The Good life
Vicarious victualising
Pamela Vandyke Price
Why do the British slink so apolo
getically, theoretically and pseudo-scientifically towards food as .a topic? Every tinge of my French great-grandmother in my character (and she may even have been Jewish as well) demands why they are so lacking in joie de: manger — and wholly intolerant of kindness to their tastebuds. Recently there have been two quite long radio programmes, one devoted to discussing what chemistry might or did do to food, the other when listeners could telephone questions to a well-known nutritionist. My ears were agog throughout both — and not one person even vaguely expressed a reaction as to what food tastes& like, whether good or bad, Presumably they would all have been happier — so marked was their,
concern about additives, colouring, sprays, things being taken out and put back, if they could each have been given a giant pill or powder once a day and then safe ly forgotten about their despised noses, mouths, stomachs and adjuncts thereunto. I am far more primitive than this. If I don't like eating or drink ing something, I don't eat or drink it. My stomach is as trusty an ally as my tastebuds, and soon reports
on unsatisfactory goods that it wishes to return or will not accept again. As my mind is wholly uncluttered by theories which cannot be related to my own experiences, I am found to have simple tastes for things that do me good, rather in the style of the animal which, allowed to graze where it will, chomps up whatever fround or foliage is currently required by the cells, valves, pipes, sieves, ballcocks and fuses that are wedged into its frame.
As regards exercising the mind rather than the molars, we're a prolific people. Cookery books jostle on the coffee tables (not so much in the kitchen) and young marrieds collect part-works reputing to endow them with instant chefsmanship much as their ancesters went in for shell pictures and Goss china. Television — which I admit I do not possess — is apparently titivating appetites for a wide range of mock foods. Recipe sections are clipped even more than knitting patterns from the glossies available in the crimping salons. But no national newspaper carries a regular gastronomic column. No magazine actually tells its readers how to shop and not particularly attractive consequences. Beneath the sexy sweater of today lie the dangling boobs of tomorrow. A girl who is not aware of this has demonstrated, at the very least, a lack of capacity for long-term planning.
a8tatOr May 5, 1973 for the ' gourmet recipes' so oleaginously portrayed in its much too full colour pages. No one writing on drinks — much less wine — would be alive, if subsisting on the pittances paid for the never more than once weekly squeezed-in segments of copY they are allowed to contribute. And if one attempts to suggest that the BBC or ITV have even a monthly programme on gastronomy (antiques, sport, cage birds, rambling, stereo, art appreciation, drama, every sort of music, books. buildings, medicine, religion. handicrafts, buying houses, visiting churches — you name it they'll feature it as long as it doesn't go into the mouth), the reaction is constantly 'There isn't the demand,'
And then those who can cook and do know about food and drink are surprised when they are invited to dinner with•ever so con poisseur friends and get cream soup, veal in a cream sauce and fruit and cream, with tepid sherry or aged opened vermouth in mini. scule Elgin glasses beforehand, a branded white wine frappe or ditto red hotter than the soup, fol lowed by port in thistle glasses or brandy in whitehot goldfish ibowls. (The table wines, of course, come to the table in cradles, and the glasses are 3* oz. triangles.)
We shall not get good food and drink, tolerably served, unless and until we care, pay a reasonable price and have taken a reasonable time to find out about it so that we can reasonably complain in public, in a space of print devoted to what we all have to do every day of our lives — eat and drink. Tranquillisingly, here is a delicious new recipe, from a book to which I contributed some drink, suggestions — The Jaffa Diet Guide. Friends who have dieted according to it display marked deflation. I can recommend liver a l'orange anyway: for 4 oz liver, you heat a dessertspoonful of oil in a nonstick pan, then add one small chopped onion. Before this has had time to turn colour, add the sliced liver which has been turned in 1 oz. seasoned flour (I included lemon Juice and chopped parsley in this). Cook until done — which for me is when the liver is still pink inside, then take out the liver and keep it warm, squeeze some orange juice into the pan; the book says two teaspoons, but I found this far too little — I'm a ' wet eater' and I used the juice of twooranges, plus the grated rind or ' zest' of one, though the book says 'one teaspoon.' Stir this up well, add a little salt and pepper, after a minute or two pour the sauce over the liver and serve. 4 oz. liver was much too much for me (though craved for a piece of bread to mop up the sauce), so I poured the surplus sauce over the remaining 2 oz. liver, and subsequently served it, cold, as part of an hors ,d'oeuvres or mezedhes — and MY, guest ate all the liver before starting on anything else! It would also make a good party snack, hot or cold, with toothpicks to prong it up. (For the Guide, send 35p to Jaffa Diet Guide, Andover House, Balaam Street, London, E13.)
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