I first met him in Bordeaux; engorged with blood red corpuscles, not an inch of fat on him, he lay waiting for me, silent, still, gleaming and glistening.
Trouble was, he was the greyest, least interesting, specimen I had ever set eyes on. I just couldn’t stomach the thought of putting him in my mouth.
He’d been steaming in the kitchen for at least an hour before we met. It had yet to reach his heart…
He was, of course, Nanny’s very own version of the hamburger. Chargrilled? Not on your life, you might get prostate cancer or pancreatic cancer from the heterocyclic amines and polycycic aromatic hydrocarbons – Heston Blumenthal would be hard pressed to make them sound appetising. Steamed, less fat, but still French to the very heart. Blood red inside. He came accompanied by the only alternative to lettuce allowed in France.
The slow cooked, soggy, French bean. They pride themselves on their pottager. Grow acres of harricot vert every year. Pick them young and fresh. Line them up with military precision, snip their heads and tails, and then place them with reverence in a glass jar.
Then they put the glass jar in an old ‘nappy boiler’ and cook them until they turn a suitable grey green and soggy. Three years later, they remove the glass jar from its resting place in the spider ridden cave, and pronounce them fit to eat…
The grey hamburger and pile of soggy beans; sans salt naturally, might raise your blood pressure. Hospital food ala the land of gourmet food. Amazingly I survived.
In England, they have reversed this trend. English Nanny has announced that the grey/red hamburger might give you E-coli. She’d rather you got prostrate cancer. Westminster Council Food Nazis, the same people who pronounced breast milk a health hazard, have now decreed that you may not have your hamburger ‘rare’, it must be nuked. Whatever happened to the Codex Alimentarius?
Never heard of it? Let me tell you, for you do pay for it. Collectively, we have stuffed £13,000,000 quid into this organisation dedicated to ensuring that our food is suitably standardised.
The Codex Trust Fund was launched on 14 February 2003 by Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General of WHO, and Dr Jacques Diouf, Director-General of FAO, at a ceremony organized during the 25th (extraordinary) session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission. The Fund is seeking US$40 million over a 12-year period to help developing countries and countries in transition to increase their participation in the vital work of the Commission.
I may be unfairly judging the Codex crowd, but as far as I can see, in their first year they wanted $4m to send the people who donated the $4 to an international conference, where they would discuss how those who couldn’t raise any money could be helped to raise some money so that they could go to the meeting next year…….you’ll be relieved to hear that the EU Commission managed to donate enough money to be allowed to attend…their eventual objective, when everyone has donated enough money to allow everyone to attend, is to standardise food worldwide. ‘Deprived’ countries were given eight years in which to find the money to join the annual jamboree – since they’ve now been going for nine years, we are blessed with an International standard for a Pineapple, and God help the Orange that fails to live up to CODEX STAN 245-2004.
Yet the humble hamburger has eluded them?
France is reputedly the most profitable division of MacDonalds. It has adapted well to the French mentality. You see the French are raised from childhood to believe that at 12pm sharp, every day, you must be seated at a table and in front of you must be a platter of salad. When you have consumed that, you may partake of some near raw meat, with a single vegetable and definitely bread. Then you are allowed a modicum of cheese, followed by something sweet, and coffee, strong coffee. Go into a French MacDonalds – tray after tray reeling away from the counter at super fast speed containing – a small box of lettuce, a rare hamburger in bread with a single tomato as topping, a shrink wrapped piece of cheese, a donut, and a cardboard cup of strong black coffee. Job done, they are all sitting down at 12 pm, and yes, they do eat it all in exactly the prescribed order. Put the cheese on the hamburger? Don’t be daft, everyone knows that you eat the cheese separately. Sure, MacDonald’s will sell you a cheeseburger – but the French won’t be eating it. Wrong order see.
If the Codex crowd think they are going to part the nation that invented Steak Tartare from eating raw meat, they have another think coming. Minced and barely hot, it’s the only way to consume the tough French steak.
Ms Raccoon lives in the Monbazillac area of South West France, renowned for its fine wines and gourmet food, so she frequently finds better things to do than sit in front of a computer all morning. She is liable to take off traveling at a moment's notice. Consequently this blog only gets updated these days when it is raining - and it doesn't rain very often round here...
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Er, according to my Ambridge Longest Dictionary of Pedantry, it’s prostate..
They’d have you believe it will be prostrate, after you’ve eaten a raw hamburger.
Thank you Gentlemen….!
You’d be surprised how many people are prone to that mistake.
I’ll get me coat.
You lie!
OK, my coat too…
Prostate ? Prostrate ? It’s a boy-thing.
Ms Raccoon was doubtless making the distinction with supine cancer.
I always said anyone wanting to take over France should do it between 12pm and 2pm, they are all sitting at a table eating. At least they are one up on the UK who seem to eat, either on the go or on the lounge watching TV.
When leaving Andorra with a van full of duty free cigarettes – ten minutes past twelve is the optimum time. No queue for customs whatsoever. No customs to be seen!
It is the same coming back from Spain with several bags full of pipe tobacco, although quarter past twelve is better to miss the rush.
