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(No blog from me today, because I managed to contract a mild-to-moderate case of hypothermia (self-induced, while filming). Instead, have this post from the dim and distant past:)

Happy pigs make the best bacon, it’s true, but I’m with A A Gill on chickens. Not only because he’s disagreeing with the Mockney Prat, but because I really hate chickens.

Jamie’s got himself some good press recently, but it’s for all the wrong reasons. Right now he’s campaigning about the living standards of chickens, and chickens are scrawny little bags of evil covered in fluff, worthwhile only as an accompaniment to bacon. I have looked into the eyes of a chicken, and it was then that I knew true hatred. (Admittedly, I did proceed directly to eating its unborn offspring, who were delicious.)

You can’t cuddle a chicken or train it to fetch your paper. Cows, sheep, and pigs could be considered cute and/or fluffy. Even fish have personalities, and I’m in favour of farms that include playparks and whatnot for fish. Chickens, on the other hand, are drumsticks with a beak attached, held together by pure rage. It’s a bloody good job for them that they’re so damn tasty. If it wasn’t for the existence of garlic, I firmly believe that we would have eradicated chickens long ago, like we did to wolves and snakes.

Before that, Jamie gained notoriety by championing the concept of nutritious school dinners. Nice try, but I don’t care about children either. Children should shut up and eat their gruel, or whatever it is they have nowadays, thus leaving more of the good food for me. (Such as those free-range chickens that take up acres of farmland.) I had to suffer when I was their age. We called it ‘character-building’.

The right ideas, the wrong targets. Despite some mellowing in his old age, he still has some way to go before I’ll admit to agreeing with him about anything. And besides, in my head he will always be the Naked Chef, and as a result deserves eviscerating with a blunt whisk.

I am in favour of free range, organic, slow-reared, locally-produced food not because of ethics and certainly not because “it’s got more effics innit, geeza”. I give neither a hoot nor a fig for my Carbon Footprints or my Food Miles. I am in favour of free-range, slow reared, locally-produced food because it tastes better.