Bring back home food!!!

“The cornerstone of good cooking is to source the finest produce” Neil Perry
Well Mr Perry this is up for interpretation, like most statements it has an individual meaning to different people. What is good cooking? I don’t doubt that the general public, you know people like you and me ‘average shmoe, mojo bojo’ have a different idea to what good cooking is. So ask yourself, have a good long think about the best thing you’ve ever eaten.
Chances are whatever it was made of it was neither, organic, specialized nor did it come from king island (which has the general public ooh-ing and ahh-ing associating it with quality) Did your mum’s special dish contain organic vegetables and did she use meat that was massaged and pampered before its trip to the slaughter house? I bet you a pretty penny it tasted damn good any way and time after time it still gives you that same gooey feeling and for one second the world makes sense. Why you ask? because is was made with love and no apologies for the cliche, practice makes perfect and yes it even applies to food.
Fortunate enough being in Melbourne, Melbournian food lovers has the immense luxury of being feed by the culinary heavyweights within Australia. Fine dining is fine dining lets leave the pompous expectations to them shall we and enjoy the little things enough that make you go Mmmm.
Reality check there is no way small/farmers can produce enough livestock to cater for every family with 2.5 kids, the idea of a Babe and a few of his brothers and sisters running around a serene paddock is picturesque true, but with our population how are farmers meant to upkeep this life style and produce enough to satisfies consumer needs? The image of over populated dens of cattle and poultry is shunned upon, it’s either we stop reproducing to lighten the load on the industry or shift our level of thinking and stop being so ignorant.
At Melbourne’s top restaurants your paying on average forty dollars for a main course, at these prices in these times consumers expect quality, and chefs deliver that with good produce and a innovative way in serving it. Somewhere along the lines culinary activist have shot themselves in the foot. Just because you’ve prepared something from home does not give it any less of value than something prepared by a chef in a swank restaurant.
Sunday roasts are still a family favorite and not once was Bessie part of any Angus beef nonsense. No this is not a crusade against the fine dining world, a world in which is respected by many including myself. Its something that many melbournians are very proud of and again self included. It’s about eliminating the ‘snob’ factor and the socio economic factor, you don’t need all the riches in the world to have ‘good cooking’ or food.
Mum and Dads aren’t sourcing out the best produce for dinner; they’re ducking down to the local shops and purchasing what’s available to them, they going to the local butchers, fresh veg and fruit grocer and the infamous Coles and Safeway. We are buying what our pretty pennies can buy and whose is to say it cant be good even if it wasn’t sourced from the best?
For example, in parts of south East Asia, the quality of beef can be quite poor, after years of war and famine let me tell you these folks take nothing lying down. Improvisation and substitution are always handy things to add to the mix. How do you turn the ordinary into gold? Given the tropical climate herbs and spices flourish and are ever plentiful, let me tell you a Cambodian knows how to marinate the heck out of a carcass and make it taste like sex.
Your average meal In south East Asia will cost you 1-2 dollars. Are we catching on? Can’t afford organic tomatoes but like them all the same! Add a sprinkle of sea salt or a dash of lemon to bring out its flavors, meat not the best quality? There’s a massive shelf in one of the isles in coles, compliments to the Mc Cormick family. Doesn’t have to be posh but still taste good. Heck if you’re that adamant on fresh produce and quality, put on those gardening gloves and call yourself farmer Joe.
How about that each family having their own veggie patch out the back, at least you know who grew it. Lets all use our oversized noggins and stop expecting unrealistic changes. Even in recent times with the slowing economy patrons are still eating out twice a week bare minimal. So you see we still not wanting to make our own grub Heston Blumenthal “ you don’t have to be a celebrity chef to cook like one” we get disheartened when our beef stroganoff doesn’t look like its counter part in the recipe book, recipe books and celebrity chefs create a stigma of perfection. When perfection isn’t met the first thought is that it’s wrong.
With mortgage/car/credit card repayments we’re working that little bit harder to earn the papers to cover all these expenses not to mention finding a balance between work and play. We’re tired people and with progressing technology we’re getting lazier too, its highly unlikely we are going to make and extra effort to travel further to source our good produce and have it on the table by six. Instead lets love our bodies and sustain it with ‘slow food’ not ‘fast food’ and if you were to label any thing good and bad my choice would be those two.
Having a home cooked meal to ease your soul is like putting premium unleaded in your tank, you just get more mileage I guess. And if we’re going to be working ourselves to death we might as well make it easier on ourselves. Lets leave the chefy ideals to the specialists and start having a go in making our own dinner burnt bits and all.