I don't eat out.
Posted on 08/30/2007 12:33:09 PM PDT by fanfan
With more of us eating out in restaurants and cafes than ever before, modern Britain likes to think of itself as a nation of gourmands.
But how much do we really know about the food we consume away from home?
While many of us may now be familiar with culinary terms such as "jus" and "confit", the same cannot always be said of our understanding of our food's provenance.
This week an ITV documentary revealed that those "prime steaks" and "gourmet burgers" in many wellknown restaurant chains and pubs are not from traditional beef breeds like Aberdeen Angus at all.
They are just as likely to be meat from zebu - a droopy-eared, shawl-necked beast popular in South America, and known locally as the "humped cattle".
The meat is flown in from countries as far away as Brazil, because it is far cheaper than traditional British-reared varieties.
And that's not the only example of creative food-labelling. A recent Food Standards Agency investigation of restaurants and takeaways in 22 local authorities found that half the samples of chicken sold into the catering trade had a poultry content of between five and 26 per cent less than that indicated on the pack.
The rest comprised water, salt, sugar, flavourings and unspecified hydrolysed protein.
So what other menu items are being served up under equally misleading or confusing listings? Here we present an a la carte version of some of the more common offenders.
JUST WILD ABOUT FISH?
In these health-conscious times, fish has become an increasingly popular restaurant staple, and "wild" varieties are the most popular.
But research by the Food Standards Agency has found up to 15 per cent of fish labelled as wild is actually the cheaper farmed varieties.
According to Bjorn van der Horst, chef patron of Gordon Ramsay's La Noisette restaurant, the price can often be a clue to mislabelling.
"If a portion of wild turbot doesn't cost between £25 and £30, they're either selling it at a loss or it's not wild turbot," he says.
HALF-BAKED SOLUTIONS
No one can deny that supermarket ready meals have come a long way in the past decade and that some "gourmet" lines are now impossible to tell apart from restaurant offerings.
Small wonder. Because did you know that some restaurant meals - particularly in the larger chains - are in fact produced by the same companies that supply the supermarkets?
The biggest of these is a company called 3663, which supplies a quarter of all the UK's catering needs. Their clients include companies such as Pizza Hut and Greene King, and they are not alone.
The Essex company is one of a band of businesses that provides half-cooked dishes like Beef Wellington to a host of eateries, that require minimal preparation to pass off as a "house special".
Another is Bigham's of Acton, West London, which supplies supermarket chains such as Waitrose, but also list (anonymous) restaurants on their client base.
Signature dishes such as lamb kofta are regularly transported to restaurants around the country.
I don't eat out.
Are the British even qualified to write articles about food?
Never call fries “chips” around a farm boy. Chips were those disks of dried cow poo-poo sometimes used as “organic Frisbees”.
Zebu ?
Red Lobster’s been doing this for years............
Where’s zebeouf?.............
Yes. LOL. They eat too.
Zebu.
I never knew ya!
ROFLOL!
In a word, no.
My Wife bought me an Italian cookbook written by some English guy named "Jamie" something. It is still in the drawer. I'll read it when I want some boiled meat.
Have you heard the truth about sushi in Japanese restaurants?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4971426701921585512
Who had to catch?
They eat, but not very well.
I lived in England for three years back in the early 80s, courtesy of Uncle Sam. If I recall correctly, Greene King was a chain of pubs. And in those days "pub grub" was notoriously bad, with a few exceptions. These exceptions typically were independently owned pubs where the publican's wife happened to be a good cook.
Nobody caught them.....intentionally. We went for distance and trick shots where they'd loop a bit.
“Are the British even qualified to write articles about food?”
About as qualified as writing about dentistry.
It’s true. They use pre-cooked meals, flash frozen, shipped from wherever. Take one out of the freezer, pop it in the oven, and take out a delicious fresh cooked shrimp scampi.....
This is no big revelation. We were warned years ago if you like sausage you don’t want to see it being made.
Do they serve Zima with Zebu ?
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