Food fads

Would you like some extra nasturtium with your schnitzel? Welcome to 2010 where this years food fad is edible flowers, coming close on last years micro sprouts on everything and the year before pomegranate. All served with the reassuring refrain "people have eaten flower for ever" and yes of course we have.... uhm what are fruit and vegetables basically ? (and yes i know they are roots as well but they are all plant stock. Except for bacon the forbidden vegetable) But when did we become such wankers about it?

Of course if we are going to be having little bits of the edible flowers with our meals, of course they should be served in a suitable fashion. Prepare for the Food Forrest, little serves of food dotted about the plate in mounds of isolated food wank, usually served on a smoosh of something past as the soil. That's if they don't grind up some bread like substance an as the soil.

"Its all Mastechefs fault" you cry. Well yes, and no. We do have a lot to blame Masterchef fo,r as we become a nation of food wankers who no longer serve their food but plate it up, with mounds of Jus stacked appropriately and with our kitchens full of expensive implements. (WTF is a water bath!) and I will personally punch on the nose the first person I meet who has their own blast freezer. And Masterchef is of course culpable in the continuation of the celebrity chef and the reintegration of uber cow Donna Hay back into polite society.

But it isn't just Masterchefs fault in our recurring food fadness,  as the food fad, or the ingredient du jour, has been with us for years. How soon you forget the great sun dried tomato invasion of the early nineties or in recent years the introduction of chorizo in everything. And yes they are great sausages of yumminess but there is such a thing as too much. Look at the poor sun dried tomato, now as popular as pork chops ( which have of course been replaced by pork belly)
 
People what are we doing? Where is this going to end? If anything, think of our parents, who a watermelon balled with mint was specialfancypartyfood, cherry tomatoes gourmet and a lasagne dinner party food. That  eating out was the all you can eat buffet at the faux Swedish eatery and KFC was still Kentucky Fried Chicken and salads and fast food were like cold war Russia and America.

Let me digress here momentarily and provide one minutes quick reminiscence on Ol' Pops Ranty Pants and his special meal "glop" archeological teams are yet to work out what made it so damn good but I can tell you it wasn't flowers, seeds, fancy salt encrusted foreign pork bangers or anything that didn't come out of a packet)

Think of the undue pressure we are putting on our parents? Lets get our hands off of it and back into making good simple stodge flavored by chemicals and cheese. And when I say cheese if it doesn't come out of a tube then lets drop it off. If Kraft Cheddar was good enough for me growing up , both as a food and as a sponge in the bath, then its good enough for a cheese board. Piss off all those fancy aged stone washed rind mould surrounded by dried things! Dried things! The only dried thing on a cheese board should be beef jerky

Lets get right down to the core point of it all this absolutely ridiculous flowersonfoodsillyreducedsaucesandweirdocookingtechniques is un-Australian. We like our food simple, preferable over cooked and with as few complicating flavors as well. If it can't be cooked on the bbq with beer as the only sauce then it should piss right off.

I advocate a return to three herbs. Mint, basil and MSG. There is way too much wankiness with multiple mints, and such herbs as chervil and tansy and oregano. Just because we can grow it doesn't mean we should. or use it. Don't start me about you home gardeners. Take your green bags, worm farms, eco-awareness and back to old homely values attitudes and rack off. You can also take your reduced food miles with you when you piss off!

And can we please bring back Moselle (preferably in the case) - all these fancy vioginiers and pinot griwhateveros and what not is confusing. Its white wine. You drink it after the beer and before the red, and you drink sparkly at a wedding with a little dash of orange juice so it tastes okay. simple.

food should be simple.

As a ray of hope for doing food simply lets celebrate the Federal Hotel, in Mount Gambier. (You can call it MG) the Capital of South Australia - the food lovers state. The Federal Hotel, the home of the schnitzel, which has on its menu 128 different versions of Schnitzel. No fancy sauces, no fancy herbs, just every possible piece of flesh battered senseless, crumbed and deep fried. Either done with cheese, with tomato sauce or not. Plus some for the Vegos. Brilliant

Schnitzel good solid Australian food.