Crepe Crap

I must remember to avoid taking my youngest food shopping. He talked me into buying some ready-made sarrasin crepes today, the sort you get in crepe restaurants filled with savoury bits and bobs.

I don't like buying ready-made stuff. It's full of crap you'd rather not feed your dog (well, maybe your dog but certainly not your precious delightful cat) let alone your precious delightful self, or even your kids who you've been nurturing at vast expense for the past 9-14 years.

Preservatives and E numbers and god knows what other carcinogenic poisons are all pumped into industrial food, in small quantities maybe, but a lot of small quantities makes for a big fat lump of crap (à la long). There was a report on the tele this evening about French school lunches and the nearly 200 poisons, pesticides, PCBs and carcinogenic chemicals were found in many of the dishes. Salmon was the worst. Must remember to only buy organic salmon from now on, or maybe we'll just give up on salmon altogether.

Needless to say, the quantities were all tiny, but as one of the researchers said, these kids eat school dinners four days out of seven; frequent exposure results in the long-term build-up of all this stuff. My youngest has taken to coming home for lunch three days out of four. Instead of paying nearly €4 for poisonous crap he doesn't like, I pay €1.44 for a tin of baked beans which scoffs with pleasure followed by yoghurt and fruit, and doesn't need a teatime later. When he eats at school, he hates it so much he eats little and needs a biscuit in the afternoon.

Still, one can be flexible, can one not? and buy the odd packet of crèpes pour faire plaisir à one's youngest son. Not sure I'll be doing it too often though. In a crepe restaurant, they are pretty tasty. From a packet, they are a lot less tasty. This is why I hate industrial food, too; it's so disappointing.

We had them with lardons, bacon, egg and cheese, but not altogether. It was like eating lardons and cheese with cardboard (for me). If I want to eat them again I'll have to buy the flour and make them myself. Eating cardboard is not a satisfying gustative experience and when I eat, I want to enjoy what I'm eating. It's not much to ask, is it?

Personally, I prefer British pancakes made with normal flour filled with something sweet or savoury, or the classic lemon and sugar. I'm also keen on fritters and Yorkshire puddings, and beignets too. You can do so much with variations of a simple mixture. Wonder what a sarrasin-flour Yorkshire pudding would taste like. Anyone ever tried to make some?