MARTIN DAWES - Stuff olives, salute
THERE was a bit in the paper the other day about the Italians applying for their Mediterranean diet - all that pasta, olive oil, tomatoes, fresh vegetables and fish - to be given the equivalent of World Heritage status.
It's what Unesco calls "intangible cultural heritage" and includes the Argentinian tango, lace making from Croatia and a very funny kind of singing from Georgia.
No doubt because there's a few euros in this, the Italians have got together with the Spanish, Greeks and Moroccans to make a joint case.
But I've been thinking, what about World Heritage status for the Sheffield Diet.
It might not be as healthy as the Mediterranean diet but it puts a bit of lard on you to keep out the winter cold.
Right here in Sheffield we've got a load of grub that nobody else has, which makes us a bit special.
For example, take oat cakes. Well, I wish I could. Now I used to be a fan of Dawson's oatcakes, hand made in Heeley Green, but the factory closed some years ago.
Someone else still makes them but my local bakery says they are only manufactured in the winter. Something to do with them not keeping in the summer.
Fry one with your bacon, eggs, sausage (it'll be a tomato sausage to be really ethnic Sheffield) and black pudding and you've got a proper Sunday breakfast.
If this has made you hanker for an oatcake - and not one of those Johnny-come-lately Staffordshire oatcakes - then put 'Sheffield Oatcakes' into YouTube and watch Roger Turner make them for his breakfast.
Then we have meat and tater pies. Yes, other bits of Yorkshire have them, too, but they don't come flavoured with a good shake of Henderson's Relish, do they? That's the ingredient which sets them a pie apart.
Now there's nothing intangible about a bottle of Hendo's - I mean you can pick it up, shake it on your chips and put it back on the table - but if that's the way these Europeans want to talk, that's fine by me.
Pies come with mushy peas and while they are available across the North the ones from Sheffield are the best.
I know for a fact that some pretty well-known chefs in these parts open a tin of mushy peas but it's not the same as soaking a bowlful of dried peas overnight with some bicarb, rinsing and boiling them with mint the following day until they start to fall apart.
While mushy peas may be a perfect partner to a meat and tater pie it's a pretty fickle little dish. A right madam, if you'll pardon the expression.It's just as happy with a Sheffield fish cake. Don't think Delia, don't think Thai. This comes from a proper fish and chip shop and is two slices of potato sandwiching a bit of fish, covered in batter and deep-fried. It's batter, tatty, fish, tatty, batter.
Then we've got Bingham's potted beef, roast pork sarnies with stuffing, crackling and apple sauce and tomato dip.
There's Our Cow Molly or Bradwell's Ice Cream for afters or you could round things off with a packet of Bassett's liquorice allsorts or made-in-Hillsborough Simpkins travel sweets.
We're spoiled for choice for a beer with all our micro-breweries, from Kelham Island's Pale Rider to Abbeydale's Moonshine.
There's no time to waste.
With the Sheffield Diet the Europeans won't know what hit them.
Got a view? Leave a comment below.
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Friday 10 February 2012
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