r Imperative cooking: open the gates
LJL
JUST OCCASIONALLY, the brilliant political and economic columnists who grace the front pages of The Spectator need a little help from us trivialists at the rear. It was thus with Mrs Peter Bottomley. Assess- ment of her conduct could not be safely left to the political chaps: they were doggedly going on about health service reforms, bureaucracy, hospital closures and the like, and totally missing the real issue which was the wretched woman's interference with good food. Now she who would have made us eat 1,095 egg-sized potatoes a year and restricted us to one-and-a-half boiled sweets a week is gone. Hooray! An eighth unit of Chamberlin, please, and why not another helping of cassoulet?
Of course, we may have to deal with her successor in due time. But I suspect Imper- ative cooks' next political foray will be con- cerned with Mr Howard and immigration. He does not seem to understand the ques- tion at all. There is a lot about refugee sta- tus, about whether immigrants will fit in and multiculturalism and economics. But the key question about immigrants from this end of The Spectator is, what do they eat? If it's better than what we have, let's have them in. If it's worse, then keep them out, and let's throw out any who have already got in.
Britain is not yet ready for the ideal solu- tion. The Imperative shopping list on immi- gration would be to send any Germans, Dutch, Swedes, Australians, Americans (the odd Argie and a few Latins and Cen- trals might stay), Africans (except north Africans) and Irish home. While we are at it, we could do a little internal migration and get rid of the Scotch and Welsh. These people have added nothing to the quality of food in England. Instead, we want Frogs (but not from Brittany or the Pas de Calais), Eyeties, Dagoes and Chinese.
Ideals, while realised every day in the best kitchens, are rarely achieved in poli- tics. So, for the time being, forget the Frogs, Dagoes and Eyeties. Concentrate on the Chinese, more immediately on Hong Kong. Here is an opportunity for Mr Howard to act. And I can tell him more or less exactly how many we need. There is much misunderstanding of why those immi- grants such as Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who have been so good for food in England have come to be so. It is not because they include among them good chefs, shopkeepers, restaurant entrepreneurs and waiters. If there is no demand for the food they sell, these excel- lent fellows will simply switch to selling the ghastly food demanded by most English people and the Irish, Australians and the rest. The Chinese will sell fish and chips, the Italian waiters wait in whatever restau- rants are busy and the Cypriots turn their hand to whatever anyone wants to buy. The 'Asians' are as happy selling baked beans as bhajias.
Immigrants improve our grub not when they supply but when they demand good grub themselves. When there are enough Spanish in an area of London to demand a good tapas bar, then, and only then, will you get a good tapas bar, rather than some- where serving mass-produced olives, the cheapest manchego and microwaved chori- zo. With shops one can at least guess at the figures. If an Italian family spends £20 a week on bread, cured meats, pasta, oil and the rest at their local Italian shop, then there are going to have to be well over 100 such families to keep the shop going. Even Italian shops require the discipline of at least one competitor, so that means about 1,000 individual Italians per area. To have a couple of Italian shops in each of 300-odd English towns will require 300,000 Eyeties. The same goes for Chinese or Dagoes. To civilise England, which means ensuring that each town has a mixture of Italian, Spanish, Chinese and Asian shops and restaurants selling food good enough to satisfy their own discerning people, would require high- quantity and high-quality immigration. Now you see why we may eventually have to remove the Celts. Indeed, we may have to push out some of the English.
There are no signs that Mr Major or even young Mr Blair has the taste for such an operation. But could we not try at least to entice a few Hong Kongers in, just a modest horde, a little swamp? They, in par- ticular, would bring not only food but a much needed robust attitude to eating ani- mals. Please, Mr Howard, forget the talk of tongs, unemployment, threats to identity, and get moving. Just think of the second- best cuisine in the world available in every Cheltenham. Open the gates.
Digby Anderson
fear Barry may have a drink problem.'
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