Fiona Button

When I was little and came across the phrase hors d’oeuvre for the first time, I asked someone what it meant and they told me: before the eggs. The reasoning was that the dishes marked hors d’oeuvre came at the start of the menu, and were followed by egg dishes, such as omelettes and the like.

Even when I began French and learned that eggs were oeuf(s), I reasoned that oeuvre must be an antiquated form of the plural, preserved only in this particular phrase. The fact that the French for before (avant) bears no relation to hors (without) didn’t put me off either.

Many years later I finally worked out that hors d’oeuvre were, literally, without work: little dishes requiring less effort to prepare than the main courses of the meal. Since then, I’ve always found this the most helpful culinary designation. Starters should be low-effort: some cured meat, a little cheese, olives, some sliced or salad vegetables, possibly some bread.

But also isn’t it interesting how you persist in believing something when all evidence points to the contrary?

I’m fully immersed in the world of Jack Drummond – dietary pioneer and architect of rationing – more shortly. But as I think about this, I am struck by how little has changed in 70 years.

Taking a not-very-scientific sample of stories off the BBC in the last three days, we have Progress on Food Industry Health Deal Slow, Why is bread Britain’s most wasted food?, and Study links womb environment to childhood obesity.

To save you reading them all, let me summarise, in order. The food industry has been slow to sign up to Andrew Lansley’s voluntary code to inform customers about the amount of calories, transfats etc in their products (funny that). People throw away a lots of bread because it is cheap and people over-buy (some dispute about artisan bread vs Chorleywood process bread).  The quality of a woman’s diet during pregnancy is a good predictor of the health of her future child (no shit Sherlock).

These are all problems that would be achingly familiar to Jack Drummond. In the depths of the second world war, he came up with a series of measures that tackled these problems and improved people’s diets overnight. Yes, people couldn’t buy as much butter and sugar and bacon as they wanted, and wholemeal bread was widely resented. But mothers and children got free extra milk, orange juice, vitamins and cod liver oil. And, I think crucially, he had the power to make the food industry toe the line in the name of winning the war.

If he were alive today, at the grand old age of 121, I think he would be astonished to see so many of the problems that pre-occupied him still with us today, and in some cases, getting worse. How can it be, with 70 additional years’ research and a much greater degree of affluence, that we stumble on as if his work never existed?

It seems yesterday’s BBC article on forgotten foods has prompted lots of responses – 25 foods readers would like to revive. Whoever was responsible for the pictures has obviously never seen a medlar in their life, as they managed to put in a picture of something another reader immediately identified as a loquat.

Isn’t this interesting? Even the BBC journalist writing or illustrating an article about forgotten  foods is a bit clueless. We’ve still got a long way to go. Incidentally, I blogged about medlars back in autumn 2009. If you want to see what a medlar really looks like, try this: Medlars.

Well yes. Apparently we will soon be able to find such delicacies on the shelves of our supermarkets – according to this article on the BBC on Forgotten Foods. Can’t see the jellied cow heels catching on myself. And why doesn’t Booths expand out of the north-west? If everything I have read about this chain is true, can’t we have one down here?

But the WiFi was weak. I missed a day yesterday, the first since I started my I will write everyday New Year’s resolution. All forms of connectivity are a little patchy up here, but I suppose that’s part of the point.

To make up for it, two interesting articles: one in The Economist of 3 March called Feast and Famine (now there’s a good title) giving yet more evidence that malnutrition in utero and early childhood can predispose you to obesity later in life (especially when combined with calorie-rich but micronutrient-poor diets). This time, the article draws on data from the Middle East. The closing sentence says it all: “They are simultaneously over- and underfed: too many calories, not enough micronutrients.” Crucially, it’s all about feeding the girls. You need future mothers to be well nourished before and during pregnancy to give their children the best chance of escaping this problem.

Also, an interesting article in the FT on Saturday by Andrea Felsted, called Fresh Produce New Supermarket War Focus. Sadly I can’t link to it as it’s on the FT, but the essence was that the supermarkets have taken their eyes off the ball when it comes to fresh fruit and veg, meat etc. They plan to improve this area as well as hire (or train) butchers and fishmongers. I’m really pleased about this, because it should improve things, but I can’t help feeling it’s a bit galling as well.

To paraphrase Guy Watson, it’s all very well waking up and deciding that these things are important, but if the way you have been doing business for the last 2o-odd years has effectively driven most farmers, growers, butchers, fishmongers and other small producers into the ground, you can’t suddenly magic them back again overnight. It would be great if this was a turning point, and we had a proper long-term commitment to re-skilling (or skilling) the food chain, including the end consumer. Why, then, do I feel so skeptical?