Life

Anna Jones: Eating vegetables is the most impactful thing you can do for the planet

Food writer Anna Jones talks pandemic cooking with Ella Walker, and why it makes sense to factor in climate change when planning dinner

Food writer and chef Anna Jones whose new cookbook is One: Pot, Pan, Planet
Food writer and chef Anna Jones whose new cookbook is One: Pot, Pan, Planet Food writer and chef Anna Jones whose new cookbook is One: Pot, Pan, Planet

FOOD has always punctuated our days – three meals, a snack here, a packet of crisps there, a slice of cake (and then another)… The need to eat is central to being human, but the need to cook? For many of us, that’s felt absolutely relentless over the last year.

Anna Jones puts pandemic cooking more charmingly. She calls it the “rhythm we have been building our days around”, suggesting it’s been less punctuation, more necessary anchor.

“I know people have become jaded with it at a times. Even I, as a cook and a writer, have become slightly jaded with cooking for a family three times a day,” she admits. “But it’s something that’s definitely giving people life, and something they can control and be excited about.”

The practicalities of lockdowns – especially the great flour rush of March 2020 – have arguably shifted perspectives a little too.

“We’d become so used to convenience and being able to just put our hands on anything we want at any time, and I think [not being able to get hold of everything] was a bit of a wake-up call for people,” considers Jones, who says circumstances have forced us to improvise a lot more in the kitchen. They’ve even made her, recipe-tester that she is, “pare back” to the everyday essentials. “I used to have every flour, every lentil, every pulse, every spice in the house, and I’ve stripped back my cupboards.”

Jones reckons as a result, many of us will now cook more instinctively too – “with slightly more intuition than just following a recipe”. Recipes are Jones’s game though (via her books and Guardian column), and hers have long been designed as launchpads for home cooks, not definitive end points.

Her new cookbook One, reflects that. It features easily tweakable noodles and pasta dishes galore (like her lime and double ginger soba noodles), as well as simple traybakes (leek and potato with romesco sauce), salads (roast carrot and grain) and grown-up desserts (chocolate, olive oil and rosemary cake), while the ‘10 simple ideas’ section (eg for ways with peas, broccoli, peppers) rattles off swift dinner ideas.

It’s also packed with recipes inspired by other cultures and food traditions. “In each shop near me, there’s Turkish ingredients, Vietnamese ingredients, African ingredients, and I feel like the tapestry of how I cook has developed with those cultures around me, but I also realise absolutely, that those are not my culture,” Jones says, addressing issues around appropriation and cultural sensitivity in food media. “Those are not my recipes. They are not things that are a part of my heritage. And so when I use those ingredients or echo any of those recipes, I try and do it with the greatest reverence and respect.

“I get it’s a very fine line to tread, and I feel like the food industry is just working that out at the moment,” she adds. “There’s a lot of work to be done.”

The core of One though is “to knit two things together”. First, “the cooking I find myself doing now” – by which Jones means the kind of cooking you do with a small child around (her son is five), as opposed to the cooking you do pre-parenthood. “I’m a cook and a chef, I can chop things and cook things a bit quicker – so I’d make more complicated recipes and people would be like, ‘But that would take me an hour-and-a-half!’”

Now, quick and simple notches higher on the priority list.

“That’s the cooking I do for my family… It’s those week-night dinners, the things we eat on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, that actually are the most important to make delicious and be interesting, and make sure they’re full of vegetables and things that are going to make our bodies feel good,” Jones adds.

The second factor she was keen to weave in was sustainability and climate change. “We all know that eating vegetables is really the most impactful thing you can do for the planet. The second most impactful thing is making sure that the food you buy and cook, you don’t waste,” Jones – who’s been vegetarian for around 12 years – explains matter-of-factly.

Her intention is not to overwhelm with stark facts and figures (“I’m not gonna lie, they are pretty gloomy”), but to provide some “life-friendly, achievable sustainability information” shared via a format that feeds into how we choose and buy ingredients.

