In the midpoint of the great British Barbecue season the weather has suddenly changed. We’ve been so far blessed with an almost text-book English Summer here in the South, long sunny days of low humidity and clear air. This week however we’ve been in the path of some shifting air masses bringing us cooler weather with a bit of rain.
Nobody seems to mind too much, least of all those of us with a garden in desperate need of water, because there seems to be an expectation that this is just a blip; a bit of Summer rain and we’ll be getting the good stuff back soon. Here’s hoping! I for one am not ready to hang up the tongs and go back into the kitchen just yet.
There’s something about cooking outdoors that is just great. And it’s not just me, Radio 4 just this week dedicated their entire edition of The Food Programme to the subject. I’ve been doing a bit myself, not least at some major events one of which is nearly upon us, the boldy-named Grillstock!
Just a fortnight ago I was at an event called Field To Fork at the excellent Laverstoke Park which included the British Barbecue Championships (the professionals) and the Amateur BBQ World Cup. Needless to say the amateur day although highly competitive was much more relaxed without an ego in sight as far as I could see. In a fiercely fought grill-off ten teams slaved over their identical Napoleon Mirage Grills – herb-scented forge workers perspiring in the grey-white heat of culinary industry.
I was set up mere metres away, and slightly downwind, demonstrating the range and versatility of the finest Canadian grilling machines from our friends at Napoleon. The barn that Mr Scheckter had set aside for the event soon resembled something from downrange of Eyjafjallajökull as the finest white ash rained steadily down from the rafters.
And it was very fine ash indeed from the very finest of charcoals from the finest sustainably harvested British hardwoods.
It was with no little delight that I discovered that the charcoal used for the event was from Bioregional, a company set up by one of my oldest and closest friends, Pooran Desai (OBE no less). Bioregional Charcoal was his first of many successes on the road to becoming one of the world’s leading green entrepreneurs. In the years to come I’ll be able to say “I knew him when…”
Actually, sod the years to come. I knew him when…back in the early 90s I worked with Mr Desai (OBE) on a disused plot of allotment land to create a demonstration area promoting sustainable food production. We centred the design with a big old pond and a motley crew one Sunday set about excavating a big enough hole to created a naturally “puddled” watertight pool. With our worthy green credentials established we lay about the task with shovel and mattock and much graisse de coude.
At about the half way mark there was much flagging of spirits and irritable mutterings. But the half-hearted prehistoric clink clink of hand-tool on flinty soil was broken by the post industrial thock-thock-thock-thock- CRUNCH! of a diesel engined leviathan crashing through a (rapidly widening) gap in the onlookers. Like some latter day mahout coaxing a trumpeting cadmium yellow elephant through the middle of a hippy commune, PD (OBE), grinning at the controls of a huge JCB, waved regally at the peasants below. We knew then we were in the presence of greatness. When the going got tough, the tough kept digging but the smart got a JCB.
In borrowing the machine from the owner of the garden centre which backed on to the allotments (it might have been borrowed or “borrowed” – he remains inscrutable on the subject to this day) our glorious leader demonstrated the maxim that, at the end of the day, you can be as green-principled as you like but principles alone won’t dig you as big a hole as a JCB!
My great friend, genius, polymath, entrepreneure and giggler. Pooran Desai, OBE
By approaching his socio-environmental agenda with the eye of a businessman Pooran Desai has created companies and ways of doing business that are both profitable and green. When challenged about his own carbon footprint, generated from travelling the world to set up new sustainable industries, he is typically sanguine. I asked him once whether “it” (anthropogenic climate change and environmental degradation) was as bad as “they” (them) made out. Thoughtfully he laughed and said “I actually think it could be a lot worse than that!” When asked if that didn’t give him pause to wonder why he was bothering with all the Bioregional effort he was equally frank and replied to the effect that it wasn’t really a choice to be made.
It has always seemed to me that it was in attempting to deal with the paradox that in trying to bring about our salvation might hasten our destruction that Pooran discovered his true calling.
While some people follow the Clarkson line and deny everything in the hope it might go away and others give up washing and cutting their hair to super-minimise their carbon toe-prints, Pooran Desai has suggested that by maybe synthesising sound practical, business, scientific and environmental principles there might be hope for us yet. As he might say, there probably isn’t, but there might be and that’s enough for me.
It is with immense pride in reflected glory that I can say that Pooran Desai’s work has ultimately resulted in some truly novel paradigms about how we live our lives including the concept of the “zero carbon” business, a term which he first coined – which is funny from a guy who established his credentials by selling barbecue charcoal!
