The TV queen of cookery has displeased me. Delia Smith has made rude remarks in the UK media about something very dear to my real food lover heart: she has dissed organic food.
I am miffed she is using the politics of food to promote her comeback. Delia “retired” six years ago to be director of a football club but now she is back on our screens with a new cookery show.
Her new book, How to Cheat at Cooking, makes a point of using ingredients such as tinned lamb. Look, I have nothing against convenience foods. But she should at least give people correct information so they can make up their own minds.
She said on national radio that organic chickens are expensive (without explaining why) and poor people can eat the caged ones from factory farms.
Delia claims to despise the cult of the celebrity chef but I can’t help feeling she is using her celebrity to seize the People’s Cook crown.
If she really cared about poor people she would have explained how to buy food on a working-class estate. Or how to cook an organic chicken on state benefits by make it last for twelve meals.
You can eat organic on a budget if you cook from scratch. (It’s actually those convenience foods that hike a food bill.)
Instead the People’s Cook is telling people to buy convenience foods from middle-class supermarkets. You’ll be lucky to find a Sainsbury’s in a food desert, Delia.
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4 responses so far ↓
Soho hummus « Real Food Lover // February 26, 2008 at 1:44 am |
[...] I yearn to tell you how to make hummus at home because it will be a lifelong friend. The cooked (high fibre, low-GI) chickpeas are mixed in a blender to a creamy gunk with olive oil, lemon juice, a bit of garlic and tahini – now that’s a convenience food I approve of. . I also prize tinned organic chickpeas as a larder-friend. (So there, Delia.) [...]
neilbasilo // February 26, 2008 at 2:58 am |
There is not much as convenient as the bean (including the garbonzo – chick pea). OK it may need soaking and boiling, you may want to fry some onions, crush some garlic (I won’t mention tomatoes) to add, plus other flavours you like – but that is pretty simple. And cheap.
In fact, more and more, these factory reared meats are basically processed beans. These animals and birds live their “lives” in cages being force fed high protein foods (high protein because of the beans).
I do NOT find it convenient to go to Tescos and puzzle around the ailses of pretend choice trying to work out what I want to cook tonight.
And, even if you want this deceptive convenience, you can buy tinned beans (even organic) for far less than the price of tinned lamb or frozen chicken. The beans will not taste like lamb or chicken, they will taste like beans. I don’t know what the lamb or chicken taste like – probably not a lot like lamb or chicken. The beans will do you far more good, and either way, the meal you cook will rely on what else you add and how you cook it.
I am not exactly a fan of Jamie Oliver, but suspect that Delia is trying (without understanding what his game is) to beat him in his game.
And yes, Elizabeth, I so agree; if we have bad nourishment in this country it is due to the expence and absurdity of “convenience foods”. Yes – cook from scratch. And, for dogs sake, stop telling the deprived to do otherwise.
The Delia effect « Real Food Lover // March 3, 2008 at 12:51 pm |
[...] Delia spoke to the masses and decreed the poor can eat battery-farmed chickens, did their sales [...]
Cheating: A real possibility at Quick Indian Cooking // March 7, 2008 at 10:04 am |
[...] feel bad for this doyenne of celebrity cookery. Gnarled by the press. Pooh-poohed by her [...]