The perfect Christmas

The book

Chapter 22 of Moby Dick by Herman Melville is titled Merry Christmas and is one of the most touching ones, because drenched into a deep sadness, sarcasm and true sense of belonging to the ship community. Captain Ahab does not show up on the deck. Captain Bildad and Captain Peleg are licensed at the end of the chapter and they take a boat to move ashore, while tears twinkle in their eyes and voices. Ismaele, the narrating voice, remembers:

“At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It was a short, cold Christmas; and as the short northern day merged into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor. The long rows of teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight; and like the white ivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving icicles depended from the bows”.

Bildad, while at the wheel, intonates what sounds like a Psalm, but is a ballad by Isaac Watts, A prospect of Heaven makes Death easy. The winds bring his words to the crew: the first line quoted by Melville says “sweet fields beyond the swelling floods”, which portraits the stated on peril the ship is going to undergo now that Bildad and Peleg won’t tame anymore Captain Ahab.

http://www.classicreader.com/book/309/22/

How different my yesterday Christmas was? Let's have a glance:

Moby Brie-k: I could not restrain myself, but I apologise.

The people

Not many people stayed in Edinburgh for Christmas. So, I decided to create a Doodle to see if those here, were interested in a Christmas’ lunch. What happened was pure magic: only a person, a dear good friend of mine, Andrew, responded to the invitation. He involved and brought along two exceptionally nice friends, who I didn’t have the pleasure to met. Stephanie and Emily proved to be fascinating guests: elegant, nice and talkative. My brilliant office-mate Mara came just after the opening with her brother and her sister-in-law and that was it. Everything would have been magnificent if only Michelle was there with us! Alas, the sun blessed us casting a bunch of rays onto the Leopard Lily (I still have a to find a name for it):

Leopard Lily in the gentle December sun

This has been the first Christmas away from my family: a strange feeling to process. Yet I must tell the novelty was not just surprising, but indeed a revelation. Perhaps because everyone was new to each other, the conversation was lubricated, alive and fizzy. The reduced number of guests made everything easier (also in terms of dish cleaning). We were three Italians, three Germans and one Australian: this milieu favoured the use of English as conversational language and we were occasionally switching to German or Italian when needed. This “natural” selection of outstanding guests was the first step in order achieve the perfect event.

Moreover, we were from different university backgrounds, law, tourism, linguistics, literature and architecture. This fueled the conversation, making the reciprocal exchange of informations even more interesting. Different reasoning brought us together to the same place: in a way we are all finding distinct patterns in the same maze. I happen to realize that sharing a city shapes your way of thinking and approaching problems: you are "forced" to meet new people, adapt yourself, cede something you had for something new and unknown. Those how keep being stuck to their past end up creating a city in the city, a fake reproduction of what they feel they lost: and that is the moment in which it is lost forever. I like intensely the image of people abroad as these Green and Blacks chocolate into a Martini glass:

These are "conversational" chocolate, because each label has a question,
and these questions contribute ease in small and big talks!
Green and Blaks is organic and fairtrade chocolate...both ethic and taste.

The place

Perhaps, the purple tents, perhaps a serious Christmas three, perhaps the red dishes with the white rime – after which this blog is named – made of my flat the perfect location to appoint. We discovered that in Australia every fancy meal might be called dinner. Recently, I attended a tea in Edinburgh, yet the tea, in reality, was a full-scale dinner. I am particularly amused by this regional acceptation given to meals in the English-speaking-world!

Our synthetic Christmas tree makes a lot of atmosphere,
the spirit of all the possible Christmas dwells here.

The food

As soon as the crew was elected, it was necessary to establish a menu. Everyone was asked to contribute to the meal according to her/his culinary skills. This is why Andrew opted for two platters of mixed salami and one international cheese, so to prevent himself from poisoning us. Stephanie brought with her a splendidly revised recipe of Tiramisu and Emily an extraordinary Lamington cake, introducing us to the sweet delicacies of the Austral hemisphere. I basically made a broth. I also discovered that the stock is derived from bones, broth instead from meat:

Select carefully the ingredients:
Gressingham duck poussin (promotion 2 x 5£);
9 chutney carrots;
3 small potatoes;
2 cherry tomatoes;
1 onion;
1 coast of celery.
ALL THESE VEGETABLES THEN WERE RE-UESED
TO MAKE VEGETABLE BALLS IN THE OVEN ON
ST. STEPHEN'S DAY

The early stage, when the water was dusted in white pepper.
On the bottom of the casserole one tea-spoon of Maldon salt
was already dissolving.
At the beginning I thought duck toxins might have been
poisonous, but then I discovered it is even better than chicken.

