Organic food culture ‘patronises poor’

EATING in Britain is based on money – leaving poorer people patronised on issues such as organic produce, chef Angela Hartnett said yesterday.

Miss Hartnett, 49, who trained under Gordon Ramsay, told Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs that Britons are not foodies in the same way as other Europeans.

Disagreeing with the idea we are ‘ foodie nation’ and ‘have a food culture’, she said: ‘I genuinely don’t think we do. I don’t think we’re like the Italians or the Spanish, where everyone from the person who lives in a flat (to the) villa will go and buy a chicken and everyone can afford that chicken.

‘Our food culture is about money. People who have money can afford good food in this country. When you haven’t got any money (and) you’re living on a low income, to patronise and sit there and say “You’ve got to have an organic chicken” is wrong.’

The Michelin-starred chef also lamented that many children are no longer taught how to cook. ‘We’ve lost home economics in a lot of schools,’ she said. ‘Everyone says we’re a more unhealthy nation than ever and yet we’re not doing anything about it.’