Changing world of food

I’ve just been listening to “The Reunion” on BBC Radio 4. Today it featured a group of food writers, so influential in post war Britain – Pru Leith, Mary Berry, Claudia Rodin, Rose Elliott & Katherine Whitehorn. They discussed how food in this country has changed.

It has to be admitted as they described the beige food with mushy overcooked vegetables of the immediate post war era, I was taken back to my own youth. My mother was never that bad a cook. We had a very limited diet, the same thing on the same day of the week, the only exception being Christmas time. Vegetables were always cooked al dente, to the point when there was still something to cut into but not something hard to bite into.

The world has changed so much. These days most people have tried foreign foods, to the extent that Chicken Masala, Spag Bol, Lasagne, Pizza, Burgers, are almost treated as British dishes. In those days you had to grow your own, or travel miles, especially if you lived in the north of England as we did, to get exotica such as courgettes & aubergines.

The sheer range of herbs & spices is unimaginable today compared to then. When I started to learn to cook, it was to the chemist you went for dried herbs & spices, not to mention olive oil (only available in tiny bottles for ear problems). Now all these things are everyday items.

Technology has changed. Most home didn’t have fridges, let alone freezers, yet now few would be without them. The same could be said for food processors, blenders & microwaves.

I wonder what new lies ahead. There has been suggestions of insects becoming the new in-food. I’m still having difficulty with that one.

The one thing I do agree with was Pru’s statement of horror when she saw a “Tomorrow’s Word” programme in the ‘60s that suggested in the future we would be all having pills as it saved people having to cook. What a world of pleasure would be lost? Not just in the satisfaction & relaxation of cooking, but also in the textures, smells & taste sensations of eating, and in the enjoyment of good conversation over the meal. I pop enough pills as it is without doing so just to get the food I require. Pills or intravenously may become necessary if I was seriously ill, but until then I want real food, with all its variety, & preferably food that has been prepared with love by a person.