Packaging is murder

http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/food/story/0,,2065214,00.html

This busted my WTF-o-meter so thoroughly that it actually invalidated the warranty.

The Observer Food Monthly is supposed to serve two purposes. Firstly, it is supposed to throw up the occasional interesting recipe, secondly, it is supposed to make Observer readers a bit more secure about paying exorbitant sums for ethically reared, hand-washed, home-knitted food by explaining that it’s really rather lovely, when we all know that if you want true taste sensation you have six pints of lager - after that you’ll think a Pot Noodle is the best thing you’ve ever tasted.

So what in the name of Greek buggery was a six page ad for ready meals doing there?

The perils of vegetarianism.

Vegetarians are morally repugnant. They claim to be concerned about animals, so that’s why they don’t eat meat. Bullocks! I love meat and I’ve done more than they ever have to ensure the ethical treatment of animals. Why? Because I make sure that I eat outdoor-reared (assume they can come in out of the rain though) meat that has been free to frolic, gambol, root, scratch, sniff, rut or do whatever it is that animals like to do - to have led a lovely pastoral and stress-free existence…right up to the point where somebody brains it with a seven pound lump hammer and starts cutting it up. I pay good money for my meat, money that’s invested in, oh, I don’t know…sheep dogs or something.

Cheap meat is raised in sheds and barns and probably forced to sew Nike trainers before being brutally murdered. So, if vegetationists don’t even buy meat at all, where is the investment to keep the ethical people afloat going to come from?

The only reason not to eat something is if you have a medical condition. (And I mean a real one. Interesting to see how long somebody with a peanut allergy pissed and whined about it if their jet crashed on a desert island and all there was to eat was a lifetimes supply of catering packs of KP).

Religious nutters are even worse. Why do so many people have it in for the pig? The monumental arrogance, in a world where people are starving, of actually not eating something ‘on principal’.

I was going to bang on about ‘the rule at my house is…’ but none of my friends have any kind of hang up about food, at all. Indeed, the trick when feeding some of them is to get your hands out of the way really quickly after you put the plate down.

And as for Lynda McCartney - she’d still be alive today is she’d had the occasional pork pie.

The McCartney/McCarthy meat witch hunt

Quite a few things struck me about the article. The first was how fucking miserable the McCartney’s looked. I can understand it, on the one hand, you’re going to have your tea cooked for you by Nigel Slater (great!) but, on the other, it’s fucking veg again (Agh!).

The second is that Heather Mills stood absolutely no chance at all of being happy. Usually it’s innocent kids and a wicked stepmother - this time the roles were reversed.
Cheer up love, you'd be quite pretty if you smiled once in a while...and ate properly

Tolitarian vegetarian and miserable - it’s like having the Taliban at the table.

This weeks recipe: pierce lid and heat for 2 minutes

It was the reference to ready meals that really got on my knob. Ready. Fucking. Meals.

Let’s not beat around the bush. Ready meals are designed for those people who can suspend belief that a plastic tray full of goo and chemicals didn’t start its life in a factory in Walsall, but rather each one is hand crafted in a cottage kitchen somewhere.

I admit, I buy them occasionally - they are great for pulling out of the freezer and putting into the microwave. Usually It’s curry. Actually, it’s always curry. And it’s always the same curry - Chicken Tikka Masala. And that’s my point - ready meals are designed for people who lack imagination.

But vegetarian ready meals? WTF? What the hell can you do to a vegetable that is so complicated? I tell you what you can do, you can add a load of packaging, you know, rather than the stuff that comes wrapped around a vegetable that you can compost - and you can make a fortune.

In this case the market is clear - vegetarian ready meals are suitable for easily led (vegetarian) food faddists (vegetarians) who don’t have the energy to cook a decent dinner for themselves. (Can you guess?).

I am now going to eat a pork pie.