A trout called Jim

Day to day I tend to get annoyed about stuff and end up ranting. At twenty-two I'm pretty sure this isn't a good thing - my uncle does it and he's sixty-five. The main problem is that once I go off on one I end up very annoyed and loose all clarity of thought and logic. I hasten to add that I can do this sitting on my own and so blogging lets me vent. However when I try to channel my stream of disgust - for one thing or another - I can't coherently sum up my thoughts in such way as makes any sense. But not today. Food is something I like a lot and I have a keen interest in both eating and cooking it. Reading and watching anything involving food these days leaves me with a rather confused taste in the mouth. I'm so happy to see the organic movement getting a kicking in the recession because it makes me sick. To me it is no more than lifestyle conditioning. I feel our sense of where food comes from is so far removed from the source - not tesco - that we've ended coming full circle. I know that beef comes from cows, pork from pigs and chicken from chickens. I doubt that this was a closely guarded secret, but the crux of the matter is that knowing pork comes from a pig is different from thinking about a pig being killed to produce it. I personally have no qualms with animals being killed to produce food, but I do grudge the nonsense that has arisen recently to unnecessarily justify it. In the technologically advanced, globalised world we live in a great comfort seems to be derived from "knowing," where our food comes from. All produce is now branded as fair trade, freedom food, organic and - my favourite - responsibly sourced. What in the name Christ is freedom food? I don't condone cruelty to animals, but a chicken isn't really free if its bred to be eaten. No matter how much cotton wool and liberal niceties you wrap food in, it still doesn't get away from the fact that things are; slaughtered, gutted, skinned and butchered. As I said earlier, I don't have a issue with this, but it seems that everyone ought to feel damned guilty about animals dying in the name of food these days. I wouldn't give any of this a second glance, were it not for one factor; price. Restaurants have latched onto this movement in a big way and it justifies marking up prices. Fish in restaurants sums this up better than any other dish. You will pay more for "line caught," mackerel than you would for mackerel caught by a pelagic fishing vessel but in terms of quality and taste there is no difference. The Market Kitchen had a "yeah! that's so great," piece on Cornish fishermen tagging their fish so that when you order or buy it you can check the name of the fisherman who caught it. Pointless! Other than giving someone with more money than sense the glib satisfaction of telling their buddies that "Their," sea bass was caught by a nice looking chap called Terry. Obviously the deindustrialisedethod and quaint surroundings must improve the product! Rubbish, it just allows the price to go up. I can't understand why after decades of making food available for the masses, there now comes a move to make it unavailable through wanton snobbery. We live in a technologically advanced, globalised world and now everyone wants to pretend - with respect to food - that we're going back to basics and cutting out the big corporations in favour of locally sourced produce. The irony of the whole movement is that it misses the point and assumes that philosophical ramblings and childlike packaging equate to greater quality and thus justify higher prices. Butchers, bakers, grocers and fish mongers sell food of greater quality than that of supermarkets and have done - without the need for jargon and catch-phrases - for generations. If you want good quality local produce buy it from local shops not a massive supermarket chain. If you want to buy a sense of well being to paper over the cracks of unnecessary guilt then the organic movement is the ticket for you. Food is not a philosophy it's food, if its concepts your after then go to an art gallery.