The mother of one of my friends has so deeply internalised the etiquette of never arriving at someone’s house empty-handed that she even brings ‘hostess gifts’ when she comes to babysit, or pops in en route to the doctor—for any visit at all, in fact. It’s an involuntary reflex, and her gifts have a legendary idiosyncrasy—a single green capsicum from the supermarket one day, a box of fish fingers or a package of toilet rolls the next. There may have been the occasional unkind family joke about these gifts, but nobody is in any doubt about the generosity and goodwill implicit each time.
I only learned of the term ‘hostess gift’ in recent years. My mother never used the expression, which to me evokes the women of Elizabeth Montgomery’s Bewitched—all bouffant hair and ludicrous frilly aprons. But our mother did manage to instil in us the idea that turning up to someone’s house for dinner empty-handed would be as vulgar as arriving only half-dressed. I understand such a gesture would be completely offensive in France, where it would imply some lack on the part of the host, but here in sunny Australia the convention is upheld by almost everyone I know, and I find it charming. Most common in our circle—and, let’s face it, most obviously welcome—is the bottle or two of wine that everyone takes to any dinner at a private house.
But occasionally a friend brings something else instead. One of the great pleasures of having good cooks as friends is that when they come to your house for lunch or dinner they often bring with them a little morsel of some recipe they have been trying out. There is usually nothing outwardly impressive about these offerings, which are slung on to the kitchen bench or bunged in the fridge or decanted into a bowl there and then for tasting. They are wrapped in a bit of greaseproof paper, like Steph’s jewel-like slabs of quince paste or her sticky salted caramels; or they might half fill a Vegemite jar, like Michelle’s silky labneh in olive oil; or be wrapped in a cone of newspaper like the herb bouquet from Silas’s garden; or drawn from a handbag on return from foraging, like Caro’s jar of roasted cherry chutney from New Zealand or tube of umami paste from a posh deli in the city. Or the gift might simply be dumped in the sink in a plastic shopping bag, like the mixed harvest of beetroots and tomatoes and eggplants from Alice’s garden. But sometimes they are beautifully presented, like the small but perfectly formed bulb of homegrown garlic presented by Dicky as a housewarming gift, wrapped in a little bridal muslin bag.
When my husband Sean and I are invited to visit these various friends, we briefly survey the fridge and the pantry for something to take along. Invariably there’s a spare jar of chutney or marmalade or preserved lemon, or a fistful of herbs, a couple of tomatoes or some figs from a roadside stall, or a teeny near-failure of an eggplant from the garden.
A relative of the hostess gift is the occasion food present, like the ones my family give each other for Christmas. These gifts are rewarding because they are full of thought and effort and imagination. They often become traditions in themselves. If a Christmas went by without a box of my sister Bernadette’s beloved mince pies, for example, Questions Would Be Asked. My sister Alice, a relaxed and practical person whom nobody would suspect of being a flower child, lately has taken her gifts to new earth-mothering heights; last year hers included not only a large jar of the lightest labneh I have ever tasted, but a bottle of her partner Simon’s famous ginger beer, and another of elderflower cordial made from flowers she grew herself.
I find few things more pleasing than gifts like these. Beyond the obvious generosity—the sharing of the self in the effort of making or choosing or discovering or growing—they also have a kind of echo, in that the gift creates another: the dish cooked as a result, or the sharing or teaching of recipes and techniques that have become staples of my cooking repertoire. But there is also a playfulness and inventive pleasure in the reciprocal ritual of this exchange. The hostess-gift joke once took on epic proportions between Steph and myself as we exchanged back and forth—over about a year—the same jar of lurid vomit-yellow choko chutney she had purchased from Mr Nextdoor as a neighbourly courtesy. I believe she won when she left it on my doorstep, beautifully wrapped, as a birthday present.
I hereby declare it time to reclaim the hostess gift. The following are easy to make—so let’s wrest the food gift away from frilly-aproned prissiness and give it back the earthy dignity it deserves.
