The Brexit Diet

Whether you voted Leave or Remain, the EU has transformed the way we eat – and crashing out threatens to deal a mighty blow to both our palates and our nutritional health. MH spoke to the experts worried that the true impact of Brexit will leave a very bad taste in our mouths.

- Mike Shallcross

The most memorable thing I ever ate was a strawberry.

Not so much for the fruit itself, but for where and when I ate it.

It was 13 December 1994. I was a couple of months into my first journalism job, and one of my esoteric areas of interest, the politics of Northern Ireland, had unexpectedly proven useful when the UK government responded to an IRA ceasefire by announcing a major investment conference in Belfast. The best bit was that a Concorde was being chartered to entice foreign investors to go there. Somewhat improbably, this penniless Scouser found himself on the plane with a glass of Krug champagne, eating a fruit salad. “Strawberries, in December?” I remember thinking incredulously, as I looked down at the fruit on my fork. I savoured it, an icy summer kiss on a grey, drizzly morning.

In the next century, such diamonds became coal. Every supermarket now stocks strawberries all year. Likewise, salad, once a simple concoction of two or three ingredients served unenthusiastically in the summer months, now comes in a bewildering array of combinations, available on demand. The “avocado pear” ordered by

James Bond as a baroque alternative to dessert in Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel Casino Royale is now a hipster breakfast staple. Once universally derided, British cuisine has evolved into a sophisticated panEuropean one, enabled by our access to a greater variety of imported food.

Yet that could soon change. Leaving the EU without a workable deal could hike prices, abandon fresh fruit and veg to rot in trucks, and leave us with a nasty taste on our now sophisticated palates. There is nothing tasty about a full English Brexit.

A Well-Oiled Machine