A few words from Rob Mansfield

The above beach is the view 5 metres from my front door while on holiday. Nice, eh?

Anyway, the point about this post is that Cornwall seems to be a law unto itself, when it comes to produce.

One of the advantages of coming somewhere like Cornwall is that the fish in all the restaurants is all local and caught that day.

What’s a bigger surprise is that a lot of the produce in the supermarkets - and I even mean the likes of Tesco - is also Cornish.

They make great play on selling Cornish potatoes, Cornish strawberries, Cornish milk… the list goes on.

Living in London, you’re hard pushed to find anything from within the M25 on the supermarket shelves.

Chef Oliver Rowe managed to open a restaurant, Konstam, based on just such a principle for all his ingredients, but he found it pretty tough.

Now clearly London is an exception, but C’s mum lives near Shrewsbury, a mere spit from the Welsh border, but can she ever find Welsh lamb in the shops? Of course not!

More power to food miles and metres (as one shop in St Ives boasts) - I just wish it applied to places other than Cornwall sometimes.

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We got take-out pizza this evening from none other than Domino’s Pizza and I was mildly disturbed by their new ‘pledge’.

They proudly proclaim the provenance of their ingredients, as if it were a selling point. Apparently, their mozzarella comes from Wales, their hot peppers from Peru, their tomatoes from Portugal and their pineapple from Thailand.

Now, I don’t know about you, but that kinda weirds me out a little. I know that Domino’s are hardly a smalltime concern, but it would be lovely to think that they were thinking about food miles just a little bit.

I can’t believe that Peru is the closest place in the world that grows hot peppers and pineapples all the way from Thailand.

Possibly most laughable is the fact they make a traditionally Italian cheese in the principality.

Anyway, whatever the provenance, the taste was actually pretty good, so I guess I shouldn’t complain too much.

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I returned from the supermarket yesterday and unpacked the shopping, when my eye caught an additional label on something I’d bought…

A DELIA Cheat ingredient

I recoiled at the sight of this… how could I have bought something that Delia uses to ‘cheat’ with?

I’m not suggesting everything I make in the kitchen is of artisan quality, but ‘cheating’ in the kitchen is the kind of thing that makes me feel dirty.

Let’s face it, we all use ingredients that make our lives easier: tinned tomatoes, stock cubes/bouillon powder, dried herbs are even cheating, if you think about it.

For me, that’s why the recent Delia series is a bit of a con. Cooking shouldn’t be about ‘cheating’ and ‘cutting corners’.

The end result should be something you feel proud of, not ashamed of.

Given that Ms Smith has spent her life telling us the ‘proper’ way to cook things, I’m disappointed she’s ‘turned turtle’, as it were.

Anyway, what was the item I bought that is a Delia cheat?

A packet of fresh tortelloni… come on, who makes their own pasta every time?

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