My parents sent me to a French school when I was 4 years old. People are often impressed that I speak French, but it’s really just a happy accident. (When people are impressed that I speak English, though, I get angry. I may not look terribly Caucasian, but it is my mother tongue.)

Speaking French won me a special bond with many of my chef-instructors at culinary school, who must have been thankful for a chance to speak their native language. They came from all over France: Alsace, Corsica, Nice. I loved them all, for different reasons, and each one had something very different to teach me.

My favourite chef-instructor was a tragicomic sort of a figure. He’d done nothing but utterly immerse himself in food from the age of fifteen, and, as a reward for his dedication, found himself increasingly unable to eat much of anything at all. A lifetime of dough-handling had left him with a serious gluten allergy: kneading shortcrust would raise scarlet welts on his hands, and he took triple doses of Benadryl to make it through the pastry curriculum. It was funny to watch as he willed himself through a barely-concealed horror of entrails to perform demonstrations of poached lamb’s tongue, veal sweatbreads and kidney stew. But who has the heart to laugh at a great chef’s palate, worked to mush by too many years at the helm of one of New York’s best French restaurants? Technical skills undiminished, but appetite eroded by overstimulation, all he was ever seen to eat was white rice, white chicken and caramels.

Where he was a kitchen classicist, a symmetrist and liberal with the butter sauces, another French-born chef I admired very much was all Modern Australian freestyle and Pan-Asian pizazz. (He was also rakishly handsome and constantly verging on inappropriate, but that’s another story.) Arriving in Sydney fresh out of a French culinary academy, he was mocked mercilessly on his first night on the job for putting out a plate in the formal French style, and it changed the way he cooked forever. He taught me: height in plating, mirin in veal stock, and the difference between a presentation that’s “rustic” and one that’s slapdash.

He also taught me the cold zucchini recipe I am including here, which stunned me with its simplicity and its impact.

It had never occurred to me to eat zucchini raw, and I hesitated to try it. But he plated it for me himself, so I could hardly say no.

I made this salad all summer long and I will make it through the winter, because its bright flavour improves not only my mood but the taste of supermarket tomatoes.

I won’t transcribe the recipe in the traditional format; it’s really more of a method than a recipe, which you can adapt to contain chopped shallots, shreds of good, fatty salami–whatever you like. (In the variation pictured, we flashed plum tomato slices on the grill, shaved some feta cheese and used fresh oregano leaves for garnish.) The crucial thing is that bites of tomato, of whatever variety, follow bites of the cold, sharp squash. The sour-sweet contrast is so powerful that a mediocre tomato will taste celestial, and a cherry tomato will recall a cherry in flavour as well as size.

Mock Summer Salad

Run zucchini and yellow squash through a mandoline to form long, spaghetti-like strands. Dress in good olive oil and lots of lemon juice–the zingier the better. Season very generously and the flavours will sing. Chill. Salt will draw much of the water from the squash; drain and check seasoning before serving. Serve with halved grape tomatoes or sliced Romas, undressed.

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