I see poor old Delia Smith is in trouble again over her latest cookery series "How To Cheat at Cooking".In this she shows simple recipes using ready made ingredients, such as frozen mash and tinned mince. Personally speaking, as a self peeler/masher of spuds and eater of fresh flesh, I wouldn't often touch ready made stuff with a barge pole.
However, in emergencies I can see the logic of using tinned mince etc.
That being said, the use of ready made stuff was not Delia's crime in the eyes of Nanny. She is guilty of something far worse than that...
Cue a role on the drums...
She uses salt in her cooking!
Worse than that, according to Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) she uses far too much salt.
Cash claim that a single serving of one of the recipes, carbonara real quick, contained more than a whole day's recommended salt intake (7 metric tonnes, or something like that I believe...I was never very good with ounces and metrics).
Maybe so, but an indulgence once in a while won't kill you.
As ever with Nanny's anti salt obsession she ignores the facts:
1 We are all different shapes and sizes, therefore one person's daily limit is not another's
2 Sweat exudes salt, if you sweat a lot you need more salt
3 Drink water (although Nanny says that is not much use for you now) and you flush yourself out
4 Once in a blue moon won't kill you
5 I ate salt in little chunks as child, as I have told you before, and no harm ever came to me
6 Salt in less affluent times was a prized commodity, like bread, a necessary staple
Ignore Nanny and enjoy that extra salty carbonara!
That's St Delia if you don't mind Ken!!
ReplyDeleteI have watched a couple of her current series and must say I am not impressed with it.
I use fresh ingredients and always make things from scratch.
This series seems aimed at the Argos generation. (Harrods for Chavs)
Before mothers worked, they taught their children to cook at home, this no longer happens. The funny thing is that, now we have moree cookery programmes on the TV and the cult of the celebrity chef, most younger people can hardly cook.
Nanny would rather appear to be doing something, no matter how daft that something is, than be doing nothing. I feel she needs to justify her existence. Remember Nanny's preferred action for problems is;_
a) Regulate it
b) Tax it
c) Ban it.
The time will soon arrive when the economics of food production will dictate for most of us the use of mass prepared ingredients. Both material and energy costs for production of and preparation of fresh produce will be beyond everyday means for many.
ReplyDeleteDelia, by the sound of it, is ahead of that game.
As for salt, as I understand it if you are normally healthy the body retains as much salt as it feels it needs. Too little intake and you get problems.
If you have a salt based medical problem anyway, as some do, then you need to take care. But that does not mean the entire population needs to be nagged.
I see the Food Waste campaigners are also out in force this week. I bet their numbers don't stack up unless cherry picked and ignoring many previous forms of waste, for example during transportation.
Huge waste in restaurants. Should they be shut down? (Starting with the House of Commons of course ...)
Grant
cramerj 3:19 PM (yesterday) said:
ReplyDelete"in the 40s and 50s ... they were not as wealthy or as idle as you lot".
Having just read your post and understanding where you're coming from, it raises the important issue of "working smarter versus working harder".
The world has changed since those days in terms of opportunities and requirements, and the pace quickens with every year. The days may be gone when everyone charged at the factory gates to escape as soon as the hooter sounded, however, many people still continue to miss the significance of using the head first and the hands second.
Last year in the local-council elections, our Liberal Democrat candidate canvassed on the basis that he would “work hard for the community”. He seemed to think that was sufficient and so, failed to state exactly what he'd work hard at. That's a case of putting the cart before the horse (but it’s probably the kind of sound bite that helps win elections).
Given the speed and pace of change in the world today, that type of person poses a significant threat to the efficiency, agility and profitability of any organisation. They tend to be predisposed to finding a complicated solution to any problem, overlooking simple solutions that don't involve lots of hard work and then revelling in how hard they've worked to solve the problem.
Conversely, working smarter not harder, together with the increased opportunities that exist, can lead to a larger income with more free time for other worthwhile pursuits but yes, the requirement to stay disciplined and focused never changes.
I was recently told by a good friend of mine that his mother was in hospital while the medics resored her blood/salt levels. Her illness, it seems, was at least partially caused by a shortage of the stuff. As is so often the case, a simplistic 'one size fits all' solution to 'problems' often turns out to be no solution at all.
ReplyDeleteThis brings us back full circle to what I - and many others - have so often said, here and elsewhere. As much as the individual 'issues' and Nanny's desperation to show that she can solve them is a pain in the arse, the major problem is the principle that such Nannyish interventions seek to establish: that we are all too stupid to be left in charge of our own welfare. Every time we mutter about 'The Nanny State' and then just accept that - even though we don't like it - Nanny will carry on interfering in our lives, we actually help her to prove her case. If we keep letting Nanny intrude into more and more sectors of our private lives, then we clearly ARE too stupid to be allowed to make out own choices.
I wouldn't offer the French as a role model for many things, but their reputation for being intolerant is well known and in evidence on a regular basis: something happens that you don't like? Take to the streets, do a bit of rioting, burn a few cars; that makes the bloody politicians sit up and take notice. As we are all supposed to be Europeans now, why aren't we learning from our Gallic brothers?
Dear me NKB you are rapidly becoming the Mugabe of Medicine.
ReplyDeleteYour way the only way and never change.
Dear me Cramerj you are rapidly becoming the Mugabe of Medicine.
ReplyDeleteYour way the only way and never change.