She’ll like that.
46. London calling
As many of you know, part of my England-based portfolio of duties is to advise Queen Elizabeth. She and I call them our ‘Strategy and Vision Sessions’, and we normally meet, on the last Thursday of each month, in a Starbucks in London’s West End. I can’t tell you which one – if I did, I would have to kill you for security reasons – but, for those of you who like to know whatever details you can, I can reveal that she usually has a double tall skinny latte (with a ginger biscuit for dunking – which she does ever so daintily).
Our agenda tends to be about global issues, but last week she, rather nervously, pinned it right down to a London problem. There is, apparently, a shortage of American visitors here – the result of a combination of the US dollar’s weakness and general ‘security’ scares associated with international travelling. She wants me to use this chapter to try to sell Americans the idea of a visit to this fine city, with the prime aim of spending some dollars.
The obvious place to start when listing London’s attractions is with our Black Cabbies. Black is the colour of the cabs, not the drivers, who are of every ethnic hue imaginable, and they are absolutely brilliant. London’s city street system is twenty times more complex than New York’s, but you simply cannot catch our cabbies out. They train for years to get The Knowledge before they can qualify as a taxi driver, and they know every tiny street and alleyway. The only downside arrives if and when you drop a hint that you enjoy conversation. Within minutes you will be pinned back in your seat (metaphorically) while you go through his (or her) recent divorce, back problems, children’s progress at school, ageing parent’s ailments, and soccer team’s dire performance. If it’s summer, substitute cricket for soccer.
What else? Our one and only Royal Family, of course. Since Diana’s death, when we learned to be emotionally incontinent like the rest of the world, the Royals have given us enormous entertainment and provide perpetual highlights for any tourist visit. Charles and Camilla out-do anything from the scriptwriters of Sex and the City. Our tabloid press, unreadable for anything newsworthy, track this wondrous family of dysfunctional invertebrates on a regular basis, and there is invariably a weekly ‘butler’s confession’ or ‘love rat exposure’ to keep you entertained in the rain.
Ooops! I shouldn’t have mentioned the rain.
Are you worried about security? Forget it. We’ve got it pinned down. Here’s a true story. A while back I had a ticket to watch England play cricket at Lord’s, the home of the game. The tradition is that, on the Saturday, you take a picnic, albeit one with a heavy liquid bias. It was my turn to provide lunch for my pal and I, and I arrived with my cool-bag well stocked. To my horror, there was a security search at the gate. And, as my bag contained a glass bottle of claret, assorted knives and bottle openers, glasses for imbibing, and sandwiches wrapped in foil that suddenly looked like Semtex, I thought I would lose the lot. The security guard opened my bag, delicately took everything out, and then delicately put everything back in and waved me in. Having just flown out of the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, where I was asked to ‘voluntarily’ take my shoes and belt off at the security checkpoint, I didn’t understand why I wasn’t being ushered off to jail. So I asked him what he was looking for. ‘Hooters and whistles’ is what he told me, without a word of a lie. In England, we can carry weapons that could potentially kill, hijack, and blow places up, but we cannot hoot and whistle at a cricket match.
Now then – food: so important to we quick-service folk. A great deal of unfair rubbish is talked about British food. I am, therefore, simply going to give you details of a couple of mouth-watering British recipes that are available in most good restaurants, and let you be the judge. Here goes:
Guinness and haggis: Take six pints of Guinness (a black Irish beer) and one haggis (sheep’s offal and organs wrapped in its stomach). Prepare a pan of boiling water. Drink the six pints of Guinness. Then throw the haggis away.
Bang-bang chicken: Take a three-pound, organic, free-range chicken and pre-heat the oven to 240 degrees. Remove the giblets and stuff the chicken with uncooked popcorn. Put the chicken in the oven, and in fifteen minutes there will be a ‘bang-bang!’ and the chicken will fly – through the oven door, to your table.
