Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsey have been “cleared” by Ofcom regarding the inclusion of scenes in which animals (a lamb, and turkeys respectively) were killed. When I heard about this I was minded to complain about the complaints themselves, as yet another pathetic knee-jerk reaction to perfectly sensible goings on (Much like the Jerry Springer: The opera hooha).
I was left somewhat puzzled as both television programmes were, I recall, heavily loaded with warnings about the scenes contained therein, so that anybody of a particularly sensitive persuasion could “look away” or go back to their homogenous microwave meals as they saw fit. That complaints didn’t circle about animals being shot at a distance seems to be lost in the matter too, and were rightly rejected by Ofcom: Common sense prevails.
It infuriates me that, despite the attempts of these excellent cooks - both of whom I have a lot of time for - we seem to be heading further towards further abstraction from what actually goes into our food. Being unaware, and simply unwilling to understand how food actually gets turned from a live animal into something, well, dead and diced, is as important in my view as any other part of a well-rounded education. Complaining about such scenes seems to be indicative of some sort of perception that food is grown in vats out the back of supermarkets.
Funnily enough we had an interesting discussion over dinner last night about Offal, particularly “Potted Head” (a Scottish version of Brawn). Not many around the table particularly took to the idea of it (I confess I’ve not tried it myself either), but it’s a shame many such historical foods are seemingly declining with our increasing squeamishness about the source of our food. It’s even proving very difficult to buy chickens with giblets (useful for making the gravy) these days.
It’s perhaps too much to expect a sudden change in public perceptions of how our food reaches the table, but we should congratulate the likes of Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsey and - of course - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s efforts to improve and encourage a wide appreciation of the provenance, and quality, of our food.
