Category Archives: rant

Fish from Widemouth Bay

Posted on April 8, 2008 | 2 comments

Fish soup with fish from Widemouth Bay

On Sunday I crossed counties from Devon to Cornwall. My mission: to buy fish. On a Sunday.

As I drove westward, on my right was the grey/green Atlantic ocean. But I knew its proximity did not guarantee I could buy fish landed from its waters.

We have lost the art of buying fresh fish caught locally. Most fish nowadays is sold in supermarkets. Much comes from far away and has probably been frozen.

This is the tragedy of (so-called) developed countries. The only thing which has developed is mass industrialisation. Thus fishmongers are in danger of becoming an extinct species, swallowed up in the jaws of the supermarket.

But not in Widemouth Bay. Perched above its windswept beach is Beach House Wet Fish , probably one of the best wet fish shops around. And it’s open on a Sunday (until 5.30pm).

The lovely fish lady was apologetic the local boats were not out yet this year. So, my fish came from Looe, a bit further down the coast.

All the fish and shellfish in the bowl (pic above) was bought at Widemouth Bay: the scallops, the mussels, the little red mullets perched atop (which I roasted quickly in a hot oven and added with the fried scallops right at the end of the mussels cooking in the water flavoured with a fillet of ling, fried onion and fennel, and fresh parsley and tarragon).

Here is more detail on an earlier fish soup.

The black and white bits in the above pic are actually pasta, farfalle zebra, coloured with black squid juice (the packet has not been opened for a year but this soup was the right occasion).

I am only sorry I had to drive to get there and back (one hour and a half in total) because I consider cars to be cold mean death machines that are bad for the planet as well as my soul.

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Gurnard my friend

Posted on March 6, 2008 | 2 comments

Raw gunard in baking tin on a sofa

Ingrid Rose came to dinner and I pulled out all the stops. She feels strongly about looking after land and sea – so no cutting of ethical corners with Ingrid Rose.

The fish had to be caught sustainably – not plundered from the sea or factory-farmed, she said. I was grateful to be pushed in a real food lover direction.

I dithered at the Hand Picked Shellfish stall at the Bristol Farmer’s market, agonising between two sustainable fish. Would it be familiar mackerel or ugly-looking gurnard?

In an experimental mood, I chose the gurnard although it disturbed the very fibre of my being.

Yet gurnard never let us down. Flesh firm and sweet, similar to sea bass – and at £7 a kilo, about a third of the price.

Tragically and incomprehensibly, this sustainable fish is called “jetsam” – thrown back into the sea dead, discarded from a more glamorous, prized catch.

My grandmother would say: You can’t tell a book by its cover.

I felt a pang as I handled the sea creature’s body before cooking. I no longer felt judgmental about its heavy face and lugubrious name.

We roasted it (covered) with thyme, sliced shallots and mushrooms in olive oil for 20 minutes in a hot oven. Served it with faithful brown rice and trusty steamed kale.

I felt the gurnard had entered my life like a family animal or pet – and we ate it.

“Don’t be sad,” said Ingrid Rose. “Gurnards eat other fish.”

Gurnard, kale and brown rice plated with fish carcass in background

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The Delia effect

Posted on March 3, 2008 | 2 comments

Small bowl of salad (green leaves, carrots and purple radish sprouts)

When Delia spoke to the masses and decreed the poor can eat battery-farmed chickens, did their sales rise?

The “Delia effect” describes the unprecedented sale of certain ingredients after being recommended by TV cook Delia Smith. Her influence is so vast that “Delia” has entered the dictionary.

I am pleased to report that sales for free-range poultry have soared.

This follows the high-profile campaign on TV’s Channel 4 by two other famous cooks, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver. They called for higher standards of chicken welfare for all concerned, chickens and their eaters alike.

Sales of free-range poultry rose by 35 per cent in January (compared with January 2007) while sales of standard indoor birds fell by 7 per cent, according to market research company TNS. In response, Tesco doubled its order for higher-welfare chickens.

I mentioned what Delia said to my hairdresser.

Sharp intake of breath. “How can it ever be alright to eat a battery-farmed chicken?” she said.

Listen, she is an apprentice hairdresser so it was gratifying to hear being short of cash does not mean skimping on food quality.

Of course, you have to be a bit canny and cook from scratch. But that’s how most people in the world eat, and why so-called peasant food (such as pasta dishes, stews, curries) tastes so good.

Today’s picture is of a salad made by Chloe, with organic leaves, grated carrots and sprouting radish, that accompanied brown rice and lentils with fried onions, mushrooms and egg, that her dad Mike made. (PS the vase may be corporate but the beans were organic).

This princely meal that cost us about £1.50 each. I rest my case.

