The main ingredient of any meal should be love, with maybe a dash of caution, writes Simon Walker.

Which is OK because to immerse yourself in a subject it's usually more fun getting in over your head.

Deliberately or otherwise.

And you can do that for a lifetime with food because there's so much to learn.

Often it can involve encountering the unknown, and pretending it's known.

For example, I remember going to a molecular degustation back in the day, which was pretty exciting because I didn't know what a molecular degustation was.

Of course, it turned out to be one of those Heston Blumenthal meets Penn and Teller type cooking affairs.

Where talented chefs pair amazing food and flavours in very tricky food science ways across 10 courses.

Unfortunately, as you do on a learning curve, I managed to mistake the napkin for the first course.

Well, actually I thought it might have been the 'amuse bouche'. Which I'd been forewarned about before entering the restaurant by my dinner partner. After she'd explained what a molecular degustation was.

An amuse bouche is what some fancy restaurants serve up before the main eating begins, free of charge.

Possibly to disguise how expensive the rest of the meal is going to be.

It certainly looked like a single, bite-sized hors d'oeuvre positioned neatly before me as I sat down. Not unlike a dumpling.

Not knowing what it was, but not wanting to appear that way, I popped it in my mouth and discovered it was a serviette.

One that comes to life when you add water. Or in this case, saliva.

A bit like placing Zebedee from the The Magic Roundabout in your mouth.

There was certainly a "boing" on the palette. Then some gagging.

It's not easy to cough up a napkin with dignity under such circumstances, but I'm sure I pulled it off.

You get my point, though, about food and all its mysteries - mistakes are part of learning. And learning can sometimes look like a mistake.

Similar grace under fire was achieved at a sushi bar in Tokyo when the unsuspecting gaijin (me again) mistook the inviting pink slices accompanying my dish as ham.

It seemed pretty generous given how stingy they can be with meat in Japan, but I was up for it.

Turns out they were slices of smoking hot ginger. Placed with great relish in my unsuspecting gob, which then caught fire.

Cue an amusing range of inscrutable looks from the locals as I attempted to douse the fire with sake. Kampai.

But again, you see the point. You learn all sorts of fascinating stuff about food when you approach things with an open mind, and mouth.

Particularly when travelling - sometimes out of your comfort zone.

Who could forget the chicken foot soup encountered in northern Thailand?

Presented in a large bowl of grasping claws reminiscent of the final scene in Carrie. Accompanied by the chicken head - freshly separated from its chicken body judging by the startled expression on Foghorn Leghorn's face. Matching mine.

Or the fish head curry in Singapore, the crowning glory of which were the giant fish eye-balls. Reserved with great ceremony by my host and his two wives, for me and my partner to scoop out with a spoon. When we were ready.

They say one should never lose face in Asia, particularly by declining to eat part of a fish's face.

Anyhow the point again is that no matter where you are, food can take you there.

Even if you stay right at home.

In the kitchen where you perhaps thought you'd never be, gazing back to where it all began on your own particular food journey of discovery. Perhaps to when you first left home and used to think boiling rice and melting cheese on top was really gourmet.

Particularly if you added a packet of French onion soup to the mix. Talk about fancy.

There's usually only one way up from such humble culinary beginnings. Hopefully it's not throw up. But like resilience and tolerance for failure, you grow.

And the thing you learn about food as you go, is that it's like life. There are no exact right answers.

Just combinations of ingredients, flavours and textures which you fumble around with in search of balance.

Some efforts might sear to the bottom of the pan, and others might leave a bitter aftertaste.

But approached with an appetite for adventure, you too can eventually prepare something with love and serve it up to people ideally on a similar footing.

That's probably the most important recipe a person can ever stumble on when it comes to food, I reckon.

Must remember to write it down one day.

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