Pamela cleared the plates, then brought in a large tray that held warmed plates,
a carafe of red wine, two covered vegetable dishes and a steaming hot pie with
golden pastry.
Here you are, Bruno. The great classic of English cuisine: steak and kidney
pie. The young peas and the carrots are from the garden, and the red wine is
from the Camel Valley in Cornwall. They used to say you could never make good
red wine in an English climate but this proves them wrong. And now, prepare for
the most heavenly cooking smell I know. Come on, lean forward, and get ready for
when I cut the pie.
Bruno dutifully obeyed, and as Pamela lifted the first slice of pastry he took a
deep breath, savouring the rich and meaty aroma. Magnifique, he said, peering
into the pie. Why so dark?
Black stout, said Pamela. I would normally use Guinness, but thats Irish, so
I used an English version. And beefsteak and rognons, some onions and a little
garlic. She piled Brunos plate high, then Christine served the peas and
carrots. Pamela poured the wine and sat back to observe his reaction.
He took a small cube of meat from the rich sauce and then tried a piece of
kidney. Excellent. The pastry was light and crumbly and infused with the taste
of the meat. The young peas in their pods were cooked to perfection and the
carrots were equally right. It was splendid food, solid and tasty and
traditional, like something a French grandmother might have prepared. Now for
the wine. He sniffed, enjoying the fruity bouquet, and twirled the glass in the
candlelight, watching the crown where the wine fell away from the sides of the
glass as it levelled. He took a sip. It was heavier than the kind of red Gamay
from the Loire that he had expected, his only experience of red wine grown that
far to the north, and it had a pleasantly solid aftertaste. A good wine,
reminding him slightly of a Burgundy, and with the body to balance the meat on
his plate. He laid down his knife and fork, took up his glass, sipped again, and
then looked at the two women.
I take back everything Ive said about English food. So long as you prepare it,
Pamela, Ill eat any English food you put before me. And this pie, you must tell
me how to make it. Its not a kind of dish we know in French cuisine. You must
come to my house next time and let me cook for you.
Yes! exclaimed Christine, and to his surprise, the Englishwomen raised their
right hands, palms forward, and slapped them together in celebration. A curious
English custom, he presumed, smiling at them and addressing himself once more to
his Cornwall wine. Cornwall, he reminded himself, was known in French as
Cornouailles, and he knew from school that the traditional language was very
like the Breton spoken on Frances Brittany peninsula, so they were therefore
really French in origin. That explained the wine. Even the name for Pamelas
country, Grande Bretagne, simply meant larger Brittany.
The salad, the ingredients again from Pamelas garden, was excellent and fresh,
although crisp lettuce mixed with roquette did not seem particularly English to
Bruno. But the cheese, a fat cylinder of Stilton brought from England by
Christine, was rich and splendid. Finally, Pamela served a home-made ice cream
made with her own strawberries, and Bruno confessed himself full, and wholly
converted to English food.
So why do you keep this a secret? he asked. Why do you serve such bad food
most of the time in England, and why is its reputation so terrible?
The women each spoke at once. The industrial revolution, said Christine. The
war and rationing, said Pamela, and they both laughed.
You explain your theory, Christine, while I get the final treat.
Its pretty obvious, really, explained Christine. Britain was the first
country to experience both the agricultural and the industrial revolutions of
the eighteenth century, and they very nearly destroyed the peasantry. Small
farming was replaced by sheep farming because the sheep needed less care, just
as better ploughs and farming techniques needed less labour and more investment.
So small farmers and farm labourers were pushed off the land, while the new
factories needed workers. Britain became an urban, industrial country very fast,
and the mass urban markets needed foods that could be easily transported and
stored and quickly prepared because so many women were working in the mills and
factories. Then the new farm lands of North America and Argentina were opened,
and with its doctrine of free trade Britain found its own farmers beaten on
price and became a massive importer of cheap foreign food. It came in the form
of tinned meat and mass-produced breads. And this happened just as the old
traditions of peasant cooking that were handed down through the generations were
disappearing, because families dispersed into the new industrial housing.
Some would say that similar forces are at work now in France, Bruno observed.
He turned to Pamela, who brought to the table a small tray with a large dark
bottle, a jug of water and three small glasses. What of your theory about the
war being responsible, Pamela?
Hold on a minute, Bruno, said Christine. It was you French who invented
tinned food back in the Napoleonic wars, and wars were what spread the system.
The Crimean War of the 1850s, the American Civil War of the 1860s and the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870 were all run on tinned food, because that was the
only way to feed mass armies. Just the other day in your local supermarket here
I saw cans of Fray Bentos do you know how that got its name?
Bruno shook his head, but leaned forward, suddenly fascinated by this
conversation. Of course the huge conscript armies would need tinned food. The
First World War in the trenches could probably not have been fought without it.
Fray Bentos is a town in Argentina that began exporting meat extract to Europe
in the 1860s, to use up the surplus meat from all the animals that were killed
for the Argentine leather trade. And pretty soon the meat trade was far bigger
than the leather.
Amazing, said Bruno. I knew you were a historian of France, but not of food.
Its how I teach my students about globalisation, said Christine. You have to
show them that history means something to their lives, and theres no easier way
than to talk about the history of food.
I wish Id had teachers like you. Our history lessons were all kings and queens
and popes and Napoleons battles, said Bruno. Id never thought of it like
this.
I agree with all that Christine says about the history, Pamela said. But
World War Two and rationing, which continued for nearly ten years after the war,
made everything worse. After depending so long on cheap imported food, Britain
was nearly starved by the German submarine campaign. People were limited to one
egg a week, and hardly any meat or bacon or imported fruits. Even the tradition
of better cooking in restaurants nearly died because there was a very low limit
on how much they could charge for a meal. It took a generation to recover and to
get people travelling again and enjoying foreign food, and to have the money to
go to restaurants and buy cookbooks. She lifted the dark bottle off the tray.
And now I want you to try this as your digestif instead of cognac. Its a
Scotch malt whisky, which is to ordinary whisky what a great chateau wine is to