Quote of the day - squirrel edition

"You'd need one and a half squirrels for a main course; that's why we are serving it as starters." 

Full marks to the sous-chef at River Cottage Canteen, where diners with twitchy sensibilities need not apply. This was a one-off,  but there are plans to add squirrel to the menu again in the Autumn, when they will be nice and fat.

It's no more than you would expect of an establishment under the aegis of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (or, as my mother calls him, 'the bloke who eats dead owls') and, what's more, there's a sound ecological reason for doing it, these being grey interlopers rather than our native red ones.

The long-overdue investigation into what goes into burgers and ready meals shows just how detached the general population has become from the source of its meat. For those who never shop at a  butcher's, there is no apparent connection between the packaged ready-meal or takeaway and a real animal; it's something many consumers prefer to ignore completely.

This is, of course, largely a product of urban living and a sentimentalised view of the animal kingdom; I shall never forget the horrified reaction of a town-bred family friend who arrived unexpectedly one day and was offered rabbit curry for dinner (unorthodox, I know, but pies and casseroles do get boring after a while).

But I suspect that we are now seeing a generation grow up who just don't care. 'Watership Down' and the like have been largely forgotten (or dismissed as too middle-class to be allowed) - in any case, few children read much these days - and, where 1990s teenagers embraced vegetarianism along with all things green, their modern-day counterparts are more likely to say "Whatever" and tuck into a burger in front of the X-box.

Having been forced by recent news stories to consider the source of their meat, perhaps people may start to question whether it really matters that their food once had big eyes or a fluffy tail, especially if it's cheap, low-fat and sustainable into the bargain.

The newspapers have doubtless published this non-story in the hope of sparking a storm of outrage from the fluffy brigade amid accusations of  'a wildlife massacre' (it's happened before: 'Another Slice of Squirrel, Julia?'), but, taking into account the misleading meat labels and unidentifiable imported ingredients in processed food, they might just find it's the start of something new.

One man's meat pie is another man's haram

Last week, BBC2 treated viewers to the spectacle of Professor Brian Cox spitting into a test tube and, with the help of some washing-up liquid and vodka, extracting a sample of DNA containing the genes for brown eyes, floppy hair and a cheeky grin.

(Recent conversations with friends suggest I should, for some readers at least, at this point leave a short pause for reverential contemplation. Meanwhile, everyone else can use the brief interlude to savour Prof. Cox's contrived but memorable phrase: "The chicken is radiating disorder out into the wider universe...".

OK - shall we carry on?)

Now, I know very little about the mechanics of the process, but it did strike me that DNA must be fairly robust stuff to survive all that chemical bombardment and agitation. That being so, what are we to make of the news that 'traces of pig DNA' have been found in foods labelled halal in prisons?

Contrary to the impression given by slick police dramas, DNA cross-contamination must surely be rife in our everyday environment - consider the rapid spread of viral and bacterial infections or the way that pet hair transfers itself to clothing ad infinitum as examples of how traces of material can move around.

And what of the shopper who picks up a leaky pack of bacon in the supermarket and transfers traces of the residue to the trolley handle and everything else he or she touches? Contamination at a microscopic level cannot be entirely ruled out anywhere we go. Common sense suggests that, aside from good hygiene practices, we shouldn't concern ourselves with something so small and inevitable.

But common sense and religion are not always easy bedfellows. An avoidance of certain foods on religious grounds for fear of contamination implies a lack of pragmatism when it comes to accidental contamination at a microscopic level, so it's no surprise that this is a major news story, even though the Qu'ran explicitly states that, if there is no other food available, a Muslim may eat non-halal food; 'If one is forced because there is no other choice, neither craving nor transgressing, there is no sin on him' (Surah 2:173).

And it's not going to help that the 'traces of DNA' - 0.01% by volume, according to Channel 4 - have, in the tabloid headlines, become "Pork found in halal meat" (Mirror) or "Halal meat pies [...] contained pork" (Sun), as if there were large lumps of the stuff lurking within the crust. The media like nothing better than conflict, and, if they continue to fan the flames as hospitals, schools and care homes inevitably enter the fray and tempers rise, they may well have plenty to report.

