Yeast wars

You either love it or hate it - the UK ad campaign re Marmite, or at least that was the last campaign I was aware of. I don't know what the Australian equivalent is for Vegemite but I wonder if they have such a divided opinion on their own dark brown yeasty substance.

I've been having an ongoing 'discussion' with an Australian friend for a couple of years now re the attributes of our respective oil-dark, salty spreads, and neither of us is going to back down and admit taste defeat. Interesting how our taste buds acclimatise to something from childhood days and stay with us - not everything; I did refuse my Mothers several attempts to get me to like Spam fritters, and I think that was probably a good self defence move.

So, I love Marmite, especially with a faint haze of jam spread over the top of said spread, just to add to the umami flavour. My mother loved it, my brother loves it, my at home family are indifferent - thus negating the total efficacy of aforementioned ad campaign; all French people I have offered it to hate it, and our 'Workaway' Swedish guest wrinkled his nose at the merest taste of the stuff. I think it is certainly a British comfort thing - tea and hot buttery toast with accompanying thin layer of Marmite, or thick if you are seriously tough.

Earlier mentioned friend kindly brought us a pot of the other one, and we gave it fair trial. Ezra thinks it tastes of liquid plant fertiliser, and actually . . . I know exactly what he means. Sorry, Will . . .

                                                               Vegemite Swedish test person

Meat and two veg

Or two veg and one meat, or six veg and no meat, and preferably as un-messed-about-with as possible.
I was fascinated to read Jay Rayner's review of 'Le Cinq' in Paris, a gastro-palace the likes of I am very unlikely to step inside even if I did win the pools which again is highly unlikely as I never do them.
If I did win them, or went out to celebrate the publication of my latest book and its handsome advance ;o) I would probably choose a good Indian restaurant or perhaps somewhere very beautiful with a menu of say forty pounds a head, or perhaps just the small fish restaurant I went to with my son the other day where we sat on a covered terrace looking over the sea and ate lovely fish that still looked like fish.
When did all this farting about with food really start? In the 70s? Nouvelle cuisine, I suppose, but then I just looked that up and Wiki told me that N. Cuisine was actually a movement away from over-faffed food - simpler, fresher, less rich ingredients, etc. So the stuff in eateries such as Le Cinq must be a combination of the two: old classic/ haute cuisine and nouvelle - rich sauces, marinades, gold -leaf, aspic droplets, stuff hanging off bits of other stuff and/or balanced precariously/sizzling, on fire, dry-iced and so on.
When I worked in a 'French restaurant' in Farnham in the early 80s, there was a lot of piddling about with food: placing small bits of meat on top of a carefully sculpted potato with a crescent of sauce, etc, but it still was generally food that you could recognise unlike some of the oddities in Mr Rayner's photos and other over-elaborate messes I've seen while trawling Google for Michelin signature dishes.
Then there's the cost . . . Which would you rather eat?
This fresh fish salad with goat's cheese which cost fifteen euros at the afore-mentioned sea-side restaurant.

                                               


Or this depressing lamb thing at a price of ninety-five euros

                

                      Jay Rayner iPhone photo

Okay, their overheads will be a little different - small town in Southern France compared to a spot on Le Champs Elysees but there must be a happy medium . . .

My favourite part of Mr Rayner's review - the bit about the chocolate pud:

A dessert of frozen chocolate mousse cigars wrapped in tuile is fine, if you overlook the elastic flap of milk skin draped over it, like something that fell off a burns victim.

                                Yum

And it's true. My son turns grey at the sight of milk skin, and I don't think most people find it that appetising, so why drape it (or leave it in a rumpled heap) on some dessert that was probably going to set the diner back sixty odd quid? The subtle use of an edible flower or a nice honest blob of clotted cream instead? But then what do I know? I get excited about a buttered and Marmited crumpet or home-made coleslaw. You eat to live, not live to eat . . .

Love this line I happened to read this morning in Will Self's Psychogeography Too tome:
'Food is just shit waiting to happen'.

That song contest

Feeling tired, wet and cold after playing for the 'fete de la rose' in a nearby village we opted for a spot of snuggling and watching the Eurovision S.C.
Was it extra hyped this year? some European measure against austerity? Hey, I know let's spend 17 squillion euros on making a vast stage in Sweden so that everyone in Europe can listen to some terrible songs and feel so much better.
I have fond memories of sitting in my Godmother's flat in Wandsworth, eating Marmite on toast and watching the same program on her small 'Bush' set. It might have been the year that Brotherhood of Man won with that song that went Bongy bongy beep beep boop, or was it  pooty oopy ringy dingy om pom pam? or, perhaps that was another band . . . the whole show seemed to be full of plastic blonde hair, grinning maniacs and terrible commentary. Oh, nothing's changed then, it's just a whole lot more extravagant.

I really likeded Greece: I liked the older gent with the moustache and a tiny guitar thing, the black and white kilts and the crazed energy which was so lacking from nearly everything else. Britain was desperate: Bonnie Tyler – bless her. Surely, in the whole of the British Isles there must be thousands of young, musical, gorgeous people who could sing an original song? Maybe not, or perhaps I'm missing something. Is the whole point of it that it must be utterly dull, naff, and so middle of the road that you would have to check it with a millimeter rule?
The French entry was, I think, rather good. She won Nouvelle Star and can belt out a song with an impressive gravely voice. Italy's singer had fantastic hair, Belgium had the most pathetic song . . . There was another country that had some person trapped in a box, another who's singer was dressed in an alarming 'growing' dress thing, that meant she was eventually about twenty feet tall and covered with projected flames. Oh yes, there was another similar thing featuring a man with an incredible counter-tenor voice, surrounded by writhing, scantily-clad men, ( I quite liked that bit) in fact, his voice was worthy of a further listen, but preferably not in vampire-pop style.
The most stupid act was without doubt from Finland: a Lady Gaga would-be dressed in flouncy wedding dress and horrible pink accessories. She also had gyrating, tuxedo-wearing male dancers and backing singers in red rubber pinnies combined with librarian hairdos. A memorable line was something like: I'll skip dinner so I can be a bit thinner, then a chorus of, ho ho ho ho a ding dong . . . Mmm, back to classic E.S.C form then.
The song ended with a naughty, girl kiss with one of the red rubber aproned females: OOh, missus. Since this has been carried out by various people including Madonna, I don't suppose anyone was really shocked, and who cares anyway.
By this time bed and a hot water bottle, preferably a red rubber one, was an exciting prospect. We turned off the glittery racket, kicked the dogs out for a wee and staggered upstairs wondering why we hadn't just watched an old film instead.