Mincer

Article in the Daily Telegraph about the welfare of egg-laying chickens:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/farming/10446860/How-can-you-tell-if-a-chicken-is-happy.html

You should also bear in mind that male chicks are not valued in factory-farm egg production - they are put LIVE into a mincer shortly after birth.

There are times when I would like to put all the individuals involved in this filthy business (including the supermarket purchasing managers) LIVE into a mincer.

Lancashire "bottom muffins"

Impulse purchase of Lancashire "bottom muffins" (the risque name was pointed out to me later).

Artisan bakery products, local recipes, sold through the Co-Op.

This is how the foodchain should be working.

Palmalito marmalade

A friend returning from Florida gave me this jar of American Palmalito marmalade.  Different to English marmalade, it has a fresh and intensely sweet taste - very enjoyable.  Looking at the ingredients I noticed it contains the infamous corn syrup (which I think is banned as a food additive in the European Union).

Abnormal and sickening

The proposed "super dairy" at Nocton was discussed on the Today programme this morning. To me it is a crucial test of the "Big Society" whether local people are going to be able to control their immediate environment and stop this industrial complex being imposed on their village. And looking at the marketing of these cruel products, how can anyone even think of drinking milk produced in such abnormal and sickening circumstances?

Not sure…

I’m not sure which I prefer.



Bakewell tarts (which have a delectable almond frangipani filling).



Or Eccles cakes (buttery pastry dissolving as you bite into them, so that you are almost overwhelmed by the succulent current filling).



And clotted cream always makes things nicer (as my old manager use to say at board meetings: “You are the cream of the company’s management, which is why the clots rise to the top…”).

More on Bakewell tarts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakewell_tart
More on Eccles cakes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eccles_cake
More on the vernacular use of the word clot: http://www.yourdictionary.com/clot

Save The Cottage Loaf

Above: Is the cottage loaf disappearing from our culture? I had to order this one from a local baker (cost 70p). The cottage loaf is a traditional English bread that dates back centuries – I feel I should form a Save The Cottage Loaf campaign (and be pilloried as a crank, a nimby and a reactionary running dog).

Asda supermarket are currently running television commercials featuring Victoria Wood working in the bakery department of a northern Asda store. In the first of a series of seven ads you see her “learning craft skills” and producing batches of “Hedgehog” loaves in a heart-warming (but very hard-working) atmosphere among down-to-earth Gateshead folk. It’s directed by Patrick Collerton (who did The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off).

The Guardian has a feature on it: http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,2057748,00.html

The commercial makes me uneasy for three reasons:

1) It’s feeding us celebrities yet again.

2) It’s feeding us fly-on-the-wall “reality” television yet again (faked, like all reality television).

3) The basic sales pitch (that Asda is preserving the craft skills of hand-made bread) is a lie.

Asda, more than most supermarkets, is the ENEMY of food diversity. If a particular loaf doesn’t meet their production specifications it doesn’t get into the stores. How often do you see a cottage loaf in Asda? And because cottage loaves don’t feature in the supermarkets they cease to exist in the popular imagination, so less and less people are aware of them and take the homogenized goods on offer. Does this matter? I think so.

Cottage loaves have been baked in this country for hundreds of years, and were the ritual bread used in the wassailing ceremony (slices were dipped in the wassailing bowl and then hung upon the apple trees). They are mentioned by Charles Dickens in Our Mutual Friend (“My own exclusive breakfast, of a penny cottage loaf and a pennyworth of milk…”). They are as much part of our heritage as Westminster Abbey (that’s my entry for the pompous remark of the day award).

Robert Senior, at Fallon (the agency that did the ads) said: “Basically, if a brand or company doesn't have a strong moral compass then consumers are going to stop trusting you.” This advertisement does not prove Asda have a strong moral compass. It pretends that Asda are preserving “craft skills” when in fact the chain is destroying food diversity. On a wider level, Asda has a reputation for predatory pricing that undermines family-owned shops (including bakers) within the orbit of an Asda store, driving them out of business. They also have a reputation for rapacious purchasing that undermines family-owned farms, again driving them out of business. I’m sorry if I am ranting a little, but it is the dishonesty of the double-speak that annoys me.

By the way, I shop at Asda every week (recently converted from Tesco) and there are many things I like about the store. They have an authentic no frills style (they don’t pretend to be anything other than what they are). You can buy Reese Butter Cups. The staff tend to be older and have better manners than the teenagers you meet at Tescos. You can see huge numbers of Poles and Lithuanians shopping there (which I find interesting, although I guess many people wouldn’t). You don’t feel you are being “sold” to (although in reality you are being sold to all the time – the supermarkets are masters of manipulation).




Above: While I was at the bakers buying my cottage loaf I also got these poppy seed rolls, which come from the Jewish tradition.