XX If the Codex crowd think they are going to part the nation that invented Steak Tartare from eating raw meat, they have another think coming. Minced and barely hot, it’s the only way to consume the tough French steak. XX
Pah…THATS bugger all, try Hackpeter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mett
TONS of GOOD and HEALTHY, RAW pork!
XX Die Bezeichnung Hackepeter für gewürztes Mett soll erstmals im Berliner Gasthof Martin in der Landsberger Straße im Jahr 1903 verwendet worden sein XX
The name Hackpeter for spiced Mett (Raw pork mince, but wussys can use beef, if the thought of a little pork makes them come over all queer.) is said to be first used in the guesthouse Martin in the Landsberger Straße in 1903.
XX The 1938 edition of Larousse Gastronomique describes steak tartare as raw ground beef served with a raw egg yolk, without any mention of tartar sauce. XX
See! WE invented it. NOT the bloody frogs!
Bei mir zu Hause nannten wir es Schabefleisch
Na ja, aber Sachsen….
The only thing which is more unappetising than the description of your burger in this tale of woe is Gro Brundtland. All around uber-socialist and nanny-state proponent who has been in the forefront of the global-warming boondoggle, anti-smoking nannying, and world health organization interference. Anywhere she appears you may expect more regulation, less common-sense, and of course a continued ride on the gravy train for her.
It never seems to register with these interfering socialists that our existence is precarious, subject to all kinds of chance of illness ro disease, generally people can assess risks against acts they may enjoy and live with the consequences.
Reminds me of the Blue Cheese scandal a few years ago. A small businessman in the Scotland set up a dairy making a blue cheese (Lanark Blue, if I remember correctly). The Food Police descended upon him, siezed his stock and claimed his cheese had nasty bad bugs in it. He fought back, with great courage, tenacity and help from independent microbiologists. In the end, it was shown that the cheese was safe for human consumption (as blue cheese has been for centuries), and the Food Police were vanquished. Since then, many more small dairies and farmhouse producers have started making fine blue cheeses, and more power to their elbow. Britain now has a greater variety of fine cheeses than even France does, though some are made in such small quantities that they’re hard to find. (Try Kirkham’s Lancashire or Bourne’s Cheshire if you ever have the chance – the very opposite to supermarket plastic cheese.)
Ultimately, the Food Standardisers will be vanquished, because there are far more people who care about their food culture, heritage and tradition than there are pinched-faced humourless bureaucrats with no active taste buds. Down with the Food Police! Long live proper food!
Wensleydale blue was the first except for Danish, that I ever tried. Great stuff.
I eat Bayrisch Blau here.
Charles De Gaul is quoted a shaving said “How can you govern a country which has two hundred and forty-six varieties of cheese?”
Wikipedia says: “The British Cheese Board states that there are over 700 named British cheeses produced in the UK”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_cheeses
I don’t know what that proves but it ought to prove something.
Oops. Too early on the space bar.
“…is quoted a shaving said…” should, of course, be “…is quoted as having said”
I really like a McDonalds from time to time – probably less frequently than one per month. At that rate of consumption I simply do not believe it will do me any harm whatsoever.
If I occasionally get one for lunch at work, the inevitable Obergrüppenfuhrer des Nahrungsmittelpolizei will lecture me on its unsuitability, danger etc.
To which I generally reply that at the age of almost 63, a body like mine needs all the preservative it can get. This is followed usually by a total silence or an irritated snort from the other party. Should they come back with any other verbal clubbing, I regret I am forced to resort to the immortal words of Mr Rhett Butler.
No problem with the 50 shades of red. As long as if you then encounter 50 shades of green, and 50 days of starched white, you don’t then also expect 50 days in sepia courtrooms and 50 shades of rainbow hued compensatory bank notes. FWIW, as one who had a relative directly caught up in one of the Scottish Central Belt E. coli outbreaks, while one might despise the tactics of the 50 shades of black uniformed food Schutzstaffel, you really can see why they wouldn’t wish it on anyone
At least this can’t be blamed on Middlesbrough. No self respecting smoggie would eat a burger when this is available…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2009/oct/09/parmo-regional-snack-foods
Steak and lamb should be “pink”. Chicken and pork must be carefully and fully cooked. But why?
Chicken needs to be fully cooked because of the risk of salmonella.
Pork needs to be fully cooked because of tapeworm (?) , althought I doubt that is any longer true with modern farming methods.
Another possible reason for needing to cook pork thoroughlyis that, metabollically pigs are quite close to humans and there is a risk that disease that might be present in the pig could jump the species barrier into a human.
Having said all that, this is only what I have heard. And my science stopped at ‘O’ Level Biology in 1971.
A micro-biologist who is expert in gut infections would be able to give a much more definkitive answer. Is there such a man who visits this site, I wonder.
As for cooking beef and lamb pink; fair enough if that’s how you like it. Depending on momentary whim I have it anywhere from rare to well-done.
Calling Leg-Iron, calling Leg-Iron, come in please Leg Iron…..
That’s why the French have a much higher incidence of Toxoplasma gondii. Among its lesser effects, infection apparently makes males morose and introverted, females outgoing and sociable …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii
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