As stated previously, we are not vegetarians, though meatless days are part of our flexible culinary schedule. But is it vegetarian if we substitute fish for the meat? I'm sure real veggies would say no.
Last night's effort then was meatless but not vegetarian, a fish pie made with pollock (doubtless soon to join the poor mackerel on the at-risk list as every chef seems to be lauding it now) and a mushroomy bechamel. The top was a mash made with spuds and parsnips about 67/33. Weirdly the bechamel smelled exactly like Heinz mushroom soup, which it wasn't, but that reminded me of the 1960s and 1970s thing of using tinned soups in dishes - Batchelors made a big thing of it. Nothing too wrong with that I suppose, but for the same price we got no additives and I am sure far more mushrooms.
When I make mash it tends to be with parsnips added, or a few cloves of garlic, to give the flavour a boost and add a different vegetable without using another pan. One of the few British veg currently in season parsnips are cheap at the moment, though had we ventured to the allotment through the mud and floods we could have had some for free. It feels like the rain hasn't ceased since about June.
And another tangent, prompted by that endless downpour. We are as a nation to spend £33 billion on quicker trains. We spent £13 billion on the big school sports olympics. At what point will some meaningful money be spent on our food security? We will not be able to rely on food from the countries now coming up on the rails economically; and one of them China is busy buying chunks of Africa for its own food safety. Orwell in the 1930s pointed out that we had been incapable of feeding ourselves in WWI when he and Cecil Beaton worked together on their school allotments in the drive to produce a bit more, and the situation has worsened since.
No comments:
Post a Comment