Watching the English

THE AMBIVALENCE RULE

'Loveless marriage' is not an entirely unfair description of the English relationship with food, although marriage is perhaps too strong a word: our relationship with food and cooking is more like a sort of uneasy, uncommitted cohabitation. It is ambivalent, often discordant, and highly fickle. There are moments of affection, and even of passion, but on the whole it is fair to say that we do not have the deep-seated, enduring, inborn love of food that is to be found among our European neighbours, and indeed in most other cultures. Food is just not given the same high priority in English life as it is elsewhere. Even the Americans, whose 'generic' (as opposed to ethnic) food is arguably no better than ours, still seem to care about it more, demanding hundreds of different flavours and combinations in each category of junk food, for example, whereas we will put up with just two or three.

In most other cultures, people who care about food, and enjoy cooking and talking about it, are not singled out, either sneeringly or admiringly, as 'foodies'. Keen interest in food is the norm, not the exception: what the English call a 'foodie' would just be a normal person, exhibiting a standard, healthy, appropriate degree of focus on food. What we see as foodie obsession is in other cultures the default mode, not something unusual or even noticeable.

Among the English, such an intense interest in food is regarded by the majority as at best rather odd, and at worst somehow morally suspect - not quite proper, not quite right. In a man, foodie tendencies may be seen as unmanly, effeminate, possibly even casting doubt upon his sexual orientation. In this context, foodieness is roughly on a par with, say, an enthusiastic interest in fashion or soft furnishings. English male 'celebrity' chefs who appear on television tend to go out of their way to demonstrate their masculinity and heterosexuality: they use bloke-ish language and adopt a tough, macho demeanour; parade their passion for football; mention their wives, girlfriends or children ('the wife' and 'the kids' in bloke-speak); and dress as scruffily as possible. Jamie Oliver, the young TV chef who has done so much to make cooking a more attractive career choice for English boys, is a prime example of this 'please note how heterosexual I am' style, with his cool scooter, loud music, sexy model wife, Cockney brashness and laddish 'Chuck in a bi' o' this an' a bi' o' that and you'll be awright, mate' approach to cookery.

Foodieness is somewhat more acceptable among females, but it is still noticeable, still remarked upon - and in some circles regarded as pretentious. No-one wishes to be seen as too deeply fascinated by or passionate about food. Most of us are proud to claim that we 'eat to live, rather than living to eat' - unlike some of our neighbours, the French in particular, whose excellent cooking we enjoy and admire, but whose shameless devotion to food we rather despise, not realizing that the two might perhaps be connected.