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Couscous cousins

Posted on February 20, 2008 | 1 comment

Plate with grated carrots, greens and couscous

Why do people eat pot noodles when there is couscous is in the world? Listen, all you do is pour boiling water over the grains (processed to a teeny size), let five minutes go by while they plump up with water, add olive oil and lo, instant food.

My current top favourite couscous is made from kamut (by Probios) which is good news for all you wheat-sensitive types.

Tonight I added to the couscous, chives (one of the few herbs I can grow as I have pink fingers). I fried onions, mushrooms and chilli, then grated raw carrots (organic of course) and served them with steamed kale and purple sprouting broccoli (cut up quite small).

I made one meal stretch for two unexpected guests, Sarah, my middle daughter, and Juliette, my eldest niece. Juliette, just turned 18, explained how traumatic it was. However she immediately noticed the benefits of being grown up.

How? quizzed Sarah, my daughter the social anthropologist.

Juliette said: “Like. Oh. My. God. I suddenly stopped listening to my story tapes.”

Juliette (pictured) jujudsc10013.jpgwas also disappointed with Delia. “People who are interested in food are just not going to buy Delia. She seems really old fashioned now,” she said.

My mum – the original real food lover empress – is also incensed with Delia for recommending convenience foods while so-called championing the poor. My mother’s letter begins: “Bleeding heart Delia has not done her sums right.”

My mother’s family, immigrants from Russia, lived in the East End of London. They had little on the table and very rarely meat. But they ate well because they knew about food.

Reader, such is my provenance.

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Disappointed in Delia

Posted on February 18, 2008 | 1 comment

I am still feeling disappointed in Delia.

Claiming to eschew the “politics of food”, she makes this sweeping political statement:

“If the whole world goes organic then the state of the Third World will really be twice as bad as it is at the moment and I’m much more interested in people getting enough to eat.”

Get your facts right, Delia. (And spare me the sanctimony).

Farming organically actually improves the food security of poor countries. It also means farmers in the two-thirds world are not reliant on agrochemicals – which are bad for their health and purse and environment.

The only ‘Delia effect’ I am getting right now is intense irritation at her misinformation.

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Delia Smith for poor food

Posted on February 18, 2008 | 4 comments

The TV queen of cookery has displeased me. Delia Smith has made rude remarks in the UK media about something very dear to my real food lover heart: she has dissed organic food.

I am miffed she is using the politics of food to promote her comeback. Delia “retired” six years ago to be director of a football club but now she is back on our screens with a new cookery show.

Her new book, How to Cheat at Cooking, makes a point of using ingredients such as tinned lamb. Look, I have nothing against convenience foods. But she should at least give people correct information so they can make up their own minds.

She said on national radio that organic chickens are expensive (without explaining why) and poor people can eat the caged ones from factory farms.

Delia claims to despise the cult of the celebrity chef but I can’t help feeling she is using her celebrity to seize the People’s Cook crown.

If she really cared about poor people she would have explained how to buy food on a working-class estate. Or how to cook an organic chicken on state benefits by make it last for twelve meals.

You can eat organic on a budget if you cook from scratch. (It’s actually those convenience foods that hike a food bill.)

Instead the People’s Cook is telling people to buy convenience foods from middle-class supermarkets. You’ll be lucky to find a Sainsbury’s in a food desert, Delia.

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Guilty food secret

Posted on February 5, 2008 | 1 comment

When I said I hate tomatoes – and mentioned tomato-substitute, Nomato – I got a comment that made me feel like a ketchup bottle getting a shake.

My commentator, Neil Basil (I keep wanting to call him Captain Vegan, but in a nice way) asked: “Why cook a pretend tomato for someone who doesn’t like tomatoes?”

He’s right. In addition, what place does pretend food have when real food is at stake?

I myself am rather snobby about food technology concoctions such as vegetarian mince and – dare I say it? – vegan cheese.

But stop. Before I cast out someone else’s mote, I should pull out mine own beam.

It’s time to confess: I am addicted to a factory-made milk substitute, soya milk. I prefer it to milk which I find too animal-y in a cup of tea.

I feel I cannot justify my love of organic soya (and oat and nut) milks because they are highly processed and come in Tetrapak cartons that are hard to recycle – although not impossible.

One day when I am living in my dream eco-cottage I will make my own soya milk.

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My kind of show

Posted on February 3, 2008 | Leave a comment

I read in today’s The Guardian of the appointment of Thailand’s new prime minister, Samak Sundaravej.

I am grateful to a fellow blogger for giving me the low-down on Samak’s politics. His attitude to human rights, women and journalism makes him an extremely Winkler-unfriendly person.

I found this out from a blog. My newspaper had failed to furnish me with any such helpful context.

However it did provide this item: apparently the politician had a cookery show on TV called Tasting, Grumbling, where he delivered diatribes as well as dinner.

Being paid to cook and rant? Of the eco, real food and peacenik variety of course. Sounds like my kind of show.

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