Ibiza History Culture’s Webmaster, the wonderfully handsome Toni, sent me this little note: “Actually Tesco IS in Ibiza, represented by a company whose name is something like "Distribuidora de productos Tesco y otras marcas británicas de alimentación". Dark-blue lorries with the Tesco Logo can be seen around during all the season”.
Well that’s all right then, because no doubt Miss Mash will be over next summer with her Soberasada recipe. I’ll send this to Tesco and see if they react. I wrote only the other day to Morrison’s supermarket and complained that their leek, cheese and potato bake was undercooked and was as chewy as old boots, though I have to admit I’ve not actually tried chewing even a new pair. I do recall someone once saying Ghandi’s flip-flops might have made entertaining antipasti, however.
It is always lovely to get a response to this froth I diddle about with every week and it was equally pleasant to receive five pounds in vouchers from their marketing team so I can go and buy some more undercooked ready meals.
They didn’t say they would look into why it was raw food or that they would take it up with the manufacturer, just that they wanted to please. So I suppose that’s all right as well then; I think I’ll use the fiver to buy their ready-made faggots with mashed potato that hasn’t had the Miss Mash treatment and touch of luxury from adding butter and cheddar cheese. Am I the only person in this homemade mash-forsaken world who understands that anyone can make mashed potato (and faggots, come to that)?
Perhaps I should follow the Ibicenco trend of switching to pints of Red Bull and vodka with Madras curry-flavoured pot noodles.
As it happens I’m staying at a very swanky hotel overlooking Hyde Park tomorrow. It’s called the Mandarin Oriental, though I don’t know why, but I have looked on their website and I see it costs more than £300 a night and it doesn’t even mention breakfast, never mind pot noodles and mashed potato.
I bet you there’s not a kettle in the room and I have to ring room service for a pot of tea that will cost more than Morrison’s or the Ibicenco Tesco ((and then all that gobbledegook from Toni) would ever dare to charge for a fillet steak in some sort of wild mushroom sauce.
We know about wild mushrooms in Ibiza and we know about real food and honest people and I don’t think there’s any comparison with the marketing people from supermarkets who are so thrilled to announce they’ve made hundreds of millions of pounds out of selling us our pre-packaged food.
It’s a national disgrace in England. It’s a bigger stigma that the fact they we don’t pay the brave firemen a decent wage.
Food is the most important thing in the world (give or take a few exceptions such as Van Morrison, AIDS and DVD players) and here are these people making indecent profits, There’s a shop in Sant Antoni where the wife will make you a sandwich whilst her husband is out at the market garden, tending the crops, feeding the pig, preparing food for the winter. These are real people and I think Miss Mash and whoever at Morrison’s came up with the undercooked leek, cheese and potato bake are frauds. I will spend the fiver though. I think when I’m back from London, where apparently one in ten people are refugees and asylum seekers (the Daily Mail howls today), and I’ll see if it’s enough for two sirloin steaks and some raw potatoes so I can make the mash (with hot milk) for my Mum and myself.
Sinclair Newton
sinclairnewton@ibizahistoryculture.com