How can you resist those? You must believe me, our cuisine is the highlight of any tourist visit to our lovely island. Only recently, an American friend of mine was recounting his experience as he sought food in a pub in Covent Garden, the epicentre of London’s tourist activity. Not recognising any of the dishes in the glass-covered serving counter, he was going to ask the barman’s advice when he saw a sign behind the bar. It said: ‘A pie, a pint and a friendly word’. Well, reassured by this helpful guidance, my friend ordered a pie and a pint of beer. When they were delivered, before taking it all back to his table, he leant across the bar and asked the guy: ‘I’ve got the pie and pint. What’s the friendly word?’
The barman looked around furtively, and then whispered the immortal words:
‘Don’t eat the pie.’
47. This just in …
As I sat down to write this chapter, I couldn’t escape the feeling that there was something special about it that I’d forgotten. Then I remembered. After a lot of thought I have decided to let neither Hello! nor OK! magazine into my life. Both had bid several million pounds to get behind my scenes – in a rather intimate way – but I cannot be bought, despite the attraction of the proposal that I should allow a photo of myself to be on the front cover, dancing in the Hawaiian surf, clad only in my thong.
Headlines, headlines. Who needs ’em? Particularly in the foodservice business – we get enough as it is. I thought about the changes in this business that we have all witnessed over the past few years, and some of the unlikely headlines we’ve read. Then, after my eighth espresso, I went slightly mad, and decided to suggest some of the really, really unlikely headlines that might appear over the next five years …
Woman Actually Admits Responsibility for Spilled Coffee – Mary Jane Becket, a resident of San Diego, was yesterday admitted to hospital for second-degree burns after spilling hot coffee on her lap while leaving a quick-service drive-through. ‘It’s all my fault,’ she told her bewildered lawyer, ‘I ordered hot coffee and that’s what I got. I really shouldn’t have been fiddling with all those packages while driving.’
Swiss Army Launches Quick-Serve Concept – Following their success with small knives containing corkscrews and watches, the Swiss Army today launched a quick-serve fondue concept. ‘With our brand awareness, it’s a no-brainer,’ says an Army spokesman, ‘Although we are having some problems with the drive-through.’
Pizza Hut Launches New Academic Range – In a surprise move, aimed at attracting mathematics graduates, Pizza Hut launched its new menu range under the name of Pizza-Pi. ‘On the exciting new menu there will be a wide variety of toppings,’ says PH’s spokesperson, ‘but each pizza will measure exactly 3.142 inches across, hence Pizza-Pi. We expect a big penetration in this key market sector.’
Burger King Coffee Wins Major International Prize – Fighting off fierce competition, Burger King surprised many delegates by winning the coveted Golden Bean award at the International Coffee Convention held in Monte Carlo. The President of the Convention, Monsieur Georges du Pre, praised many attributes of BK coffee, but particularly its flavour-retention once it’s been brewed and left standing on the hot plate for thirteen hours.
Kentucky Fried Chicken Founder Shock – In documents released today by the White House, under the fifty-years security rule, it was astonishingly revealed that Colonel Harlan Sanders, the founder of KFC, was actually a Russian spy, working under the code name ‘Bucket’. The information was filed away by the CIA under ‘No Harm Done’.
Starbucks’ New Flavours – Worried by disappointing food sales, Starbucks today introduced a new range of coffee flavours, intended to help it compete more effectively in the tough quick-serve market. Leading the way
will be the Barbequed Rib Cappuccino, followed by the Chicken Nugget Latte, the Three-Cheese Pizza Espresso and the Polish Sausage Frappuccino.
New ‘Bubba’s’ Quick-Serve Concept – In an exciting new development for the industry, the first Bubba’s was opened in New York yesterday. Selling only Gaelic coffee with added salt, the founders expect to have 200 opened by the end of their first year. ‘We only sell the one product because it’s perfect for our target market,’ explains the company spokesperson. ‘Gaelic coffee has fat, sugar, caffeine and alcohol in it. If you add salt it’s got the five essential food groups for Bubbas – all in one cup.’
