How we eat, how we are taught to eat in our home environments

People's eating habits are often defined by their childhoods and whether their own parents were 'conservative' or 'adventurous' in their eating habits. I am thankful that both my parents, specially my mother, were reasonably adventurous (not so much my father, admittedly), but both were good cooks and pre-prepared rubbish was never a part of my growing up. That's another thing, my father was not a stranger to the kitchen, so whilst growing up neither me nor my brother thought there was anything remotely strange about trying out new ideas in the kitchen. Obviously I am now somewhat older, so my childhood relates to the 1950s and 1960s, and I have become aware since then that for some of my contemporaries their home environments were radically different. One's home environment as children helps to define the adults we become, for good or ill. Some of the best people, however, are those who have transcended the most difficult early years - I can't say I'm one of those, but I sure do admire those who are.

I'm often astonished at the food 'dislikes' that some of my acquaintances exhibit - and I don't mean those who are vegetarian or vegan, for example, because I've eaten some delicious food of both varieties over the years. What I do mean though is those who are unwilling even to try anything 'different' from what they have ever eaten before, or people who, for example, live in places where abundant local delicacies are available, but who studuously avoid/loathe them in favour of heavily-advertised processed food instead, because that's what they were encouraged to eat by lazy parents. It applies also, incidentally, to those who don't wish to try vegetables or fruits different from the limited range they were exposed to by their own parents in earlier years, whether it might be an avocado pear, an asparagus spear, a pomegranate or a persimmon, etc., not that there's anything wrong with a potato or a carrot, of course. One thing I just cannot understand, though, is that many children (and perhaps their parents too) seem to find perfectly ordinary, nutritious and delicious green vegetables or salads "yukky"; even from my youngest years I LOVED things like broccoli and lettuce, for example, even if it took me a little longer to appreciate the joys of a fresh beetroot. I don't recall ever being pressurised to 'like' anything (well, apart from salted herring, which both my parents relished, for some inexplicable reason, ha ha), but it was never suggested to me that I was somehow being 'brave' when given a piece of broccoli or some Savoy cabbage to eat - my own parents enjoyed eating these so I learned from them - well apart from the afore-mentioned salted herring,the problem being not the taste or even the texture, but the fine bones.

In my area, with an abundance of fish and seafood, or excellent beef or venison, for example, I occasionally encounter people who HAVE NEVER EATEN FISH, for example, not that they have tried it and found they don't like it. I recall years ago being at a dinner party not far from here and one of the other guests, having said he had never eaten fish (having been born and brought up in a small coastal town not so far from here, with a major fishing industry), relishing a delicious salmon mousse and on being told what it was, admitting to our hosts how delicious it was. So my message is - try it, you may like a food unfamilar to you, you may not, but then at least you'll have knowledge rather than prejudice to guide you.

There are of course a few foods I don't like, or in a very few cases actively"loathe" (e.g. tripe), but I have formed my views by trying them, not whining "yuk" when first presented with them, but I don't discount the possibility that at some stage in the future I might come to tolerate if not actively "like" them, hopefully not at pistol point, ha ha.

Ashers of Nairn in bakery tie-up with Co-op Scotmid

Scottish Co-operative Scotmid has just opened its 100th in-store bakery, this time in partnership with Ashers Bakery of Nairn, with the opening of a new in-store bakery facility at its Scotmid Balloan store in Inverness. Read more here.

According to Alister Asher, joint managing director of Ashers: "Ashers is delighted to be working in partnership with Scotmid as they expand their bakery sector. Customers appreciate local fresh bakery suppliers in a convenient location. We’re proud to be Scotmid’s 100th in-store bakery."

Scotmid's project began in April 2012 and now has partnerships with seven Scottish craft bakers (Ashers Bakery of Nairn; Aulds of Greenock; The Breadwinner Bakery of Edinburgh; Goodfellow & Steven of Dundee; J G Ross of Inverurie; Stephens Bakery of Dunfermline; and Stuart’s of Buckhaven) and in England with Bryson’s of Keswick, for its Lakes and Dales Co-operative stores in Cumbria.

