THE GREAT BRITISH TRADITION OF MEAT & TWO VEG

Look at the on-line guides for foreigners visiting the UK for the first time and they will often explain – slightly disparagingly – that the English national diet is based on ‘meat and two veg’. Obviously they relied for that information on books that were published shortly after the Second World War but in many ways it’s still true – meat and two veg do have a unique place in our affections. And for most Brits of a certain age there’s a reassuring familiarity about the phase and a nostalgia for the meals they were brought up on that makes it a profoundly comforting notion.

But what does meat and two veg represent these days? What veg, for a start? Most people, when I asked them, said ‘peas and carrots’, other suggestions were beans, sprouts and cabbage. The vexed question is whether you can legitimately call a meal ‘meat and two veg’ if one of the vegetables is potato? Or, if you don’t count potatoes, is it enough for the second vegetable to be in the meaty component of the dish like mushrooms in a mushroom sauce or onions and peppers in a casserole?

Purists would, I suspect, say no but I take a more relaxed view of the matter. It’s the overall effect and the spirit of the dish that counts. In the post-war era, when meat and two veg reigned supreme, the vegetables were there for a reason – to pad out heavily rationed and scarce meat. Now there’s no need to do that but they still add vital balance, turning what might otherwise be a protein-and carbohydrate-heavy meal into a perfectly healthy one – and in terms of that objective it doesn’t matter whether they’re in the main recipe or on the side.

What does matter is the overall spirit of the dish. You could legitimately say a chicken stir-fry or a spaghetti bolognese, if it contained enough vegetables and was accompanied by a salad, was meat and two veg but that wouldn’t be right. Meat and two veg is a very British concept so I’ve stuck by and large to the great stalwarts of the British culinary repertoire – roasts and grills, casseroles and bakes – giving them, OK, a bit of a twist, or suggesting a less conventional vegetable accompaniment but essentially this is British food in all its glory.

And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

FIONA BECKETT, JULY 2006