Q & A: Stefan Gates
What sparked your interest in cooking?
Well, all the girls I fancied at school were in my home economics class, so basically sex. I used to play this game with the girls that had no real rules, but invariably ended in us fondling each other’s arses with floury hands. Home economics was the only place you could get away it, otherwise you’d get sent home from school. School taught me that food and girls go together beautiful.
Brilliant. Would you recommend your technique to the modern day man?
Well, I wouldn’t recommend it for the work place as you might get sacked (laughs) But a guy who can cook gets some great chicks. It’s still a relatively rare thing for blokes to cook, but the fact that you can cook even a bit, does mean that you’re instantly more attractive to girls.
What’s the weirdest food you’ve ever eaten?
The weirdest ingredient I’ve come across was called igunak, it’s basically 12 month old rotten walrus. I ate it when I was up in Alaska filing ‘Cooking in the danger zone’ and the Inuit’s there will hunt two or three walrus at a time then preserve some of it. They wrap it in plastic and bury it, then for the first six months it rots and the next six it freezes, and then when the thaw comes you dig it up and eat it. It was foul but they all seem to love it.
What’s the most masculine thing about cooking?
Well I think it’s playing with science. There are all sorts of crazy stuff you can do with it. I like to take the simple things and then find a way to make it fun. Like in my last book ‘The Extraordinary Cookbook’ I fry an egg on a piece of paper. It’s kind of like scouts, you make a pan using a wire coat hanger, bending it into a square, then you put any piece of paper across it and then a little bit of oil on it, crack an egg on it and as long as you keep the flame underneath parts of the paper with egg on, it’ll cook before the paper burns.
What tips would you have for survival cookery?
Don’t underestimate insects! A lot of things are edible in the forest but you have to make sure they’re cooked properly. In twenty years’ time we’ll all be eating insect burgers, they’re the new meat. We’ll go into McDonalds and the Big Mac will be £100, but the Bug Mac, made of roasted grasshoppers, will be a fiver. Meat will have become so expensive that we won’t be able to sustain the production of it.
What’s a simple yet impressive meal a man could try?
You could have a crab and hammer party. You get all your mates to come with a hammer, usually about one crab between two people. Then you give them some bread and a bit of mayonnaise then you just let them all beat the shit out of a crab to get all the meat out. It’s a great way to turn dinner into a party. Another thing that’s fun is cooking salmon in a dishwasher. You get a whole side of salmon, season it a bit with olive oil and a few hears, wrap it in foil, put it on the top wrack of your dishwasher, turn it up to the highest setting and let it run. Don’t put detergent in mind.