Foodies In The News

[Pepper Pig]

[Earthmaiden]

As with the Christmas lunch/dinner in the UK, I'd like to bet that the majority of people don't want to jazz up the most traditional meal of the year a great deal. Slight changes maybe or have something completely different.

[KeenCook]

I wonder what will happen now? Do butchers no longer go to Smithfield? I have never been but we used to have a friend who would go on a regular basis and stock up his freezer.
Or perhaps butchers only ever use the same stall and will go to wherever they're moved to?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... s-to-close
Or perhaps the City of London will have to react to the likely outcry and think again.

ETA and Billingsgate as well, of course.

[Earthmaiden]

How sad. Times are certainly changing, what with the congestion charge, ULEZ etc, farm shops and supermarkets. Those currently working there obviously think that a centre at somewhere like Dagenham would be worth it - but it might be inconvenient for those coming a long way from most directions. Will be interesting to see what happens.
My great aunt was a secretary there - she would find it unthinkable!

[Pepper Pig]

It was years and years ago that Covent Garden moved out. I suspect the price of the land is eye watering.

My Caribbean friends from church in Harrow who are in their eighties still do a Smithfield freezer run.

[Stokey Sue]

I don't know why anyone is surprised the stub end Smithfield will close (most of it closed long ago and is already being redeveloped) - it has been on the cards for years, it's part of the area development plan that includes the new Museum of London site where the frozen meat warehouses were; yes, my butcher goes to Smithfield I think, but I suspect he'd rather go somewhere less shrouded in traffic jams.
It's grubby, stuck in what is no longer the right place (the traffic jams, no parking, no direct rail link) and generally past it's best by date. What does seem to be a problem is that they aren't opening a new single site location as they did when Covent Garden moved to Nine Elms 40 years ago, which is waht I expected
I walk through Smithfield sometimes, I love the old cast iron structure (which is listed), but the retail shops closed long ago, adn I really don't think it's ideal for a wholesale market not.

I can get quite nostalgic about going to the pub that opened at 5am to serve breakfast (and beer) to market workers; we would (rarely)go after all night events in our Laura Ashley frocks or bow ties, they weren't supposed to serve us of course unless we worked in the market, but if you were a fairly small, well-behaved, group you were fine as students. But that was 50 years ago ...(it suddenly occurs to me I must have walked there from Bloomsbury in heels, at sunrise )

[Pepper Pig]

How middle class is your larder?

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ose-report

[Stokey Sue]

I’m slightly bemused that using an Ottolenghi pre-made marinade or sauce counts as “cooking from scratch” - I’ve nothing against them, would use them if it suited me - but surely a short cut is not “from scratch” ? I suppose her definition is that if you are starting with raw meat and/or veg, doing some prep and the actual cooking then that’s from scratch.

I can see 30 minutes in the kitchen being the sweet spot on a week night.

[Pepper Pig]

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... misconduct

[miss mouse]

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... misconduct

Reading various message boards I have yet to come across anyone who likes him, why was he ever employed?

[Norfolkman]

He's just a greengrocer with an enormous ego.

[Suffs]

I’d hesitate to use the word ‘just’ to refer to any greengrocer … they’re a precious and sadly rapidly disappearing commodity

[miss mouse]

He's just a greengrocer with an enormous ego.

I think he was a wholesaler who served the restaurant trade.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregg_Wallace

Wiki entry. What a lot of TV.

[Stokey Sue]

What struck me about the Wiki entry was the list of wives, doesn’t bode well

Christine Wallace ​(m. 1991; div. 1991)​
Denise Wallace (m. 1999; div. 2004)​
Heidi Wallace ​(m. 2011; div. 2012)​
Anne-Marie Sterpini ​(m. 2016)​

[Suffs]

Greg Wallace is a successful entrepreneur who got where he is today with little education and a cheeky “Barrow boy“ persona which contrasted well with the rather patrician air of certain chefs. However times and manners have moved on and he is trapped where he is … if he changes his manner will he lose his USP?

Most women of my age and a bit younger will have grown up learning how to look down our noses and make a deprecating remark in response to what many working class men regarded as nothing more than harmless flirtation. I’m surprised that Kirsty Wark (who let’s face it has interviewed much scarier people than Greg Wallace) didn’t just give him a withering glance and tell him to behave himself. It’s not as if she needed the work!

It rather seems that boorish inappropriate behaviour is being treated as if it was an assault… It is not … It is simply bad manners, and I wish women would stop behaving like prim Victorian maidens …!Good grief we’ll soon be covering up the piano legs again!

Why is it okay for Shirley Ballas and Motsi Mabuse to perv over good looking young men in PVC trousers when there’s this sort of outcry at a silly middle-aged man making a fool of himself?

[Pepper Pig]

What? https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... tudy-finds

It reminds me of a friend of mine who always leaves a few baked beans in the tin so that they can, in her words, “escape being eaten”.

[Stokey Sue]

Suffs, it’s hard to tell how bad (or not) Gregg has been, but I think there’s a delicate but real difference between camped up, deliberately OTT, public admiration as on Strictly, and harassment behind the scenes; it has been made public that his behaviour has been reported to HR in the past, and he has been warned about it but apparently hasn’t done anything differently, and that’s what seems to be the problem.

It’s easy to imagine the chummy, slightly hyper, Gregg of Inside the Factory straying annoyingly but harmlessly over the line, but it seems it has possibly been bad enough to be a management issue.

I’ve given up on Masterchef long ago, several series of engineered “jeopardy” around the cooking of a fish fillet were enough.

[PatsyMFagan]

Well said Suffs ............... I can remember when I worked in an office where we had a particularly good looking guy and I was guilty of what would now be considered inappropriate behaviour as I used to comment on his lovely bum ... of course I now cringe when I recall that. It works both ways.

[miss mouse]

I think GWs behaviour has been considerably worse than a few inappropriate quips.

[Norfolkman]

https://www.express.co.uk/celebrity-new ... ode-admits