"Grandmother, may I have another sausage?" asked Hugh Anthony.
"Certainly not," said Grandmother.
"Why?" asked Hugh Anthony.
"Because you've had two already."
"But why can't I have three?"
"Because three wouldn't be good for you."
"Why?"
"Because they are made of pork, and too much pork is not good for children."
"They aren't made of pork. Sarah says Mr King's sausages are made of horse. So may I have another?"
Sister of the Angels Elizabeth Goudge, 1939.
There's horse meat in prepared meals you say? Cue the
proliferation of jokes. So very many jokes. Enough that the jokes are
reported almost as much as
the latest developments.
But it isn't very funny really. For one thing, it's not
just horse meat of unknown provenance. Pork, prohibited by Muslim and Jewish dietary laws, has also been
found in these "beef" products. And there have been suggestions that the
horses may actually have been
donkeys.
Aside
from the jokes, I've seen mainly three categories of responses:
serves you right for eating meat, what is wrong with eating horse anyway
and what did you expect from value meals?
There's
not really much I can say about the first. Some people who choose not
to eat meat are very keen to proselytise. They have a point - I'm sure most people would benefit from eating less meat
(particularly highly processed meat products) and more vegetables. It probably would
benefit the planet, too. But I
honestly don't think that many people who do eat meat will stop as a
result of this, although
sales of frozen beef (or "beef") burgers have fallen.
The "what is wrong with eating horse"
school also gets short shrift from me, because it is just
fundamentally missing the point. If you choose to eat horse, there is
nothing wrong with it. If you
don't choose to eat horse and you end up doing it anyway, that is the problem.
It's the "Well what did you expect from value meals" response that has me really wound up.
Where to begin?
Firstly,
what I
expect is that it "does what it says on the tin". I expect "made
in the UK" to be made in the UK. I expect gluten-free bread to be
gluten-free. I expect food labelled "suitable for vegans" to be suitable
for vegans. And I expect something labelled 100% beef to contain 100%
beef, whether it is from an economy range or premium. The problem with
horse or pig or donkey or rat being substituted for beef is a matter of fraud. Laws are being broken by selling one foodstuff as another. The
Food Labelling Regulations 1996, a
bunch of EU regulations and directives, all dealing with maintaining a safe food-chain and ensuring that food is labelled accurately. There are suspicions that some of this is down to
organised crime - it isn't just a mistake or the consumer not being careful.
Secondly, this has opened up a whole nasty can o' worms regarding attitudes to the poor. The snobbery that has been on display is absolutely grotesque. From the smug "I
never eat ready meals" to the more vicious pervading messages that you have to be both stupid and lazy to buy cheap meat, the horse meat scandal has led to a lot of victim-blaming. Often prefaced with "why don't they just...".
Why don't they just cook loads of lentils, shop at markets, buy from butchers, buy in bulk? My friend Miss South has
eloquent things to say on the subject of food poverty, which are well worth reading as a rebuttal to those.
Cucina povera just
isn't enormously suited to urban living. You can probably get chicken carcasses and secondary cuts for pennies and make lots of nourishing dishes from them.
If you aren't working all the hours that the butchers are open.
If you don't have family members with complex health needs and no respite care.
If you have a butcher that actually breaks down whole animals and doesn't buy them in pre-packed.
If you aren't reliant on a microwave because the landlord won't fix your cooker.
If you can afford the fuel for long slow cooking.
If you aren't spending all of your energies trying to get your benefits reinstated while undergoing chemotherapy.
I love the idea of taking my tangier to the local hammam and leaving it to cook all day in the fires underneath the bath house, but Greater London isn't really set up for that. I'd like to see the look on their faces if I rocked up to the local
Wenzel's and asked them to stick my lamb boulangère in their oven for the day. I'd probably also get some funny looks if I went cutting firewood in the park in order to fuel my jambalaya-cooking.
Criticising people for buying the cheapest protein they can, when
one in five mothers is missing meals so her children can eat, when the
UN is investigating UK food poverty, when
children are increasingly going to school hungry, is offensive and ignorant. Demonising people who are not in a position to make better choices is not going to help them.
What is the answer? Unfortunately that is where my ranting falls down. I just don't know really. Children are going to be given
cooking lessons but since this has been
discussed since 2008 I'm not holding my breath. Unless underlying issues of poverty are addressed, knowing how to cook ingredients that people can't afford isn't going to help. It probably won't hurt though.
For me, this lasagne was a very frugal dish. I didn't have any pasta in the cupboard but I did have eggs, flour and the equipment and know-how to make them into pasta. I have a large and well-stocked freezer, so was in the luxurious position of having organic British minced beef and pork, bought when they were on special offer. And I have time on my hands and a paid-up electricity bill so was able to give the sauce a nice long simmer. For the price of some spinach and milk, I was able to produce six hearty portions of food. In short, this is the sort of food people on a budget
should be eating, if we ignore what real life can be like. But it actually didn't taste as good as Findus.
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| Thin layers of ragu and bechamel |
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| Warming, comforting lasagne |