POMEGRANATE HONEY
I learned of this heavenly nectar from the food blogs Kale for Sale and Nourish Me. It is a luscious drizzly syrup I use anywhere ordinary honey might be called for, or as a substitute for sugar.
1 pomegranate
1 jar clear honey (it doesn’t work so well with crystallised honey)
1 Cut the pomegranate in half around its belly, cup a hand under the cut side of one half and smack the upturned side hard with a wooden spoon. The seeds should fall easily into your hand. Repeat with the other half.
2 Remove a few strips of pomegranate skin with a vegetable peeler, being careful not to take any white pith.
3 Add the seeds and skin to a jar of honey and set aside on a kitchen bench. If the weather is cool, leave the jar for a week or so before putting in the fridge. In hot weather, a few days will do. Within a few days the honey will become a little runnier and gradually take on a pinkish hue.
4 Keep the honey in the fridge for as long as you like. I keep topping up the same jar with honey and pomegranate over the months. The more you use it, the more uses you will find: drizzle over yoghurt or ice cream, into salad dressings (especially good with bitter leaves like spinach or rocket), add to poaching liquid for fruit, and so on. A teaspoonful in a cup of hot water is also said to soothe a sore throat.
LABNEH
Makes around 3 medium takeaway containers’ worth of labneh in oil.
1 kg full-cream Greek-style yoghurt
1 teaspoon salt
Olive oil
Dried herbs, chilli flakes, fresh garlic or rosemary
1 Line a colander with a good-sized piece of clean muslin—about 60 cm square or larger—and set it over a bowl (a fine linen tea towel would probably do as well, but would take rather longer).
2 Mix yoghurt and salt and pour it into the muslin.
3 Tie muslin corners together to make a bag of yoghurt.
4 Tie the muslin ends to a long wooden spoon handle and rest the spoon across the top of a deep cooking pot. Be sure to tie the muslin tight and hang it as high as possible, as it will lower over the hours. Mine has often eventually touched the bottom of the pot, necessitating retying halfway through. This is no big deal, though, and gives you a chance to pour out the whey—the cloudy liquid that drips out—if necessary.
5 Put the pot with the hanging yoghurt in the fridge for between 48 and 72 hours—the longer you leave it, the firmer the resulting cheese will be, but 48 hours results in soft but easy-to-form labneh.
6 Unwrap muslin and form labneh into balls (ping-pong-sized or smaller), keeping your hands moistened with olive oil to stop the labneh sticking to your hands and the balls to each other.
7 Lay the balls in a jar or container, cover with oil to which you have added some dried chilli flakes, dried herbs, fresh rosemary and a clove of garlic. (Any dried herbs would work.)
8 Use labneh as a spread or dip, on toast or a sandwich instead of butter, toss a ball into spicy soups or curries, add to steamed green vegetables or simply use anywhere you would add a dollop of yoghurt.
BABA GHANOUSH
The secret to good baba ghanoush is charring the eggplant skins first to get a good smoky flavour. If you don’t have a barbecue they can be charred on the flame of a gas hob (be prepared for smoke) or simply roasted in the oven until very soft.
3 medium eggplants
2 tablespoons tahini
Juice of 1 lemon
1 large clove garlic
Salt
Olive oil
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 Prick eggplants several times with a skewer, and then place whole on a barbecue, turning occasionally until the skins are deeply charred and the body yields very easily when prodded with tongs.
2 Remove from heat, split lengthwise to allow heat to escape, and leave to cool.
3 When cool enough to handle, scoop the eggplant flesh into a food processor. Don’t worry if a few bits of charred skin go with the flesh—the result will be nicely smoky.
4 Add the tahini, lemon juice and garlic, and process very thoroughly till smooth. Add a little salt and taste. Add more salt, lemon or tahini, adjusting the flavour to your taste. Don’t underseason.
5 While mixture is processing, add around half a cup of olive oil in a thin stream. Taste and add more oil if desired.
6 At the end add the cumin—grind the seeds yourself for an amazingly powerful flavour.