Western Morning News (Saturday)

Buying local meat and fish is making me feel better

- BILL MARTIN

MEH. If you are not familiar with the word rest assured it is in the Oxford Dictionary. It was added in 2015, the same year as ‘sext,’ ‘twerk’, ‘jeggings’ and ‘staycation.’ The only one I’m not sure on is ‘jeggings,’ but I’ve a nasty feeling what they may be and I have taken the decision not to darken my day with finding out. Meh on the other hand is a word of rare genius as it sounds exactly like what it means, and once you’ve said it once, it won’t leave you. If you don’t know, as an exclamatio­n it reflects a lack of interest or enthusiasm, and as an adjective means uninspirin­g or unexceptio­nal. For The Boy it encompasse­s a teenage state of mind. Me: “Do you want to do something?” Him: “Meh”.

Anyway right now I think everyone is feeling a bit “meh”. Lockdown bores on and each of us looks for new ways to make one day less like the one before, and new things to occupy our minds. The novelty of our new wholesome lives at home is wearing off. A new study by University College London has found that in Lockdown Three 40 percent of us are exercising less, 36 percent have reduced arts and crafting, a third are less engaged with hobbies, and a fifth are watching more telly, streaming more films and spending more time gaming. Unlike some in this house, I’m not a gamer, but I’m almost obsessive about my exercise not because I still harbour hopes of having a body like Bradley Cooper (who I mention only because he is a favourite of Mrs Martin) but because it makes me feel better. Physically and mentally. With most of the things that cheer us up currently against the rules – even driving up to the moor to walk the dogs – finding things to make you feel better is not always that easy. One of the upsides to our Covid lockdown has been our almost complete change to ‘buying local’. Once a fortnight two huge boxes of fruit and veg arrive. I’m not dim enough to think that the bananas were grown in Liskeard but we are properly plugged into the local supply chain. We also get regular deliveries of meat from Gribble’s Butchers. Putting aside the fact that their main man Mark used to keep wicket to the outswingin­g thunderbol­ts (my words not his) I used to bowl at university, it’s a great service – and one that means we know all our meat is very local indeed. Each cut comes labelled with both farm and farmer. The quality is exceptiona­l and it makes me feel better to know that we are really supporting local producers. This week we took another step into the local economy. I’ve always liked fish, but always had a bit of a thing about cooking it. Bit fiddly, bit smelly, and I’m not keen on heads, guts or bones. Thus we never used to eat much of it. Dreary January and our ‘eat healthy’ pledge made us reconsider, as did the new series Cornwall: This Fishing Life that’s on the box right now. Fishing looks hard, and selling fish looks even harder. I immediatel­y wanted to help these proper Westcountr­y folk, whose lives are steeped in history and tradition. Cue a quick internet search and I ordered a box of fish from Sound Seafood ‘based on the shores of Plymouth Sound.’ The box arrived less than 24 hours later, all fresh, all filleted, some smoked, no heads, no bones, no guts. There were some recipe cards included and now I doubt we will ever buy supermarke­t fish again. I’ve cooked fish twice since the box arrived two days ago and we’ve still got lots more. Both the meat and fish supplies come with messages that say: “Thanks for your support. It is really appreciate­d.” And that makes me feel better, and is not Meh at all.

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