Hi Everybody
It’s a sad fact that for the bulk of my lifetime, over 40 years of 16 hours a day, I always put food on a back burner. The only food available at the odd times of the evening and night tends to be horrific, wooden tasting curled up cardboard sandwiches, wraps made three weeks ago or cold pies from a garage. I love this amazing land of ours, but the entire world could teach us a serious lesson!
I am lucky enough to have travelled a fair bit, and can honestly say that we are a hundred years behind almost every other country on being able to provide something tasty 24/7! When you are driving long distances you see that a services is coming up, and there by the roadside it tells the dull story of what you can expect. Always the usual suspects, Greggs, an expensive Marks & Spencer Food, Burger King or McDonalds and a Costa or Starbucks. What if you want a real meal? Did you ever see even a standard British Fish & Chip restaurant on a motorway or at a services?
Were you to be covering any distance on an American highway every ten minutes there would be an ad for six to eight eateries, Italian restaurants, Perkins diners (Everything from shrimp platter to a Sunday roast), Chinese restaurants, McDonalds (there is no escape), Ruby Tuesdays, Wendy’s (country style meals), Arby’s, Steak & Shake, Indian restaurants, Popeye’s (best fried chicken ever), Pizza restaurants and the fabulous 7/11 (offering hot dogs, slices of pizza and drinks served in containers a giraffes neck could not reach the bottom of), Asian Street Food Stands, and Sonic (a drive in diner where you are served by staff on roller skates, best milk shakes ever, chicken, burgers, hot dogs and red hot fries). Be honest how many of you put up with cold burgers, lukewarm fries or mildly warm pizza, no American nor European would EVER stand for it.
I went to Greggs and asked what hot food they had? The answer was “Nothing really, its all been in the warm counter for a while!” so we put up with what is the equivalent of a cold sausage roll that you’ve had in your pocket. When I asked the lady to warm it up, she explained that she couldn’t, despite having a huge oven behind her! Maybe it is the fact that we British and our bloody stiff upper lip, choosing not to complain. So we get the cold chips, the fish over battered, with bones and chewy, curry sauce with a half inch skin on the top or mushy peas you could plaster a wall with. We really need a rethink, as long as we are trained to eat average food, then that is all you will get. It is not cheap either, surely we deserve a much better choice at the very least?
We seem to have gone backwards, as when I was doing lots of live gigs I could point out several restaurants that would do ‘all day & night breakfasts, greasy spoons and a few services where you could get pie and chips, pasties and chips or sausage, beans and chips. All the travelling acts would meet at these places at around 2.00am. I met all sorts, Marillion, Bucks Fizz, Ken Dodd, Texas, an incredibly drunk Brian Clough, Alan Titchmarsh and dozens of other celebrities all wading into the warming comfort food needed after a gig. None of these places are left, all disappeared. Instead we are battered by the handful of fast fooders.
Recently spent a bit of time in Southern France and I discovered a supermarket called Auchen. Here in the UK we have posh supermarkets Sainsburys or Waitrose, Aldi & Lidl, Morrisons and Asda with not much between them. They are reeking of the apathy we find in our beloved country. The CD section never changes from one month to the next, the fresh produce often looks like it has seen better days. The fresh fish counter is the size of a wheelbarrow, the deli has mainly cold food, or three bits of chicken and once something sells out you have to tell them, for it seems they don’t check. I asked one staff member “Do you have any full sugar blackcurrent juice?” their reply “If it’s not out we don’t have it!”. This really means “I can’t be bothered to ask or check, so you will never know!”. I asked “When will you get some in?” to get “I have no idea, you’ll just have to keep trying, I’m not sure about deliveries!”. Once again overseas they will get on the radio, or go into the warehouse bit and search out what you need. I talked to the manager of Auchen, who proudly said “We have 157 different types of fresh fish every day!” the seafood section looked like the Sealife Centre, all on ice ready to go. He continued “If any are not bought today, we replace them and put fresh out daily, rather than freeze them because it spoils the taste!”. Here we could not name more than about five fish for sale. Their fruit and vegetable section was like a fallen rainbow of shining produce. I took a photograph of it, it is a template for success. If you want people to eat more fruit and veg make it sparkle. I took a bagful back to the hotel, and it was cold, crisp and fresh. A peach so juicy it also washed your face. Our peaches last about thirty minutes, then turn to mush! They had crisps from all over Europe, about 200 varieties, sweets from Asia, the Far East, America and even Britain. Throughout the store in France, no four foot section called ‘International Food’, like we have in the UK, where you can buy a Polish sausage and some Kim Chi. There every aisle had food from across the planet. A cheese stand that was two aisles, with cheese from every continent, you can try any you like on complimentary crackers. One fried food deli the size of an aisle, cooking onion rings, fried chicken, sizzling German sausage baps, any number of freshly cooked fish with rice, noodles or fries, hot spring rolls, hot pork, beef or lamb sandwiches, selling cooked whole chickens with roast potatoes and veg, making any pizza you choose whilst you shop. A choice of 32 different home made soups. Why is it, when others can do this, and make great profits, that our supermarkets’ have a job to warm up a sausage roll? Can we just not be bothered?
In America there is the mighty Wallmart, another stunning supermarket. Grapes so fresh that they crunch like apples, firm, succulent strawberries that actually taste of what they are, unlike our mushy ones. A huge melon as big as a medicine ball for all of 45 pence, when back home you could not get a slice for that. Yet it’s on the hot food tip. This giant supermarket that sells TV’s, fridges, clothes, electrics, toys, books, has pharmacies with resident doctors, dentists, opticians all who will see you when it suits YOU! At the door they have a resident McDonalds (they are everywhere) yet the most popular counter is the hot food one. Here you can buy any of twenty meats with veg, mashed potatoes and gravy all day and night. Prawns, chicken, beef, fish, pork, lamb, lobster, crab with all the sides whenever you want them. Salads made up with whatever you want on them, for next to nothing. Is it any wonder some Americans can be slightly larger than us? The key is down to attitude. In the UK I asked a supermarket who had their own bakery, “Can I have a fresh loaf that you have baked today?”. Their reply was “Oh we baked bread on Tuesday (two days earlier) we’ll be doing it again soon. We have been concentrating on baguettes!”. In Wallmart their reply was “Oh I’ll put one in for you now, it’ll be ready by the time you have finished your shop!”. She did and it was amazing!
In Africa, Asia and the Middle East I ate incredible food right around the clock. All over the America’s, even in Peru wide varieties of interesting and fresh food. All over Europe, even in Moscow at 3.00am I got a lovely hot meal. In Poland I was told as it was 4.05 am they had shut the kitchen, but if I took a seat the manager could whip me up a goulash, and he did. Here if it’s within twenty minutes before closing time, we will have stopped taking orders. How bad do we want to succeed? We need to take a leaf from how they do it elsewhere. As a nation we claim to be world leaders, yet when it comes to food we are so far behind. There is a shop called Whole Foods that have over 1,000 meals ready for you to just pick up and take home. Every meat and fish known to man whilst also specialising in Vegan, Vegetarian, Wheat free, Gluten free and all ready to go. If you are a Vegan, tell me anywhere you can buy a hot meal at 4.00am in Britain?
All we need is the will to make it happen, but sometimes we get what we deserve!
Hey ho!