Food

When hunger strikes

How many of history’s great revolutions were sparked by sheer, human hunger? In 2008, global food prices spiked, with the cost of basic crops doubling. In the two years that followed, Egyptians saw their food prices increase by some 40 per cent – in 2011, as we know, the Arab Spring broke across the Middle East, triggered by the self-immolation of a Tunisian food seller. How likely are such spates of unrest to happen again? Very likely, given that – due to the worst drought in the US in living memory – the price of wheat and maize have soared 50 per cent in past weeks, and the G20 may

The hunger Games

One million children at risk of starvation in Niger; global food inflation last year of approximately 6 per cent; political instability linked to food price rises; drought in the US forcing corn prices up by 23 per cent; and more trouble down the road with Russia possibly banning wheat exports after failed harvests. Food is a very hot topic. The Prime Minister is right to use the Olympics to focus on global hunger. But while the main focus of this summit must be to address the problem in poor countries, it’s important to remember that food poverty exists in every country – rich and poor – in the UK as

So let’s get this straight…

After today’s VAT changes: a) If you walked into a pasty shop and bought a pasty that has been kept hot in a cabinet (or in foil, or on a hot plate, or whatever), then you WOULD pay VAT. b) If instead that pasty had come straight out of the oven, then you WOULD NOT pay VAT. c) If the pasty was cold, or had been left to cool, you WOULD NOT pay VAT. d) If the pasty was cold, and then reheated in an oven or microwave before being handed over, then you WOULD pay VAT. e) If the pasty was being kept hot in a cabinet when you

Day of judgment

Why sheep? As a small boy, that thought sometimes occurred to me after a Church of Scotland service. In a Presbyterian dies irae, the Minister would have proclaimed the Son of Man’s intention to divide mankind into sheep and goats on the Day of Judgment. Afterwards, my parents explained that the goats were the bad guys. That struck me as odd. Goats were much more interesting than sheep. I often found it hard to get my head around the pastoral elements of Christianity. Most children are made to wriggle with embarrassment as their elders re-tell some charming incident from earlier years. In my case, it was an aunt trying to

Choice matters more than tuck shops

Does it matter that academy schools are defying Jamie Oliver’s fatwa against sweets? An organisation called the School Food Trust has found 89 of 100 academies guilty of harbouring tuck shops. Selling crisps, chocolate and even cereal bars. The Guardian is shocked and has made the story its page two lead. Schools with tuck shops, says the Trust’s director, ‘should be named and shamed for profiteering at the expense of pupils’ health… Mr Gove is putting ideology above children’s wellbeing’.   I plead guilty to having once been behind the counter at the tuck shop of Rosebank Primary in Nairn, blissfully unaware that I was poisoning Highland children with this

Science or starvation | 6 May 2012

Here, for CoffeeHousers, is an extended version of the leader column in this week’s magazine. It takes on the green fundamentalism which stupidly aims to put a stop to genetically modified foods: At the end of the month, a group of shrieking protestors are planning to descend upon a field in Hertfordshire and, in their words, ‘decontaminate’ (i.e. destroy) a field of genetically modified wheat. The activists, from an organisation called Take the Flour Back, claim to be saving Britain from a deadly environmental menace. But in reality, these self-appointed guardians of Gaia are threatening not only to undo hundreds of man-years of publicly-funded research but also helping to destroy

Going ethnic

Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University, has been keenly interested in food for years. Besides being a blogger, scholar and the youngest chess champion in the history of New Jersey, he is also the author of an online dining guide to the Washington DC area and an opinionated foodie. This is a delightful book that will broaden horizons to people uninitiated to the economic way of thinking. Cowen’s fans will enjoy it too — although some of the arguments will be second nature to followers of his blog, MarginalRevolution.com. It answers the question of why American food got so bad over the course of the 20th

A waist of shame

Britain has the worst obesity rates in Europe, with one in four adults now clinically obese. A friend who works in orthopaedic surgery tells me that at least 80 per cent of knee replacements are, effectively, self-induced: caused by patients being overweight. Same with hips. Another friend, a consultant, had a complaint lodged against him for describing a 17-year-old girl who weighed almost 20 stone as morbidly obese, on the grounds that it hurt her feelings. Type 2 Diabetes and heart disease are burgeoning. What can be done? According to Calories and Corsets, dieting is not the answer. ‘If you wish to grow thinner diminish your dinner’, announced Punch in

Nick Clegg’s Christmas recipe

Our Christmas issue is so packed that, sadly, there wasn’t enough space to include everything that was originally commissioned. Among the ejectees was a series of Christmas recipes and tips from politicians, writers and friends of The Spectator. In which case, we thought we’d put them up online, where the real estate, just like the goodwill, is endless. You can read Nick Clegg’s recipe for Patridge ‘Estofada’ below. And there is — and will be — more on our Facebook page today, including Ed Miliband’s recipe for roast lamb… Partridge ‘Estofada’
 This isn’t what we’ll be eating on Christmas Day but we’ll certainly have it in the run-up, when we

Can the Dutch Government Really Be Abandoning Smokers to Their Fate?

