Being Fined by the Michelin Man
July 20, 2009 by ken
Filed under Restaurants
Perhaps Gorgon Ramsey is being a little bit hypocritical when he calls for restaurants to be forced to serve home-grown, locally-sourced produce, and fined if out of season ingredients appear on their menus. After all he has built a reputation running restaurants in the middle of London where there is a distinct scarcity of local producers, and at the moment according to one celebrity chef his own restaurants are serving 15 out of season products.
The first question must be asked is who would do the fining? Will having a visit from Michelin inspector take on a totally new meaning and strike a totally different frisson of fear into chef’s heart? Instead of a chance to be awarded one of their gongs, we are to be issued with a fined for that slice of strawberry used to garnish the Pannacotta, or the Beetroot Chutney with the Goats Cheese Soufflé, and how local was the goat in the first place and Pannacotta? And not to put to fine a point on it Michelin is not particularly local in the first place and it is very seasonal as the red book is published in January. An aside to this my last Michelin inspection before I sacked them the inspector did in fact inspect the garden he had been impressed with the curly kale on the menu and perhaps did not believe we grew our own.
Not that the idea is without merit, in fact the idea of seasonal local produce has great merit, the AA, for instance already take into account the locality of produce, but like a lot of things catering, these consideration only seem to apply to restaurants in the countryside.
Gordon Ramsey is in any case well behind the times in this, for years in season we grow most of our own vegetables, from potatoes to artichokes parsnips to carrots and a myriad of soft fruit, but this requires a great deal of space a great deal of time and planning which someone has to do. It is lucky that my wife is an avid gardener and does most of the work herself and we are quite a low key operation, but if that were not the case it would become impossible. As it is, when things are in season they are really are in season so much so that they are coming out of the ground to fast to handle Isabel is for ever saying can’t you use some more this or that spinach will be going to seed (what ever that means) if you don’t get and use it on the menu. But I do not think customers would appreciate a choice of beans beans beans or beans. As it is I would say that around 80% of my produce is local i.e. within 25 miles as the crow flies, but this means I change my menu almost daily, as the lady who produces my ducks, only has a few at a time, when they are gone I have to find something to replace them and so on.
The suggestion that the government should become involved by producing legislation to force this, goes against the whole idea of the EU Common Market ethos where states must remove impediments to foreign producers not introduce legislation to ring fence British produce. Not I hasten to add could I be described as being in any way a supporter of the European Project, but I do rather think Mr Ramsey’s suggestion will be falling on the stony ground of Westminster village politics.
On the whole although I support the basic idea, this is an area that is not suitable for government interference, if it were one would expect such rules not only to apply to restaurants but to the whole food producing chain, including the supermarkets, so perhaps instead of making headline grabbing suggestions that are both partial to the food whole food industry and that have no chance of ever being adopted, Mr Ramsey would be better advised to seek method by which the supermarkets could be forced to source more of their produce locally.
Rose Prince has a comment in the Telegraph on this subject well worth reading! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/05/10/do1006.xml
