Back to British basics
Jonathan Ray welcomes efforts to revive our national cuisine THE constant merry ping of the microwave gave the game away. I had been conned, lured inside a charming-looking restaurant in a small town on the River Severn by jaunty handwritten notes in the window which promised me traditional English food at its best, 'cooked and presented under the personal supervision of your host and hostess, Gerald and Marjorie' (not their real names). Exhausted after a day's hiking along the river, my phoney-spotting antennae must have been dulled because, like a mug, I fell for such promised delights as fresh dressed crab and jugged hare, breast of local duck and roast saddle of wild rabbit. What I can't explain is the horrible fascination which kept me stuck to my seat, because the food was absolutely dire. The raw ingredients may well have been local — in that they probably came from a tin bought locally — and might even have been fresh — once — but they had been frozen, cooked, frozen again, defrosted and reheated (partly) before reaching my plate via the trigger-happy hands of microwave Marj and the beaming Gerald, who also doubled as the wine waiter (And will you be taking the red or the white Bulgarian Chardonnay, sir?'). The dressed crab was warm on top and frozen on the bottom. The rabbit may not have been rabbit at all, but rather three or four slices of warmedup cardboard nestling in the soggy embrace of a Cumberland sausage which, if homemade as advertised, had been assembled several months previously from a mixture of dried herbs, toothpaste and shaving foam. The food bore no relation to its description, and I'd rather have had an honest plate of fish-fingers (cod pieces, my father used to call them), frozen peas and ketchup, all of which I adore, rather than
this saliva-curdling rubbish which pretended to be something it wasn't.
There was only one other couple in the restaurant, barely out of their teens and
clearly on a hot date. The lad looked both nervous and excited and in complete awe of his surroundings. He might even have been contemplating proposing. I felt aghast at the thought of him wasting his money in a pretentious dump like this, and wanted to go over to them and shout, 'It doesn't have to be like this! You are both still young, escape while you can. I'll cover you.' Charlatans like Gerald and Marjorie should be made to stand on their heads in a bucket of factory-made taramasalata before being taken out and pelted with chicken nuggets and crab-sticks.
Establishments like this put the cause of good British grub back decades. But such twee, paper-doily, rip-off hell-holes notwithstanding, it is usually agreed these days that restaurant food in Britain is better than ever before and, thanks to foreign travel, multiculturalism and cheap mass production, our choice of foods in the shops is also greater. But unfortunately, in our rush to gulp down sun-dried tomatoes and virgin olive oil, we are too often guilty of overlooking our own country's culinary heritage. Many delicacies have virtually disappeared or have become victims of mass production and are available only in supermarkets — or bogus restaurants — if stuffed with colouring, E-numbers and MSG. It is undeniably a good thing that a wider range of food is available today to a wider range of consumers, but far too often greater choice has led to plummeting quality. More is definitely less, it seems.
Thank God, then, for British Food Fortnight, brainchild of Alexia Robinson and organised by the Countryside Alliance and the Guild of Fine Food Retailers. This grub-lovers' festival, which began on 26 October and continues until 9 November, should delight those of us who pine for the days when kippers could be bought fresh and undyed, when bacon could be fried without expectorating white goo, and when tomatoes tasted of. . . well, tomatoes. The fortnight — which, it is hoped, will become an annual event — proves that fine British food is not dead, and that there are producers, merchants and restaurateurs out there who care.
'Our original celebration of food was the annual Harvest Festival,' Alexia told me. 'and British Food Fortnight is an attempt to reinvigorate our interest in food, and to highlight the link between man and his food.'
A vast number of events have been planned for the fortnight, including 'National Apple Day', 'British Beer and Cider Day', 'Thank God it's Fish Day', 'Breakfast in Bed Day' and 'Host a Roast' — where people across Britain are encouraged to host a dinner for friends using only British produce; this was done last year with more than 1,000 dinners with 15,000 people taking part. There are also numerous local celebrations such as Dorset Food Week and a Food Lovers' Fair in Covent Garden Market. Schools are being invited to form links with their local farming communities so that children can discover that food actually comes from the ground rather than a chilled cabinet in Tesco's or Sainsbury's. There is even a Brussels sprout festival in Chipping Campden, the heart, apparently, of our sprout-growing industry. The day before the fortnight's official start, a competition was run to find the top ten long-forgotten British foods. Too many taken-for-granted delicacies and dishes are being lost to us as we flock to the supermarkets rather than stick with small producers. Certain breeds of apples are becoming extinct, for example, as the supermarket buyers strive for perfectly shaped and coloured fruit. Quinces are rarely seen nowadays, and when did you last see a 'Bath chap'?
Of course, a number of factors have resulted in a change in our food habits, one example being the increase in wine-drinking in these islands. For the first time we as a nation are drinking more wine than beer, and so we look for dishes that go well with Pouilly-Furne and claret rather than with bitter or stout. A nation's cuisine changes and absorbs foreign influences, as does its language, although it is harder to explain why we Britons care so little for our food and how, if it wasn't for the rearguard action of the culinary heroes involved in British Food Fortnight, far too many local specialities would disappear.
But not all is doom and gloom. Farmers' markets are becoming more popular, supermarkets are finally bowing to consumer pressure and stocking organic produce, and television programmes by the likes of Rick Stein and the wonderful Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall are championing good, local and home-grown produce. We have recently been told that vitamin pills are a waste of time (what a
surprise) and that a balanced diet of fresh food is the crucial thing. If British Food Fortnight can tap into all this, then they will certainly be on to something. After all, it was only a few years ago that we were all drinking terrible beers in this country as small breweries went to the wall, until along came the Campaign for Real Ale, one of the most successful pressure groups of all time, raising the quality of our native beers dramatically and saving dozens, if not hundreds, of breweries into the bargain.
Initial signs are encouraging; as Alexia says, 'I didn't mean the festival to get this big! But it seems to have struck a chord with independent producers and retailers, and I'm absolutely delighted. Food is a necessity, but why not treat it as a pleasure?'
Unplug your freezer and your microwave, Gerald and Marjorie; your days are numbered.
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