Tidying up as you go seemed a joyless concept – until I finally saw the light
I appear to have developed late-onset tidiness. As a younger, ever-questing cook, the four words that made my lip curl were: “Tidy as you go.” It was hard enough to beat and whip and emulsify as I went, without worrying about the whole tidying business too. It was an utterly joyless phrase; the sort uttered when I was a kid by one of those flinty, disappointed schoolteachers who drained every subject of joy and who indicated by their sneers that if you applied yourself and did your very best you would still amount to nothing. Sod tidying as you go. I was cooking, with a capital C. Bring on the butter-smeared chaos.
Now, in my grey-bearded years, I have changed. I’m not just tidying as I go. I’m mopping and wiping and washing as I go. I am attempting to erase any record of any cooking having taken place, while actually cooking. Note the use of the term “late-onset” in my description of this habit. It is an attempt to pathologise the behaviour, to make it something external to myself or beyond my control, so I can view it quizzically in a detached manner. It is obviously not a pathology, nor any sort of compulsion. Those can be life-limiting and should not be joked about.
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