Fashion in food is responsible for some vile things. Food presented on bits of slate - thank you Mr Flintstone but no. The word jus. Flavour combinations that were never meant to be, but which are supposed to have us saying: "How clever." Certain celebrity chefs.
Chefs take themselves very seriously, and rightly so as it is a real skill or set thereof, but some go beyond professional right back into their own rear ends, and few critics ever tell them so, thus we continue to be peppered with daft dishes, and new trends. One thousand ways to make cupcakes etc, when one is more than enough, cupcakes are dull.
The most ridiculous combination I ever ate was in 1989, I can still recall the precise day. At the time it was probably the epitome of food fashion. I had driven from Dusseldorf to a hotel in a village near Sneek in the northern Netherlands, and needed comfort food for a particular reason beyond the lengthy trek. The menu was in Dutch, my mind was elsewhere, so I ordered what I thought was simply steak. It was steak, but surrounded by blackcurrant sauce. The meat tasted of blackcurrants, the few veg likewise. I pushed the plate aside and moved on.
Food should lift us. But that day even the best steak in the world would have failed to raise my spirits. On the journey I'd tuned to BBC radio to listen to the football, the voice of Peter Jones normally so bright immediately registered as devastated. It was April 15th. He was commentating, if that is the right word, on the unfolding of the Hillsborough tragedy. I had to pull off the road as I started to sob. There are so many more things more important than provenance, jus, and cupcakes.
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