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Jamie looking around, then a close-up of
Jamie's hand with the knife. Massimo puts his
hand over Jamie's and the knife goes in. The
camera zooms fast into Jamie's face as he turns
away while bearing down on the knife, then a
long shot as the sheep bleeds over the grass,
and Jamie continues to look away. He screws
up his eyes and then Massimo whispers 'OK'.
Jamie looks up to the camera, 'That was hor-
rifi c, but I don't know what's more horrifi c, a
nation full of raving idiots that couldn't give a
crap about the lives of thousands of animals
that get treated like s**t, or an animal that has a
most fantastic life, gets treated well, as you say
natural, natural . . .'. There is a cut to a cat lap-
ping up blood from grass, then to a wide shot of
a fi eld with sheep grazing. After this brief
encounter with the business of death, pastoral
calm is restored. As he skins and butchers the
carcass, it starts to look more like meat that he
recognizes, and he says that, however beautiful
an animal it was, it will also taste fantastic and
that 'we're at the top of the food chain'. Such
are its signifi ers, and, if only for a moment, the
imperatives of the balance of nature have shifted
Jamie from celebrity chef to a player in an older,
more grounded game.
and chips. He surmises that that was the only
dish that she enjoyed. She equivocates. 'English
food is quite special. That's my opinion.' Stein,
surprised, counters with 'I don't think you mean
special.' She is unclear. 'Sorry?' Stein adds 'Oh
dear . . .'. However such an encounter might
fl atter those aspirational viewers for whom
Mediterranean tastes are deployed as signifi ers
of taste, it sends an at best ambivalent message
to others.
If Oliver and Stein both refl ect Elizabeth
David's belief that the Mediterranean is the
proper destination of the food lover, their televi-
sion journeys also refl ect the discourse that food
is an element of heritage tourism, which sets
great store by old recipes, country traditions and
natural products in their environment. Leitch
(2000) has identifi ed in cookery writing the
phenomenon of 'Tuscanopia [. . .] in which
Tuscan peasant cuisines . . . and picturesque
rurality . . . seem to have become key fantasy
spaces of modern urban alienation' (cited in
Sutton, 2001, p. 148). In such a context, the
work of Morley and Robins (1995, p. 20) has
particular resonance. Refl ecting on a European
identity torn between nationalism and 2000
years of Greece, Rome and Christianity, they
suggest a third allegiance through small, local
identities to set against encroaching globaliza-
tion, arguing that 'the appeal of this Europe of
the
Heimats
- Basque, Lombard, Breton, Corsi-
can and others - is to a more 'authentic' way of
belonging.' While they admit to a danger of
'introverted and nostalgic historicism and heri-
tage fi xation', Morley and Robins remain opti-
mistic that in the new mobility 'a critical regional
or local culture must necessarily be in dialogue
with global culture' and it is perhaps signifi cant
that both Stein and Oliver adapt, and are
allowed to adapt, once sacrosanct regional reci-
pes to a measure of local popular acclaim. Stein
'invents' a bargeman's stew, a mix of pork,
beans, garlic and parsley, which while not tradi-
tional is something that he can imagine bargees
eating on cold days.
23
He tries it out on the
crewmember Julie who liked fi sh and chips,
Conclusion
Oliver is dismissive of the eating habits of mil-
lions of his fellow citizens, dismissing their diet
as 'scrote'. Stein too, while more measured,
regularly compares and contrasts attitudes to
food on either side of the Channel, suggesting
that the lovingly crafted displays of produce in
French markets set them apart from British
farmers' markets,
20
that the importance of
good wine and plenty of it in the sauce is
'something that we don't do in Britain'.
21
In
conversation with a young French female
member of
Rosa
's crew,
22
he asks about her
visits to England and the food she ate in
Grimsby. She tells him that she enjoyed fi sh
20
Rick Stein's French Odyssey
, Episode 2 (August 2005).
21
Rick Stein's French Odyssey
, Episode 3 (August 2005).
22
Rick Stein's French Odyssey
, Episode 2 (August 2005).
23
Rick Stein's French Odyssey
, Episode 3 (August 2005).
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