Val Temple, who runs the Sergeant Bun Bakery in Weymouth, says officers from Dorset's trading standards department have told her she can't sell "pig pies" because although they're shaped like pigs, they aren't made of pork. Her bird-shaped "robin tarts" aren't made from genuine Erithacus Rubecula, and her "paradise slice" contains no genuine paradise, although for a foodie like the GOS that's debatable.
Mrs Temple has made the novelty cakes in the shape of pigs and robins for years. She said "The officers came in and said they had had a complaint and I must change the names because they didn't contain pork, robin or paradise. It's absolutely ridiculous. Are they going to start banning Christmas cake because it doesn't have Jesus in it?"
She adds "The paradise slice recipe is 120 years old and it's always been known as Paradise Slice."
Ivan Hancock, the county's trading standards manager, said: "The fact is that piece of food needs to be properly described so that the consumer can tell what it is. There's nothing wrong with using other names but it must be accompanied by the true name of the food."
Just what does he mean, "the true name of the food"? Food doesn't have names. There's no such thing as Christine the Cake or Billy the Beef Steak. An accurate description of what a thing contains isn't its name - otherwise Ivan "the Terrible" Hancock would be named "An entity comprising oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulphur, sodium, chlorine, magnesium, iron, fluorine, zinc, silicon, rubidium and 43 other substances including gold, bismuth and yttrium in various quantities". After all, Ivan, I think we're all entitled to know just what you're made of. I mean, a name like "Ivan Hancock" could mean anything - you might be a mugger or a terrorist or a transvestite for all we know. Or a thick, self-righteous tosser.
Food is called whatever someone wants to call it: if a chef invents a dish that includes veal, eggs, cream, garlic, a pinch of chilli and breadcrumbs, can't he pick a name like "veal à la maison" or does Ivan insist that he call it "a dish that includes veal, eggs, cream, garlic, a pinch of chilli and breadcrumbs"? When the GOS was at school our school dinner-ladies regularly served a dessert we called "frogspawn". I suppose these days this nickname would be illegal, would it? It wouldn't be the first time recently that the police have been called to seize a child from the school playground.
It's going to be a strange world if people like Ivan have their way. You'll get up in the morning, put on your flexible items made from various natural and artificial fabrics intended for the purpose of covering and regulating the temperature of the human body, slip on your hollow artefacts constructed from leather and/or rubber and/or various products of the petroleum industry and designed to protect the feet from discomfort and cold, leave your private and not publicly owned dwelling constructed of baked clay brick and roofed with complex timber construction and thin slices of sedimentary rock, and board a large vehicle owned and operated either by a commercial enterprise or a publicly-owned organisation and intended for the safe transportation of members of the public along a pre-ordained route in exchange for monetary payment …..
Look Ivan, you plainly don't understand the English language. You need to learn just what a "name" is. If the woman invents a jelly confection in the shape of a penis and decides to call it a "wobbly willy", that's its name, all right?
Prat.
The GOS says: M**** B***** writes to say: "What about Fairy Cakes?"
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
This site created and maintained by PlainSite