I love local food, it tastes so much better than the other stuff. I keep my eyes peeled for markets selling local food and, if I can't get it nearby, I've been known to drive sixty miles to find the best.
Last year I started a company, Localfoods Ltd. We buy local food from all over Britain and export it to the rest of the world. If it isn't local, we won't touch it. Now diners as far away as Australia and France can experience the joys of local British food.
Local food ticks all my boxes. All my boxes are ticked by it. Not one box is left unticked. Sometimes it's hard to come by but you can always get it if you try hard enough. I was in Nottingham the other day and fancied a tuna sandwich. With local tuna, of course. You'd be surprised how hard it is to get local tuna in Nottingham, they don't seem interested in anything that isn't to do with Robin Hood. Finally I got a tin of local tuna from a lovely little corner shop. The shopkeeper was charming and clearly shared my values. He even supplied me with some local Danish bacon, a lot more expensive than the ordinary stuff but worth every penny. Delicious!
The other thing I always insist is that my food is free range. They know me well enough by now at Simpsons and always keep free range stuff aside just for me. Free range cornflakes are amazing! They don't even label the packet to say it's free range, but the manager can tell from the bar code. It's one of the tricks you learn when you're in business, but I'll give you a tip - if a shopkeeper pretends he hasn't got any free range bread or soup, offer to pay a little extra and he'll soon change his tune.
Sometimes you meet some idiots! I got talking to a man the other day and he asked me if I liked vitamins. Of course I like vitamins and I told him so. Then he asked me if I like preservatives. Of course I don't like preservatives. Then he asked if I liked E-numbers. You can guess what I said to that! Then the silly man said that E300 was a vitamin, an anti-oxidant, and a preservative too! What rubbish. E-numbers and preservatives are bad and vitamins are good, so that proves they can't be the same. I tried to explain to him but there's no telling some people.
All my food has to be organic, of course. My missus says she can't tell the difference, except that the organic stuff looks manky and costs twice as much. Once, when I was sitting at the table waiting for my dinner, she came up behind me and slipped on a blindfold. "Tally ho!" I thought, but that wasn't what she had in mind. She gave me two spoons of chilli con carne to taste and asked which tasted better. They both tasted the same to me. Then she said that one was made with organic mince and the other wasn't. Well, if she'd told me which was the organic one I'd have known immediately which tasted better, but I've never been much good at guessing games. Strange creatures, wives.
I am going to write a book about all the things my years in business have taught me about food. Somebody has to explain things to people because they think these things aren't important and they are. And they think they know it all and they don't. And they'll laugh on the other side of their faces when they see my book.
