Hugh's Fish Fight. The Gastronome (Re-) Enters Politics

posted by Geoff Andrews at Sunday, May 01, 2011

1 May 2011


Hugh’s Fish Fight, recently screened on Channel Four, is another highly publicised campaign led by a well-known TV food personality. Following Jamie Oliver’s earlier programmes on school dinners and battery chickens (something which had also engaged Hugh F-W) this has also had significant effect on public debate, raising awareness of the state of the fishing industry, the plight of endangered fish species and the health of the oceans, the conditions of fisherfolk and EU food policy. The campaign made clear once again the power of the media to evoke images and put important questions onto the agenda. And once again, it is food that drives public debate, a unique domain which connects political economy and the environment, the local and global, diet, nutrition and questions of biodiversity, like no other.

Increasingly, food is at the centre of many different questions. Yet we also need to recognise the role of the gastronome in articulating the multi-varied concerns of producers and consumers and the consequences of a cheap food economy. We take, of course, the modern meaning of the gastronome, freed from ‘elitist’ connotations or the narrow concerns of gourmets. Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food, puts it well. ‘I am a gastronome. No, not the glutton with no sense of restraint whose enjoyment of food is greater the more plentiful and forbidden it is. No, not a fool who is given to the pleasures of the table and indifferent to how the food got there. I like to imagine the hands of the people who grew it, transported it, processed it, and cooked it before it was served to me’.

Perhaps Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is the nearest UK equivalent to Petrini, (a modern mixture of Jean-Anthelme Brillat Savarin and William Morris). There is a similar passion for food and the continuing optimism that by heightening public awareness and changing our attitudes to the way food is produced and consumed we can resolve many related concerns of modern living.

This creativity, imagination and vision, has been rarely apparent of course in the lack-lustre election campaigns currently on offer from all political parties, nor from the insular concerns of many of them. Food, for many on left or right, has become a kind of no-go area. It seems to carry many taboos. For many on the left, unable to distinguish between luxury and pleasure, quality food inevitably implies ‘elitist’ associations. In the US, writers and activists like Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan have long addressed these questions and have argued intelligently and passionately for the democratisation of food for the future health of the nation. Their argument is that everyone has a right to quality food, which is the underlying principle of Hugh F-W’s and Jamie Oliver’s campaigns.

Meanwhile, on the right of the political spectrum there is a reluctance to break with the power of big corporate monopolies, as has been made clear in the involvement of McDonald’s and others in the writing of the government’s health policy. Despite the growing criticism of Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, this has not translated into much political opposition: he has received one of his biggest grillings from Sheila Dillon on BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme. Right and left seem to have little to say about the effects of the big supermarket monopolies and remain wary of upsetting voter fears by talking up good food at times of austerity.

Fortunately, campaigners like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, have the imagination and vision beyond the narrow time-frames and often parochial preoccupations of Westminster (and Edinburgh and Cardiff). The Fish Fight is a very good example of how gastronomes – a term still regarded with contempt over here – can intervene effectively and call to account those who exercise power over our palates – Tesco’s, Big Salmon factories, and politicians included. This is a very creative campaign against over-fishing, engaging the public in on-line petitions and cajoling them to become more discerning consumers in questioning fishmongers and supermarkets, forming effective alliances with movements like Greenpeace to force Tesco and Morrisons to change their practices and by drawing on the knowledge of marine biologists, as well as local fishermen, to highlight the cause of endangered fish species. Hugh’s Fish Fight, as the website makes clear, is a powerful campaigning lobby which has complimented other campaigns from concerns over blue-fin tuna to the absurdity of EU fishing bans, notably those expressed in very evocative ways by Charles Clover’s book The End of the Line, later made into a successful documentary film. Hugh’s Fish Fight is a campaign which has extended far outside the living room.

Yet it is also about seeking out practical alternatives, introducing more people to the delights and health benefits of sardines, mackerel, sprats, herring and anchovies, as alternatives to over fished salmon, tuna and cod. The programmes are good on response and impact; a testament to the possibility of policy being influenced by popular movements. Hugh F-W does this well, making the link between simple gastronomic pleasures and ecological responsibility, in ways well beyond the imagination of politicians.