From the Telegraph today:
'This delicious recipe is ready in five minutes and, served with cheesy toast, makes it a perfect meal for all the family.
Serves 2
1tbsp butter
1 clove garlic
400g tin of tomatoes
1tbsp tomato puree
Shake of chilli sauce (sweet chilli sauce works well)
2tbsp cream (single, double or whipping, or even crème fraîche)
Nutmeg to grate
Melt the butter in a small pan and add the garlic. Allow to cook while you find the tin opener, and open the tin of tomatoes. Tip them into the pan, along with the tomato puree, a mugful of water (around 8floz/225ml if you’re measuring, but accuracy is not really the point here), and shake in some chilli sauce.
As it heats, whiz it with a hand blender until smooth. Don’t let the mixture boil if you can avoid it. Stir in 1tbsp cream, season with salt and pepper, and grate in a good bit of nutmeg.
Serve with the rest of the cream dribbled on top.'
What audience is being addressed here? It says 'all the family'. It says 'meal'.
So I started counting calories for double the quantities - two adults two youngish children, say 8 and 6 years old.
This is not a meal. 41 calories for 800 g. of tinned tomatoes (I have looked in the larder to read the contents labels of the reserve tinned tomatoes). What century are people living in that this is considered, eaten with bread (here referred to as 'cheesy toast' as if somehow that makes a different thing altogether from bread) enough to stave off hunger, never mind malnutrition? Two tablespoons of cream, and a dusting of grated Cheddar in no way redeem this starvation diet.
41 calories, plus bread with grated cheese, plus two spoons of cream, and a touch of butter, divided by 4 = hunger. No wonder children are distressed in school.
How about 50 g of pasta per head with ragu and grated parmesan, followed by a slice of meat or vegetable dipped in seasoned flour, then beaten egg, then breadcrumbs, then fried in olive oil, drained and served with salad of considerably more than 400 g of tomatoes and not from a tin either, with a serving of rice or plain boiled potato, or steamed courgette.... Followed by fruit, a slice of cake and a spoon of ice cream?
PS And the whole meal takes no longer to prepare and serve than the time taken for the pasta water to boil. Well, if you have cake and ice ceam, but who doesn't?
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9 comments:
Cake and ice ceam
Well I do not have ice ceam
I have cake, but thats only because I bought some last night
Tinned tomatoes on toast?
If I tried to feed my daughters on that there would be riots .......
Henry, cake will do. Pour something over it (not custard) and add some cooked fruit.
The tinned tomatoes were to be boiled with tomato paste and tabasco, and dressed with raw cream C. Side of cheese on toast. No pudding.
Good for the daughters! Riots.
Have some friends who are closing their school catering business at the end of term. They supply six schools but are not paid enough, or quickly enough to deal with the regulation, bureaucracy or complaints
from parents. A roll served without butter as butter makes it over the daily limit for whatever its over the limit for.
The school meal project that the government bandwaggoned is being damaged by their own rigidity, inflexibility and administration.
Why am I not surprised.
Lightly toast a slice of bread. Butter generously, add one or two bananas sliced lengthways, scatter sugar on top and put back under the grill until the banana has warmed nicely. Put on warmed plate; eat with knife and fork, accompanied by a glass of milk. That's a nice wee snack.
We aren't grounded when it comes to food any more in England, are we? Partly we lost a food culture with the Second World War and the rationing that I was surprised to see went on right into the 1950s (why ever was that?)
Partly food takes time - lots of time and planning - and we refuse to acknowledge that. Once in a while it's possible to put a meal out from scratch in 30 minutes, but serious eating and good quality yet economical eating takes rolling menus that run for up to a week, reincarnating each day with additions and reuses - boil a chicken Monday, saffron rice in chicken broth Tuesday, cassoulet with what remains plus lamb and bacon and sausage Wednesday, add left over beans to warm salad nicoise Thursday.... And all the time there is a background of cake to cut into, fruit to help yourself to, bread to spread.
Providing school meals for customers from such diversity of food cultures and practices must be a nightmare Mr Q. Not helped by a serious 'official' underestimation of food as assertion of self and status rather than a functional refuelling.
Whatever happened to the meat and two veg followed by tapioca pudding or apple crumble and custard school dinners of my (1950s) youth? And we never had rolls or bread on the side either. The quantities were adequate for active growing lads and there was seldom anything left on the plates (except when mashed swedes, parsnips, turnips or sweetbreads (utterly YUK!)) were served.
Rationing went on right into the 1950's because we had a socialist government then.
The two things go together, though sometimes cause and effect are separated somewhat in time.
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