Let’s not play the name game

May 30 2008 by Bill Oldfield, The Journal

WHAT’S in a name? I mean, are you more likely to be successful in life if your name is Peregrine or Julian or Piers, rather than Dave or Steve or Bill?

Have you ever met a Peregrine running a market stall or mending your boiler or fixing your roof? But you get Peregrines working out of glass skyscrapers in the City and you can imagine Piers receiving an Oscar or Julian sailing and drinking pink gin at Cowes.

Can a name make you better than you’d have been otherwise? It’s not that there’s anything wrong with such names. Some of my best friends could have had posh handles. It just so happens they don’t. And I’ve not got a chip on my shoulder or anything.

And so, can changing the name of a dish make it better or shouldn’t you get what you expect with the nomenclature of food? Does calling the pool of liquid around your slab of meat on your plate become more attractive if it’s called a jus rather than a sauce or a gravy? And that slab of meat, would you prefer it if it was described on the menu as a pavé? Once you see pomme on the menu, you’ve got to wonder what the chef or restaurateur is trying to do. Obviously potato isn’t good enough, but why not?

It’s not as if we’ve not been guilty of this at Oldfields, but we’re trying to change and respect the realness of the food. It’s not always that easy because some names and dishes were invented by foreigners – honestly. Crème brulée is a good example. It’s a British dessert but named by the French for us and we should take that as a compliment. But if the French tried to rename Yorkshire pudding, we’d have to invade!

A French restaurant serving French dishes has every right to use French – if their customers can understand it. The same goes for Italians and Indians. But surely food shouldn’t be renamed just to make it appear special.

If we were to give all the next generation of children posh names, would it make everybody automatically successful? Even if it worked, which I doubt, the balance of society would all be wrong. I’ve got a plasterer working at my home at the moment called Stevie. If Stevies no longer existed, who’d do my plastering?

And as for trying to make the food sound posh, surely it should be made from good enough ingredients and cooked well enough to be allowed to speak for itself. Despite what dozens of chefs have told me, there’s nothing wrong with a well made gravy – and calling it just that.