Saturday, February 23, 2008

The joy of eating

I was going to do a rant on how official advice on food, diet & nutrition is couched these days in boring numbers, counting rules, league tables of healthiness

Food is meant to be delicious, a pleasure, something to be shared

To evoke memories of childhood

To vary with the seasons

To act as a kind of social glue

Then I realized how difficult it is to have a public discussion of food in these terms

It goes way beyond mere political correctness. One treads a minefield. Risks involvement in all kinds of cultural, moral, political stand-offs

Religious sensitivities – some as unexpected as alcohol in crisps

All sorts of new, liberal secular moralities. Animal cruelty, food miles, fair trade

Even the re-emergence of the class war

What is Tescos for?
To keep the hoi polloi out of Waitrose