One final word on the convenience option

Tonight, the fridge full of ready meals of one description or another, I decided that, given the quality thus far, nobody would like any of it. Reluctant to waste it I decided to cook a buffet.

On offer were:

  • One portion of lamb rogon josh from the reduced counter and a pot of rice I forgot to put out! It is still in the microwave as I type.
  • Two portions of pork medalions with shitake mushrooms and strogonov sauce.
  • Three quarters of left-over stuffed crust pizza with the formerly mentioned dubious pepperoni on the top
  • A tray of McCain’s home fries or whatever they call themselves now
  • A whole family tray of Chicken, Bacon and Potato Bake- sadly it had some kind of sauce underneath. It was a mistake to buy this because my two don’t do sauce, well not the bechamel variety.

I left the stroganov sauce off the pork.

I shoved it all in the oven at various intervals. I earmarked the curry for myself but took half in case anyone else fancied some.

Here are my comments:

  • Pork – tough and tasteless
  • Curry – the most bizzarre lamb I have ever encountered. It had the consistency of cooked beetroot and was clearly not cooked in the sauce – which tasted of tomatoes and spices, not unpleasant but definitely not lamby
  • Pizza – too tomatoey and the stuffed crust filling, pasty
  • bake: not even touched although I did get tempted to a small spoonful and it tasted, well, peculiar. I don’t know how else to describe it
  • chips – excellent as ever, why fry when you can bake, but it has to be McCains Home fries/chips (in my”humble”opinion)

We are all full but peed off. The dogs enjoyed the bake.

I know there are lots of people who need cheap food. I watched with the rest of the country as Hugh and Jamie promoted their free range chickens and failed with the broke single mother. But one proper, unflabby, happy chicken can feed a family for several days, and should. The mistake we have made (again IMHO) is not teaching people to cook. Why did that stop? When did academic subjects become more important than practical ones? Don’t you think that we still need to know how to prepare food and construct and mend goods. Recycling has its place but why throw away in the first place?

Have you seen Wall-E? It is thought provoking indeed. In it the human race has left the Earth because polution has killed life. After many decades, maybe centuries, everyone lives in a kind of encapsulated world floating in space and nobody can do anything practical. They wait to be entertained and are so fat they need to be transported on special chairs. Food is manufactured, nobody has seen a chicken or a cow. I wonder if this is such a ridiculous concept. Are we heading this way?

Stand up and be counted. Have cookery lessons, or ask a middle aged neighbour to teach you to cook – we all know how! Shop locally, eat fresh seasonal veg, don’t let the Tescos of this world pull the wool over your eyes. What we ate this week was not food, even if it was nutrition!

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