November and December 2010
Politics, it is said, is not something that should ever be discussed in polite society and certainly not over dinner. But, then again, there is politics and there is politics.
As I begin to write this column I am sitting many thousands of miles from my usual office enjoying a glass of very cold white after a lovely hot day on the Gulf of Mexico.
As I complete the column I am watching the snow fall over North Dorset – while I was away it seems someone turned the heating off!
On leaving the UK the big political hoo-ha was over Harriet Harman calling Danny Alexander a “ginger rodent” and on arriving in the US the mid-term election results were coming in and it was clear that the American electorate have voted-in some truly bizarre individuals with some of the most astonishing opinions and beliefs.
Now, it strikes me that whatever one’s opinions of British MPs, either collectively or individually, one can be fairly certain that the majority of them can be considered to be sufficiently in touch with reality to do their job, or at least be safe around sharp objects! Ms Harman’s playground insult seems just an ill advised bit of rudeness compared to some of the weirdnesses that the newest members of Congress are espousing. The ironic coincidence is that history’s other famous Tea Party was the one hosted by a Mad Hatter! But what on Earth has that got to do with food? More than you might imagine, I think.
Get any group of foodie types together in this country and the conversation will inevitably turn to the politics of food – the polarity of the saintly local producer against the evil multinational. London’s network of pop-up restaurants and supper clubs even style themselves as a kind of subversive underground; culinary resistance fighters struggling to save the land from being crushed under the clown shoe of the junk food war machine. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I disagree with those attitudes it’s just that it is far too easy to look at food in this country and just see the bad side. Sometimes one needs a bit of perspective.
In the same manner that – however rubbish it is – our political system has got an awful lot to be admired, the state of food and attitudes to it in the UK is a lot better than it might otherwise be.
All over the country there are organisations, many funded with government money, which are running projects to reconnect us with our food, supporting and promoting local food initiatives and educating our children about food and where it comes from. Far from fighting a losing battle against the tidal wave of turkey twizzlers; the supermarket tsunami – these people are at the vanguard of a new way of thinking about what we eat and what we buy. Here in Dorset, and of course all over the country we now have genuine choice when it comes to buying our food.
I went to my local butcher yesterday to order my turkey for Christmas and I bought a chicken, a pound of beef mince, two duck breasts, half a dozen sausages, two pints of milk and a dozen eggs and it cost me twenty quid. Of course, I could buy the same list from the cheapest range in a supermarket for less but, like-for-like, my butcher is no more expensive that the supermarket. How does he do it? Because he’s very, very busy – and that is because people are actively choosing to go there.
When we exercise our choice to buy good food, rather than have the choice dictated to us then it genuinely becomes something of great value – affordable, sustainable and resilient. And we are fortunate enough to live somewhere where we can exercise that choice. Where I’ve just come from I couldn’t find an independent butcher, not one.
So, arriving home amidst snowfall, student riots and news of the Irish economy in desperate trouble it looks like it could be a long hard winter. There is a lot to be envied about the US, particularly the weather in the South in November, but, as far as the politics goes; whatever my opinion of our current lot, good or bad, I don’t envy their job at the moment and at least I’m fairly sure that they’re not all totally barking mad. It may be that you might not trust that the Chancellor truly understands that we’re “all in this together” but, I think you’ll agree it is good to know that at least he doesn’t think he’s from another planet!
As for November’s adventure in food, it was not so much an adventure as a voyage of rediscovery; in that it is only in the going away that one appreciates what is back home. I will be enjoying my Christmas lunch even more this year knowing that everything from the turkey to the butter and flour in the puddings have been selected from as close to home as possible as part of a genuine choice.
That’s not about being a smug, middle-class food-fascist it is about celebrating the fact that through the choices we make and the food we buy we can support our local suppliers who are, after all our neighbours, our friends and ultimately ourselves; I suppose that’s what being in this together is all about. If we lose touch with that we lose touch with reality and end up voting-in Martians at the next election. I’d rather live somewhere where the politicians might be rubbish but they are basically just people like you and me. Somewhere where I can make a little difference for the better by doing a bit of shopping!