Although I rarely eat bread products myself any longer (for dietary reasons), I was formerly a regular customer of Ashers here in Nairn (now only when I have guests staying with me) and can thoroughly recommend their products, from various breads to the most 'sinful' of treats and I have used their custom cake-making service on several occasions for special celebrations.

For more information about Ashers of Nairn and the location of all their other shops, you can visit their website here.

Good Scottish Beef - from Nairn

Yes, a Nairn farmer has taken top accolade at the Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh in the Asda/ABP Beeflink steak competition. 'James Fraser said he was delighted with the win, more so as it was the first time he had entered the competition. "I was over the moon last week when we found out we’d qualified for the final eight, to win something on this scale is simply amazing."' There's another report of the win here, with a photograph of the prize presentation.

Well done!

Volcanic ash, air traffic disruption and the consequences

We are just getting used to a world (in much of Europe at least) where over the past several days, air travel has become all but impossible. Yesterday some flights were being allowed into Scottish air-space (mainly trans-Atlantic flights and flights to/from Scottish islands), but the ban has been re-instated today.

It may be that in a few days the wind-directions will have changed sufficiently, or that the volcano in Iceland will halt or slow-down the rate at which it is discharging debris into the atmosphere to allow air transportation involving most of Europe to be possible again. So there would have been, say, a week or two weeks of major disruption, no doubt some severe loss of revenue for certain airlines (who still have to pay regular expenses such as salaries or finance costs for loans) and for individuals perhaps some expense they can ill-afford or difficulty getting where they want to be, but ultimately it will have been a mere 'blip' in history. I am not one of nature's pessimists, so this is the kind of scenario I envisage and certainly hope for.

But what if this optimistic outcome doesn't happen? What if the disruption continues for a month? Three months? Six months? A year? What might the social, economic and perhaps political consequences be?

For a start, the days of easy, quick travel would be over for the vast majority of people. The first time I ever flew in an aircraft was in 1967 or thereabouts, so far as I recall, and I must have taken many hundreds of flights since then. For my present stay in Spain it should not affect me much, because I travelled here and am scheduled to travel back by road and ferry. But what about my usual one month visit to Spain in the Autumn, when I would normally have flown? Will I be able to make the trip, or will I bother trying to do so if I cannot fly? I'm not one of those people who pops across to someplace in Europe by aeroplane for a weekend or or a few days, basically because I live in a part of the UK where there are almost no international flights from my nearest airport, so requiring transit via some other UK airport with more flights. But many people do live near big airports and have grown accustomed to travelling all over Europe for a [long]-weekend. Basically, none of these trips would be possible any more, period. Simply because by the time one took a train/ferry to go most places it would already be time to come back. Apart from these leisure trips, business travel would be severely affected and would probably lead to a huge expansion of teleconferencing (something that should probably happen more and more anyway). No more would we get air-shipment of highly-perishable foods such as some fruits and vegetables 'out of season'. The 'green' lobby might be pleased, although I cannot see it as tremendously positive if these changes have come about because the atmoosphere has become clogged-up with volcanic ash. Let's face it, things could become much more serious if the volcanic ash cloud became a semi-permanent feature and affected crop production. Curtailed leisure travel would be the least of our worries!

I don't really think that any of these apocalytpic visions is likely to happen, but the events of the past few days do bring home just how fragile our civilisation is. It could all disappear very easily because of factors we have absolutely no way of stopping or changing. Have a great weekend!

PS/ So far the present events have afftected people I know in the following ways:
-a guest who should have travelled here two days ago for a break of about ten days has had to cancel her trip;
- a friend (and former colleague) who now works in Rome usually travels home to Paris every weekend to see her children and has probably had to cancel her trip;
- guests scheduled to come here in just over two weeks may see their plans affected if the situation does not improve soon.
Minor problems, I suppose, but many hundreds of thousands are probably affected in similar or worse ways.

