92. Food In The Time Of Covid-19.

For anyone who doesn’t get the literary allusion, and I’m sure all readers do, the title of this Blog rejigs the title of the novel by the Colombian writer Gabriel Gárcia Márquez, “Love In The Time Of Cholera”. What goes around - eventually - comes around. For ‘Cholera’, substitute ‘Coronavirus’.
Restaurants and their chefs and owners are dealing with the total close-down of dining establishments throughout the United Kingdom in different ways.
Glynn Purnell, for instance, is delivering medications to the homes of people who need the service in his childhood home of Chelmsley Wood according to an article on the BirminghamLive website. It states that, “.... that’s been a good way of forgetting about the stress of wondering (if ) his two city centre businesses will survive the ongoing pandemic lockdown ordered by Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday March 23. That move came just three days after the government had ordered the shutdown of all pubs, bars, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, gyms and leisure centres from the night of Friday March 20”.
“Glynn .... said “Looking after people’s health comes first and we hope we can all come out the other end. And if my businesses go belly up I will still have the spirit to start from scratch all over again - there will definitely be some sort of Purnell’s in the city centre in the future. ..... But what will happen when this is all over? Will people still want or have the money to come back out to eat in a restaurant? If they are still worried they might not want to come out. Hopefully I’ve got enough cash to furlough my staff”.”
And that’s the rub ... uncertainty.

Each week that goes by the financial situation grows worse for almost everyone. If the lockdown goes on for too long then businesses run out of money and collapse and many potential customers also find their private finances collapse to a level where they can no longer afford to dine out even if they would like to do so. The elderly - most at risk - may well feel it is safer not to risk going out to dine even if they they have the money to do so from their pensions and with many more deaths occurring in these older age groups some regular customers of many years standing may well have lost their lives to Covid-19 (which seems to be dining out very well at present) though it is true to say that the most at-risk group - those aged over 70 - are not to be seen to frequently dining out at city centre fine dining establishments.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast.

Meanwhile chefs around around the country have been cooking special meals to provide a service to front-line Health Service workers and others have attempted to set up and run home delivery services as a means of keeping their businesses going. I have just had 2 very enjoyable Easter lunches cooked in carvery style (not Fine Dining by any means but pleasingly delicious all the same) delivered from The Old Rose And Crown Hotel in the Lickey Hills which was an 18th and 19th century coaching inn. How delightful it was to have a tasty freshly cooked meal delivered to my home after these last 3 weeks of making do with what I felt up to providing for myself. Oh the joy of Roast beef and Roast turkey with all the trimmings even though my prentstion of the food on the plate could hardly be described as ‘Cheffy’.