Let us hope they are. A wailing letter to the editors of the Lancet, signed by Stanton Glantz and other anti-tobacco fanatics, complains that the Dutch government “is all but closing down its tobacco control operations”. One can only hope this is the case and wish that other governments might follow suit. Apparently: It would be a matter of no little shame to a country that prides itself on a compassionate and inclusive ethos if its government were to abandon smokers to their fate. Every death that ensued would not just be the responsibility of the tobacco industry, which continues to promote its lethal product, but also of every politician

Can A Cheeseburger Exist Outside A Post-Agrarian Society?

A post arguing that this is a Question To Which the Answer is No has been cropping up on my Facebook feed lately and now I see that Andrew Sullivan has linked to it as well. As Waldo Jaquiath puts it, the cheeseburger was until relatively recently an impractical concoction. Not impossible, perhaps, but one requiring many actors and moving parts: This past summer, revisiting the idea [of making a cheeseburger “from scratch”], I realized yet again that I was insufficiently ambitious. I’d really need to plant and harvest the wheat [for the bun], raise a cow to produce the milk for the butter, raise another cow to slaughter for

A History of English Food by Clarissa Dickson Wright

It is where cookery is involved that tele-vision gives perhaps the greatest succour to the book trade. After Jennifer Paterson’s death in 1999, the remaining ‘Fat Lady’ barrelled into view with Clarissa and the Countryman, Clarissa and the King’s Cookbook, as a gamekeeper in an episode of Absolutely Fabulous and as presenter for a documentary on her soul-mate Hannah Glasse. Such exposure, combined with an unapologetic mien and candour that have attracted the somewhat patronising description ‘national treasure’, could only have helped her autobiography Spilling the Beans scale the heights of the bestseller lists and allowed the next manuscript, a year-long diary and rant called Rifling through My Drawers, to

Food: Rick’s place

I am in Padstein. It used to be a fishing village, just north of Newquay. It was Padstow then. But then came Rick Stein. Padstein has the smell of a theme park. This is a village made over by one man; it belongs to him. In my hand I have a map of every Rick Stein outlet in town, numbered for ease of access — four restaurants, five hotels, a cookery school, a cottage, a pub, a gift shop, a patisserie, a delicatessen. People queue to buy Rick Stein chutney, drink Rick Stein-endorsed wine, eat Rick Stein chips or sleep on Rick Stein pillows. He is expanding into Falmouth, opening

Bookends: Not just for Christmas

Sticky at Christmas, packed in serried rows around a plastic twig in an oval-ended paper-wrapped box with a picture of a camel train; dates in childhood were exotic. The mystery words Deglet Noor were as sweet to roll around the mouth as the fibrous fruit. But we learn from Dates – A Global History by Nawal Nasrallah (Reaktion Books, £9.99) that they are a staple food, comparable to wheat, potatoes and rice. The Edible Series focuses on one foodstuff per book. The result can be like an answer in a Chinese exam where everything known is written down, here in a prose style reminiscent of Wikipedia. Fortunately, pictures are a

A-Z of Scoff

S is for Sugar Fat used to be considered Public Food Enemy Number One, but now sugar is being fingered instead by some health campaigners. It’s not just the sugar stirred into tea and eaten in cakes and biscuits but the large quantity in drinks and processed foods. Even savoury packaged foods have a surprising amount of sugar. Look for the words ending in ‘-ose’ on the label and beware! ‘Sugar: The Bitter Truth’, a lecture on the evils of sugar by Robert Lustig, an expert on childhood obesity at the University of California, San Francisco, has become a surprise hit on YouTube. He argues that sweet stuff may be

God of fire

Tip 1: Fire Kettle, fire pit or gas-guzzler? These days, there’s a barbecue to suit every backyard, but before you get burned by the price, think carefully about when, where, and how you will use it. Josh Sutton, the chef/writer behind the outdoor cooking guide GuyropeGourmet.com, offers a unique and money-saving solution: ‘My “1,600 rpm barbecue” is made from an old washing machine drum salvaged from a scrapyard and it’s perfect for cooking all the usual favourites. Once the cooking is done, it makes for a splendid and safe campfire as you throw in a few logs and get the guitars out.’ Tip 2: Fuel Let’s be honest, gas barbecues

The buck stops here

It’s time we as consumers realise our own power to change things, and reconnect with our farms, says Sybil Kapoor This May, the National Trust launched a radical social experiment. Under the title ‘MyFarm’ (my-farm.org.uk), they invited up to 10,000 web users to actively manage Wimpole Home Farm in Cambridgeshire, entirely over the internet. Once a month Richard Morris, the farm’s manager, will ask for instructions on a particular farming decision. Over the next three years, every farming dilemma will be posed, from whether to sow clover in the hope of rain to how to make rare breed pigs more profitable. Morris will set the parameters of each choice and

Cereal Offenders

Padding into the kitchen at 10 BC (10 minutes Before Coffee) I find my young son, James, crying silently and uncontrollably with laughter behind a giant box of Golden Grahams. He’s peering over the top at Walter, who is popping Weetabix into his mouth — whole, dry and sideways. Unaware he is being observed, our visiting language student from Italy crunches vacantly like a wide-mouthed frog, crumbs cascading down his cardie. My brain struggles to cope as I inadvertently pour un-boiled water over coffee granules. So this is why James has started getting up far too early for school; he’s setting his alarm to watch ‘our’ students eat breakfast. And