The Food Programme and some of its meta-narratives

I’ve been catching up on the BBC’s Food Programme by way of its handy podcasts, and, amid a certain amount of fare that, it must be said, can perhaps most charitably be described as filling, there have been some undoubted gourmet morsels. ((Some of which have even won awards.)) I was particularly struck by how, for chocolate, beer and gin (and others, for all I know), the past few years have seen an explosion of small manufacturers and tiny niche products, especially in the US. That famous Long Tail at work, I guess. The other common thread is an increase in consumption of such relative luxury goods in the developing world. Quite a combination, but what’s not clear to me is the kind of dent the financial crisis has put into these trends. Nor, of rather more direct interest, do I know the exact geographic location where one might expect to benefit maximally from them. But I suspect the masher-uppers are working on that.

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