Fire & Feasts: Cooking with Caleb Botton

How would you describe your cooking style and relationship with food?

My style is traditional/contemporary British Romany Gypsy food and my relationship to it is pure love.

At its core, British Gypsy (Romani/Traveller) food is nose to tail eating, respect for what is consumed, respect for those who grew or reared or foraged it. Those who earnt it, those who cooked it and those who eat it.

My philosophy and relationship with food is seasonal simplicity. Cook with love for those who you love. It’s the only way I make food. My cooking style and outlook which I was raised with and is at the core of this book; is about the relationship of the Gypsy people, what they eat, the land they live on and what grows and grazes on it.

Our food was shaped by laws, survival and discrimination and, of course, eating. British Romani food consists of a set of cultural values, and was born from necessity rather than a formal food doctrine and belief.

Saying that, it’s communal, and deeply tied to history, movement, and respect for the land and well as cultural laws of cleanliness.  

I like what is found, fresh, foraged and fired

At the core is seasonality, community and family.  You cook to feed, warm, comfort and to give you strength to work which is usually outside and labour intensive. Food should be, hot, and shared.

My cooking style is both rustic and primal. I like what is found, fresh, foraged and fired, as there was no electricity or gas for the Gypsy, only nature and blaze.

From smoking food to the fragrant intensity of wild plants and herbs. For me this is not inaccessible food, but simple fare which can be enjoyed daily revolving around what is available and fresh. A pan, some fat an egg, salt and bread, you have a feast.

Romani Gypsy food is colourful, exotic and diverse. As nomads, we borrowed ingredients from wherever we went. Our traditional recipes passed down from generation to generation.

At the very centre of the Gypsy world, is ‘family’. You cook for your loved ones.

At the very centre of the Gypsy world, is ‘family’. You cook for your loved ones. You cook with passion. You cook with the knowledge that you are continuing an extraordinary legacy. 

The food I make takes time and thought, time to know where it’s from, and how to best use it and how to prepare and cook it. It’s a sort of slow kitchen food. I don’t feel food should be masked by lots of seasoning but enhanced by simple seasoning. In the modern kitchens of today, food is more often for convenience than connectivity.

The food we cooked and eat connect us to what we eat, and how we work for it. To remember the food and hearth, as dictated by and told through the seasons. 

TRY: Caleb's recipe for Haslet Meatloaf

We carefully preserved the summer and autumn in jams and pickles, potted meats and these culinary traditions link to an ancient, collective way of cooking, when the animals dined on wild herbs, rosemary, thyme, sage, and drank honey.

When this fowl or prey was caught and roasted over fire, they did not need seasoning because what they ate flavoured them. This idea is what we want to taste in our hedgerow preserves and how we remember the taste sun in the depth of winter.

A big part of food is hospitality. If someone comes to your trailer or home, you offer food and tea. Not doing so can feel cold or disrespectful. Historically, life on the road meant limited storage, cooking and making do with what was available, which informs the way we cook and eat: using simple ingredients that are hearty and adaptable, nothing wasted.

For us hot and cooked food carries more value than cold food which is viewed more as a snack. Saying that cold food can be great! 

The most important rules of our cooking are the hygiene laws which are to do with a sense of what is clean vs unclean. British Gypsies follow unwritten rules about hygiene and separating cooking items from washing items.

Food preparation has rules to do with moral and cultural cleanliness. Food that crosses certain boundaries may be considered unsuitable to eat. I am governed by these rules.

'Togetherness' outweighs the individual choice...

Another aspect is that 'togetherness' outweighs the individual choice, to some this may seem harsh and not in-step with the times, but the family is more than the individual which was hard for me as being a complete individual island. Really frustrating for my family but I ate what they did, it made me and bettered me.

It wasn’t until years later that I understood the beauty this can house. Eating together matters more than personal preference because you put others first, that is an important lesson in food and life. It honoured those who worked to put it on the table and what was worked for, ultimately me and my family.

I am a Gypsy, a different race and culture and this is us. Refusing food without reason is a slight to those who, toiled, prepared it and worked for it and it is distancing yourself from the collective. At its core, the philosophy is food keeps the family strong, shows respect, and proves you’re looking after your own. Its survival wisdom turned into tradition.

My mother wanted to go to school, but for cultural reasons did not. Her sacrifice made this book possible.

And finally, food is the mother figure. The cooking over flame. It is women: who decide what’s cooked, who know the cleanliness rules, who pass on our recipes and practices, and who raise the children and instil in them our values.

My mother wanted to go to school, but for cultural reasons did not. Her sacrifice made this book possible. Strong Gypsy women, they are at the heart of our cultural knowledge and our flame.

Tell us a little about your book: why these recipes, and why now?

Fire & Feasts is cultural story telling conveyed through the medium of  food. It chronicles the marginalised and overlooked culture of British Romany Gypsies and Travellers with the honesty and humanity it deserves.

Part history, part memoir and rooted in remembrance, it’s testimony of how this culture move, endure, and survive.

This forgotten heritage which has been passed over and dismissed by wider society and food writing; captures this tradition with the respect and depth.

Part history, part memoir and rooted in remembrance, it’s testimony of how this culture move, endure, and survive. My writing approaches Romani recipes as forms of cultural lived record. I hope this contributes something new and necessary to British food literature and amplifies voices long ignored in British food culture.

This is a work of culinary preservation, bringing much needed knowledge and insight through the relationship of food, land and seasons of this people. It is my hope that this overlooked cultural contribution will now be unearthed above the dust of discrimination.

