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The joys of simplicity

LOCAL FOOD CHOICES Pocket as well as environment-friendly

We should have drawn the line at couture water. Instead, it made perfect sense in 2008. After all, it was a year of brazen surplus. Wine vacations in Tuscany. Extravagant foie gras at champagne breakfasts. Norwegian wild salmon flown across the world to reach you in time for dinner.

Good times, fat wallets and everything available for a price. Most of last year was passed in a whirl of flamboyant parties, relentless restaurant openings and exotic food for not just the champagne set, but for much of the rum-and-Coca Cola brigade too.

Which is how the past year eventually became all about brands and bling. The old saying held true: You are what you eat. Or, to paraphrase it more accurately for 2008, you are your label.

So there is designer water, to set you apart. Bling H2O, for instance, proudly announces it was initially introduced only to “hand-selected athletes and actors.” The world’s most expensive water is now apparently available to us, the grovelling masses. It comes laden with Swarovski crystals and a “Limited Edition Spring Water” label.

Then there’s the salt. Danish Læsø revels in its whopping price tag. Not surprisingly, the company is now planning to open a health spa for skin diseases, so they “may be treated by bathing in by-products from the production of the most expensive salt in the world.” Clearly, even a rash is supposed to know its place in the social pecking order.

And of course, 2008 was the year of the gastrosexual. Men who cook. Naturally, a helpful bevy of products accompanied this revelation, including the Porsche kitchen, boasting “a high-tech audio-video system.”

Also latte frothers, sorbet machines and designer cocktail shakers.

Then, recession began.

Ironically, these tough times are likely to generate good, fair, memorable food.

For one, people will be forced to be more austere, resulting in less excess, extravagance and wastage. Let’s face the fact that very few people here really care about food miles (the environmental impact of food that travels long distances), going organic or supporting the local economy, except for a clutch of eco-warriors. But now, when it’s essential to be economical, it makes sense to eat local bananas instead of Australian apples. To eat fresh fish from the neighbourhood market instead of hunting down caviar from Russia. To eat potatoes from the backyard instead of bok choi from China.

So, inevitably, these food choices will support the local community and also be kind to the environment.

It helps that excess just seems vulgar now. Spending ten grand on a meal today is more crass than cool. Not surprisingly the much touted Bling H2O has been called ‘ludicrously expensive bottled water for rich morons.’

It’s about time this backlash began.

Why should a ridiculous price tag automatically denote a superior product? Let’s hope this is also the year customers stop being bullied into following silly trend after trend, in a desperate attempt to seem cool and with it.

Overbearing sparkling water menus. Dozens and dozens of ridiculous herbal teas, and few are as refreshing as what’s available in a plastic cup at the tea shop down the road. Menus featuring desperate forced fusion in a beleaguered attempt to seem hip.

Anyway, restaurants seem to have become considerably less exciting over the past few years, as eating out got increasingly casual. Dining out used to be something of a grand occasion. Now, it’s de rigueur, awash with yelling children, flat-screen TVs and baseball caps.

Eating in is going to be the new luxury.

As comfort food makes a come back, people will begin to cook more, and do more entertaining at home in their new age kitchen bristling with sleek gadgets. In this age of Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver and Kylie Kwong, cooking’s become a sophisticated way to de-stress.

And comfort food could be anything from your grandmother’s kichidi to an authentic, but basic hummus. Using chickpeas from your local supermarket of course. Served in a classic steel dabba at the family dining table. Ah, the joys of simplicity.

( shonali@thehindu.co.in)

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