Oysters: they’re briny, they’re slimy, and they’re hard to crack. How better to bond with your boyfriend’s family, says Ottilie Blackhall.
Since meeting my boyfriend, Harry, and his parents Richard and Caroline, one mutual love has bonded us the most – seafood, and more specifically, oysters. I ate my first oyster with his family on his 18th birthday, and since then we have shucked and enjoyed the briny delicacies together on countless occasions.
When I unexpectedly moved in with Harry and his family during lockdown in 2020, oysters helped us to navigate the new family dynamic we were plunged into, as we frequently ordered in boxes of Irish Carlingford oysters to enjoy over drinks and conversation. I was already close with Harry’s family, but over those four bizarre months we cooked, ate and drank our way to a family relationship that could only have developed in the madness of a global pandemic. Between family yoga sessions, his family and I strived to experiment with seafood home cooking, and almost always sat down to eat together.
Our most laborious lockdown endeavour was making arroz negro, which is a Valencian and Catalan dish, similar to a seafood paella. We often cook and enjoy it together on holiday in Baza, Spain, and it’s made with paella rice and squid ink, giving the dish an inky black colour and a deep flavour of the sea. We added cuttlefish and topped it with plump, grilled scarlet-red Carabineros, beautiful deep-sea prawns, and purposefully lightly burnt the rice to the bottom of the pan to create a crust. The resultant dish was rich and robust – a glossy showstopper filled with umami rice and bursts of cuttlefish. We squeezed over some fresh lemon and served it with a chilled glass of dry Spanish albariño wine, our favourite for accompanying seafood owing to its subtle saltiness.
Though simple to make, cooking arroz negro is a long process, and this time to luxuriate in having ample time to cook ignited a passion for Harry. He now works as a chef de partie in a seafood restaurant, where I also work as a supervisor.
Cooking has always been a happy place for Harry, and he remembers cooking with his parents, and grandparents, from a young age. As he charmingly but affectionately makes clear: “I always loved cooking before I knew you – it’s not just a you and me thing.”
Now, cooking for a job, Harry’s appreciation for the relaxed afternoons like those spent cooking during the long lockdown summer has deepened. “It’s where I feel at ease, especially barbecuing on a summer’s day with a nice cold beer,” he says. “It’s fun to learn and try new things out with my parents, and have a drink together while doing something a bit more structured than watching TV.”
Over the years, the barbeque, both at Harry’s house and at mine, has become a symbol of summer evenings spent chatting late into the night around the garden table, laden with sizzling, smoked food straight off the grill. When we do find ourselves having a TV dinner, it’s usually to enjoy a home-cooked midweek meal together on the sofa, with at least one dog for company.
“Cooking for work is a different environment,” says Harry. “There’s more pressure and a lot more repetition. Rather than doing food for six or seven people, you’re doing food for 100. It’s faster paced – and it’s more high-risk high-reward.”
For Harry’s grandfather, Ronnie, cooking and eating together as a family has also been a way that he has nurtured connections with his family. He lives in Australia now, but was a chef before Harry, and the intergenerational influence of that is something that Harry wears with pride. “I used to say ‘Mise en place, Harry’,” says Ronnie. “I bet he says that to others now.”
“It’s all interrelated – in a good way, because after eating to live we are able to use food as another source of pleasure and communication. Just as long as we don’t start behaving like !@#$%’s,” he says over email.
Food and a love of cooking have undoubtedly played a significant role in my close relationship with Harry’s parents, and it’s a dynamic filled with countless family meals that I feel very fortunate to be a part of. “Endorphins are the main basis for social bonding in primates,” says Robin Dunbar, a biological anthropologist, who, in his book The Social Brain, outlines the crucial role food has historically played in the bonding process of humans. “Eating triggers the endorphins systems, so eating together causes us to feel warm and cosy with those with whom we have been eating, whoever they are – so it’s a good way to bond with in-laws.”
The endless lockdown summer is now a distant memory, and myself and Harry’s family are closer than ever, regularly cooking and eating together, and taking time to go out for meals, usually to try new restaurants. Harry sometimes brings home a box of oysters that his head chef has going spare, and we use that as an opportunity to sit down together and chat with his parents, usually alongside a loaf of Richard’s famous homemade sourdough.
I eagerly await our annual summer trip to Baza all year, where we always inevitably have numerous exuberant family meals. Caroline makes a standout salad of lettuce, mozzarella, sun-ripened peaches from the weekly market in Baza, mint, and Mojama – which is a Spanish dried tuna. We often make it together in the early evening with a G&T, and she has taught me her method of tucking the toppings into the lettuce so that every bite is perfect. That’s my favourite round the dinner table, and curating it is almost as enjoyable as eating it together. Like me, Harry’s parents also love gazpacho and manchego cheese, so they’re poolside lunchtime staples.
I’ve just, finally, got my hands on the miso we made together last Christmas that has been sat in a dark cupboard at the Hannan’s house for over a year, fermenting and being lovingly tended to by Harry’s father. “I’m always daydreaming about the next thing to try making,” says Richard. Perfecting a 20-hour ramen broth is next on our list.