She sees each day as an opportunity to make positive food decisions – using up leftover veg you’d normally bin, learning where your veg was grown, finding out what’s seasonal – that are achievable for your life and budget. It’s definitely a more positive prospect than sinking into a pit of indecision and guilt over every bit of single-use plastic you encounter.

“This year, more than anything, has proven our capacity as human beings to make rapid and radical behavioural change," she says. "And if we can tackle climate change in that same powerful way, then all of our individual changes will add up and make massive change.”

There’s power in choosing what to have for dinner, and with that comes great responsibility.

:: One: Pot, Pan, Planet by Anna Jones, photography by Issy Croker, is published by Fourth Estate, priced £26. Below are two recipes from the book for you to try.

HONEY, ALMOND AND CARDAMOM DRIZZLE CAKE

(Makes one loaf)

For the cake:

200g light spelt or plain flour

150g ground almonds

2tsp baking powder

250g unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing

200g demerara sugar

150ml honey or maple syrup

Zest of an unwaxed orange

Zest of an unwaxed lemon

4 medium organic eggs

For the drizzle:

4 cardamom pods

4tbsp honey or maple syrup

1tsp orange blossom water

2tsp toasted sesame seeds

1tsp fennel seeds

1tsp coriander seeds

To serve:

A good drizzle of honey or maple syrup

Plain yoghurt of your choice

Method:

Heat the oven to 170°C/150°C fan/gas 3. Grease a 900g loaf tin and line with baking paper. Put the flour, almonds, baking powder and a good pinch of sea salt into a large mixing bowl and whisk until there are no lumps of baking powder. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, or with an electric hand whisk, beat the butter, sugar and honey until creamy and combined.

Add both orange and lemon zests, then the eggs one by one, mixing well between additions. Add the dry ingredients a large spoonful at a time, mixing between additions. Tip into the prepared tin and smooth out the top with the back of a spoon. Bake for 55 minutes to one hour, until the cake is dark golden on top. It will sink a little in the middle.

Take the cake out of the oven and leave in the tin. Bash the cardamom pods in a pestle and mortar to release the seeds; put the seeds into a small saucepan with all the remaining drizzle ingredients. Bring to a simmer and reduce to a thin syrup – it will thicken a little more as it cools.

Prick the cake a few times with a skewer and pour over the syrup, then leave the cake in the tin until cooled completely. Serve in thick slices, with yoghurt mixed with honey.

ORECCHIETTE WITH SWEETCORN AND GREEN CHILLI

(Serves 4)

A bunch of rainbow or Swiss chard (about 250g), stalks and leaves separated

2 green chillies, finely chopped

The kernels from 2–3 corn on the cob or 350g frozen kernels

400g orecchiette or other small dried pasta

Extra virgin olive oil

Smoked salt or flaky sea salt

250g ricotta or vegan ricotta-style cheese (I like the Tofutti brand)

Zest and juice of an unwaxed lemon

A large bunch of basil, leaves picked

Method:

Bring a large pan of well-salted water to the boil. Finely chop the stalks and shred the leaves of the chard and finely chop your chillies. If you are using frozen corn, put it into a heatproof bowl and cover with boiling water. Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook according to the packet instructions or until al dente.

While the pasta is cooking, heat a tablespoon of oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat, then add the drained corn and a good pinch of smoked salt or sea salt and black pepper. Cook for four to five minutes (a few minutes longer for frozen) until the kernels are tender and beginning to brown.

Next, add the chard stalks and cook for a few minutes more, before adding the leaves and the chillies. Cook for a further four to five minutes, until the leaves have wilted.

Drain the pasta once it is cooked, reserving a large mugful of the cooking water. Add the pasta to the frying pan with half the ricotta and half the reserved pasta water and mix well. Turn off the heat, then add the lemon zest and juice. Toss, then, if need be, add more cooking water, so you end up with a silky sauce that coats each piece of pasta. Toss through most of the basil. Spoon the pasta into bowls, spoon the rest of the ricotta on top and finish with the last of the basil leaves.