Let Them Eat Stew

As a novice blogger, seeking to make his mark in this increasingly vast blogosphere, rather than submerge into the blog-bog, I have sought advice form the great and the good as to what makes a blog stand out. Both agree that the key to good blogging is to 'keep it tropical'. I was half way through a riveting piece on the cultural legacy of the Lilt ladies in Carribean post-feminist literature when I noticed the typo.

Topicality, I have found, is trying. On the one hand you risk coming across all Jamie Oliver, and God knows one is enough. Fundamentally decent and as the man is, there is still a disconcerting Victorian sensibility to his evangelising - Master Jamie Oliver Esquire's Society for the Nourishment and Embetterment of the Socially Reprobate? The alternative consists of extrapolating a broad social trend from a trite observation of your own, rather insular, social circle and pronouncing its universality. "Have you noticed how Brie is the new Camambert?". Well er, no actually. I haven't. Avoiding both pitfalls I'll aim for a point somewhere between culinary social engineering and artificial food fad; make the political personable.

I did think for a moment of sharing my recipe for Barack O'Brownies; brownies you can believe in. This certainly ticked the zeitgesit box but sounded vaguely racist. Climate change? Now there's a topical issue (and tangentially tropical too). Each mouthful of food, save only lichae, fungus and lentils, propels us ever closer to the kind of natural catastrophes that the editorial board of the Bible couldn't even imagine. But secretly, in my heart of hearts (look deep inside and you'll find it in yours too), there's a little voice that says, "Don't worry. Listen to the oil companies. This is a normal part of the earth's atmospheric cycle. Now go on, take the car to work, it's raining unusually heavily and frequently for this time of year". No, Mother Nature is not my mews.

With one quick flick through the papers, and more revealingly my wallet, it was clear that there is only really one topic worth addressing - the scoop of the day. So, here it is, today's special; SecretEatingHabits takes on the recession.

I must begin with a confession. I am as yet to feel the full force of this recession, at least in my pocket. Fortunately I am not plugged into our shortcircuiting economy. My equity is non-existent, but at least it's not negative and, relatively speaking, I'm making a killing in stocks simply by having none. Such is the gratifyingly perverse logic of our times. But then, as you will know, the recession is not really about money. Recesion is a state of mind.

As a nation we are currently being basted in the rancid drippings of economic punditry. There is no greater soul destroyer, quencher of passion nor suppressant of appetite than an economist in full, pessimistic flow. This bilious marinade has left us permeated with the dull flavours of insecurity, regret and worst of all, prudency. These were just some of the ideas percolating around in my head as I grazed for lunch in the Epicurean Food Hall on a day where the weather above the atrium aped the admonitory economic forecast.

Property aside, little else tracks the ascent of our nation's wealth as neatly as our shifting eating habits. Under one glazed roof, the Epicurean Food Hall assembles the various constituents that have become staples of the contemporary Irish diet. Italian, Turkish, Chinese, Japanese, and Mexican food; Gourmet Coffee, Bagels and sushi; all have become imperceptably, blandly familiar.

On this day, like so many fellow-travellers, I was hungry in body and soul. A little bit sad and led to believe poor too. A snuffling head-cold was developing apace behind my eyes and nose. It was a lot to ask a meal to cure me of such a malady. 8 Euro for a panini*; the same for 6 slivers of raw fish on gritty rice? 3 Euro for a coffee? For sure these offerings were not up to the task. As hope was giving out I circled by a new counter, the Pie Kitchen. Here was what I was looking for though consciously unaware of the fact. For 7 Euro, I chose a bowl of Irish stew with soda bread.

Sitting, haunched over my lunch, I had a moment of lucidity, though perhaps the steam from the stew put some mist in my eyes. First and foremost this was a good bowl of stew, with a singular purposeful flavour, rather than the vane hope of coherence that many one pot dishes are predicated on. It fed me in all the ways I wanted to be fed. Cheaply and lastingly. This meal has fed families larger than we would have the stamina to produce, who worked harder than we could ever fear we would have to, with means far less than we have now (for the moment anyway). I did not eat again until just before bed.

Mostly, dare I say it, it had the nourishment of hope. It was a meal that said this country did alright before. It will again. As much as was gained in the past decade of affluence, some things were lost; among them the last few threads that linked us with our cultural diet; solid and satisfying (if a little unimaginative). We can do worse in these lean times than to look back, lose a little of our ill-fitting 'sophistication' and embrace those elements that sustained our race, and here I'm talking beyond the plate. Regression. It's the new recession. We can lose the panini now.

