Food: The test of a true boar: British gourmets could soon go the whole hog, writes Henrietta Green
By HENRIETTA GREEN
WILD BOAR once roamed the fields and forests of Britain.
They were the sport of rich noblemen who hunted and ate them with terrific enthusiasm  until there were none.
Now there are plans afoot to reintroduce them to Britain on a grand scale for the ' gourmet ' market.
Not as wild boar running free and doing untold damage to the countryside, as in Italy, France and Germany; but as farmed wild boar which should ease your mind, even if it causes the farmers untold headaches.
Thus it was, last Friday, that the inaugural meeting of the British Wild Boar Association took place.
It was held, appropriately, on the first day of Michaelmas when, in medieval times, pigs were traditionally turned out into the woods to fatten up on acorns.
It got off to a hairy start with several heated discussions about what a wild boar is.
Does' wild ' mean how it is kept?
Can it be farmed intensively or should it only be reared extensively?
Does the name cover only pure-bred wild boars or can it include a cross, bred with a domestic pig?
If crosses are to be allowed, what percentage of cross is acceptable?
And just because it looks like a wild boar with the striped marking or ' agouti ' (long snout, straight tail and small pointy ears), can it be accepted as such without a genetic test?
Pretty technical stuff this, with enough contentious issues to make every boar farmer's hair curl.
As Robert Spencer Bernard, barrister and part-time farmer of wild boar for several years on his Buckinghamshire estate, said: ' A tiger is a tiger whether you see it in the London Zoo or in the Indian forests, but with a wild boar the argument isn't so simple. '
We had been herded together to discuss this and other issues by Dr Derek Booth, animal geneticist and scientist.
Easily recognised by his boar's head tie, his enthusiasm and appetite was first whetted when he met the ' iron-age ' pig several years ago.
A cross between a wild boar and Tamworth pig, it was bred for a BBC TV series in an attempt to recreate animals from that era.
Dr Booth was admittedly ' horrified by the amount of fat it carried ' and it was not until he saw wild boar in a wild life park in France that he realised the opportunities.
Clearly Sam Weller had also seen the light.
A self-proclaimed poineer and the ' first man to go the whole hog ' with his business, the Wild Boar Company, he was all for setting the strictest standards of breeds, offering a product aimed at the ' luxury end ' of the market.
' Cross breeds do produce some excellent pork, but it's not wild boar and it shouldn't be sold as such. '
He believes that even when farmed, wild boar must be genetically pure and reared in conditions which approximate the wild as closely as possible.
An animal's environment, the food it eats, the rigours of its existence and its genetic make-up may all affect the taste and texture of its flesh.
' But what we don't know, ' Sam Weller told me, ' is the relevant importance of those factors'.
Research was then produced by Jeff Woods from the Institute of Food Research which backed up part of Sam Weller's argument.
A cross-bred boar was reared and fed indoors in a pen, under identical conditions to a domestic pig, and the meats from the two carcasses tasted exactly the same.
Clearly environment and diet do determine the taste.
When kept outside and left to roam, eating a varied diet and developing plenty of muscle, boars will taste different from the domestic pig.
But what no one seemed prepared or able to tell was to what extent the purity of breed influences the taste of boar.
As one cynical farmer whispered knowingly, ' If they're not careful, they 'll price themselves right out of the market with their boring pure-bred boars.
That 'll leave it wide open for the supermarket boys to market a ' free-range acorn-fed pork '  an intensively bred pig, fattened up in woods in half the time and costing well under an eighth of the price. '
Not a bad idea, but if the British Wild Boar Association, already bristling with problems, is to combat that threat it must sort out its standards.
If you do manage to buy wild boar, I suggest you try making hamburgers.
This recipe is adapted from Patricia Lousada's satisfying Game Cookery (John Murray, 15.95).
It reminds me of eating wild boar in Tuscany where fennel seed is traditionally added to give an edge to the flavour.
Wild Boar Hamburgers Ingredients: 450g (1lb) lean boar meat from shoulder or loin 50g (2oz) fresh boar or pork back fat 3tbs breadcrumbs 2tbs fresh cream 2tbs fennel seed 1 ? tsp fine sea salt Freshly ground black pepper Small pinch ground cloves and nutmeg Preparation: Mince the meat and fat and mix in the remaining ingredients, or mix all the ingredients together in a food processor.
Shape the mixture into smallish hamburgers in the palm of your hands and, turning them once, grill them for about 5-7 minutes depending on how rare you like the meat.
Recipe: Filling formulas for filo
By LINDA SUE PARK
READER submissions for filo pastry recipes were a trickle rather than a torrent.
Postmarks were for the most part no further north than the Midlands.
But filo pastry is available in the North, because this week's winning recipe comes from Newcastle upon Tyne.
The quality of the recipes was such that it was difficult to choose which to publish.
