ba kishmish), to Morello cherry rice (Albaloo polow) with meatballs and of course one of my favourite stews, good old ‘Fesenjan’ laced with lashings of acidic pomegranate syrup.  Fruit + Meat =  Good!!!

I often wonder where my freakish cravings came from, but then again, it’s cultural isn’t it?  It’s imbedded in me.  I remember as a kid, whenever we had ‘Ajeel’ (Nuts, pumpkin seeds, raisins and dried chick peas etc) I would always have to have sweet and savoury in every mouthful. One almond, one pistachio, 2 raisins… That’s how it always went.  Even to this day, if I have chocolate, I usually need something salty along side it.  I don’t get a lot of sugar cravings, but when I do, there is no stopping me.  Rain, sleet, snow… I have to find some sugar from somewhere, because I never keep anything sweet in the house.  Now savoury, on the other hand, there is plenty of.  I don’t keep crisps or salted nuts in the house (because I would just eat them all!) but if I really have a savoury craving, a tasty home-cooked meal is never too much trouble for me!

If you look at foods from different cultures, there are a lot of sweet and sour fusions.  The Chinese have ‘Sweet and Sour’ everything, from shrimp to pork and chicken.  A sickly sweet tomato and vinegar based sauce created to suit western palates, but an instant hit around the world.  What about Indians?  Just like us Iranians, fruit is ever popular in the savoury dishes, and oddly, savoury flavours are also evident in their cheese-based desserts.  The Italians do it too… They call it “Agro Dolce” – which literally means “Sour Sweet”.  They are into subtle hints of sweet and savoury fusion.  They offer delightful concoctions called Mostarda, which despite sounding like ‘Mustard’ it’s actually similar to a relish or chutney, which are sweetened jam-like mixtures, which despite their high sugar content, are usually destined to be paired with robust savoury flavours like red meat or a good selection of cheese. 

Mmm… Another combination I love, cheese and chutney or relish… Especially if the cheese is goats cheese and the chutney is something light and sweet.  Or my obsession for feta cheese with honey or red jam, yummy.  ‘Cheese and pickle’ is England’s favourite sandwich combination… The  “Pickle” (which is actually more of a relish) is a spiced, vinegary brown mixture of onions, carrots, apples and swede all fused together with molasses.  Not everyone’s cup of tea, I must admit.  My Mother shivers at the thought of the stuff, but then again British food never did quite “Tickle her fancy” as the British so eloquently put it.   

But I guess the question you have to ask yourself is which do you like more?  The sweet or the savoury?  Which one really presses your buttons…?  Which one couldn’t you live without?  For me personally, if I had to stop eating savoury food or sweet, the savoury food would be graciously saved and the sweet stuff would have to “Hit the road, Jack…”

I could quite easily give up sugar, but if I was ever asked to give up savoury food, there would be a huge problem, because sugar doesn’t quench any cravings for me whatsoever.  I may still get the odd sweet craving, but usually I still need to have something savoury either with it or after it.  Weird… I know, but my ideal meal would be heavy on the savoury and light on the sweet.   

I will admit that I’m a big believer that everything needs to be counterbalanced in order to create perfection.  Several years ago, I found myself working for an upscale restaurant group that owned 6 Thai restaurants and 2 Chinese restaurants. This was such a great job for me, because I learned so much about fusion of flavours but whilst I knew a lot about Chinese cooking, I knew absolutely nothing about Thai cooking.  I was very lucky to work with top Chef Ken Hom several times during this period, as he was the Group Chef consultant, and I was a huge fan of his ever since I was a kid.  I remember driving my Grandma nuts defying her bedtime curfew, because I wanted to stay up late and watch his show, so naturally meeting with him in the flesh made me very nervous!  But every time I worked with him, I took advantage of our time together and always quizzed him thoroughly about food and cookery and also tried to get his best tips which taught me a lot!   

During my stint there, I spent a lot of time hovering in the kitchens of our Thai restaurants.  I would watch the Chefs and how they prep the food, how they cook, what they cook, how the food is finished and then served. I found it all very fascinating, but the one thing that stuck in my memory the most was an adopted rule of theirs which seemed to apply to most of their dishes.   Basically the Thai have some staple ingredients when they cook a meal and a standard rule which they apply to a lot of their cooking.  The rule is this… “Sweet, Salt, Sour and Spice”… The 4 S’s, you could say.  They use ‘Nam Pla’ which is fish sauce as their salt, palm sugar for sweet, limes for a sour acidic injection and lastly, good old chilli for heat.  The principle here is that these 4 key ingredients not only contribute their own special flavours to the dishes, but when combined, they counter balance each other and create a perfect overall flavour, which is delicious (and very addictive, to people like myself!)

Tamarind is another very interesting ingredient.  Often a chameleon of the culinary world, I have seen it used from everything from curries to ice cream and sauces to smoothies and candy.  It’s so very sour, but yet everything I think of Tamarind, sugar creeps into the picture somehow.  Perhaps because it’s sumptuous sourness is best contrasted when paired with something sweet. I guess I’m trying to say that sweet compliments savoury and vice versa.  Its one of those “Ying and Yang” things… Salt is crossing over into sweet foods and sweets are crossing into salty foods, in everything from savoury sorbets and ice creams to the more bizarre chocolate pizzas.  Globally we are crying out for weird and wonderful combinations to satisfy our bizarre cravings.  We have evolved as people and we continue to evolve in every way, but none so evolved as our taste buds.  As cultures collide and our thirst for knowledge takes us to the far corners of the earth, whether via aeroplane or just via the information-super-highway,  the whole world is fusing in ways that would be incomprehensible less than 100 years ago.  So is it ‘Fusion’ or is it ‘Confusion’? 

I shall have to leave that decision for each of you to make yourselves.  But I encourage you to be a little more adventurous and try something new a few times a year.  Perhaps a combination you wouldn’t have normally tried.  You may unleash a flavour combination that will become a world-wide sensation… or perhaps a combination that will only remain popular within the confines of your own home.  Whatever happens… take risks, trust your instincts and be daring.  Don’t worry about what people think, if you practice at home, you can be your own judge and jury!  Who knows, you may like the sweet and savoury thing more than you think!  Maybe it’s about fusion, maybe it’s about something else.  For me, it’s about greed…. I guess I want the best of both worlds, and why not?