As a British expat living in Piedmont, I am inundated with questions about how to solve Britain’s impending Brexit disaster. My solution, quoting fellow expat Orson Wells, is to “ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.”
In this corner of North West Italy, home to Slow Food and the University of Gastronomic Sciences, food is religion. The late Sunday Times restaurant critic AA Gill once heralded the region as home to the finest lunch on the planet. So, if lunch could be solution, it’s as good a place as any to start to look for answers.
Piedmontese cuisine defines itself through rich ingredients and respect for tradition. This comes in heaps of butter, white truffles and pasta made with 40 egg yolks; but also, tripe, calf’s brains and all manner of obscure body parts us Brits have long since discarded.
Yet, from a Londoner’s perspective, the local pallet can become extremely monotonous. Whist I enjoy a vitello tonnato or brasato al barolo as much as the next glutton, I often find myself yearning for a curry.
It’s a sensitive point for the Italians, but the refusal embrace foreign flavours is, at least in part, a fascist legacy. Mussolini’s government advocated an austere diet of bread, polenta, and locally grown, fresh produce as a means to achieving total self-sufficiency. But the nationalist influence runs deeper than that. If you try altering their strict way of doing things – say, by adding pineapple to pizza, or cream to your carbonara – you will be heckled and ravaged by an angry mob whilst whipped through the streets of Rome.
It no surprise, from the country that gave us the Catholic church and the Mafia, that Italians are sticklers for rules and respect. But I am not sure what to make of the dogmatism. Can anyone who has never cooked with fresh coriander, lime juice, ginger and turmeric really understand the full picture of gastronomy?
British food, on the other hand, has defined itself by its ability to absorb that of other nations.
If you ask any British person where to eat near them, you will be recommended an Indian, Italian, Szechuan and Peruvian-Japanese fusion place, before they mention anywhere that serves anything like a typical, “English” dish. Even some of London’s most traditional pubs – flag bearers of our cultural heritage - have outsourced their kitchens to caterers from Thailand.
The result is an endless array of opportunity. In the time it takes to walk from Piccadilly to Covent Garden, you can travel the length of the Mekong river; a few stops on the tube and you can be, Istanbul, Beirut or Osaka, depending on where your taste buds take you.
This phenomenon is not just confined to London. Birmingham’s “Balti Triangle” created its own form of pan-sub-continental cuisine and, thanks to the “Ottolenghi effect”, it is possible to buy dukkah, sumac and preserved lemons in every country town deemed fit for a Waitrose.
So why were the culinary pluralists the first to break out from political union, whilst the ardent nationalists, who have had their very soul bastardised beyond recognition by the forces of globalisation, remain?
The answer can be found at Osteria Veglio, a small, relatively new addition to the local restaurant circuit in Piedmont’s Langhe region.
The team of two young couples behind it “believe in the traditions of the Piemontese table” but, daringly, “like to experiment with new flavours.” Fresh seafood and green salads - unthinkable for many local chefs – appear on the menu as welcome beacons, guiding you through the rich sea of raw veal, braised meat and cream that bring greedy travellers to this region.
The agnolotti, a local classic, come stuffed with a venison ragu and doused in sage butter, and are as plump and rich as Pavarotti at an infamous, Berlusconi bunga bunga party. But the real star of the meal is something much more earnest - a finanziera, a piedmontese dish of chicken gizzards and veal offal so ancient, its first mention pre-dates the arrival of the tomato in Italy.
Finanziera was invented to use up the discarded parts of a cockerel after being transformed into the stuffed capons usually served during the festive period. The offcuts are given royal treatment when cooked in a velvety sauce of rich porcini mushrooms and madeira wine. The result is a dish with such deep flavour and silken texture that every mouthful exhumes contentment.
If only the British showed as much respect for our calf’s liver, faggots and suet puddings. There are brave chefs who have but they remain consigned to a pin point on the map of our metropolitan mezze. An oddity for the urban elite.
With honourable exceptions, dining in rural England is an awkward exercise. Restaurants tend to be poor imitations of something smart and French. Pub kitchens – the closest thing we have to the concept of “Osteria”, where local food is available is at a democratic price point – generally provide a “something and chips” menu: soggy fish, scampi or a grey, insipid hamburger. It’s no wonder that so many in rural towns flock to Pizza Express, or the local tandoori.
Whilst I will always advocate a cosmopolitan diet, I am a firm believer that the best food is eaten in its right context. Like Northern Italy, the British climate is not suited to growing papayas, okra and fresh spices and our finest Thai, Indian and Chinese restaurants will never be able to compete with the street markets of Bangkok, Mumbai and Beijing.
At the same time, our long dark winters and cosy, carpeted pubs cry out for Lancashire hot pots and Sheppard’s pie; and a crisp battered cod with hand cut chips hits is gastronomic pinnacle when eaten with a wooden fork on a British harbour wall.
The idea that our traditional food is no good, instilled after centuries of abuse from our European neighbours, has caused us to brush aside our old comfort foods in favour of pad-Thai and butter chicken – sanitised versions of other country’s dishes.
As a young liberal, I cannot support the idea that the gastronomic key to Brexit is a white middle Englander eating steak and kidney pudding whilst slurping best bitter, shouting about the superiority of good British grub. Briton’s should be proud of our international food scene and the open, multicultural society that created it.
However, the Piedmontese have found an enviable satisfaction with their lot that us Britons could learn from. Rather than constantly looking elsewhere for new ingredient and culinary inspiration they have refined and perfected their culinary heritage, allowing simple dishes to reach transcendental status. In so doing, I think they have negated the need to blame others for their misfortunes. Here, good local food, that people feel intimately attached to, is more important than an ill-fated quest to change the status quo.