Several readers like the combination of filo and fish or seafood  prawns, salmon, trout.
P Taylor from Chester recommends a filling of courgettes and pine nuts from the excellent Greens Cook Book (Bantam, 12.95).
Frances Craig from Middlesex sends a formula for a classic apple strudel, learnt when she was a washer-up in a German Gasthof.
But the winning recipe is for the filo fruit baskets, below, sent in by Margaret Crisell from Newcastle which wins her a bottle of 1987 Torres Milmanda wine from Pendes, Spain.
Savoury filo recipes next week; then we want the best recipe for game-bird stuffings.
Breadcrumb recipes are welcome but why not stretch to bulgur, rice, millet?
The prize is a bottle of Matusalem Oloroso sherry.
Send your suggestions, with source if not original, to Recipe/Weekend Section, The Independent, 40 City Road, London EC1Y 2DB.
Filo Fruit Baskets serves 4 Ingredients: filo pastry, cut into 5in squares 2oz butter, melted ? pint double cream, whipped 2tbs Greek yoghurt ? tsp ground ginger 2-4 pieces crystallised ginger, finely chopped 1tbs soft brown sugar Seasonal fruits, cut into small dice Preparation: Butter the outsides of four upturned ramekins.
Drape four or five squares of filo, each in a slightly different position, over each ramekin, brushing layers with melted butter.
Bake at 180C/ 350F/gas 4 for 20 minutes, until crisp and golden.
Cool, remove pastry and turn right side up.
Immediately before serving, fill with fruit and top with cream mixed with yoghurt and the gingers.
Food: Ping, unload, zap and refuel
By KEITH BOTSFORD
SOME 18 months ago I wrote about my own incompetence with and dislike for the microwave oven.
Now I have found out why.
My ideas about food are definitely passe.
A recent survey in the Wall Street Journal, America's only readable paper, has shown that the microwave is the nation's favourite household appliance, second only to the smoke alarm in terms of its importance to the American lifestyle.
The microwave, says the Journal, is' the embodiment of Eighties-style individualism, turning each family member into a chef.
Gone is the sanctity of the family meal.
Irretrievably altered is the role of Mom, the nurturer '.
The present pattern is an ultra-sound bite, one for each member of the family, or a six-pack for guests if such people still exist.
Kids in shorts can stick My Own Meal, Kids Kitchen and Kid Cuisine (all from Campbells) in the little box, turn the knob, wait briefly, unload, zap down their food and get back to the major business of life, the latest video.
The loveliest remarks on this phenomenon come from the corporate convenience food conveyancers.
Consider Joel Weiner, a senior vice-president in the Kraft division (you know it, it makes the world's worst cheese) of Philip Morris.
Weiner says that in the Eighties we've gone past the ' grazing ' stage, in which we picked at this and that all day long, to ' refuelling ': the pit-stop in which we shovel food in our mouths as fast as we can.
If speed is of the essence  and all marketing surveys say it is  then the microwave is the manufacturers' version of the licence to print money.
Time is money and, after money, time is what the masses crave most.
Ergo, the manufacturers no longer dare market food that takes more than 10 minutes to prepare.
In my own lifetime, the changes have accelerated.
I grew up in a house where the smells of preparation and cooking began, below stairs, not long after I rose.
In my youth the time required to prepare a meal, even a simple one, was usually two hours.
By the Seventies this had been cut down, thanks to the pressure cooker, hotter ovens and the first electric gadgets, to an hour.
Ten years ago, surveys showed people were willing to put in a half-hour in the kitchen.
It's 10 minutes today: less than a cat puts in on a bird.
Nor is it just time that is in question.
Convenience means just that.
Many people today are too lazy even to open a tin.
Tomorrow's meal, like an astronaut's dinner, comes in a plastic bag.
But that is not all.
Mona Doyle, president of Consumer Network Inc in Philadelphia which studies our food habits, has a philosophical point of some interest.
She thinks the microwave ' has changed our perceptions of time, much as telephones changed them at the turn of the century '.
Her proof is in the restaurant trade: ' Even fast food restaurants (do) not seem fast, because at home you don't have to wait in line. '
You know how it is with these developments.
We get genetically (and culinarily) imprinted with them.
You used to walk to the store; now you ride.
You used to shop daily, now it's weekly.
Fresh has become frozen.
Kitchen travail was for reward; now you get gratification without labour.
Roles were defined: mother in the kitchen, father owlishly awaiting his dinner, kids scrubbing their hands.
Now there is to be the universal democracy of the microwave.
Father wants tandoori duck, mother something green, the kids go for nachos except for studious Cecil, who wants Raymond Blanc in a package.
The schedule advances only on when the microwave is free.
Conversation at table is as superfluous as a sermon in church; all is still but for the ping of the latest microwave masterpiece.
