Close to starving - in the UK

A recipe for Parmesan crisps

An anecdote that did the London rounds a couple of years ago, possibly apocryphal but all too plausible, went as follows:

A man, probably in red trousers, shopping at Waitrose, the UK’s posh supermarket chain known (only) by Yummy Mummies as Waitress, hollers over the aisle at his wife, “Darling, should I get the Parmesan for both our houses?”

The UK is a society broken by widening inequality. Child poverty has risen. Dependence upon food banks has rocketed during COVID, with increasing numbers of even working families reliant upon them.

Before the pandemic in 2019, The Felix Project, a distributor of nutritious but unsaleable food (generally rejected by shoppers for its universally confusing ‘Best Before’ label), provided the ingredients to create 6.1 million meals annually. In 2020, that figure jumped to 21.1 million. It’s on track in 2021 to deliver enough for 38 million meals. This for a charity that serves the Greater London area only. The population of London, Britain’s wealthiest city, stands at 8.9 million. Go figure.

The UK government appears deliberately and nonchalantly to have relinquished their social service responsibilities to the charity sector.

It has, however, just published a report on obesity and food poverty. This advocates putting fresh fruit and vegetables on prescription by doctors. Lovely idea, pinched from a pilot scheme in Washington DC.

But in the experience of UK and US food banks distributing food to families, for numbers of them an electric kettle is their only cooking medium, putting cooking anything fresh out of court. If they do have an oven, with utility charges on a sharp increase, they don’t have the money to turn it on. Many don’t even own a can opener so can only accept ring-pull canned food. Barbara Bray of The Nutrition Society points to “a clear link between fruit and vegetable consumption and income…if people don’t have enough income, how can they afford a healthy diet?”

The report also advocates taxing salt and sugar, at £3 a kilo and £6 a kilo respectively. Nothing new in that, though it’s hard to see Big Food Biz rolling over without some kind of sweetener (sorry). Oh, hang on: the very same government National Food Strategy reveals that CEOs of ‘major food companies’ have ‘privately’ indicated they can’t make these changes without the ‘level playing field’ only government intervention can provide. So much for that proposal.

Then there’s the COVID factor. UK charity Fifth Sense announced at the start of the year that roughly 60% of those with COVID suffer smell and taste disturbances, with 10% of those still having persistent problems after 4 weeks. Imperial College London’s REACT-2 study in June suggested that over 2 million people in England may have been affected by persistent symptoms for 12 weeks or more. The Flavour Centre at the UK’s University of Reading (it’s a consultancy thing) estimates that 15% of all COVID cases will include a long-term smell disorder. That’s 3 million people in Europe. And 20% of the UK public have smell disorders anyway.

Guess who sees opportunities in this misfortune. Big Food Biz is reformulating meals and recipes to “enhance appreciation of foods (that) would likely appeal to those recovering from the aftermath of the coronavirus” and, it preens, to help address issues related not just to the nutritional requirements of these poor benighted individuals but to their mental health. Very thoughtful of them. (Don’t you wonder how much extra salt and sugar will be involved in such ‘enhancements’?)

Curbing the powers of the food conglomerates responsible for the world’s obesity problem that is so much a result of food poverty is very slim. Just ten of them control the supply of the food we eat: Nestlé, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Unilever, Danone, General Mills, Kellogg's, Mars, Associated British Foods, and Mondelez. How many of these names suggest to you businesses with our best interests not their bottom lines at heart?

Chronic poverty is evident not only in poor food or the lack of any. COVID has also exacerbated inequalities in employment, education, and housing. Demand for second homes in the countryside has rocketed, pushing local housing out of the reach of people and families on lower incomes. 

Which takes us back to our Waitrose Hooray Henry with the Parmesan purchase dilemma...Get stuffed, matey. Because far too many people can’t begin to.

But if you did buy Parmesan for both your houses, here’s a delightful cheese crisp for you and your chums to munch with a lovely chilled rosé. And if you’ve lost your tastebuds, you poor thing, Parmesan’s ‘umami’ might help. At the least you’ll enjoy the crunch. Also, whatever the health of your bank account, don’t chuck that Parmesan rind. Keep it for throwing into a soup or sauce to enrich it. My pleasure.

50g/2 oz Parmesan cheese, grated
cracked black pepper, finely chopped rosemary leaves, fennel or cumin seeds (optional)

Preheat oven to 200C/290F.

Spoon a heaped tablespoon of Parmesan onto a silicone sheet (a highly recommended kitchen armament) or baking paper-lined baking tray and lightly pat down with the back of the spoon to a circle around 6cms/2 1/2 ins. If you want to be precise, set down a cookie cutter first to use as a controlling shape and sprinkle in the cheese. Repeat with the remaining cheese.

Bake for 5 minutes or until golden and crisp.

Transfer them to a wire rack to cool and crisp. Store in an air-tight container. Add flavourings if you wish, like grinds of black pepper, cayenne, red pepper flakes, or fennel or cumin seeds. But plain is divine.

Tip: If you drape them while still warm over the base of an up-ended small tumbler, you create shapes into which you can dollop, just before eating them so they don’t get soggy, a herby cream-cheese mousse or thick tomato sauce, or anything else that takes your fancy.