As our menus subtly evolve according to the ever-changing food trend tides, so do the attitudes of all who chow down at the trough. But I’ve recently spotted a very odd social trend indeed, in the form of a rather insulting leg of mutton all trussed up in the outfit of a pretty, seemingly innocent lamb.
In recent months, my penchant for baking has done wonders for the Blease budget. Home-baked breakfast muffins and similarly thrifty teatime treats keep those credit crunch wolves from the door when you’ve got a houseful of overnight guests - and to my mind, they’re also far nicer than commercial versions that cost a bomb and rarely taste fresh anyway. And given that creating a cookie ain’t exactly rocket science, there’s hardly any effort involved either. But here’s the rub. Where once a satisfied guest would politely ask for a recipe or involve you in a lengthy debate about milk versus dark chocolate chips, today’s budding domestic goddesses have to prepare to justify themselves against a barrage of accusatory comments all flung with the sole purpose of ‘catching you out’ in mind.
From the conspiratorial tone of “where did you buy those muffins from, really?” to pompous declarations such as “nobody makes their own chocolate brownies!” and the ultimate insult that is “these cookies are exactly the same as ones you can buy in Sainsbury’s”, I’ve recently recoiled from attacks courtesy of apparently well-meaning face-stuffers who simply can’t believe that anybody really actually does what the plethora of food media advises us to do...and turned their own oven on. Okay, you could say that this is a veiled compliment to a attaining a certain standard of home cooking. But think again. If a home-baked cookie tastes like the Sainsbury’s version of the genre, I need to start tweaking my recipes.
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