Happiness is ...

... a light but delicious lunch of a plate of Black Forest Ham and Cornichons accompanied by a glass of Amontillado:


- followed up with some blueberries and cream with a couple of squares of 85 per cent Ecuadorian chocolate to add savour.

Can massive price inflation be far behind?

The current severe flooding in significant parts of England, including in many farming areas is focussing attention on the likely high levels of damage to crops - and the likely resulting increase in food prices. However, food prices have already been rising significantly for some time and further above-inflation increases are likely to continue once the immediate crisis of the flooding is over. My diet precludes me from eating bread, but most people do eat it and it seems prices have gone up by around 15 per cent in the past year. The price of eggs (which I do eat a lot of) has gone up by around 18 per cent and I have certainly noticed this - as indeed have I noticed a general and signficant increase in my monthly food bill over the past couple of years.

China has recently cut back on the land allocated for bio-fuel production (from maize), because the shortage of animal feedstock which has resulted has raised the price of pork by 43 per cent, the most commonly consumed meat there. Even products as mundane as ice-cream have not been unaffected as a result of the continuing push in the US to turn land over for the growing of bio-fuel crops at the epxense of reduced food-crop production.

I doubt if there will be actual food shortages in wealthier countries; we can still [for the moment, at least] outbid other countries bidding to source food from wherever it is produced, but it will certainly cost more - I think quite possibly a LOT more before too long. The fact that other major food-exporting countries such as Australia have also had their own problems for several years (drought in its case) is only exarcerbating the problem.

For food producers, though, the general increase in prices obtainable for crops and livestock has been good news - at least until the recent flooding during the peak growing season in England, although the overall economic impact is likely to be minor, given the small size of agriculture in the UK economy, even if the visible impact on daily life across parts of England has been huge and the clean-up costs and the impact on insurance and future insurability is likely to have longer-term effects.

However, painful as it is for those living through them, the current flooding in England is a side-show when compared with world-wide trends in food and energy resources, even if some feel (see at end) that the fears about the impact of bio-fuel production will blow over. Possibly it will, but I predict that the erosion of the value of money will have accelerated considerably for some years before that happy day arrives; individuals need to consider carefully their own strategies for living with this over coming years.

McDonald's put MORE beef in its premium burgers ...

... and the pounds go on the hips of those that consume them, one imagines. Yes, McDonald's have launched a 'Third Pounder premium Angus Beef' burger in about 600 of its outlets in Southern California, priced at USD3.99 . It comes in three versions and the calorie counts range from 720 to 860!

In my pre-Atkins days I have to confess I did from time to gorge myself on a 'Big Mac', or even a 'Double Burger', but I doubt if I'll ever touch a fast food burger again - unless I'm in a place where Hardee's have an outlet; they always struck me as better, probably containing even more calories!
(thru Andrew Sullivan, who's 'Loving it')

Churlish behaviour forces restaurant name-change in Glasgow

At least this was my reaction when I read this unusual story about the former Hemingway's restaurant in Glasgow, soon to be reincarnated as Café Noir as a result of legal pressure at the instigation of the family of the writer Ernest Hemingway.

This reminded me of the even more bizarre (and even more churlish and wrong-headed) demand by a certain fast-food company quite a few years ago that a man change the name of his restaurant which he had named using his own name. His name was of course McDonald; so far as I recall Mr McDonald operated his resturant in some place in Argyllshire in the west of Scotland where McDonald is not exactly an unusual name - it outraged me then and outrages me still that some jumped-up junk-food company could register a perfectly valid name as its own 'property' and forbid a man who actually was born with that name from using it in his business, specially when the junk-food company was not [any longer] owned or operated by someone of that name but by someone called Ray Kroc, who had bought the original business from the man who started it. Of course this was in the days before this company went some way to clean up its act, at least in jurisdictions where it was forced to.