Richard McComb: Can we have more food?
If office-based lunches are a droll affair, the prize for the most droll must go to Monday.
After the richness of the weekend larder, the prospect of chewing a damp sarnie at one’s desk, staring at a computer, is unlikely to get the juices flowing. Occasionally an office rebel will defy the ruling not to take hot food to their work station and the fetid air will be charged, temporarily, with the irresistible aroma of a contraband meat pie.
Usually, though, it’s a case of slim pickings on a Monday. What joy then to be invited to a lunchtime bash courtesy of Heart of England Fine Foods, the regional food group for the West Midlands. HEFF holds an annual chefs’ and producers’ event at which the makers of artisan cheeses and the like seek to network with hotels and restaurants. This year’s do was held at Opus restaurant in Cornwall Street, where the kitchen team worked wonders with organic smoked salmon from Clunbury Hall, Shropshire, and glorious Middle White pork from Huntsham Court Farm, Herefordshire. The food was accompanied by local beers: a fruity Twisted Spire, from Cleobury Mortimer, Shrops, for the fish; Warwickshire-based Purity’s UBU, a fuller, richer ale, for the porker; and a Vienna-style lager, from Freedom in Staffordshire.
I have attended a few of these chef/producers lunches and am always amazed at the variety and quality of the produce available in our region. All this wonderful food and drink can be purchased within an hour’s drive of Brum. But excitement turns to puzzlement when I consider where it all goes – and why it’s virtually impossible to buy such produce in the nation’s second city.
A few small shops do a sterling job but there is no central point, easily accessible within the city centre, where office workers, shoppers and visitors can buy the goodies made on our urban doorstep. Little old Ludlow has a staggeringly good food centre; Brum has nothing comparable. It’s a blot on our culinary copybook. It’s time the city council and Advantage West Midlands got their heads together and gave our food revolution new impetus – by making good local food available to local people. Underwrite the costs of an empty shop unit. There’s enough of them. Do anything: but do something.
