Popeye

Just when we're all thinking of what Nigella Lawson would be like covered with lashings of olive oil, there's bad news from Spain. Olive oil is going to be in short supply - and expensive.

Frankly, I think this news is likely to be the straw that breaks the back of us middle class camels. It's one thing having to trade down from an Audi A6 to a VW Polo to be able to continue the weekly shop at Waitrose. We can put up, just, with an under £6 bottle of wine for supper, and make do with a rustic loaf from Sunday's Farmers Market instead of the freshly baked baguette from Paul. We might moan that our share portfolio isn't as it should be and quantitative easing is the enemy of hard earned middle class pension pots, but we bore it all for the sake of the country. I mean someone has to set an example. But this!

The rumour, and I have it on good authority from a commodity trader friend, that olive oil prices are likely to double is shocking in the extreme. This could mean having to buy a blended oil: some mongrel concocted from Greek, Italian, Spanish and who knows from where odds and sods. It'll ruin the wild rocket and chicory!

It's just not right. I thought allowing the Spanish to join Europe meant this sort of mismanagement would be a thing of the past. And..what happened to the olive oil lake that apparently kept the Greek economy from seizing up in the 1990's; where's all the wine in those lakes the bureaucrats built in the 1970's. I'm don't usually have much time for madmen like Nigel Farage, but I'm sure he'd have something to say about the Spanish olive growers holding Kensington High Street to ransom.

Nigella, I'm sure, had inside knowledge and has keg loads of top notch single estate oil, shipped over by the tanker load. Looking at her on the telly the other day, I swear she bathes in the stuff daily. No one is born as slimy and as slippery as that.

I suppose I could switch to walnut oil. It does do wonders for artichoke hearts and french beans, sautéd ever so gently.

You can always rely on the French: gastronomically at least!



Comments

Anonymous said…
Nigella Farrago - Eurosceptic Celebrity Chef
Steve said…
Won't bother me at all.

I cook everything in lard.
Marginalia said…
Dear Anon, what a frightful coupling.

Dear Steve, your comment fills me with English pride. It's the healthy alternative!
Elephant Man said…
Only Nigel can get us out of the grip of the slimy slippery foreigners over the water. Rule Brittania
Marginalia said…
Dear E.M.

I suspect you're slightly to the right of me.
Elephant Man said…
OK so you are a right wing Tory then!!
Marginalia said…
Dear E. M. My use of "slightly" was, I'm afraid ironic.

Sorry that didn't register.

But do keep trying.
Elephant Man said…
Ahh, backtracking! You will be calling me a pleb next!

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