A Path Less Trodden

A post on Leo Babauta’s excellent Zen Habits blog about the Anti-Fast Food Diet which referenced the slow food movement inspired me to add to the debate about how we source, cook and enjoy our food. The full post is here and Leo bemoans the rise of McDonalds and other fast food outlets for contributing to the rise of obesity and the loss of the traditional family meal, cooked with love, from fresh local ingredients and enjoyed leisurely with family around a table.

For me the ideal is the Italian way or at least the Southern European and it’s no coincidence that the slow food movement began it Italy as a reaction to McDonalds trying to open an outlet near the iconic Spanish steps in Rome.  It was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.

My own opinion, in the UK, is that it is not organisations like McDonalds that undermine this ethos, but rather the large supermarket chains like Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda/Walmart and Morrison. They perpetuate the myth of cheap food by forcing suppliers to keep their prices low (presumably at the expense of animal welfare or the livelihood of the producer) or by importing food that could and should be sourced here. This policy is driving UK producers out of business and the consumer will ultimately end up with poor quality food, intensively reared, imported from god knows where or more likely, given the inevitable energy crisis, food shortages and increased prices for basics such as milk. If you don’t believe this read this alarming report on the state of UK dairy farmers

It’s nigh on impossible in the 21st Century to avoid the major supermarket chains altogether, I for one feel that it’s incumbent on us all - with the bigger picture in mind - to support local producers where we can. I buy all of my meat from my local butcher who I know by name. All of his meat can be traced back to local farms and is slaughtered and butchered locally, although there is now only one slaughterhouse locally where there once was three. I buy my free range eggs from him too at a price lower than the supermarket. The meat may be more expensive that the supermarket equivalent, but is often not and where it is the quality is so much better that you need less of it and the taste justifies the price difference.

I admire the French who, as yet, still buy their bread from a local baker, don’t expect their food to be ridiculously cheap and whose food choices are not limited by stupid sentimentality. Only in Britain do we not eat veal, because baby calves look so sweet, yet don’t give a shit about how chickens are reared and will cheerfully buy a £2 chcken from Tesco.

I cannot imagine a life where I don’t cook most evenings, it’s an integral part of my life. It’s not that it’ too onerous either. Tonight I cooked some boulangere potatoes (prep time 10 minutes, cooking time 40 minutes). I ‘cheffed’ it up with stuffed pork fillets wrapped in Parma Ham, some red cabbage I had left over from Sunday, broccoli I’d blanched and then dry fried with garlic, all with a port jus that was left over from a duck breast dish I did on Saturday.

Only the jus was a real ‘faf’ and adapted from the port sauce from the winner of BBC Masterchef 2009, Simon Conboy.

Heck, I’m passionate about food!

I always start my day with breakfast. This will normally be an egg, boiled or poached, accompanied with grapefruit juice and coffee. Lunch will be pasta with prawns or Tuna, jazzed up with a chilli sauce. Sometimes I will cook up a large pot of Dhal to cover three luches in a row. Dinner is generally cooked from scratch although some weekends I will cook up come casseroles for the freezer and then eat them during the week. The only real exception to this is I frequently buy a pre made spinach and ricotta tortelloni and a tomato sauce.

Cooking, for me, is about creativity and cooking for someone else is a manifestation of love. I can’t imagine life without cooking.