... and a very timely text from him, I managed to catch the great MW in one episode of a BBC series last night, called "Eating with..."
If you manage to find a site within the BBC's main site, please let me know. I think the series has bombed - even before it started due to lack of appropriate publicity!
In summary, if you want a good eating experience with the great crimfic writer, MW, then it has to be Sunday lunch. Following the BSE crisis in the 80s, Walters determined that the food on her table must be traceable to its source. (Hey, ho! That's what we hear from Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, Giles Coren and that over-inflated-with-(mainly Welsh)-prejudice-bloke who goes by the name of A. A. Gill, these days. It appears that Walters was ahead of the game, but quietly and in her own family environment, a thinking mother at the hub...)
Walters has now managed to achieve the privilege, which she obviously enjoys immensely, of sourcing the food on her table from her own farm. The "Biggles" pigs - there were three of them running wild - had a place in MW's heart. But then she fed them and said that it was best that they weren't too full. An event was coming up. A trip to Cannes for the festival, perhaps? Er, no. It was a trip to the abattoir. Biggles (one of) with a spotted hairy coat, later became a loin (very nice, apparently), an assortment of cuts, a selection of bits for home made sausages and a smiley face that was half a head, sans hair, in a waterfilled saucepan.
I am not criticising; not one iota. The food on our plates should be enjoyed. If you have the ability to grow or nurture your own, then so be it. It's the best food that can make it to your table as you have control of the "what goes in, comes out" scenario. And that scenario determines flavour. MW also grows "crops", so the leafy greens are freshly culled before heading to the plate.
Nice work, I say! It's just a shame I saw the three "Biggles" running around in the field before the cull. I still see them as pets and not joints.
MW's mum loved the "pressure cooker" and her enthusisam for hams cooked in it propelled MW to fresh cooking, sans jelly, and the avoidance of the sound of said jelly.
All in all, it was a great insight into what MW has become domestically, but there was no insight to her books, apart from the blood stained face of actress Pauline Quirke, who played "The Sculptress", within the opening sequence.
Blood matters not.
This was about food and MW allowed the cameras into her normally private domain so we could see and understand her views.
Good telly! Shame about the outcome of the living Biggles!
Recent Comments