I like to say that I am not a snob. Why would I? I don’t consider myself to be high up on any social ranking scale. I don’t portend to feelings of grandeur above anyone else. Some sociologist could probably categorise my social demographic and from then on dissect me into a sub-category. That’s for them to do. However, this rant is about food snobbery, or, as a recently coined phrase, “food gentrification”. There is a new terminology for the young affluent middle class or those aspiring to it. They are usually white with beards. Hipsters. Food is trendy. As you eat your quinoa you can look down your nose at the people who, like me, couldn’t tell you from the top of my head exactly what it is. I don’t mind your assumed superiority. What does annoy me about this culture is that it takes what was cheap and nutritious from the masses and takes it to posh restaurants at ridiculously high prices thus making it unavailable to the people who have relied on it at their kitchen table. A quick example; I was brought up on homemade soup. My Mother was quite an expert. Scotch broth was made from the shank of a lamb. This was a cheap cut of meat. Now it is on restaurant menus at ridiculous prices and my Mother can no longer afford to make soup. Sounds mad? It’s the gentrification of peasant food. This happens locally very often when new housing is rattled up (as here and surrounding areas) and new people arrive in the area. Local shops are revitalised in the first bloom of a new culture then priced out by it. We see an influx of food that was once affordable to an overinflated designer trend that squeezes out the working classes. I’m fed up of hearing about vegans, vegetarians, whole foods (?) craft beer, drunk by certain bearded white men at trendy summer soirees. I’ve seen enough advertising on the many fruity versions of gin. While you are drinking that don’t dare sneer down your concorde nose at me. You can keep your brussel sprout crisps and winter berry and presseco hand cooked crisps and get this one, raw organic fig and horseradish kale chips.
I know, you probably think I’m going all over the place with this so I’ve got to be careful. The thing we all should be ashamed of is, in a country as affluent as ours, is food banks. Don’t think for a second these are only used by the feckless uneducated, unemployable drug ridden “underclass” portrayed in certain TV shows. (I’ve been told we live in a classless society). These are frequented by working people who do not earn a reasonable living wage. That’s all people expect from working thirty eight hours a week. Enough to live on and possibly an evening down the club at the weekend. It’s a national disgrace and probably belongs in another rant so I’ll leave that one here. I don’t eat sea food. By this I mean crab, prawn and anything that resembles insects and arachnid. I am offended by the massacre on a plate and don’t want to be anywhere near a seafood platter. Take another look at our culture though. My offence aside, meat that fed and sustained us from the sea was traditionally peasant food. It was cheap and abundant. Now, the middle classes have heralded it as their own, thermidor butter dribbling down their beards, eyes glassy and food drunk. Now that children are exposed to holidays on the Mediterranean, their children are lauded as sophisticated when displaying knowledge of this culinary debauchery. (food snobbery) I hold with pride my fish supper from Joe or Mario, deep fried in batter, smothered in salt and nippy sauce or vinegar on a Friday. Any TV chef brave enough to take it from me will sport a black eye on his next show. Talking about TV chefs. Talking about supermarkets. Talking about £ stores. I’ll probably rant about this at another date…….
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Dark carbon images threw up over our TV screens for days. This is more a blog than a story. I don’t want this generation to be a historical backdrop for another story. Their story is powerful enough on its own. It takes the planning dept of Kensington and Chelsea six months to lay out the foundations of their proposed Nursery of the Future. The workforce came from the five tower blocks that over- looked the Shepherd Bush flyover. Men and women who had heaved invisible air into their lungs now building for the future, a utopia for their children who would never feel sickness in their lungs. The backdrop of their lives was the constant hmm of traffic traversing the flyover. They were never without it, it became comforting, the sound that said everything in the world was as it should be. The rhythm of the early train, 5.26, every morning was the sound of a good hardworking society. Still they heaved air into their lungs, for the generation of the future. For the benefit of the children. They would have a better life. They carried on building. Posters hung in council chambers depicting happy children, fresh faced, blonde, blue eyes, perfect teeth. They play with state-of-the-art toys. They are not toys anymore though, they are Learning Craft, to enhance their integration into a society of adults who are good and clean, who are healthy and industrious. The children learned how to touch a screen and make the images on the screen change. Children not yet able to walk could sit in pushchairs on public transport, staring at the screens, their little heads nodding with tiredness, only to be jerked into reality by the screen that demanded to be looked at. Children who could not talk learned The Craft with an American accent. The clever children of the nursery learned how to put plastic bottles in one big plastic box and how to put cardboard in another. These are children of the future, groomed into caring for the environment. Groomed into fighting for something called the rain forest. Only last week there was a tuck-shop at the nursery to raise funds for new trees, somewhere else, where they didn’t have enough trees left. What a wonder said the hardworking parents. We told you so said the arseholes from deep within the council chambers. They erected more posters in public places where more hardworking adults could point in wonder at the contented children. The environmental agency at Kensington and Chelsea council said everything should be safe for the children of the Grenfell generation. It crossed their minds from time to time that maybe there could be traffic pollution to the detriment of healthy living. There really should be an enquiry into this. An enquiry there was, it said the traffic congestion had affected the lungs of those who lived in the high rise apartments that over looked the flyover. The nursery still had to be built, for the sake of the children. An arsehole at the council said, we need electric cars to run silently without fumes. It was agreed by everyone concerned that it was a good idea. So good a handful of council workers were keen to try out these electric cars at the council’s sponsorship. A way had to be found to convince the wider public on their efficiency. The children of the future would breathe fresh air into their lungs. They would be healthy and educated. The posters at the Council offices said so. It gave the hardworking Mothers and Fathers of the tower blocks hope. The arseholes at Kensington and Chelsea Council decided to make the apartments of the lucky people who lived there look attractive. New cladding would at least, on the outside, hide the fact that within five years of construction these apartments in the sky were difficult to rent out. Only the poor, the displaced, the victims of a global society would live there. The image of the real people who lived here have black hair and brown eyes. This is not to be considered a racist rant, but that is the truth. The arseholes at Kensington and Chelsea had to put them somewhere. The whole world could covet the cosmopolitan utopia of London, could maybe emulate it. More posters were hung in public places. The city had to let the people know how well they were being looked after. What a wonder people said. Two years on, the poor and the homeless of Grenefell are still victims of gross mismanagement on a life threateningly scale. Serious mental illness is now thrown into the mix of a community that didn’t have a chance. Come out of Latimer Road tube station and cross the road and look up. There sits what is left of Grenfell. |
AuthorI enjoy writing short stories and reading yours. I'm always amazed at where our mind can take us. I think it is therapeutic to let your mind wander off and free itself of personal drudgery. Archives
March 2020
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