Moment in the Sun: FISH FINGERS!
Whoop! Fish fingers are fashionable at last!
Why? Because the fish used in their production comes from more sustainable sources than fresh fish. So, better for the oceans and better for our consciences.
Which means I can totally come clean about how much I bloody love a fish finger sandwich (brown bread, no butter, just tomato ketchup, natch).
Not only do they remind my of my childhood (best school dinner: fish fingers, chips and peas, hold the lemon slice) and of university (late-night grilled-to-the-point-of-blackening acapella fish fingers with twenty Silk Cut on the side), but the fish finger sandwich is a social leveller.
I recently went for lunch with a senior colleague in broadcasting. I wanted to impress her, yes and I wanted to survive with my dignity intact. This ruled out the soup (potential for slip between cup and lip) and any salad-based meal (long lettuce leaves and small mouth combine to produce convincing impression of cow at grass). Confidently, I opted for the fish finger sandwich.
“Oh cool!” Exclaimed my colleague as I did somersaults on the inside – I am cool, not incompetent, WHOOP!) “Me too!”
Yeah, but what arrived wasn’t your classic flaked cod in thermo-nuclear orange breadcrumbs, no sir. Bloody goujons on (not in) some impenetrable bread. No offer of ketchup, but plenty of lettuce (seriously?).
Leave goujons out of it. Give me Cap’n Birdseye any day.
In fact, definitely give me Cap’n Birdseye. Have you seen him recently? Check him out. His name is Riccardo Acerbi, he’s an Italian actor-turned-model and his fingers are worth dropping anchor for.
Under a Cloud: DISSING VEGANS.
Hasn’t gone well for William Sitwell, former editor of Waitrose magazine. Never a good idea to alienate your educated and informed client base, especially when veganism is the fastest growing food trend.
Mr Sitwell has apologised for remarks he made in response to the pitch from a freelance writer hoping to win a commission to write a series of articles around vegan food.
Sitwell’s response, “Thanks for this. How about a series on killing vegans, one by one. Ways to trap them? How to interrogate them properly? Expose their hypocrisy? Force-feed them meat?” was subsequently described by him as ‘an ill-judged joke.’
I’m a comedian, but you didn’t need to be a comedian to know it wouldn’t earn him any laughs.
‘This is all a great pity,’ wrote Jacob Rees-Mogg of the debacle.
But it’s not, is it?
What it is is a great display of poor manners, a lack of professionalism and boorish overbearing by a man in a position of authority.
Oh and a demonstration of how out of touch with the consumer he is.
Don’t diss vegans. It’s rude, right? Frankly, don’t diss anyone because they make different choices from yours. Seems like a plan.
Lots of people I admire have chosen to eat a plant based diet: Sarah Pascoe, Jessica Chastain, Alec Baldwin, Benedict Cumberbatch.
I admire them a little bit more for the discipline it takes to decline a prawn sandwich or a poached egg on toast.
I’m not a vegan. I like fish finger sandwiches too much. But I know that unless we all move away from a diet heavy on meat, the planet is doomed.
I’m doing the flexitarian thing and aiming for a more or less meat free existence. I know it’s good for my bowel, it’s good for the environment, it’s good for animal welfare and it’s good for David Attenborough.
Bring on the quinoa!
