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Bring back pie and peas
WHO'D have thought it? Garlic – which some might consider the work of the devil – is one of our favourite flavours.
Yes, that's right, foreign muck – and French at that – has become a staple in our store cupboards.
And, wait for it, we're also a nation of chilli-lovers too. A quarter of us cook with chilli once a month.
What happened to the British diet of fish and chips, pie and peas (with a dash of mint sauce if we're pushing the boat out), roast beef and Yorkshire puds?
When did we decide to forsake the rice pudding for the risotto, ditch rhubarb crumble in favour of crme brle?
Since we became cosmopolitan. That's when.
I blame those cookery programmes. The likes of Rick Stein, Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay meat-cleavering their way into our living rooms uninvited and then beating a path into our kitchens with their fancy ideas.
The result is that we are no longer satisfied with good, plain home-cooking, we've developed a palate for fancy flavours. And that's official.
As a nation the most popular herbs and spices we have in our cupboards are now (in one, two, three order) garlic, paprika and basil.
Paprika? Since when did anyone know what to do with that apart from putting a dollop in a Hungarian goulash (that's stew to you and me)?
Cookery programmes encourage us to be adventurous and it's obviously working. Where once we thought it daring to grate a bit of nutmeg on top of a milk pudding, now we're throwing basil and coriander around like it's going out of fashion.
We've become a nation of culinary name-droppers: "I was right out of saffron. It was a nightmare."
"Be a darling and pass the kaffir leaves would you?"
There was a time when you opened your cupboard and the most exotic ingredient in there was a jar of ground ginger. Now you need a dictionary to pronounce half the names of the stuff stacked in there.
It's like the Peter Kay sketch – garlic bread. Garlic and bread? What's all that about?
Maybe our tastebuds are changing? They need more titillation and texture.
Holidays have a lot to do with our desire to experience culinary diversity. In the good old days, two weeks in rain-soaked Bognor Regis would have introduced holidaymakers to nothing more testing than a pot of cockles and whelks topped with a dash of vinegar or an egg-mayonnaise sandwich with the exciting addition of mustard and cress.
Now we jet off to all corners of the world and come back with a suitcase full of fancy ideas – Moroccan-style lamb with cous cous, prawns in Thai green curry sauce and we're spreading stuff called taramasalata on our toast instead of Marmite.
It's all getting very worrying.
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Weather for Halifax
Saturday 11 February 2012
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