Generations of Gypsies have cooked dishes shaped by land, laws, movement, scarcity and season. Yet these recipes which fuelled a culture were never written down due to the lack of literacy, instead they were passed down through oral tradition.

Romani cuisine has never been given the thoughtful, literary or the historically grounded representation. This book offers a look at the beauty of this people, and the cultural insight. It is a much-needed addition to mainstream food writing.

My work aims to preserve the ignored and the marginalised British Gypsy people with dignity while deepening the understanding of neglected culinary traditions and culture.

The food, stories and culture I write about has travelled roads others haven’t, sharing stories people seldomly hear,

These travelled dishes were not written down because there was no school for us; but that of the land and hedgerow, so this book and every recipe in it, is not written as nostalgia but as testament and nourishment, uncovering the overlooked, honouring the unrecorded, giving voice to something that has been mute.

The food, stories and culture I write about has travelled roads others haven’t, sharing stories people seldomly hear, Romany Gypsy life, the real life through the lens of food; the way it’s lived, uneven, smoky, shaped by memory, weather and the hands that make it, treating every recipe and story as a small act of cultural recollection. 

This book also celebrates strong Gypsy Women; as keepers of food knowledge and the preserve of our family and lasting society. Unvarnished, and unbowed Gypsies have lived for centuries in the margins, in trailers by campfires and hedgerows and in fields.

There is no grand chorus of British Gypsy food writing or way of life, their voices overlooked, until now. As a full-blooded British Romani Gypsy the continued lived experience of my family, culture and people should be fully recognised.

It is an honour for me to write this, about my culture. These voices need to be heard. There are still laws against us, still pubs that say No Gypsies Allowed! It is time we were allowed!

Jane Grigson championed curiosity and exploration. Where has food writing taken you?

My love of food has literally taken me all over the world. The idea for a British Romani food book was born on an Island just off the coast of Bali when I saw an old woman cooking over fire in the middle of a lane, with some found herbs and fish.

Simple, fresh available ingredients without pretence, it reminded me of my grandmother’s cooking and made me realise how deeply we are connected by food, flame and environment. 

I like to talk to the people who catch, harvest, farm, grow, cultivate; and commerce of food.

Cultural history is food and my own cultural history and identity should be honoured through and with food. I spent a lot of time in South Korea and Japan, tasting grazing and cooking. In Mexico with the indigenous people, eating ant eggs and chocolate and smoked peppers up mountains.

Travelling the jungles of Central America experiencing coffee, cane, pineapple and fish. Sri Lanka and India eating spice and smoke, sea fishing, tea picking. I like to talk to the people who catch, harvest, farm, grow, cultivate; and commerce of food.

Eating iguana with Mayans in a central American Jungle smoked over banana leaves; to buried whole pig in the Philippines covered with local herbs and aromatics and spices. 

The markets of China with every possible thing you can imagine, not for the faint of heart.  To the simplicity of a fallen apple in an English field with some sharp cheese and a dark ale. Food for me is adventure, people and place.

I want to celebrate it where every I go. Food and my passion for it has journeyed me around the planet. But to answer this question honestly, it’s taken me home, to England. It’s taken me back in time and it has taken me to the pleasure of simplicity. 

Which ingredients do you turn to most often, and why? 

That is a hard question and easy too, as always fresh and seasonal as much as possible. My cupboards are stacked with so many jars, which I keep and always mean do something with them.

• One of the most important is a good coarse salt, I’m always infusing and adding herbs and smoke and such; but salt.
• Fresh herbs, rosemary, parsley, bay, sage, dill, oregano, chives, mint coriander, wild rocket and thyme. I grow them, forage for them; however rosemary for me is the queen of herbs, I always put some in my pocket if I find it growing anywhere.
• Aromatics and such, onions carrots, ginger, lavender and fennel.
• Then cabbage, mushrooms and eggs.
• A bag of wholegrain flour, a good olive oil, milk, butter and cinnamon.
• A strong cheese, some clementines, apples, raisins and dates.
• For protein, sea fish and shell fish, chicken and pork, beef
• and finally dark chocolate and real Earl Grey tea.

These are the core of my larder but if I had to pick just a few: butter, salt, chicken and herbs. I cook and write about food and I am a Gypsy, so the cupboard is never bare. 

Which fellow writers have inspired you?

For me it has to be Bourdain, food was culture for him, people were what they ate and the diet of the everyday person attracted him and attracts me, too.

Workers’ food and his discourse of food politics and reason, everyday go to’s of fuel of fat, smoke and spice and grain. The bits no one wanted to eat but where made tasty by necessity and family.  I found an honesty in that.

I have to mention Delia Smith, I watched her method on TV and what she made was relatable and familiar.

I like a Guy called Dominic Franks, I like his ease with what he creates and he makes cooking a delight. 

Tim Maddams, Game because you should know where what you eat comes from, how to catch, gather or dispatch it with an understanding of the environment. He talks to people and lives close to what he eats. I respect that. Roger Philips and Wild Food, I like his passion and love of foraged found things.

And finally, yes, Jane Grigson’s English Food. Now I must confess that I saw this a long time ago but never noted the author or the impact she had on food writing. It spoke to me about food I knew and didn’t. The Pork Pie, writing about things I knew, a revelation. It’s a big book but I like the sheer scope, like a big epic film.

But it is always Bourdain, he was complicated, passionate, when he took his life he broke my heart. I stopped writing. He was the dirty underbelly of food, the bits you like but don’t want to know where there from. When I started writing this book again, it was a way to forgive. Him, myself and all those who said this couldn’t be done. That woman in Bali cooking with fire, she made me, forced me, to open my heart to food.