October 27, 2003

The fat of the land


There is a programme showing on Channel Four presently, called French Leave. It features an English chef whose restaurant had two Michelin stars and who spent over three hours a day commuting to and from work. He decided to take a year off in France, bringing his wife and six kids to a chateau in France. Naturally, there is also a book, and it was to publicise it that he appeared on Pat Kenny's radio show on Friday.


John Burton Race described how he has used his year in France to learn more about food, and where it comes from. He has stopped using fois gras once he saw how it was made (I, on the other hand, hate it simply because it tastes bloody awful) - as you probably know, geese, or more often ducks, are force fed food in order to enlarge and enrich their livers. He was also disturbed to discover how capon are produced - young male chickens are castrated (their testicles are sliced off without anaesthetic) and they grow massively. Hmm - someone should explain to him where beef comes from. A lot of it is produced from bullocks (castrated male cattle). Do they get an anaesthetic before they are castrated ? Not always. Does it hurt ? Too right it does.



Race bemoaned the fact that there were very few farmers' markets in Ireland or the UK, even though the produce was every bit as good as that in France. Well, the village of Clarinbridge has been invaded by swarthy, chain-smoking Gauls this weekend - they have set up a French market on the green.



The smell of freshly-baked bread (the baker brought an oven along in a horsebox), dried herbs and cheese would almost have you thinking that you were in Provence, though the bitter wind would quickly remind you where you really were.



The pastries looked particularly good, though I balked at the donkey sausage. I wasn't too impressed by the 'imitation prawn tails' served up as proper seafood either.



Posted by Monasette at October 27, 2003 09:19 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Chickens have balls? Well, you learn something new every day.

Posted by: Smoke at October 28, 2003 03:48 PM

Of course they do...where do you think chicken nuggets come from?

Posted by: John at October 29, 2003 08:16 AM

When the market was in Dun Laoghaire the sign called them 'Prawnies'. When I first saw it I thought it was just a mispelling. I overheard a girl on the train the next week describing in her best dort accent the fantastic fresh fried prawns she got at the French market over the weekend. We Irish deserve to be ripped off.

Posted by: aonghus at January 23, 2004 11:57 PM

it's a bit sad that a French market in Ireland couldn't find a few real prwns, instead of chunks of processed mush with a bit of pink dye on it....

Posted by: John at January 26, 2004 08:04 PM