Recently my attention was drawn to a homeless man in Manchester who describes himself as the Jay Rayner of the streets. He was interviewed as part of Matt White’s brilliant Manchester food podcast Fodder, in an episode raising awareness of those sleeping rough in the city, and how they are fed. White found the man – he calls himself Rachel, a reaction to being bullied as a kid for looking like a girl – in the queue at Not Just Soup. It’s a street kitchen for the homeless which gets the city’s restaurants to cook up full meals for those with nowhere else to go. These dishes are not merely the oft-talked-up wonders contrived from leftovers and scraps; they’re the good stuff. Rachel gives a five out of 10 if the food is properly cooked, rising to six or seven if it is nutritionally balanced, to an eight or above if it’s exceptional. And he will give these scores direct to the cooks’ faces. Harsh.
My first thought: this is a bit weird. My job as a restaurant critic is surely a function of excess? Food reviews are only relevant when there’s little else in life to worry about. If you’ve got nowhere to sleep and are dependent on handouts, reviews are irrelevant. Rachel put me right on that one. Not Just Soup was, he said, “the calmest and least violent soup kitchen in the city”. Why was that, White asked. “People feel dignified by this. I think people come here and feel like somebody gives a damn, that somebody has made an effort to cook for them.”
The word “dignity” rarely features in the rhetoric around food poverty, but it should. The people who utilise street kitchens and food banks apparently occupy an entirely different category from those of us who are more fortunate; we do not discuss the quality of the food sold in the ultra-cheap value ranges and don’t think those forced to buy the stuff should mention it either. Instead, we pursue another narrative, one drawn from a deeply ingrained puritanical culture in Britain which insists the only thing that matters for those in dire poverty is basic nutrition. Apparently, they should be grateful they are fed at all. The notion that those who have nothing should be allowed any form of pleasure or even just comfort doesn’t feature.
It’s easier to dismiss them as feckless victims of their own incompetence, who are self-excluded from any idea of the Good Life. That is for those of us with taste and filled wallets; it is not for the likes of you. The senior Tory Dominic Raab announced during the election campaign that users of food banks generally just had cash-flow problems. While he was loudly criticised for it, my suspicion is many people quietly agree; to suggest to that mob, baying politely in agreement over the breakfast table, that those in food poverty deserve not just sympathy but genuinely good food is a tough call.
But it’s an argument that needs to be made. This does not mean everybody is entitled to roast swan, with a little braised otter to follow. Hyperbole helps no one, and certainly not those in poverty. But is it too much to ask that when we think about those who are not in a position to feed themselves, for whatever reason, we accept they be allowed the dignity of a good meal? Surely it’s the mark of a civilised society?