Given modern methods of food production and the scale of the supply chain, it would be very surprising if some form of cross-contamination were not occurring in the system. Even with a highly conscientious workforce (and the wages paid in the food industry are not conducive to this end), it would be difficult to eliminate completely the traces of previous products handled by the machinery or on the premises.

Since almost any institution now offers a vegetarian option which would meet the requirements of those wishing to avoid pork, it makes little sense to provide halal meat products at public expense as well. In fact, the ideal solution - proposed by Woman on a Raft at Anna Raccoon's post on the matter - would be to make all prison food vegetarian and prepare it on site; cheaper, safer and unlikely to offend anyone's religious or ethical sensibilities*.

We  have, as a society, become so accustomed to over-processed food that we have lost sight of the risks posed by every successive part of the process.The real issue here is that food labeling has been shown not to be trustworthy but there is now a very real risk that the religious element of this story will be allowed to fog the issue; there was a real sense of inevitability about this from the moment the horsemeat story broke.

As Prof. Cox's chicken demonstrates, energy degrades with each stage in its separation from its original source. Much the same thing can be said of our food; the challenge now is to ensure the religious issue does not sidetrack those in charge from the importance of reducing the number of processing stages from ingredients to plate.


*Except, perhaps, Jains, though I doubt there are many of them in the UK prison population, what with their strict avoidance of violence and lack of interest in material possessions.

Meanwhile, as the Quiet Man points out at OoL, a convicted prisoner in the UK insisting on his right to halal food has already broken the law of the land and, at least in cases of theft, would probably prefer to be dealt with under our own system of punishment rather than that prescribed by the Qu'ran.

Under Siege...

...or how I nearly made a starring appearance in Mark Wadsworth's blog.

"I know you're in there..."

The remote and beautiful glen where Clan Macheath take their holidays – reputedly once the hiding place of Bonnie Prince Charlie* – has changed little in the past thirty years, save for the recent introduction of a herd of cows.

In the best Highland fashion, the beasties roam free throughout the glen, grazing on the hillsides, wading picturesquely in the river and, when the mood takes them, completely blocking the single-track winding road.

And last week their lives were brightened by the arrival of a large bull (pictured above).

Since we had no plans to go out by car, the fact that the cows and their calves had taken up residence on the track leading to our rented cottage was not a major problem. By the second morning, however, they had surrounded the building, lining up around the perimeter and searching for weak points.

At this point, they were joined by the bull, who was clearly spoiling for a fight. They pushed at the gate, barged up against the garden fence and finally knocked the telephone pole askew, disconnecting our only link to the outside world.

So there we were, in the best tradition of horror films, totally isolated and the object of overwhelming interest to a herd of increasingly insistent cattle. And there we might be still, had we not discovered the reason for this unwanted attention sitting next to an open upstairs window.

Cattle are naturally curious and might well inspect any newcomers to the glen, but we had inadvertently provided an added attraction in the shape of the Urchin’s malfunctioning laptop. The fan had inexplicably begun to make an intermittent low-frequency noise uncannily similar in pitch to the bull’s testosterone-laden bellowing.

Essentially we had introduced to the glen the bovine equivalent of Tom Jones in his heyday, causing no small flutter among the cows. And naturally the bull was jealous. Since the wrath of an Urchin sans laptop is as nothing to the undivided attention of an angry bull, the problem was easily solved, but it provided us with a salutary lesson in the unpredictable clash of technology and animal instincts.

The Scottish establishment has backed the re-introduction of free-roaming cattle to the Highland Glens as a return to the traditional farming methods of a previous golden age. However, these cows are not the photogenic, plodding shaggy beasties of old but purpose-bred hybrid beef cattle crossed with an Iberian mountain strain – bigger, heavier, grumpier and far quicker on their feet.

This same herd had, it turned out, already brought the local village to a standstill more than once, bypassing a cattle grid, scrambling down a steep bank and walking down of the glen to block the road completely and deprive the village shop and tea-room of custom for several hours.

The locals we met told us that this summer has seen a sad dearth of tourists away from the major attractions. If Scottish landowners want to encourage visitors to explore the Highlands and Islands and bring a much-needed boost to the local economy, they will need to ensure that, at least in the breeding season, tourists and cattle are kept safely apart.

*Although if the legends are to be believed, during his 72 days on the run he managed to hide in practically every cave, bothy and farmhouse in the Western Highlands.