BURNING QUESTIONS: Sticker shock, quality reign in England

Erica Marcus | Burning Questions

May 14, 2008

How was the food in London?

Short answer: Expensive. That was my experience during a five-day stay from which I have just returned. London isn't usually a bargain, and with the British pound trading at about $2, I was spending about twice as much on food as I usually do.

Meals at two excellent London restaurants (Moro and Passione) cost about $100 a head, but my greatest sticker shock came at the brand new Whole Foods in Kensington. This vast, three-level store - more than twice the size of Whole Foods in Jericho - has been sticker-shocking even native Londoners. Provisions for a modest dinner for six (raw fennel with prosciutto, pork braised in milk, braised cabbage, roast potatoes, cheese for dessert) cost me $120. I had been planning to serve asparagus, but a pound was going for about $12.

That said, the 10-month-old Whole Foods was a pleasure to shop in. The highlights were a cheese room that had as good a selection (and as knowledgeable a cheesemonger) as I've seen anywhere in the world. The Brits also put much more emphasis on the provenance of produce, meat and fish. Every item was labeled clearly as to where and how it was produced. Vegetable labels stated country of origin and whether they were organic or conventional. Meat, ditto, with additional information as to breed (e.g. Berkshire or large white pig) or a grass-fed diet. Fish was a revelation: in the ice next to every specimen was a sign bearing its country of origin (if it was farmed), its waters of origin (if it was wild caught), and whether it had ever been frozen.

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The culinary peak of my trip, however, had nothing to do with eating. At Hampton Court, the palace home to Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn - not to mention his other five wives, and successive monarchs - the "Tudor kitchens" have been painstakingly restored so visitors can really get a sense of how food was prepared in 16th century England.

A whole wing of the palace was given over to cooking meals for the hundreds of courtiers who lived at Hampton Court whenever the monarch was in residence.

The largest room in the complex was devoted to the roasting of meats. Roast meat would be kingly, indeed, as the means to buy meat and the ability to roast it indoors signaled great wealth. Similarly, beef was the meat of choice because only the wealthy could afford the vast tracts of land on which beef cattle grazed.

And, remember, back in Tudor England, all beef was grass-fed.

E-mail your queries or write to: Erica Marcus, Food/Part 2 Newsday, 235 Pinelawn Rd., Melville, NY 11747-4250.