Burger King CEO Celebrates One Year On the Job – A BK spokesperson refused to confirm this rumour (‘We won’t push our luck’) but industry commentators reckon that the current Burger King chief has hit the almost unheard of one-year mark. ‘It must be a mistake,’ says a well-known Wall Street analyst. ‘All I can think of is that he set off on an introductory tour twelve months ago and hasn’t got back yet.’
Surprising New Pepsi Sponsorship – In a move that amazed the competitive soft drink’s market watchers, Pepsi announced it was bringing back Michael Jackson in a massive new sponsorship deal. ‘Michael still gets incredible media coverage – for example, he’s mentioned on the TV news almost every night,’ says a Pepsi spokesperson. ‘We can’t see how this could possibly go wrong – particularly as we plan to do some promotional links with his sister Janet.’
Fat Child Our Fault, Say Parents – The parents of four-year-old Billy ‘Airship’ Ritter, who weighed in at twenty-one stones yesterday, reluctantly admit some responsibility for his condition. ‘We tried to be kind, helpful parents,’ admits Doris Ritter, Billy’s mother. ‘We fed him every hour for his first three years with recipes we found in an old book about Elvis. We were worried about him getting tired, so we drove him everywhere outside the house and had a mini motor scooter next to his bed in case he had to go to the toilet in the night. We also had one of those stair-lifts fitted so he wouldn’t have to climb those nine difficult stairs to get to his room. Our lawyer thinks we should sue the local fast-food restaurant, but we’ve talked it over and think some of Billy’s problem might – just might – be down to us.’
My final suggestion? Don’t believe a word of it. If you did, you should get out more.
48. Nouvelle QSR
In the late 1970s and ’80s, we men were assaulted by an evil force. I refer, of course, to nouvelle cuisine. By my definition at the time, it involved going out for dinner, being presented with a meal that you could actually assemble on a cocktail stick if you were so inclined, and then having to stop by a Burger King on the way home for an emergency Whopper.
I peaked with nouvelle cuisine after a visit to Ascot races in England. I had – as ever – accompanied my losing bets with a few beers and had – as a result – developed the normal male appetite associated with said practices. In short, I could have eaten an elephant between two bread vans. Our hosts, however, had other ideas and took us fine dining. It was one of those places where they bring your meal to the table under a silver plate cover, and then the waiters, at some pre-arranged signal, lift them all up simultaneously. This they did, revealing the contents of my plate to be two haricots and a pork medallion the size of my little finger nail. I’m afraid I went down in the history of that restaurant by calling the waiter back and asking if my food had accidentally stuck to the lid he’d taken away. I was not invited back and have avoided nouvelle cuisine ever since.
Two things brought that adventure back to my mental front-burner. I read yet another book on ‘Fat America’ – one of about a hundred big sellers on the subject doing the rounds now. Quick-serve, or at least the Big Boys in quick-serve, came out of it badly. My position on the subject remains the same: I am not interested in innocence or guilt, but the quick-service industry is a huge feeder of the world and has both a vested interest and a responsibility to contribute to a healthier future. I then found an essay on nouvelle cuisine. It was written in 1973 by Henri Gault and Christian Millau, essentially two travel writers. They noted how a new generation of French chefs was rebelling against the classic excesses of the traditional, rich cuisine of the Escoffier heritage. They noted ten things that were happening. I’ve listed them in very summarised form below. Don’t read them and think of French food – read them as a list of principles followed by these rebellious chefs that led a revolution:
1. Reduced cooking time (like the Chinese).
2. New uses of products. A lot of traditional foods had eroded in quality as a result of mass production (e.g. chicken), but new ones were available (oysters, asparagus, etc.).
3. Reduced choices on the menu.
4. Awareness of danger (e.g. with fish and crustaceans).
5. Use of modern techniques and technology.
6. Use of fresh ingredients, preferably bought the same day.
7. Avoidance of rich, heavy, pretentious sauces.
8. Do not ignore dieting.
9. Avoidance of gaudy presentation.
10. Invention.
[Author’s note: This essay is included in full in Mark Kurlansky’s marvellous book Choice Cuts – a Miscellany of Food Writing, Vintage Books, 2004.]
