Foodie at large: Tighten your belts
Reported January 17, 2009
Do food shortages and price rises mean we should eat less?
To Bristol for The Times/Soil Association Organic Food Awards luncheon. And what a jolly affair it was, toasting the success of winning farmers, bakers and confectioners over an organic meal almost entirely sourced from within 15 miles of the restaurant.
But then Patrick Holden, the charming and highly persuasive Soil Association director, had to go and dampen the mood by mentioning the small fact that in one generation we have used up half the world’s resources of fossil fuels, and conventional farming was largely to blame. Apparently, fertiliser production, particularly artificial nitrogen, uses up huge amounts of gas and oil, so, he argues, their use is unsustainable. Adapt now or we will all die. Cripes! And I thought organics was just about being nice to chickens and keeping nasty pesticides out of our children’s tummies.
One of his arguments was that international aid programmes in developing countries were all biased in favour of Western-style (read, “heavily fertiliser-based”) farming methods, so the problem would only become more acute. But a couple of days later, I read that Sir David King, Britain’s former chief scientist, was accusing Western do-gooders of holding Africa back by promoting traditional farming at the expense of modern scientific agriculture. So there’s no consensus on the subject.
On the plus side, I think I’ve solved the twin problems of spiralling food costs and swelling obesity figures. It comes down to the very unglamorous notion of portion control. If food bills are up by 12 per cent over the year (that’s the official figure, but everything I buy seems to be up by double that), we should simply put 12 per cent less on our plates. It’s not as if we can’t afford to: more than half of us are overweight, and nearly a quarter clinically obese.
But are we ready? It’s frightening how quickly we have fallen into the American model of “never mind the quality, feel the quantity” buckets of chicken nuggets and “gut yourself for a fiver” self-service buffets. Geetie Singh, owner of the award-winning Duke of Cambridge pub in North London and, like Haughton, an evangelist for eco-restauration, complains that the greatest waste comes not from the kitchen, but the scrapings from customers’ plates. That’s food they’ve paid for, but have been unable to finish. And yet when she tried to make the portions smaller, no one was having it.
Talking of waste and eco-systems, the anchovy, that humble squelch of bristly savouriness, is the latest to join the Marine Conservation Society’s list of “fish to avoid”. The best anchovies traditionally come from the Cantabrian coast, north of Spain, but overfishing has led to these waters being officially closed. Stocks in Europe’s other major fishery, off Portugal, are also critical and fishing is subject to tight control.
If you are the sort of person who has always picked the anchovies out of your Caesar salad or pizza capricciosa, you might think, “So what?” But the anchovy is one of those unsung heroes of the kitchen, lending an unidentifiable back note to many dishes, from roast lamb to beef casserole. It is also a key ingredient of Worcestershire sauce.
From a chef’s point of view, the anchovy is pretty much irreplaceable. Barny Haughton, owner of the restaurant Bordeaux Quay and our host for the awards, has been experimenting with salted sprats, which you might inadvertently have eaten at Ikea, where they are known by their Scandinavian name: Swedish anchovies. But by his own admission, they lack that
indefinable tang. Chef Rowley Leigh, owner of Le Café Anglais in London, goes even further: “It’s like saying, ‘What should I have if I want a banana, but there are no bananas?’ There is no substitute.”