118. Second Wave Art.

 

  It’s hard to think that any major Birmingham chef has come up with more imaginative ways to save his business than The Wilderness’ Alex Claridge. And now, as we enter the third week of the Second Wave ‘Lockdown’, with its fresh assault on the viability of countless businesses which have been the pride and joy of so many hard-working, inventive and self-sacrificing people, we find Claridge coming up with a new angle - the sale of new original art, ironic, humorous and related to his business. Great stuff. 

  I have been enthusiastic about our great local restaurants using art to promote their businesses - see Blogs 97, 100 and 101 - great cuisine is art even though since the 1980s there have been numerous attempts - more unsatisfactory than the modern experts would admit - to subvert cuisine into science. I think, at least I have a feeling that art is winning, and chefs are once more rejoicing in the art of gastronomy rather than the science of gastronomy. And a good thing too if you ask me.

  So why not use art to promote and celebrate gastronomy as well as using it as a means of keeping  businesses afloat during these COVID days?

  So this week, an e mail from The Wilderness arrived promoting a takeaway dish for those who are lost in the wilderness based on a Claridge classic to while away these COVID days and long dark nights - the Unhappy Meal - the source of the inspiration for the dish is undoubted. Described thus, “A limited edition of our much-loved ‘Big Mac’ dish. Taking inspiration from the most notorious of fast food, we’ve created a beef tartare dressed in a coal oil and finished with gherkin ketchup, aged cheddar custard, soy caramel and pickles. Paired with potato fries, and a maple, malt and cinnamon milkshake, this is the most extravagant meal deal you’ll find. For the adventurous and hungry, we’ve partnered with Exmoor caviar to offer a supplementary supersize with Exmoor Royal Beluski caviar. Priced from £30 foot 2 people. I’m loving it”.

  The accompanying photographic portrait of the dish is full-on food porn and enough to drive lusty men insane with desire. Lusty women too for that matter.

  But I like the accompanying offers. The Wilderness is also offering for sale 2 pieces of art connected to the Unhappy Meal 2020 culinary gem. The first, which most appeals to me, is a splendid unhappy Clown (vaguely recognisable I think) photograph with the colourful subject, glum, forehead pressed to knuckles, sitting in darkness surrounded by discarded cardboard milkshake cups and used fast food packaging looking for all the world as though he has had a pretty depressing lockdown and the weight of the future of his business weighing on his mind, no doubt allegorical of the state of mind of many restaurant owners, chefs and all their staff. The photograph is by Emma Tronson and is sold in an edition of just 10, signed by the photographer, Alex Claridge and Marius Gedminas. I managed to secure the last unsold photograph.

  There is also a limited edition (of 10) giclee print of an illustration by Liam Kerr titled, not surprisingly, ‘Unhappy Meal” which depicts a fairly familiar clown figure with a ‘W’ badge on his chest, dropping, apparently in disgust, a paper bag which presumably is one used for takeaway fast food. An interesting item and pleasingly priced at just £15 unmounted.

  Claridge not for the first time has brought art not just into his food but his whole way of doing things.

  While I’m on the subject of signed photographs (which I was at some point above) I so far have failed to mention that Glynn Purnell’s book A Purnell’s Journey There And Back Again, described in Blog 116, was sold with a signed photograph inside depicting Purnell looking, er, well I’m not sure but maybe his feelings at the time were somewhat coloured by standing in the St Andrews football ground where the Birmingham City Football team does its best on a regular basis to cause pain and anguish to its supporters of whom Glynn Purnell is currently one of the most notable.

  There’s art everywhere at the moment. Fine dining restaurants have been selling high class takeaways throughout the ‘lockdowns’ and in between them, and Carter’s of Moseley has been right in the lead here in Birmingham in using this alternative means of keeping the business going. In one of the online communications about available reservation times the restaurant used a modern version of a Bertie Bassett lookalike picture mounted on one of the restaurant walls with the inscription, obviously heartfelt, “CONTROL + ANXIETY 2020”..

  Brad Carter has previously written a book, Staff, with recipes not from those of his restaurant but something a little more doable in the home setting. The book has now been reissued in an expanded format and retitled Staff - Expanded B-Sides. As I haven’t seen the original version and not yet received my copy of the revised edition I shall have to report back when the parcel deliverer knocks on my door with what may just be something quite interesting.