Being an utter food snob is a contrary business. Take the story of Christopher Poole, the chap who's attempting to eat in every one of the 1,000-plus branches of Nando's worldwide so he can win a lifetime's supply of, er, Nando's. That's all the peri-peri grilled chicken, chips and marinated olives a chap could wish for. Despite the competition having closed a while back, the company has said it will honour the commitment, which is not quite as generous an offer as it sounds. If he pulls it off the last thing Poole is ever likely to want to eat again is Nando's.
The food snob response to this is obvious: oh, how terribly dreary. Eating the same thing, meal after meal. Does this poor little man have no imagination or taste? The curious thing is that the very people who would indulge in such gold-medal winning bouts of sneering are also the ones who would venerate the culinary culture of the Dordogne or Burgundy; who would build a shrine to the books of Elizabeth David, complete with candles and incense, as if she were Jesus, Buddha and Vishnu rolled into one.
For this is one of the defining characteristics of the true British food snob: a conviction that our high street food culture is vulgar and awful, that it's a slurry pit of overwhelming choice underpinned by little in the way of values or conviction or tradition, which only encourages gastronomic deviants like the Christopher Pooles of this world. If only we ate more like the tasteful souls of France or Italy, honouring our history and our produce, we would be so very much happier and satisfied.
All of which is utter balls. Have you tried eating in the Dordogne for an extended period, of say, a week? God, but it saps the will. Compared to the options available in restaurants across small town France (or Italy or Spain), the menu at Nando's begins to look like mind-scrambling choice. It's fine on day one. You sit down and mutter excitedly about the escargot and salade Lyonnais, the confit du canard and the tarte aux pommes. Here's the real thing, in perfectly spelt French. On day two you choose the steak frites because you had the duck last night. On day three it's the duck confit again, because "they do get the skin crisp don't they, not like all those terribly ersatz versions you get in Islington". On day four you ask for the salad as a main and then, when they refuse, order the duck again with a whimper. On day five it's the steak. On day six you take one look at the menu and stab yourself in the eye with a fork BECAUSE YOU CAN'T TAKE THE SODDING TEDIUM ANY MORE. By day seven you would kill for some Nando's chicken.
It's true that we have taken a little less care of our food traditions historically than other European countries. But to sneer at what we have instead would be a mistake. It's precisely because we have been careless with our traditions that we are so completely open to everybody else's. You can eat more vividly, more thrillingly and more globally in Britain than in any other country in Europe. Hell, you could even eat Nando's peri-peri chicken in a different place every day for almost a year. It may not be what you'd choose to do. But in the circumstances it may be something worth celebrating. Now, who ordered the chicken wing platter?
