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Food and Drink Exhibition
NEVER mind what Norman Lamont or the CBI say: the fact is that you just know we're in the middle of a serious economic recession when the big story at the Interna- tional Food and Drink Exhibition at Earl's Court is the potato.
What is shown at the IFE today is what will be on most restaurant menus tomor- row. True, they're not the sort of res- taurants I report on in this column but they are the sort of places that nevertheless call themselves restaurants and where most of the catered eating is done in Britain. This bi-annual exhibition is where the catering industry gets together to show all the ways in which normally wholesome basic ingre- dients may be pre-packed, vacuum- formed, deep-frozen, dry-battered, portion-controlled and otherwise trans- mogrified to save the world's chefs from having to do anything as tedious as picking up a knife. And this year the most trans- mogrified staple of them all is the spud.
Forget any fond image you have of the kitchen-proud chef rooting through the Covent Garden dawn in search of the perfect, fresh King Edward that will com- plement his hand-cooked, fresh dishes. Replace it, instead, with the image of a man in a wash 'n' wear toque bawling `Down your side, Fred' as a pallet-full of chill-fresh Pine Cone Croquettes — 'Pol- der's crunchiest product' — is forklifted into the pantry.
It seems that the chances are that when you last ordered pommes allumettes from almost any menu which doesn't have a Michelin star (and who knows?. . .) it came from the Vriezo range (modest slo- gan 'A Name in Chips') of 20 or so potato products, all available in 4x 51b cartons at 72 cartons to the pallet. Some of the products from Vriezo and their rivals are items we already understand to be chips (pommes allumettes, french fries, steak- house fries and so on) while others have been designed — and designed is precisely the word they use in the trade — to 'relieve menu fatigue'. Forget, also, any notion that ours is a nation in the throes of a health binge: many of the new potato stories involve taking chips and wrapping them in a seasoned batter. McCain's (whose trade advertising campaign consists of a Piper Mans tied to a firework with a piece of string) says this gives them longer stand-up time, whatever that is, and effuses about the 'extra opportunities' this `totally new concept in potato products' gives the chef: 'They can be served along- side regular french fries and charged at premium prices.'
But it's not just the chips which come ready-hewn: there is no item of cuisine, the exhibitors would have you believe, howev- er haute or basse, which cannot be pre- prepared in a factory in Lincolnshire or Bremmerhaven or Thessaloniki. The confit de canard that accompanies your stand-up potatoes will almost certainly have come from Cherry Valley Farms Ltd in Lincoln who will package their product to the order of any restaurant 'specifier' and slap that restaurant's signature on it. Indeed the chances are that any duck you buy in this country, whatever label it bears or on whoever's plate it appears, even in China- town, will have come via Cherry Valley.
On sampling the Emile Tissot Foods range of pasta dishes, my taste memory told me I had encountered it before, as no doubt you have, in those pine-cone and pink-shuttered restaurants you find in pro- vincial shopping parades. I'd always assumed that particular clamminess came from long hours' standing under the infra- red lamp on the serve-yourself buffet: now I know better. The exhibition also ex- plained why so many Caesar salads are such a disappointment. The heavy, empty Copydex consistency of their dressings means, I now know, that they came ready- made from a catering-size bottle. I prefer- red the advertising copy of Cardini Dres- sings to its product: 'An Italian Immigrant named Caesar Cardini', it tells us in all seriousness, 'tossed his way to immortal- ity'.
The selling points of all these products is, understandably enough, the fact that you can run a restaurant kitchen using a couple of teenagers with City and Guild's Catering diplomas and a microwave. But pre-pack and portion control seems to have reached overkill stage. What, I asked someone selling pre-frozen lemon slices, was their point, when slicing a lemon was the most basic of culinary skills. Wouldn't it be easier to employ someone with a knife? 'Look, love, if they could get the drinks pre-frozen and get rid of the bloody barman they'd do it.'
Nigella Lawson
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