My Mojito

I feel a certain ownership of the mojito. I first tasted one on a fondly remembered holiday and it was the first cocktail I was asked to make in my brief stint as a cocktail bar-man. It's subsequently become my cocktail of choice and for New Year's I will be making a pilgrimage of sorts and sipping mojitos on Club Havana beach in Cuba. That's what passes for spirituality these days.

Making mojito's is a lot like having sex. Everyone has their own way of doing it though some are better at it than others. I like to think, through practice, I've become quite accomplished...at least where it comes to mojitos.

There are four essential ingredients in a mojito; rum, sugar, mint and lime. Outside of this any number of variations on the theme exists, and as with all cocktails, personal preferances for mixing, temperature and presentation vary. The version here is really more a cover version but hits my taset-buds in all the right spots. I eschew the traditional white rum for the warmer hues and fuller flavour of golden rum (Havana Club Anejo Especial) and topping it off with ginger ale suits my sweet tooth better.

Here's how I make them.

Ingredients:

• Half a lime, cut into 4 wedges (plus one for garnish)
  
• Half dozen mint leaves, with stalks (plus one for garnish)
  
• Dash of sugar syrup (equal parts caster sugar and water dissolved)
  
• Crushed ice
• 70 ml rum (Havanna Club)
• Ginger Ale
  
• Angustura Bitters

Put the lime, mint and sugar syrup into a high-ball tumbler and muddle together. You can buy a special implement for this, a pestle-like tool, though the back of a spoon will suffice. The aim is to release the oils in the mint leaves. Fill the glass with crushed ice. You can buy it in Lidl or, depending on fitness levels, wrap some ice-cubes in a (clean) tea-towel and get to work with a rolling pin. Add a liberal measure of rum (70 ml is only a guide. Go on, slosh it in there). Shake the ingredients vigorously. Top up with ginger ale and more ice if necessary. Finish with three or four drops of Angostura Bitters to add an aromatic top note to the drink.

To some, this seems like a lot of trouble to go to for a drink. Truth be told, it is. A busy bar-man won't thank you for the order. But practice makes perfect and after you have made an unholy mess with your first few attempts (a sharp shot of lime-juice to the eye teaches you to adopt a more relaxed muddling technique) and adjusted the ingredients to suit your own palate, you will be banging out the high-balls like a regular Tom Cruise, back when that was a good thing. To crank up the ceremony (and the alcohol content), replace the ginger ale with some fizz. I use Prossecco but anything bubbly will give you that extra touch of decadence.

Out about town Secret Eating Habits has gone to the trouble of tasting a few mojitos for research purposes. For a bargain, head to the Front Lounge where they bang them out at e6.50 a pop on a Thursday. Alternatively, hit the Morgan in Temple Bar where for e11 you get a real lip-smacker. Order yourself a plate from the tapas menu and for 20 quid you'll keep yourself nicely out of trouble for a half hour or so. e14 gets you a wondefully crafted mojito in the Octagon Bar of the Clarence and if you think that's steep see what it wil cost you after the rebuild.

Finally, the obligatory drink responsibly disclaimer. With all that's going on in the glass it's easy to forget that the mojito is a pretty potent elixer so here's a good recipe for some suitable soakage from Good Mood Food: Mojito Lime and Mint Chicken

The Veal Deal

My earliest food memories: Taking on a classically trained French waiter in a hotel in Kilaloo who demanded I order from the 'kiddies' menu. Hell hath no fury like a precocious child told he can't have what he wants and I got my grilled lamb-chops with orange sauce. Perhaps, with hindsight, that was more of a moral victory.

Forward a few years, on holiday, I can see my younger self complaining about the service and the presentation of his dessert...in the canteen in Mosney! That closed down shortly after, obviously vindicating my nascent critical faculties. The hope is that the asylum seekers now resident there receive better board.

Perhaps the best example though of my early epicurean tendencies was my nibble of choice as a nipper - veal. To this day, the sight of it on a menu brings a blush to my cheeks, kicks my salivary glands into overdrive and causes a Proustian rumble in my tummy. Veal was Sunday lunch in the local hotel; it was family, crisp linen, sauce chasseur and the heady notion that, to my young mind, I may as well have been in the Savoy.

