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Politicians and Turkey Twizzlers upstaged in new school dinners row
Tony Blair's endorsement of Jamie Oliver's campaign for better school dinners has sent gastronomic pundits up and down the country into a veritable feeding frenzy, writes Gregory Mullet, Bandwagon Affairs Correspondent for DeadBrain.
Fuelled by the row over Turkey Twizzlers (since banned from the House of Commons tea room) the political debate has already run its predictable course with Labour's 'mini-manifesto' being described by the Tories as a "gimmick", the Liberal Democrats as "a cheap election stunt" and by a spokeswoman from independent regulatory board Oftwiz as "Another brilliant idea from Tony which isn't anything to do with exploiting parental concern or diverting attention from certain other matters. Honest."
Rival celebrity chef Douglas Ramsbottom dismissed Oliver's efforts as "utterly preposterous" (12 expletives deleted). Picking up on the Government's theory that part of the reason for the school meals crisis is – perhaps conveniently – a simple lack of knowledge, he has lobbied Oftwiz to make his own latest gourmet recipe book (priced at £37.99) compulsory reading for all school catering staff.
"Half these school dinner ladies obviously don't even know how to prepare a simple timbale of sun-dried quails' egg and wild Dolcelatte coulis stuffed with a coriander and lemon grass mayonnaise and drizzled with a lightly-grilled marinade of mango and pesto chutney accompanied by toasted mung bean shavings" (61 expletives deleted). He followed his comments with a tirade of abuse more suited to a restaurant kitchen on a bad Saturday night, accompanied by a well-aimed saucepan of burnt hollandaise.
Not to be outdone by mere politicians and celebrity chefs, the leading 'alcopop' manufacturer, Booze 'R' Us, has commissioned a survey of 1,000 7-14-year olds found loitering outside corner shops on school mornings, and is now planning the launch of an organic, free-range, low-tartrazine range of its popular product.
Similarly, cigarette manufacturer Fags 'R' Us, after conducting its own research, is planning a low-pesticide GM-free version of its brand and has made a submission to consumer watchdog Fagwatch that the product should be supplied free in schools by Oftwiz in order to reduce truancy and cut the incidence of shops selling to under-16s.
Food technologists look set to scupper Oliver's initiative, though, an insider source at a leading supermarket chain revealed to DeadBrain. Replacing the now discredited Turkey Twizzlers, a new range of "ready fruits and vegetables" is under development, to be "made down to a price" for school canteens and anyone else unfortunate enough to eat them.
Its flagship product is an apple consisting of hydrogenated rapeseed oil, emulsifiers, modified maize starch, mono and diglycerides of fatty acids, corn syrup, guar gum, salt, more salt called something different, Vitamin C (which is lost in processing), preservative, about 100 other arcane ingredients, and "flavouring" (which under current rules can mean almost anything but is believed to be chemically disguised Turkey Twizzlers). Amid predictions that marketing experts will on this occasion be unsuccessful in finding a celebrity chef to declare the end result "wicked", "beeoodiful" or even "luvverly-jubbly", the role is widely tipped to be Gordon Brown's next job after the election.
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