Eating Albion

We live in a society where there’s an enormous split between consumer and producer, between countryside and urban life.

Sir Julian Rose - Pioneering organic farmer

I love the UK’s unique approach to food. On the one hand we’ve one of the most open mindsets when it comes to welcoming tastes, produce and people from all over the world, yet on the other hand we’re one of the most apathetic and complacent people on the planet when it comes to what we put in our mouths. I want to change that. I know how I can start to change that. But first, here’s my story…

It is said that the cobbler is often the worst shod, and the daily meals of most chefs and their families are often similarly haphazard. My parents were hoteliers back in the days when hotels were one of the few places where you could get restaurant-quality food. My father ran the kitchen and my mother did front-of-house and as anyone in the trade will tell you, it’s hard work.

The life of a chef’s son isn’t particularly gourmet. Meals were often made quickly at odd hours from whatever was to hand or left-over, but it was mostly good, honest, food. It also exposed me to other cuisines and produce, and for that I’m thankful. I believe this gave me a rational approach to exploring, shopping, cooking and eating, from a very early age.

And good cooking starts with good shopping, until we come to see food shopping as something fun and interesting rather than a fortnightly trolley-dash round a chilled aircraft hangar, the nation’s diet and the planet will always come second.

Yet we do it so well in other sectors: ‘I just nipped out at lunch and bought these shoes’, or ‘I picked up a DVD on the way home’. But very few people come home proudly unwrapping a fresh chicken. Why? Well, the structure of society has changed; lots of us now work in large office blocks rather than just off what’s left of the traditional high street. But again, technology can help us here.

We’re one of the most tech-savvy nations in the world, thinking nothing of getting consumer goods online. 11.5 million people used ebay.co.uk in January 2006; so why does ‘I ordered it off the net’ apply to nearly everything except independently produced food? But there is innovation out there, and small agile growers and producers are where the action’s at. And we can use technology to talk direct to the producer and share how we use their product - perfect provenance.

I think ethics as much as organics will define our food over the next decade. Organic is everywhere. The trouble is, it’s often European or African organic flown in by the supermarkets at the planet’s expense. But is there a viable alternative source of organic, ethical produce that isn’t part of some vast corporate food chain?

I’m on a six-month journey back to nature, working on organic farms and small-holdings around the UK to see if the grassroots organic movement offers that viable alternative. When most people go travelling in search of new experiences, they head to the likes of Asia and Australia, not to Axminster and Abergavenny.

This blog is not about food snobbery, or soft-focus, two-balanced-chives square-bowl ‘lifestyle’ cuisine. It’s ecological food reportage, reflecting what’s going on in Britain today. Join me as I head ‘in-country’.