September 2010
In the finals of TV’s Celebrity Masterchef Christine Hamilton prepared a terrine of pig’s head for a table of top chefs. They loved it. Well, why not? Pork is delicious. Yet many people would balk at the idea of eating pig’s head.
A while back there was a TV programme that said it would expose unsavoury practices in the food industry. Instead it attempted to shock and horrify the viewer by serving passers-by with burgers made from…wait for it…beef heart.
The consumer reactions that were shown involved an initial approval turning to disgust when that key ingredient was revealed. Well, beef heart, yuck! Yes? Er…no, actually. What on Earth is wrong with using beef heart in burgers? Heart is high quality protein and is made of all the same material as fillet steak, just arranged differently. It is sad that heart, like head and cheek and tail and tongue are all too often sent for pet food or simply wasted. It seems strange that terrine of pig’s head is considered a gourmet delicacy in a top-class restaurant but, stick it in a bun and sell it from a van and there will be riots!
The real horror story is not that your budget burger is made from something other than the finest steak but the increasing distance and disconnection between us and the food that we eat.
So much food is now manufactured in factories that the real scandal is not that a burger might contain heart (delicious) but that a simply cookie could contain e-coli (not so delicious). In the US alone the recall of contaminated food and the knock-on effects on the economy run into the billions of dollars. One global food giant recalled millions of dollars worth of uncooked cookie dough from supermarket shelves after the flour used was found to be contaminated with e-coli. Every year hundreds are hospitalised and many die from food poisoning caused by contamination of processed food prepared in factories. But how hard is it to make your own cookie dough? How have we become content buying cookie dough made in a factory and yet disgusted at the thought of eating heart?
This month’s wide-ranging adventure in food gave me a moment to pause and consider that perhaps there’s hope for us yet. It’s Summer show season, and I’ve been all over doing demos in fields here and there. It’s always fun trying to measure out flour in a high cross-wind! At the Dorset County Show at the beginning of September I ran into Lee from The Dorset Pantry whose demo was to be the skinning of a deer. The organisers were a little concerned that it might offend but in actual fact Lee attracted a great audience, many of whom were children. Understanding where food comes from should be a vital part of everyone’s education and it was terrific to see so many young people engaged and enthralled.
I have also been treated to a personal tour of Jody Scheckter’s amazing Laverstoke Park Farm. The Education Centre there reaches literally thousands of children each year putting them in touch with their food and where it comes from. It is a superb example of what can be done to re-engage us with what we eat. We need to know, and should really care about what is going on our plate and we should perhaps change some of our perceptions as to what makes good food.
I for one am convinced that isolation from how our food is prepared and unquestioning trust in industrial processing can’t be good for us in the long run. Cook weird things and enjoy it! Happy Cooking!
