Dutch Treat
Two kinds of food make Dutch people as giddy as can be: 'Pancakes', and 'chips 'n' apple sauce'. As a student, I was appalled to find out people considered this kind of nonsense a 'treat'.
They are treats because they are what Dutch parents offer their kids on their birthdays. I'm sure it made a welcome change from the usual fare of spuds and veg, cooked to pulp. I'm sure you remember squishy cauliflower doused in sickly ready-made white sauce. I imagine generations of flowery dressed sherry sipping Dutch mothers mumbling "Must. kill. dangerous. veg. by stewing it in pot for at least a week"
A friend of mine, a college teacher and self confessed foodie, asked his first year students what their favourite restaurant was. They unanimously answered: 'McDonalds'. Most likely, they - in their early twenties - had never seen the inside of a proper restaurant. The horror.
I grew up in a household where mum experimented with paella, even if my dad refused to eat fowl or fish. Where dessert was a plate of French cheese. Where on the weekend, parents and child would compete to cook the sweetest dinner. Boiled potatoes, staple food in northern Europe, saw my plate but once every few weeks. We grew our own and harvested one little basket each year, enough to get us through the winter.
This child never encountered 'chips and apple sauce' until invited to the new neighbours' kid birthday party. This ten year old came home complaining about it, this frankly ridiculous combination. I could not comprehend how 'apple sauce' could be considered a vegetable. Could they not at least have served a green salad with this meal? This child would demand her dad bring home more of the Bulgarian sheep cheese he found on a work trip to Germany.
In my early teens, I insisted on and was served cheese fondue for my birthdays. I wanted brussels sprouts and fava beans, homemade cream of mushroom soup, steaming plates of saltimbocca, coq au vin, ossobuco, boeuf bourguignon, or stroganoff. 1
On holiday in France, my face would be pressed up against the windows of charcuteries and I'd hope the day I'd have my own money to sample all the delicacies would come soon. I would choose a trip to the mammouth supermarkets over any other holiday activity.
Food is life. It needs time and conversation. It needs to be treated, cooked and consumed with love.
On line supermarket 'MaxFoodMarket' sent me an e-mail today, proudly boasting the addition of 'new, ready-made meal-components: low fat, high fibre, low cholesterol, low salt' (low taste, I presume) to their rather mundane, read: boring range of products. They also made mention of their lovely new printing accessories, lightbulbs and plugs.
I shake my head in disbelief.
Offer me this: Fresh chunks of parmazan that zing in the mouth. Chewy, gloopy, buffalo mozarella. Prime cuts of succulent lamb, with tasty fatty streaks. Buttery artichokes dipped in home made vinaigrette. Dark bitter cooking chocolate that stains the fingers on first touch. Maiden white double cream, oozing into a bowl. Rich heaps of moist grey sea salt to sprinkle over tender trout. Home grated pungent ginger, bouncy flat udon, cooked al dente, to stir fry in the hottest wok, flavoured with nutty, velvety sesame oil.
Offer me that and then I'll shop with a smile and be a satisfied, returning customer.
Stuff your ready-made meal components! With a light, moist, fragrant stuffing, naturally.