When I read the above, it changed my understanding of what nouvelle cuisine was, but it didn’t change my (lack of) enthusiasm for the end result. And it did get me thinking about the challenges facing the quick-service business. It could be argued that nothing short of a revolution is needed, and it could be further argued that it is already underway – with some of the big brands making substantial changes in their menu offering.
Can the French Revolution of 1973 offer us some guidelines and direction? I think so, provided we strip out the raw principles behind it and concentrate on them, rather than get bogged down as to whether you should serve a heavy brown sauce with game or not. Go back and read them again. Mark each principle out of ten for its relevance to the challenge facing quick-service. Almost every one scores well, and (in my book) some score very highly.
One interesting point emerges on portion size. The rebels did not list smaller portions anywhere as an overt goal of nouvelle cuisine, despite the fact that Philistines like me assume that’s what it was all about. Smaller portions emerged as a result of following the charter of the revolution, and that surely has lessons for us. I am in the camp that says portion size has raged out of control in the US for a decade now, and it is a trend that has now arrived in the UK via the Gulf Stream. I am, however, also in the camp that says portion size has become clearly equated with value for money. You can’t just cut the portion size and offer the same stuff. Something will have to compensate for the perceived reduced value of reduced size. It will have to offer increased value via another element being increased – quality, healthiness, freshness, visual attraction, whatever. The answer might lie in developing a similar list of rebellious principles that we now need to follow. In that way, you start again with a clean sheet of paper, and the portion sizes and value for money equations emerge as a result of the new thinking.
Food for thought, as they say. The only problem with this thesis concerns the integrity of the author – i.e. yours truly. I am in my writing den, and I suspect I am the only writer in history to have authored a piece on nouvelle cuisine accompanied by a bacon sandwich the size of a wheelbarrow.
Do not as I do, do as I say!
49. Big easy lovin’
I have travelled all over the world, but have only ever lived in England and America. Despite their differences, the two countries have one thing in common – a lot of the population of all the other countries tend to whinge and whine about them.
For a few years, it bothered me. I would come up with articulate defences against the assorted one-eyed accusations levelled against us, but then I realised I was just wasting my time. So I went back to worrying only about my soccer team. Until last week.
I caught Ray Davies in concert, and I am pleased to report th
at the old rocker and ex-Kink was in fine form. The concert, however, had been delayed a couple of months because Ray had been shot in the leg while on a trip to the US. In the bar at the interval I overheard some guy ranting on about the downsides of the city where he had received his bullet – New Orleans.
Enough. A man can only take so much. You can knock me down, step on my face/slander my name all over the place/do anythin’ that you wanna do, but uh-hu honey lay off my … favourite US city. Still reeling from Hurricane Katrina, I have no doubts it will rise again to assume its place as a planetary treasure. Unsolicited and unpaid, I offer those who were present in that bar, and readers everywhere, ten reasons to look favourably on N’awlins:
1. Hot rice and beans in the French market. This is served in a little tub, and our (then) twelve-year-old son had 178 portions in three days. As a world-renowned catering expert, I calculate the gross margin on hot rice and beans to be 98%.
2. I had a romantic dinner with my wife in Paul Prudhomme’s restaurant. On the drinks menu was something called a chilli-vodka. I ordered one. In the darkened dining room, I looked lovingly across the table. I raised my glass and proposed a romantic toast. I sipped my drink. My eardrums punctured eight times, my nose streamed, and my eyeballs melted and trickled down my cheeks.
3. Same thing in Pat O’Brien’s, with a Hurricane cocktail. Being from Miami, I had to try one (or a couple). No problem. Then I walked outside into the night air, and an invisible baseball bat hit me across the eyes.
4. On one visit, I went jogging around the area where the new casino had just been built. Fats Domino was starring. I spent the rest of my run trying to work out, if he was as old as I think he was when I first saw him in 1964, how old was he on that very morning. I came up with 184, but I could have been out by five years either way.
Five Loaves, Two Fishes and Six Chicken Nuggets Page 14
