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Retro Food
Don’t look back in anger….
Retro food is the new cool, it’s official. If you’re reading this in America then take my advice, open a restaurant and serve all of the food you used to eat thirty years ago and poked fun at twenty years later. You will be an instant success because everyone will be bored of fusing Mexican with Swahili and serving it in a test tube. Trust me.
Over here in Britain there has been a renaissance in traditional English grub once served in smoky pubs by unemployed bricklayers into modern interpretations by chefs looking to escape the misery of seventeen hour shifts in a michelin kitchen. Pubs have cleaned up their act, gone is the smoking room and flat pints of Harp and in with polished cutlery and cold chardonnay.
Gordon Ramsay is the latest to get in on the pub craze, he’s opened some smart eateries in London, kept the name, changed the chairs and stuck pub classics such as Ploughman’s, pint of prawns and steak and kidney pudding back on the chalkboard.
I am not against this, a couple of years ago we saw the arrival of the ‘Gastropub’ and many of us groaned at the way the love affair had started and would surely end, it was a bit like nouvelle cuisine in the eighties which promised much but ended in absolute failure.
The trouble with the gastro pub was the way in which the chef and owner began to think they were a restaurant instead of a pub. They began to attempt restaurant dishes served at restaurant prices, losing sight of the whole ethos of pub food which was decent quality at affordable prices in a relaxed atmosphere.
This new ‘downshift’ in menu choices could prove to be a real success, I would love to see a return to British classics on menus which stay with us rather longer than a re run of a Gary Rhodes television series. It is easy to look back over fondly but certain foods have stood the test of time and here in Britain we should embrace them before we lose our identity all together.
Love him or loathe him, Gordon Ramsay is, in terms of media savvy best placed to put this food back in the spotlight. I’ve listed below some of the dishes from his new pubs and shall follow up with some posts on my favourites.
London Particular, Potted Salt Beef and Pickles, Steak and Kidney Pie with Mash, Devilled Kidneys, Smoked Ham Hock and Piccalilli, Potted Morecambe Bay Shrimps, Haddock and Mushy Peas.
Miles,
I’ve never liked mushy peas but I could certainly cope with everything else on the menu. I take it that London Particular is pea and ham soup which I love, well all except those I’ve tried with chunks of gristly bacon…. yuk. Now you mention it there’s no Piccalilli in this house, something I must rectify and now have a yearning for….. perhaps it’s good for colds?
Cid
December 31, 2007 @ 9:53 am
Miles
great post - I absolutely agree with you.
I understand how chefs need to keep putting new things on a menu but much that I see now is purely for this reason only.
I see the primary job of a good chef as giving somebody a damn tasty meal in good time and without poisoning them !
The rest is window dressing.
These retro dishes hang around for a reason, some hundreds of years in fact, they work !
A great chef should be able to do some great things with traditional dishes. By bringing their talents and the best ingredients to the dish - it’s a recipe (groan) for success.
Imagine traditional pies by someone such as yourself, all the finest stuff inside - superb.
Wheel it on !
Rod
December 31, 2007 @ 12:07 pm
Miles,
Coming back to one of your earlier posts about Free Range Chickens, Hugh Fernley-Whitingstall is clearly backing your call on buying free range chickens. He is beating the drums for everyone to boycott battery hens in a big newspaper article. Similar to your above suggestion, these people are often best placed to mobilise the country into making changes.
I agree with you about good traditional pub grub - bring it back, emphasis on good, mind you
Elsie
December 31, 2007 @ 1:34 pm
Cid,
You’re quite right about the soup, as for the pickle, you must have a go at making your own if you don’t already, it’s far nicer.
Miles
December 31, 2007 @ 10:14 pm
Rod,
You can’t beat a nice pie and as you say it’s all in the filling.
Happy Claret Free New Year to You!
Miles
December 31, 2007 @ 10:16 pm
Elsie,
I too saw the article that you mention, how effective it will prove I’m not so sure.
We live in hope!
Miles
December 31, 2007 @ 10:17 pm