schnitzels

We had veal escalopes for supper.  Veal has been almost impossible to buy for years, at least in the provinces.  Occasionally I'd read an article (often in the Waitrose food magazine) about how Waitrose was stocking ethically produced pink veal, but Colchester used not to have a Waitrose, and then when it did no veal made its way in our direction, any more than the mythical mutton I would also hear of from time to time.  It seemed that Tesco did not do veal, any more than Tony Blair did god.  Perhaps Sainsbury did, but the store was at the opposite side of town, and I did not want veal, or rather the vague possibility of veal, enough to engage with Colchester's traffic to that extent.  Probably I should have cultivated a butcher, but none of the local butchers were that approachable and friendly (and the last butcher's steak the Systems Administrator bought was quite tasteless).  We did cultivate our local farm shop, but they evidently had a nice line in miracle cows that could produce milk without calving.  Or the calves were ending up as pet food.

That's the thing about veal.  Crates were a cruel abomination, and it is utterly right that we've banned them, but if you are going to eat dairy produce you must accept that there will be calves. And what are you going to do with them?  For years it seemed that the great British public had equated the meat of young dairy animals with crates and rejected it, and the supermarkets could not be bothered to educate them, instead stocking aisles of milk, cream, cheese, butter, yogurt and other processed cow juices, while conveniently ignoring the biological facts of how these products came into being.

I could be a vegan.  I could make quite a good case for being one, if pushed, but as it happens I'm not.  And since I eat dairy, I am in principle prepared to eat young cows.  And veal is a very tasty meat.  And makes a change, when you live with somebody who doesn't like offal or game, and isn't convinced that beans or lentils without meat constitute dinner.  There are times when I feel like the heroine of What Katy Did, after she has taken up housekeeping and before she miraculously recovers from spinal injury, when she wishes that god would invent another animal.  Beef.  Chicken. Pork in all its piggy manifestations.  Lamb.  Corned beef.  Beef again.  Oh good, veal.  That makes a change.

When I was thirteen or thereabouts, I went on the school exchange visit to Britanny.  I regret to say that I did not form a lasting, lifelong friendship with my French counterpart, though I did develop a taste for Breton music that has stayed with me.  Also a taste for veal.  Maman for one slightly special supper served up a blanquette de veaux that was one of the best things I had ever eaten.  I longed to recreate it in later years, when it was my turn to cook, but could not find any veaux.

Tonight's escalopes were cooked according to the advice in Gretel Beer's Austrian Cooking, although they were done as Pariser Schnitzel and not Wienter Schnitzel because I did not have any breadcrumbs.  The only bread I had was a small Hovis loaf, and I did not think that would produce the desired effect, even if I'd had time to crumb it.  Pariser Schnitzel are simply dusted with flour, seasoned, and fried in egg diluted with milk, after you have bashed them with a rolling pin.  The invention of cling film makes this a less messy process than it must have been in Gretel Beer's time.

I love her book.  It was first published in 1954, and my mother had a copy, which I divined she was not going to give to me.  To my joy, it was reprinted in 1980 as a facsimile edition, and I found a copy by complete chance in a bookshop in Highgate.  It contains marvellous instructions for how to remove the cream from the top of your milk using an eye-dropper, fountain pen filler, or special gadget bought for 2s, in the event that you can't buy cream, and a heartfelt plea to spare enough butter to grease your cake tin, even if you are baking with margarine.  Practically all the recipes are for cakes.

Anyway, the schnitzels were well received, and I have the SA's blessing to do them again.  The other good thing about veal escalopes is that they are very easy and quick to cook.