Beige food and I

Beige shades

As a child I had an aversion to brown wallpaper – the result, I think, of moving aged 4 1/2 into a new house previously owned by an elderly couple. It was the mid-eighties and everything was brown – some lighter, some darker, but still brown and to my mind oppressive and stuffy. As an adult, I have a similar aversion, but this time it’s beige not brown and food not furnishings. Loyal readers may recall my casual reference to this in last week’s post about Christmas parties. When my other half, loyally reading it, enquired, ‘What’s so wrong with beige food?”, I realised that to save this point – potentially central to my “food philosophy” – from the bottomless pit of obscure blog references, it required elaboration.

Let’s be clear. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with beige food. Indeed, some beige foods are entirely necessary: brown rice, quinoa, potatoes, oats, buckwheat, millet, and for the carnivorously inclined, chicken and turkey … all nutritious and useful.  So with what am I taking issue? Two things.  Continue reading

Advent and the Art of Indulgence

christmas tree drawings

Forget John Lewis’ penguin, a new seasonal madness has gripped the nation – well, the nation’s health food bloggers at least. Wherever you turn, you are earnestly called to sprinkle your porridge with wheatgrass, add turmeric to your tea and slather your face with coconut oil. Advent is a feast of supplements, a sort of religious devotion to external and internal perfection, presented as your only hope of hanging up your Christmas stocking muffin-top free.

At this juncture, it is interesting to look at the ingredients in Asda’s Rich Fruit Mince Pies (12.5p per pie) – a mouth-watering mixture to be washed down with cheap sparkling wine at many a Christmas party …

Sugar, Apple, Glucose Syrup, Currants, Sultanas, Raisins, Glucose-fructose Syrup, Vegetable Oil, Orange Peel, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, Preservatives (Acetic Acid, Sodium Metabisulphite, Potassium Sorbate, Sulphur Dioxide), Malt Extract (From Barley), Lemon Peel, Invert Sugar Syrup, Apricot, Mixed Spice, Sugar Syrup, Dextrose, Citric Acid, Gelling Agent (Pectin), Acidity Regulator (Sodium Citrates), Natural Flavouring, Wheat Flour, Vegetable Oil, Glucose Syrup, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, Sugar, Dextrose, Salt, Raising Agents (Diphosphates, Sodium Bicarbonate), Preservative (Potassium Sorbate). Continue reading

Returning to the straight and narrow

Victorian Supper Table

I was at a birthday party a few weeks ago, and, after a couple of civilised hours chatting, sipping wine and swaying elegantly (or so I liked to think) on the dance floor, I found myself alone beside the buffet table. Despite having eaten a balanced evening meal only a few hours before, I was inexplicably and irresistibly drawn, in my two-glasses-of-wine haze, to what seemed to me to be a resplendent cheese board and accompanying tapenade. I started modestly – just two small slithers of cheese, one thin slice of baguette and a spoonful of tapenade. So far so good.

But with no-one there to observe my greed, I soon returned to the table and re-filled my plate more generously. The food was tasty, but far too rich for a midnight snack. It was on my third and greediest trip, as I plugged a large chunk of bread slathered with cheese and tapenade into my mouth without even putting it on my plate that I had a moment of clarity: no longer an interested taste, this had become a fully fledged gorge. I wiped my lips and stopped there. Continue reading