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Issue 21 - Food Fit to Eat |
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It wasn’t that long ago that any Australian food lover had to forget their passion when visiting the UK. Unless you had mountains of money to eat at one of London’s top restaurants, you tended to let your gourmandizing go to the back burner whilst you enjoyed all the other marvellous things that England had to offer. Beautiful countryside, wonderful history, major art galleries, theatre, music. You sublimated your food expectations and enjoyed a pub meal just for the experience and, if you were lucky, it was a homecooked roast or pie. The sort of food that we call comfort food and many of us remember from childhood.
It wasn’t that long ago that any Australian food lover had to forget their passion when visiting the UK. Unless you had mountains of money to eat at one of London’s top restaurants, you tended to let your gourmandizing go to the back burner whilst you enjoyed all the other marvellous things that England had to offer. Beautiful countryside, wonderful history, major art galleries, theatre, music. You sublimated your food expectations and enjoyed a pub meal just for the experience and, if you were lucky, it was a homecooked roast or pie. The sort of food that we call comfort food and many of us remember from childhood.
It has been six years since I last was in the UK and I am here to report that things have changed dramatically on the English food scene. Eating out is still a very expensive experience compared to what we are used to, but the standard of the cooking and the presentation has changed enormously. From French-style brasseries such as Caf? Rouge which is a chain of establishments all over London and in other major cities, to caf?s and more up market restaurants there is no excuse not to have a good dining experience. Even the coffee has improved. I don’t mean the ubiquitous Starbucks which seem to have taken over every city and town, but Italian coffee made well and using good Arabica beans, although when in doubt always choose tea - the English certainly know how to make that!
We were recently there at the end of August and discovered several restaurants utilising something called samphire which is a seaweed growing wild by the sea. It has only a short season and can be bought from either a good fish shop or sometimes a greengrocer. The first time I ate it I found it salty and rather chewy but realised, after eating it again in another restaurant that it just hadn’t been cooked well. It is a perfect companion to any seafood dish.
I understand it grows in Australia in Tasmania and South Australia but it certainly is not an ingredient that is well known - what a shame.
Being in England and Scotland, where, incidentally the fish, the meat and the game was just wonderful, made me realise what a huge market there is for organic foods and that English chefs, like their Australian counterparts are avid in their search for the best local products. So many prided themselves on serving everything they could from local producers that it was obvious that provenance was a great selling point for their prospective diners.
It is no secret that organic foods have a huge market in the UK and that they form a significant percentage of sales for the major supermarkets. I was also very impressed by finding a range of organic foods called ‘Local Hero’ all from Yorkshire and all featuring a shot of the grower on the label and the place of origin within that county.
In fact as we travelled across the island we found the various regions promoting differences in the foods they produced and encouraging consumers to look for quality and provenance of the foods they were buying or eating in local restaurants. This in turn of course encourages local suppliers and it appeared that people were prepared to pay a premium for this service.
Local markets abound right across the country but it was amazing to see a French market in Bath. The growers, pastrycooks, fish merchants and providores travel from France to bring their food for the two day market. Whilst I am not sure how they keep their products fresh for the two days they were doing a roaring trade and I guess it helps that the climate is not hot!
Food awareness in England and Scotland did not only translate into the food of the regions. There is an enormous interest in Fairtrade - a trading system that guarantees farmers in developing countries are paid a fair price for their products in order to help them work their way out of poverty. I guess you could say it is, like the Slow Food Movement, a way of competing against globalisation and the trade barriers by which the wealthy nations keep out competition from the poorer.
On arriving in Keswick, the major town in the Lakes District we were greeted by a notice that promoted Keswick as a Fair Trade Town. Every hotel, restaurant, bed and breakfast and pub used, wherever possible, Fair Trade products. In Australia, awareness of the movement is limited and only coffee and tea are promoted as such, but in Keswick and indeed other English towns, the food products included sugar, cocoa, fruit juices, honey, raisins and sultanas as well as jam, fruit spreads, dried fruits, and fresh fruits and flowers.
One has to question whether the current interest in food and its provenence has been partly the result of the foot and mouth disease scare. I suspect there is a direct co-relation which has fuelled the interest in food - its quality and freshness. This means, as in Australia, there is an enormous interest in cooking programs, cook books, food destinations. There are also more and more English travelling and also owning homes in France, Spain and Italy. There they see how food plays such an integral part of life and this has changed the way they want to eat when they get home.
Now, as visitors, we have no reason to lower our expectations about the meals we eat. You will be pleasantly surprised and delighted that we can add another plus to a great holiday in the UK.
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