Are we food obsessed?   Looking on all our past and present posts and pics I would guess that 90% of them are of food or of us eating food!

 I love that we all have a common thread of wanting to share what we are experiencing.  Sharing a meal with a friend, family or stranger is one of the most intimate acts.

 Since the beginning of time one aspect of human social experience has stood out as the ‘place to be’ for communication and family bonding: the meal. In contemporary human life the evening dinner is often the only place and time that a family all sits down together. In tribal times (of course there are still tribes today) the cooking of a slaughtered animal or cultivated vegetables brought the group together to share ideas and feelings. Think about it these days; when you want to take someone out for a romantic date, meet business colleagues, get together with old friends and acquaintances, we go out for a bite to eat. What is it about sharing some food that puts us in such a relaxed and communicable state? Could it simply be science, and the fact that if you are tense when you eat, the food doesn’t digest as well? Or, could it have some psychological basis having to do with the idea that you are sharing some life-giving sustenance with your fellow species instead of warring over it? Subconsciously do we recognize the facts that we will be able to live another day as well as sew healthy seeds for future generations? 

So, next time you sit down to a meal with friends or family, or cook for guests, remember the significance of this often undervalued experience. For hundreds of thousands of years our distant relatives’ whole way of social life was based around the acquisition and sharing of food. It is often the main time to communicate to the ones you hold most dearly, so please don’t take it for granted or think that just because it is necessary for survival that there aren’t any meaningful and mysterious aspects to the experience. Relating to each other is one of the most important elements in a social creature’s existence; the meal is a time and place for relationships to sprout and grow. That’s just some of the power of the meal. 

Sift the flour into a bowl and add the sugar, salt and ginger. 

Cut the cold butter into chunks and rub it into the flour mix with your hands until you get a mixture that looks a bit like fine breadcrumbs. This is the crumble topping. 

To make the filling, boil the water and sugar together, then carefully drop in the pear chunks and simmer gently for a couple of minutes. 

Add the chopped ginger and the lime zest and juice to the pan and stir. Spoon the mixture into one large ovenproof dish or four small ones. 

Sprinkle the crumble topping over the top of the fruit, piling it high in the middle of the dish and leaving space at the edge for the caramel to bubble up. 

Bake in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes until the pears are cooked and bubbling and the crumble is golden on top. Serve with custard or a dollop of crème fraîche with lime zest grated over, if you like. 

Thank you Jamie Oliver! A.K.A. THE NAKED CHEF