Alright, I know what those of you with dirty minds were thinking when you read the title… but I’ve come here to talk about food. And about British food, no more no less! Oh, but – some of you will be thinking – is there such thing as British food? Well, perhaps it’s just because I am such a devoted anglophile, but here you have a fervent defender of Great Britain’s much maligned cuisine and of the culinary landscape that is to be found today in not so Grim Britain. Because, honestly, the situation has changed an awful lot since I first set foot in the United Kingdom, where I went to work as an au pair for a Scottish family, having just turned eighteen.
© Illustration David Pazos
Alright, I know what those of you with dirty minds were thinking when you read the title… but I’ve come here to talk about food. And about British food, no more no less! Oh, but – some of you will be thinking – is there such thing as British food? Well, perhaps it’s just because I am such a devoted anglophile, but here you have a fervent defender of Great Britain’s much maligned cuisine and of the culinary landscape that is to be found today in not so Grim Britain. Because, honestly, the situation has changed an awful lot since I first set foot in the United Kingdom, where I went to work as an au pair for a Scottish family, having just turned eighteen. In this exclusively female household, made up of no less than eight women (if we count the family’s female pets – two dogs and two cats), none of them could cook to save their life. My welcome dinner consisted of two slices of ham and a few lettuce leaves dressed with a good lug of salad cream. But then, when the dessert arrived, I enjoyed a wonderful home-made rhubarb crumble, a delicacy I had never tried before in my life and which I literally devoured. In terms of pastry-making, they are absolute whizzes, there’s no denying it.
On the second day, they sent me to pick up our dinner at the Italian-run fish and chip shop on the corner. I would later end up working there for a few hours a week to earn beer money, and learning how to make fresh pasta. Taking stock of the situation, I suggested to the mother that I could take charge of the family meals and she delightedly took me up on the offer. After making Spanish omelette, rice a la cubana and pasta I don’t know how many times, I began testing out all the unfamiliar products I came across in the supermarket. I bought a bit of everything: tikka curry sauce, pesto, every type of bacon and sausage (there are a lot of types, believe me). I even tried haggis… and no, it isn’t like Spanish morcilla and no I didn’t like it at all. But the truth is that neither did I go back to Spain ranting about the terrible food like the vast majority of those spent the summer there learning English.
That summer of ’89, Jamie Oliver should be more aware of his revolution hormone than his Food Revolution.
In those days, Heston Blumenthal was still learning his trade and travelling around France; Fergus Henderson would not open his London restaurant St John for a few years yet, and Nigella Lawson was writing columns for The Observer and Vogue. In Edinburgh at that time you could count the decent, affordable restaurants on the fingers of one hand and they all served foreign cuisine: French, Italian or Asian influenced food, and most of all Indian. And that was about it. The situation in London was different, more than anything because of the huge variety of traditions from all over the world brought over by the large number of immigrants who had been settling in the country since the middle of the previous century. Of course there were traditional British restaurants that had been around for hundreds of years, like Rules, or tea shops where you could enjoy an authentic High Tea in all its glory, or restaurants serving the famous Sunday Roast, if you could afford to pay, that is. Because as a twenty-year old with limited funds, and with the pound being so strong, I had no choice but to be frugal on the food front and allocate the rest of my money to shopping and going out. Of course, you could have a Chinese banquet for a pittance in Soho’s Won Kei, or a reasonably priced home-made dinner in the cosy Stockpot, but if you weren’t recommended a place by someone who knew the city well, you were better off buying a sandwich in a supermarket like Marks & Spencer or Tesco, a filled jacket potato or a slice of pizza in a place you happened to be passing than risk going to a restaurant, which would have been akin to playing Russian roulette.
It doesn’t surprise me that for years, the image people have had of the British culinary scene has been dire. The most remarkable dishes were the enormous breakfasts – which few people would find hard to stomach – and the roasts, especially roast beef which in my house was the star dish at our New Year’s Eve celebrations… Fortunately, things seem to have changed since the mid-nineties and these days it is possible to eat not just well but very well, not only in London but all around the country. I know it is hard to get away from him, and that he isn’t… well, that he’s a bit of a messy cook, and that until recently he said the best food in the world was Italian prosciutto (thank goodness he has finally tried bellota ham) but Jamie Oliver deserves a knighthood for everything he’s done for the good of his country and its future generations. He started out in his early twenties with a fresh, laid-back style. He persuaded the British they needn’t be scared of cooking, to enjoy it, and he showed them what to buy and what to eat. And the young man really got stuck in. He has opened restaurants that employ troubled youngsters; he teaches them to earn a living and enjoy their work without the programme descending into just another trashy reality show. And I really feel for the Spanish star chefs who have tried making similar programmes – which has ended up being a nightmare both for them and for the viewers – but I find Jamie’s version far more authentic…
Sorry. I have to finish the article and nobody has taken their clothes off yet. Some orgy, you must be thinking… Well, don’t be too upset, the second part is still to come. Orgy in the kitchen with the Naked Chef and Nigella, the queen of porn food.
[su_note note_color=”#eaeae9″]Translated by Sarah Burne James[/su_note]