Yet here is the complete and exhaustive (and exhausting) menu:

      Starters

·      Tesco Finest* platter of ham, salami and three cheeses (Brie, Mancego, Wanslaydale with cranberries);

·      Duck titbits with dates, rolled in pancetta and served with steamed asparagus' tips. 

Main course

·     Tortellini in duck broth.

Second course & side dishes

·      Duck salad with Modena balsamic vinegar gravy reduction

·      Roasted potatoes with mustard seeds and rosemary

·      Salad (apple, lettuce gems, rocket salad, celery, sweet pointed peppers)

Desserts

·      Tiramisu and Lamington cake

·      Green and Blacks chocolate assorment

·      Twinings nettle and sweet fennel infusion

Deli platter

The cheeses

Steamed asparagus and sprouts
with morsels of duck thighs' meat, dates and pancetta

Tortellini in duck broth: because of the size it would be wiser to call them
cappelletti, and you can find them in Waitrose for 1,99£ (250gr pack).
Mine were bought in Paris, but his is a different story!

Clockwise: from the left, the duck breast with the balsamic gravy,
mustard seeds and rosemary roasted potatoes,
and the extravagant salad, dressed in lemon and extra-virgin olive oil.

Lamington cake (pic taken from Google images):
admittedly they were irresistible! 

Stephanie's tiramisu was looking different, but the taste was an A.

The wine

Wines have been a genuine crescendo of tannins and joy: a French Tesco Finest* Muscadet for the appetizers, an Ogio’s Primitivo from Puglia and The chocolate lover’s wine, aromatised with chocolate notes, a symphony: this wine is sold in Sainsbury’s and Co-operative.  

Muscadet Sèvre et Maine sur Lie, Tesco Finest* 7,27£.
Produced and bottled by Vignerons du Pallet in Brétagne, France.

http://www.chocolateshopwineuk.co.uk/

The games

When all the food was gone, Mara had to leave, and Stephanie proposed us to play Pictionary. Not the table version, but the online generator of words and categories. This was hilarious, challenging and cheerful. 

Pictionary word generator: 

 http://www.wordgenerator.net/pictionary-word-generator.php

Temple of British tables (3): what to by in Waitrose

"What’s in a name?", asked Juliet. A name, in fact, is not the object itself, is a tag. I left my last post asking me what's behind Waitrose's philosophy: the name of Waitrose alone evokes a high standard. Waitrose's motto - Quality food, honestly priced - establishes a parallel between quality and fair prices. This is obvious. In comparison to M&S, they do not state that their prices may sound too high, why? This is because their customers are upper middle class, wealthy people for one or two generations.

Juliet: What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
      Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
      Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
      What's in a name? that which we call a rose
      By any other name would smell as sweet.
(W. Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet, II, 2)

Claire Catherine Danes (NY, 1979), here aged 17,  in one of her most breath taking
close-ups in Romeo + Juliet (by Baz Lurhmann, 1996) with Leonardo di Caprio.

Sri Frank Bernard Dicksee, Romeo and Juliet (1884)
[Southampton City Art Gallery]:
one of my favourite paintings of this magnificent
late victorian painter, almost a Pre-Raphaelite. 

 Despite this consideration, Waitrose is part of a multinational group. Why is this calmly accepted? The first argument is that Waitrose policies benefit of its multinational status, but aim to a promote Fairtrade and Organic merchandise. The second answer might be that Waitrose does not challenge its customers. Its (hidden) approach, in fact, is that of the exclusivity. Here a consistent part of the Orwellian proles won’t have cultural access, because they cannot understand the logic beneath the chain. A person who buys, for instance, some Asda Spaghetti at 30p per pack would feel robbed to pay 95p (more than the triple) for the same amount of food. On the contrary, who goes into how food is produced accepts as a sort of compromise the co-habitation between Capitalism and a greener ethic.

