QUALITY AND QUANTITY

This post is about food and drink, as they all should be. It is here because of all of the emails we've received about our increasing weights and sizes.

May we remind you all of the observations we made a year ago when we were in Montpellier?

The emphasis in European culture is on quality rather than quantity. Meals are often absolutely stunning, but they are small by Australian standards. We have not put on weight (much), we've just enjoyed higher quality food and (sometimes) wine.

I'm not joking, the French, Italian and Swiss all provide small meals of astounding quality.

But, you might say that we would be used to big meals and you would be right. When we cook at home, it is sometimes a challenge to keep our meals small, like the ones we get at restaurants, because of our Australian attitude to food. This is where the exchange rate and cost of living issues come in. The Euro is currently worth two Australian dollars and domestic food prices are equal to or higher than food prices in Australia. This means that you would have to be very wealthy to be able to buy enough food to get fat.

It is very obvious to us that we, and those of you who have expressed concern about our weights, are starting our thinking process from the perspective of Australian sized meals and Australian domestic food prices. You can't do it. It is not the same here.

So, what about quality? In Europe, food is very seasonal and freshness and quality is most important. Nearly every town and city has fresh food markets on in the squares, and people flock to them. They stock very fresh and very seasonal produce. The supermarkets are forced to do the same. The situation in Australia, in which the supermarkets control quality, so that you can buy tasteless apples, bland chicken and virtual tomatoes every day of the year, and in every location, just isn't present here.

So, I hope that you all understand now. We are not putting on (much) weight, because of both the cultural emphasis on quality and the economic reality of double or more food pricing.

Did I mention wine? Wine in Europe can be quite cheap or very expensive. We haven't tried the expensive ones, but we can tell you that the supermarkets here stock wines at around four Euro a bottle and they are good enough for us. Comparisons with Australia are complex, because the wines are so different, but I suspect that the 'corporatization' of Australian wine has pushed up the prices of the cheaper wines to the point where they are not as good value as some European wines, but then we like those wines more than we like some of the European examples.

There are cultural elements in wine too. Wine, like food can be very localised and very seasonal. The Tuscan Vino Rosso Novello is an excellent example of a fairly light but very flavoursome wine that is available for only a month or two. Also, wine is more like an every day accompaniment to food than a special treat. A lot of people drink a little wine with lunch and dinner and aperitivo, and in the main, only young tourists drink to excess. This was such an issue in Florence where the newly appointed US Cultural Attache had binge drinking amongst American students as a major priority.

I am promisiing myself that I will attempt to continue with the emphasis on quality once back home. I will buy better quality food, and less of it, and I will serve smaller meals. I will be a more regular customer at butchers, importers and markets. Let's see what happens. I will probably need quite a bit of help.