If I was Head of the Food Police – – –

Tongue in Cheek – served with mustard mash

Teresa May was picking her cabinet the other day and I thought ‘I wonder if she would give me the food police role’ –

It’s a long shot but maybe I could convince her, I mean some foodie things are criminal.

When I was working as a chef in London I spent quite a few years as a relief chef, going all over the place trouble shooting taking over restaurants as a head chef, taking over for a few months (especially if my predecessor had been given the cheffie boot) or simply covering holidays.

During this time I came upon some crazy chefs doing some crazy things, cooking some crazy food combinations and thinking it was ok to serve it!!! While working my 11 year stint in London I became known for hating 70’s retro foods (currently quite trendy!!!) I used to refuse to make trifle or shepherds pie and I absolutely wouldn’t go near a Vol-a-Vents let a lone a cheese on a toothpick! I would say indignantly “I am not a 70’s housewife” some places knew this and often used to put retro items on the menu just to watch me refuse to cook them.

So my stubborn foodie nature goes back years – I now find my self talking to learners on my cookery courses about “if I was in the food police” i’d make sure this or that was always done properly – like cooking out spices.

To fund my pay cheques and vast expenses getting to Westminster I’d have to have a penalty system, some fines and in severe cases a prison sentences but of course sometimes a caution is enough to help cooks go streight.

For instance  –

Prison Sentences – from 3 months depending on the severity

  • Using puree as a pizza base (or ketchup)
  • Over cooking cauliflower to a mush
  • Making a Tiramisu with cream cheese and not mascapone
  • Cafes serving brown lettuce (the going off sort)
  • Making a chocolate cake & calling it a Brownie (life)
  • Not cooking the fat on bacon to a crispy loveliness
  • Deep frying sausages (not including battered sausages)
  • Using old mushrooms that have turned in to saggy bouncy balls
  • Restaurants serving day old jacket potatoes
  • Boiling live lobsters without sleeping or stabbing them first

A  £30 fine and 2 points off your foodie licence

  • Not cooking out spices  (with the exception of Gram Masala)
  • Buying any packet spice blend (like sausage casserole mix / not 5 spice etc.)
  • Making a pizza base out of anything other than bread or bread dough
  • Using carrots in a meat curry
  • Any food that bends your cutlery
  • Cutting orange wedges the wrong way
  • Serving rice and potatoes in the same meal (except if using the potatoes in a curry)
  • Cooking green cabbage until it turns yellow
  • Serving canned whipping cream and calling it cream!
  • Slow cooking meat for so long it shrivels to a dry flaky smush
  • Slow cooking meat for not long enough to a chewy tough grissle

A Caution followed by a £10 fine if they re-offend

  • Using Vol-a-Vents
  • Eating chicken nuggets or even thinking chickens have nuggets!
  • Restaurants running out of a dish and having no alternative
  • Waiters that sit down at your table to take your order (or call you mate)
  • Not using any salt and being proud of it
  • Using too much salt you need to flush your body through later that night
  • Making sure the egg yolk is runny in poached, fried and boiled eggs
  • Saying something is medium hot – when in actual fact it blows your head off!

 

WARNING – if you are effected from any of the comments used in this blog, please book your self on to either Lodge Farm Kitchen – Cookery Courses or Love Norwich food – Food and Drink Walking Tours. Alternatively phone the help line ‘life’s to short for a bad dish Anonymous’

What do you think, do you think there would be food riots on the streets or do you think people would be so food happy they’d rejoice and eat more brownies  – give us a twitter #eatmorebrownies