Although a little timeworn, this book represents
the cornerstone of the modern sociological interpretation
of some mass phenomena. Worth reading:
Max Weber, The protestant ethic and the spirit of Capitalism.

What I have just explained is not a sterile critique, nor do I wish it to be taken as a lunge against these companies or the people loyal to one name or another: I am personally (and emotionally) attracted by Tesco as I showed in the previous posts. Moreover, every chain wishes to be trusted for its philosophy: if you are more relaxed you spend more and reason less. Each of these brands employs a multitude of psychologists to study human behaviours and to orientate their policies toward distinct directions. Let's take the Organic tendency. Organic produces are more respectful of the soil, in terms of pesticides and fertilizers. Each chain now has its own "hook" for environmental attentive people:

Ravishing organic hummus

Not bad brown spaghetti

Freshly baked baguette, although I fear is a demi-worked produce

Broccoli and red onions from Egypt

Waitrose is perhaps the British pioneer for organic products and the company encourages British organic farms too. The acquisition of the brand Duchy, which raised several perplexities, according to the management of HRH Prince Charles' rural portfolio, brought into Waitrose a vital range of goods, coming from a sustainable estate. 

Here is the link to the Duchy of Cornwall website:

http://www.duchyofcornwall.org/accessible/index_a.asp

British apples, kiwi, quail eggs, and pork meat.
Tomatoes and broccoli are likely to be imported from Southern Europe.

What I actually fancy the most is a Waitrose side effect, so to say. The more you are part of the dynamic part of a nation, the more you have a wider and more open vision of Reality: because you travel more, you read more, you always wish to expand what may be defined an insular vision of the world, you spend more and goods talk to you. This is why Waitrose customers are experimenting something new in comparison to their fellow citizens, who shop elsewhere. They are welcoming a the world to their cupboards:

• Yeo Valley yogurt and Waitrose red chicory are two British produce;
• Heritage Shetland black potatoes are from Scotland (violet and delicious when fried);
• Waitrose peeled cherry tomatoes are produced in Italy;
• Crosta & Mollica bread is from Puglia, the heel of Italy;
• Green & Blacks chocolate developed from Canada, but now is made in the EU as well;
• Herta Frankfurters are from Germany (gorgeous when boiled);
• Charles Basset white tuna tin is from France (once a month the perfect salad ingredient).

On the other side, Waitrose provides its own characteristic trademark! What comes after the label "essential", often does not mean that is of poor quality, but only that it is an essential ingredient for your diet and preparation:

Pasta, curly lettuce, paella rice, oranges, vegetables, minced meat and the pear, were meeting the highest standards.

A package of Waitrose Aberdeen Angus Beef:
I appreciate the lightness of it, without polystyrene container.

Whereas in all the other supermarkets the chain is prone to the customers oddities, Waitrose operates as a global and multicultural bazaar: the best choice from every country, at least of Europe. If you are not able to orient within this assortment, you can be tricked and spend fortunes on tastes difficult to combine. This is the only serious inconvenience, because you are bombarded by clusters of goodness: the quality of fruit and vegetables is sensational, less appealing is the fresh meat, impressive is the amount of Continental goods, mouth watering the quality of wines. Moreover, also the non-food selling is appealing, for instance I bought this lovely mug, inspired by a decoration related to Enea Silvio Piccolomini's figure - pope in the XVcentury with the name of Pio II. I guess it is linked to a tapestry owned now by the Victoria and Albert museum foundation.

There also is another phantasy available (5£)

Time for an organic Teapigs green tea and some Patisserie Valerie bon-bons.
If I am not mistaken I found this teabag in the Waitrose kitchen magazine of May 2012.

Here is the Teapigs web-site:
http://www.teapigs.co.uk/

Temple of British tables (2): comparison among chains

What I noticed - confronting the British chains - is almost easy to summarize. First of all, they are more friendly and more capturing. All the times, a sort of unforeseen caress welcomes you in a different universe, made of colourful labels, hooking offers and irresistible temptations: it is like watching an enemy fleet disembark on the shore, you are overcome from what goes so much beyond your own knowledge about those foods. I guess it is natural for the brain to figure out the history and tradition of a certain produce and this mental process sometimes is overwhelming. 

