I had gone to the supermarket to buy milk but soon found myself far from the dairy aisle, staring bewildered at the tubs, tubes, tins, packets, and bottles stacked meticulously – a visual stampede of farm workers, factory packers and carbon footprints. 

Living in Berlin and mostly going to our nearby organic shop or local supermarket (much smaller than its UK counterpart), I hadn’t been in a really big UK supermarket for a while, possibly a year or more. Perhaps this meant I was more attuned not only to the scale of the operation but also to how little of the food in there I wanted to buy. In amongst those garish packets, schools voucher schemes, traffic light systems, and special discount offers, the real food was lost. My intense love of food shopping – that endless daydreaming of possible meals – vanished. This wasn’t fun, it was grotesque.

As I stood gazing at the acres of pasta sauces and cartons of soup, I realised I was having a moment of clarity, not dissimilar to standing drunkenly on a dance floor caught between buying everyone another round of Jaeger bombs or becoming so oppressively aware of the sweaty walls and leering faces that all you can only do is dash to the door and hail a taxi.

I know it doesn’t do to start arguing against a wide range of food being readily available and relatively inexpensive – both are very important facets of modern living – but must it be trussed up into unrecognisable concoctions full of things most people don’t need to eat. Not always, at any rate.

I could be embracing it, I thought, as I dragged myself back to the milk, rather than fleeing through the automated doors I’d just discovered at the end of the baby snack aisle, but there was something so alienating about the brightness of the lights and the dullness of the wrapped up food that made it impossible. I tried my luck in the vegetable section. There I found an English cabbage – the least fashionable of vegetables – and added that to my basket. At least it led to this …

Cabbage for four:

Serve with brown rice and poached white North Sea cod – available from all large supermarkets, though sometimes hard to find in amongst the curry sauces, baby crisps, chocolate fountains and discount clothing.

Ingredients:  

• 1 medium-sized green cabbage
• 2 shallots
• 2 tsp coconut oil
• 1 red chilli
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Coconut milk (150ml) / desiccated coconut (a generous handful)
• Squeeze of lime juice

Method: 

Bring 2 inches of water to the boil in a large shallow pan with a lid. Whilst the water is heating, discard the outer leaves of the cabbage. Chop into quarters using a large sharp knife, and then cut the chunks into strips. This should leave you with small slices of cabbage, which you can put in the now boiling water and leave with the lid on over a medium heat for five minutes. Then drain.

Whilst the cabbage is cooking, finely slice the shallots. Fry these gently in two teaspoons of coconut oil over a low heat in a large heavy bottomed frying pan. Chop (and deseed – unless you like it spicy) the red chilli and add to the pan.

After a few minutes, throw in your drained cabbage. Fry it all for another five minutes, stirring from time to time to stop the vegetables sticking. In the meantime, grate or crush your garlic cloves, ready to stir into the frying pan at the end of the five minutes.

Decide in advance whether you’d prefer a richer meal with a creamy sauce (using the coconut milk) or a lighter meal with just the desiccated coconut. Both have their merits – the rice and fish soaking up the coconut milk and the desiccated coconut version being delicious cold the next day.

Add your choice, and heat through (in the case of the coconut milk). Then remove from the heat and squeeze in the lime juice. The dish is so delicately spicy and flavoursome I don’t think it needs salt and pepper, but others may think differently – so adapt to your taste. Serve immediately.