http://www.dailymail.com/news/Don+Surber/200507074/
Don Surber
A word in defense of British cuisine
Thursday July 07, 2005Tunku Varadarajan wrote a delightful piece in the Wall Street Journal, "Why are Brits skinflint hosts?"
He told of having to wangle ice cubes for his drink from a British bartender at a party.
"One answer to why the British are such poor hosts might be found in wartime austerity and the postwar rationing that forced Britons of every class to think that skimpery was smart," Varadarajan said.
Oh, that.
His column came to mind when I read British press reports about Jacques Chirac entertaining Gerhard Schroeder and Vladimir Putin with jokes about British cuisine. They were in Scotland for a G-8 summit.
Yes, a dish consisting of potatoes, cauliflower, carrots, turnips, onions and oatmeal is a culinary crime. But those were the ingredients for a common dish in World War II thanks to war-time food rationing.
The Brits stiffened their upper lips and stomachs and ate this catastrophe.
They called it Woolton Pie after their minister of food. The Earl of Woolton was widely popular. His constituents knew he had little choice in the matter.
The Brits rationed food so they could feed the army they raised to liberate France.
The French had fought the Germans for a few weeks and then capitulated. This spared Paris, and allowed the Germans to concentrate on the Russian front and the bombing of London.
British women stood in queues for hours to receive their rations, braving bombs that would destroy or damage 4 million homes by the end of the war. Many mothers in London exiled their children to the countryside to escape the Battle of London.
Courage is doing the heart-wrenching things that must be done, and British women are not to be trifled with. When Buckingham Palace was hit, Queen Mary said: "Now at last I can look the East End in the face."
Where were French leaders? Sunning themselves on the Riviera in Vichy France or toasting their new Nazi friends in Paris.
Food rationing continued on some goods until 1954, nine years after war's end. In the winter of 1946, Britain exported food to keep Germans from starving.
But that was long ago and is easily forgotten.
Chirac's jokes are said to spring from an attempt by a Scot some years ago to interest him in haggis, that concoction of organ meats, suet, oatmeal, onions and seasoning boiled in the stomach of a slaughtered animal.
Chirac had a point.
Besides, the French and Brits trade shots at one another when they are not mocking the Germans, Italians, Spanish, Belgians, Norwegians and every other people on the planet.
Still, it took more than a little nerve for Chirac to say, "The only thing [the British] have ever given European farming is mad cow."
There would be no free Europe to farm if not for the British.
I have eaten escargot in Bordeaux and I have tasted the food of London. There is no question of which country makes the more delicious meals.
But taste is not limited to the palate. And I prefer to have my meals without the crow that every French leader surely must eat daily in light of World War II.
I wrote this column before today's bombings in London.
It will take a while to see what this means, but the outcome is clear: A nation fed on Woolton pie will never give in -- "never, never, never, never," as Winston Churchill said.
Don Surber may be reached at donsurber@dailymail.com.