HRH the Prince of Wales staring at potatoes in a Waitrose shopping point,
adorable the pendant between his tie and his jacket pochette. I wonder if
his socks were bordeaux as well.

Eating is of course a big deal in every country: now that we are approaching to the Christmas season it is evident which mechanism snaps. People wish to present themselves with an indulgent palate treatment. In comparison with other forms of sharing, food is de-perishable and could be ruined by an unwise preparation, so it is a more delicate issue. Moreover - on la linguistic side - what for Italians is the cuddle (coccola) in English slides to the wider concept of comfort food, but I fear the uncovered meaning is the very close. In Tuscany there's even a fried nibble food called Coccoli, an elliptic version of "you cuddle yourself", «tu ti coccoli», you spoil yourself. This preparation is common in Italy under different names: for instance, in Puglia is called pizz' fritt, fried pizza, and it literally is a nibble of pizza dough fried in sunflowr olive oil. Delicious & Irresistible! 

This Coccoli appetizing picture
comes from Zenzero & Cannella (Ginger & Cinnamom)
http://www.maky-lab.com/zenzero/?p=1533
And there is a very instructive description of coccoli
this Tuscanycious site:

http://www.turismo.intoscana.it/allthingstuscany/tuscanycious/its-cuddle-time-coccoli-prosciutto-and-stracchino-starter/

Let's not wander too much and let's focus on the British brands! M&S passed at least throughout four  slogans: Don't ask the price, it is a penny in 1904 The customer is always and completely right in 1953, then if I oriented myself correctly, Retail is detail, and now Quality food worth every penny: this last statement, if it is the ultimate one, basically says that its excellent food is clearly expensive, but the quality abundantly repays the customer’s effort: value credentials and quality food reputation are there. Yet, the questions then is: who thinks in pennies? Those people that once where not completely affluent and do not wish to waste their efforts. Certainly then then middle-middle class is in the target. Following the same philosophy M&S did something splendid: in October 2012 they launched a campaign to promote real women models, abandoning the too skinny prototypes populating the fashion world:

Vogue Italia advertised and welcomed this new tenedcy in June 2012:
http://www.vogue.it/vogue-curvy/visto-su-vogue/2011/06/belle-vere

On the other hand, Tesco seems to be keener on sales and bargains so to keep the attention higher: “every little helps” can be read in its broader sense. Tesco staff and stores perform little efforts whose sum brings to the customer satisfaction, which is admittedly partially true. I also think though that the hidden message is “you are not well off yet, but your culture is!” so you still need a discount, which may also lead you to buy quality food:  the appetite, the wallet and the urges of the soul are then balanced. Nonetheless, what I noticed in Tesco customers, especially where there is a University nearby, it that due to the neverending offers, people shop according to uncontrolled and unplanned drives and often come back home after having missed offers, occasions and perhaps even what they went there for:

Disorienting feeling

Sainsbury’s exploits the teenager mentality of “I do it better that others”, establishing a continuous comparison among brands: do not trust anyone is the message beneath. Aren’t we all hedonistic teenagers when we do shopping?

When people make choices without using the brain,
only the heart and feeling.

The Co-operative offers a sort of ironic side: the message is hilarious indeed and stresses on how comfortable, exhaustive, and strategically distributed their selling points are, but it implies that they think for you, which is less appealing.

Local products are often the best choice,
yet food nationalism is not, because it reminds me
of global nationalisms and nationalistic claims:

Nationalism carving up the earth:
nationalism VS modernism
http://allahcentric.wordpress.com/2010/10/01/book-review-of-nationalism-and-modernism-by-anthony-smith/

Asda points out its prices are unbeatably low: hidden significance “you do not care about what you eat, money should be spent elsewhere”.

Wal Mart policies are too unbiased for my ethical taste

Morrisons recently changed its thirty year old slogan “More reasons to shop at Morrisons” to “Fresh choice for you” because the former reflects the ’70 mentality of profusion, the latter, the contemporary attention to a more balanced diet: implicitly it is winking at young adults on the crest of the wave:

Morrisons' is developing a more friendly and ambitious approach,
which combines territory, architecture and food choice.

