IF MONEY BE THE LOVE OF FOOD

I make a point of not using these pages to rant or criticise because both of those things make me ramble incomprehensibly. But three quid each for organic French lettuces which look as though they were run over by a tractor is just silly.

When the road ahead looks tough going, we are rightly asking some questions about the way we spend our money. Especially as the years of plenty and fat fleshed kine were well favoured for food shops and restaurants. Less definitely became more. And not only where jet fuel, fertilizers and insecticides were concerned.

With the promise of individually harvested, locally-sourced, hand -raised, line-caught delicacies we were happy to lash out for any hint of organic. Plain food went gourmet. Honest provender like decent bread, English apples or a nice old cockerel for the pot became rare standards of excellence. And somehow shamefully, in the face of a nation mostly dying from its diet (despite the adorable Jamie’s attempts to radicalise the food industry) they remain the preserve of those of us with cash.

Of course I don’t mind paying a small premium for really good, fresh food and there are many emporia and online services where you can find it. More or less expensive. I am a convert to Abel & Cole and The English Meat Company and Henrietta Green’s Food Lovers’ Britain website is doing a lot for individual producers. But there are equally as many opportunists in the organic revolution. It spells no love of food per se.

The same is true of restaurants. In contrast to the over-blown hyperbole of 90s post -Carrier menus, aspirational restaurants have adopted a faux simplicity and very often (as the Belgian has noted) menus abounding in ingredients which we used to reject. Like old men softened in Turkish baths, slow cooking has rendered the tough and sinewy cuts edible.

Indeed, this weekend we ate in a restaurant where everything on the menu might have been served in post-revolutionary Marais soup kitchen and it was served to us by waiting staff like petulant barricadistes accompanied by withering looks and a distinct lack of theatre.

So I have decided to eat at home. My purse will only be opened sparingly for those whom, I know above all, adore food and giving it to others. Top of my list is Fergus Henderson. His St John concept of nose-to-tail eating - ravishing colours and textures dashed together akimbo - has stood the test of time. Others have tried to follow but fail by lack of wholeheartedness.

Add to the list of favourites the Sams Clark at Moro, Jeremy King and Chris Corbin of The Wolseley et al, Anthony Demetre of Arbutus and Wild Honey and Gordon Ramsay who as yet, I could never afford. But you know, they all worship produce and though it isn’t cheap, if I only go out once a year now, I know where the love is.

As I suspected, Undressed this month is a ramble (which is probably a result of an attack of the vapours). But my point is that whether the lettuces got beaten up before leaving France or on arrival in Shoreditch, someone should have intercepted it. Someone who cared about their products and my spend. Shoddy.

TENDER WORDS

Tender (2009) tells the story of Nigel Slater's love affair with his garden in Islington and the many seedlings he has raised in his box-hedged vegetable patches. It’s a magnificent volume, like a medieval knightly treatise with pictures of his Eden, its produce and many of the recipes he has created from them.

23 May, 2010

FOOD FROM THE HEART

Cooking is a basic human instinct. We’ve been eating, chopping, shaping, flavouring, enticing ingredients into something delicious since time began. But as the way many of us live has changed, the basic skills we require to cook, are no longer valued and it’s often easier to let others take control of what we eat.

21 April, 2010

IN A RIGHT FISH STEW

This week we had sustainable fish stew. It’s a quick and easy way to feed a gang of hungries on a Friday night and doesn’t need much else but some good bread and wine. Like all stews, you need balance, rich liquid and a range of potent flavours steaming from your pot.

15 March, 2010