One occasion lodges firmly in my mind when my order of veal brought boos and howls of disapproval from the left-leaning, vegetarian fringe of my family; a perfect, if extreme, example of the view that many hold about this misunderstood meat. I devoured that particular escalope with even greater relish than usual but marked too, for the first time, that food had meaning and consequence beyond what was on my plate and in my belly. Somewhere in my young mind I resolved to always taste first and ask questions later. So, in a neat piece of revisionism, I would like to make the point that I was right all along and state the case for eating veal.

The fact of the matter is that the veal industry in Europe is now regulated to prevent the practices that were previously found so objectionable (if delicious) in the rearing of veal-calves. Veal crates have been banned in the UK since 1990, outlawed in the EU by Council Directive 91/629/EEC and similar legislation is on the way in many states in the US. Yes, there may still be incidences where primitive and cruel farming occurs but protests on these grounds equate to condemning the entire hen-house because of the odd bad egg. With regular inspections and stiff sanctions (read the Directive if you doubt it), it doesn't pay to violate these regulations.

Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) in Ireland still isn't keen on veal though. They are trying to bring an end to the live transport of Irish calves to veal processing plants on the Continent. In a rare coalescence of opinion I think that CIWF are absolutely rights. We should not export live calves. We should eat them here instead.

Lest I sound a little glib, let me expand. I choose the word 'should' intentionally. It is, I think, a moral imperative that we increase our consumption of veal in this country. Drink milk? Thought so. Veal is one of the primary by-products of the dairy industry. Just like your mother, a cow needs to be pregnant to lactate. The average cow will produce 4 to 5 calves across their dairy career. While female calves go on to be incorporated into the dairy heard, the males, not bread for beef, are useless and a costly presence about the farm. As was graphically shown on the BBC's documentary earlier in the year, Kill It, Cook It, Eat It, in the absence of a domestic market for veal, many of these calves end up on the less humane end of a vet's pistol.

Such waste becomes increasingly difficult to justify in the current economic and environmental climate. Think of it another way. This country, more accurately the farming lobby in particular, fight hard to maintain a beef sector that is at the very least an inefficient industry and more probably a damagingly unsustainable activity with negative economic effects both domestically and for poorer countries that have a definite comparative advantage in beef production, like Brazil. A strong domestic veal industry creates a use for an abundant by-product of the dairy industry, would offset some of our beef consumption, our dependence on the sector and mitigate the damage that our bovine protectionism inflicts on the developing world.

Obviously I do not hold this up as a total solution, but a practical (and tasty) small step within the larger ecological changes that we must no longer deny are necessary. Add to that the fact that veal is lower in fat and higher in energy than a comparative cut of beef and compares favourably with poultry alternatives such as chicken and turkey and you also have a convincing health argument.

So, how will this affect your eating habits? Well, in reality you are probably already eating the bit of calf or rather bits of calves. It is one of those ingredients that crops up here and there in the production of other foods. Rennet, made from calf stomach is commonly used in cheese production while chances are the depth and complexity of flavour in the sauces you eat in restaurants, so difficult to achieve at home, owe something to a base stock made from veal bones. Rationally, this should allow you to get over any lingering discomfort you have in eating a 'poor little baby cow', as indeed should all of that roast lamb (baby sheep?) you had in the spring.

Forget words though. The proof of my argument is in the eating. A number of restaurants around Dublin, to be commended for their efforts, continue to serve and promote veal, though it is generally sourced in France. In Residence on St Stephen's Green veal is the turf in its surf n' turf option. Da Pino on Parliament Street, in typically rustic style, does a simple escalope of veal with sage. Veal has provided me with some marked high notes in my eating experiences but as yet it remains a rare presence on Irish menus. The French and Italians have had no qualms cooking and eating veal. Nor have the Austrians, though I guess the wiener schnitzel carries less culinary and rhetorical weight.


Of course, where we really need to start eating veal is in our own homes so here are some ideas. Osso Bucco is a classic treatment of veal. Braise some veal shanks (watch your butcher's reaction when you place that order) in white wine, stock and a bouquet garni. Finish with a can of tomoatos and gremolata (a punchy little seasoning of finely chopped parsley, garlic and lemon peel). Or for a less arduous introduction, take a veal cutlet, treat it like a pork-chop and fry with butter and sage. Use the left over pan-juices to dress some boiled baby-spuds and serve with some greens. All those preconceptions formed out of decades of animal rights propaganda will melt away as quickly as the delicate threads of protein on your tongue.

The downside? Well, unless you're a calf, in which case you will have found this entire piece truly disturbing, I fail to see one.