Lidl, instead, reminds me to those how are trudging in the struggle that their sacrifices are not in vain and sooner or later they will emerge. Lidl encounters the mentality of the German people, who, despite their prominence in the European concretion of States, apparently still look at food as an appendix of life and they prefer to direct their effort in other less decadent pastimes:

Soulkitchen, a smart film involving an inner German 

quarrel about food! Worth seeing!!!

This picture of Marianna Bolognesi © on Flickr was the first image appeared
when I asked to goole images "German approach to food". I cannot stop laughing.
Jokes apart I think German society is not that different from the others
in terms of good food, but I often came across German friends,
reporting how careless their friends were ages distant from "foodies".

And what about Waitrose?

...to be continued...

Temple of British tables (1): Waitrose’s motto

Waitrose is the temple of British tables: a place you enter with the same spirit required during the Elizabethan time in cathedrals. Here the individualistic approach to life, inherited from the Protestant ethics, matches the possibility to buy aliments qualitatively superior than in other stores. In a way, Waitrose represents the tangible palate gratification for those who have had economic success in their lives. After Waitrose, there merely are those food boutiques that each town is likely to host. The most famous and renowned throughout the world being, ça va sans dire, Harrods’ Food hall:

Harrods at the beginning of the XXI century

Postcard of Harrods

Harrods food hall in 1904

Vegetables assortment

Bread variety

Lush cheeses

Patisserie irresistible

Mushrooms exposition

Waitrose is a upmarket brand, worldly known, that started in 1904 as a food boutique itself and was - fifty years later - acquired by the John Lewis group, a colossus of the second British industrial revolution. This is interesting, since it shows the strong link between industrialization and multinational approach to economy! Yet to understand Waitrose we have to look over the shoulder of its old motto: “Quality food, honestly priced!” and we have to dig elsewhere. Waitrose in 2008 dropped this line in favour of Everyone deserves quality food. Everyone deserves Waitrose, which is an attempt to become appealing to a broadened number of potential customers in an era of healthy living:

The new environment friendly and youthful image of Waitrose

Here is an enlightening article by Leah Hardy on the Daily Mail, which draws a comparison between M&S and Waitrose. A head to head competition to establish which of these two chains is actually the leader of quality food. One may disagree, but the article is acute:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1241205/Marks--Spencer-John-Lewis--Britains-best-loved-store.html

The famous line from Horace, carpe diem, offers
an angle to understand how the motto-geist works!
Here the Latin-English version of the ode:
http://www.epicurus.net/en/carpediem.html

A motto is a tricky etiquette. What i find deceptive is the portion of Reality left aside: size the day can be taken as a wise advice to take every good thing how and when it comes. Or it can be read as invitation to do what you feel, without moral restraints because life is short. In other words, each motto shows only a face of the medal and even if they are apparently true, they also are elliptic. Every one deserves quality food is a sharable statement, but it does pretend to ignore that - without a proper alimentary cultivation and a proper piggy-bank - Waitrose becomes a chimera and not an option. YES MAN, with Jim Carrey, Bradley cooper and Zooey Deschanel, expands somehow this very topic:

Here the movie trailer of Yes Man and above a poster

Zooey Deschanel, sincerely beautiful, with that touch
of elegance that Katy Perry for instance does not reach,
although they look like siblings.

Every slogan says and hides at the same time the most important issue. M&S, Tesco, Sainsbury’s Asda and Waitrose evoke directly the merchandise cost. Lidl and Morrisons pursuit goals which look apparently different. Let’s read them first:

• Everyone deserves quality food. Everyone deserves Waitrose (Waitrose)

John Lewis food hall with Waitrose products in Oxford st, London.

• Quality worth every penny (M&S)

M&S typical food hall, often claustrophobic in my opinion,
because located into basements.

• Every little helps (Tesco) 

• Good food costs less at Sainsbury’s (Sainsbury’s)

• We go further so you do not have to (Co-operative)

• That’s Asda price! (Asda)

• Fresh choice for you (Morrisons)

• On the way to a better tomorrow (Lidl)

Lidl typical inside structure: a snake of pallets and fridges,
which does not change from country to country. The idea is that
of simplicity and punctuality: the client knows she/he is there
to shop in the shortest amount of time. 

to be continued...