I was recently round at one of those friendly dinner parties and was suitably oiled with half a grate of Carlberg’s finest larger, and was putting the world to rights with the assembled crowds. One of which is an excellent chef, so much so he is a joy to be around as he comes up with such sumptuous food ideas. The last time he cooked for me he made an awesome rhubarb and custard souffle, god knows how he made it, but it was simply amazing.
I have had some other less appetising food over the years, I once spent around two hours boiling a royal artichoke in fontainbleau, because it was meant to be a real delicacy. It was like sucking the putrid flesh of a piece of boiled celery, but with less taste. I mean what a pointless food, you end up with more rubbish that you do actual food off the the damn thing. It must be the least energy efficient food in the world, some serious boiling and what account for bugger all real benefit to man or beast. At least it might bulk out your compost heap though.
As well as the down right pointless we also talked about the EU branded items, like only Champagne coming from the Champagne region of France be call Champagne, similarly a Pork Pie shop has cornered the market in pork pies. So anyone worth there salt when it comes to pie eating will known the Milton Mulberry Pork Pie is the daddy of all pork pies. Most of us known that a pie with the words Ginsters on the side means mechanical recovered offal with rotten veg, MSG and god knows what else.
It was interesting that there was a line at what we thought was good to eat and not. So whilst the term free range chicken may sound terribly grand, it just means that they have more than one square foot space in their cage. Of course Barn chickens are the next stage up, but even they seem to enjoy pecking each other to pieces, despite being allowed a bit more space to roam. If you really want a ethical chicken then my friendly chef advised that you search out and try to buy a poulet de bresse the Rolls Royce of chickens each one has a whopping 10 metres square of space and is feed only locally sourced mineral water and organic low fat grain. They cost a mere 50 euros, and there is a waiting list for the little buggers.