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JR's notes:

GOURMET (see ARE YOU GAME - October 1996) certainly ran to a second issue and this was my contribution to that in the spring of 1997. I moved away from Luton in the summer and never heard from them again. The unnamed 'famous chef' in this piece is Michel Roux of The Waterside Inn in Bray, Berkshire. The Latin sign-off ("mine's a large one") has now also become my sign-off for the West Sussex Gazette [sussex.htm].

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REAL FOOD - DEMAND IT!

It was the chicken what done it. No, this is not the last page of a new detective novel (Fowl Play, by Sal Monella?), but a reflection on how more and retailers are beginning to understand that low price sells, but quality sells and sells again, and restaurants are learning that we're less inclined to smile weakly and say "everything was fine" when it wasn't.

The chicken in question was a free-range French poussin served plain-roasted with some green salad. I'd been interviewing a famous chef for a magazine, and he'd kept me waiting, through no fault of his own, for two hours while he finished a photo-shoot. In recompense he invited me to dinner, even though I had an early start. The conversation was on this wise:

"John, you must allow me to give you dinner."

"No, thanks, it's very kind of you but I have an early start tomorrow..."

"I insist - just one course and you'll be away: an hour at most?"

"I really would love to stay, but I have to be up at 4:00 a.m...."

"I had a kilo of fresh Périgord truffles delivered this morning..."

"Just one course...?"

The Périgord truffles were a bonus, of course, but it was the chicken which made the difference. One taste, and I was transported back to long, cold, hungry nights in a school dormitory dreaming about home cooking. In the late 1950s and early 60s beef, pork and lamb were not the luxuries they have become today. On my precious three-times-a-term visits home for a lingering Sunday lunch, my tastebuds demanded only one thing: fresh, plump chicken; tender, free-range chicken; tasty, melt-in-the-mouth chicken; roasted to a hint of crispness on the skin and a delicate pink inside. I realised in that moment that I hadn't tasted real chicken for a generation. The pale, tasteless, battery-produced item is an insult, as much to the chicken as it is to the customer, which explains why it's only edible as Mexican, Cajun, Tikka, Thai, Chinese or in some other, usually oriental guise.

No matter that it took a French chef and a French chicken to remind me of the difference between real and factory-farmed food. I'd already noted that butchers who sold 'real' free-range beef and monitored its slaughter themselves had seen an increase in business since the BSE scare; specialists in the cheese business tell me that unpasteurised cheese has seen leaps and bounds in demand since the listeria crisis (remember that - about 127 health-scares ago?), and we've all seen the rise in interest in organic vegetables. The simple truth is that people wouldn't pay more for any of these items unless they were more reliable and tasted better, and the fact that we're prepared to demand more for our hard-earned cash is a consummation devoutly to be applauded.

So, let's stand up for our rights and demand real food! The first signs of capitulation are already on the supermarket shelves. Enjoy them! Press home the advantage! Demand more, and better! How do we do this? By voting with our wallets, of course. The more we buy, the wider the range can become... And, purely as a side-line, the better it'll taste and the healthier we'll all be.

Mea Magna Est!

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