Campbells' Richard Nelson has it right.
Today's kids' are being imprinted with the microwave, not the stove '.
The hearth as metaphor is dead.
But the Journal also comes up with some curious contradictions: 36 per cent blame the microwave for poorer flavour, 20 per cent think it makes food soggy.
The Journal's final lament is to the grilled cheese sandwich or the croque monsieur.
Once a golden brown staple, crisp on the outside and creamy within, it has gone the way of all flesh.
But in this rather frightening vision of the present and future, so have all the things I learnt to care about in eating: flavour, texture, invention, subtlety, companionship  and leisure, which marks the end of the working day and the use of time, not its gobbling.
Food: Sad decline of a fishy business: Customers are deserting Billingsgate market to buy direct from the ports, says Deirdre McQuillan
By DEIRDRE MCQUILLAN
I do like to be able to pick a fish up by its head, ' William Black said, waving a sea bass in rigor mortis at me, before going on to inspect its gills.
He makes a bleary-eyed and disorientating living between Rungis, the wholesale fish market on the south side of Paris, and London, where he supplies fish to restaurants such as Tante Claire, Alistair Little and Suntory.
His is just one example of the new enterprises supplying fish to shops or restaurants that cut out Billingsgate market; for they also cut out the 25 per cent or so that trading through the market adds to the cost of fish.
Independent fishmongers often buy directly from the ports using Billingsgate, the central wholesale market for shops and restaurants across the whole of southern England, as a back-up.
' If they don't get their finger out, they will lose almost all their business to the direct trade, ' is Jim Moran's succinct analysis of the market's future.
From a family of fish merchants, he has served on Billingsgate committees and all but despairs of ' them ever getting on with the real business of selling fish '.
He estimates that the market handles only 50 per cent of the trade in fresh fish in southern England.
Mr Moran added to that decline when his Billingsgate-based merchant business, R W Larkin, opened a swanky new fishmonger in London's King's Road to which fish is delivered from port agents around Britain, and also from Boulogne.
' As wholesalers we felt that Billingsgate was not offering us the facilities we needed, ' he explains.
' We still trade from there, but in order to thrive we have had to look at better ways of selling. '
The shop has two aims.
One is to see if adventurous buying, lavish displays and good service (which includes opening until 7pm and for a half-day on Sunday) will galvanise the public.
The other is to provide a more convenient location for restaurant customers.
' Chefs don't want to get up at six in the morning to go to Docklands, ' Mr Moran says.
Although it seems that the South is recovering its appetite for fresh fish, with restaurants buying about 30 per cent of the fish sold in the area, there is no doubt that there has been a positive nosedive in the demand for fresh fish in Britain as whole.
Sales have fallen by as much as 60 per cent in the last 40 years.
As a result, fishmongers have disappeared: their numbers dropped from 9,000 in 1971 to 3,000 in 1981.
A recent report on fish retailing, compiled by the market research company Keynote, records the number of wet fish shops in the south of England having declined by 60 per cent in 27 years.
Since the days when oysters were as everyday a dish as hamburgers are now, we have reached a point where each person eats only an average of 1.2oz of fresh fish a week.
Billingsgate has presided over this decline with all the grace of an oligarchy that sees its power declining.
It has stuck to an antiquated way of operating that harks back to the days of guild power, and has refused to countenance criticism.
Transport arrangements within the market are strictly regulated.
Porters must be hired to move any amount of fish, however small, and minders paid to look after customers' trucks.
No prices are written down and there is no competitive bidding.
All a buyer gets to see are the sample boxes opened on the trading floor, on the strength of which he negotiates with the merchant.
This is how markets operate the world over, but distrust of Billingsgate's dealing seems to be a problem.
Nicholas Roe, a writer who used to be a fishmonger, says: ' I seemed to spend more time sending fish back than selling it.
I had to move further and further back down the line to the boats. '
Horror stories abound: of the rogue's law that prevented any port agent who sold directly to fishmongers from ever trading with a Billingsgate merchant again; of the nepotism that determined who could have a stand in the market; and of prices that varied according to who you were and whether you had a good introduction.
These stories are commonplace, although those involved are wary of going on record.
On trips organised for food writers, public perfidy is a popular lament.
The shopper, so the refrain goes, doesn't know how to cook fresh fish, can't cope with bones, won't pay a fair price and will only be persuaded to buy the traditional species.
The traditional fishmonger wasn't up to much either, apparently, selling the same varieties of fish to the same ageing customers.
Now it is the turn of Billingsgate to feel anxious, although according to Lou Hart, chairman of the London Fish Merchants' Association, Billingsgate has nothing to fear: ' We offer an unrivalled service.
No one else has the range of fish.
' The porterage system is antiquated but it works efficiently.
If we could think of a better system we would introduce it.
' Customers are coming back to Billingsgate because they know what they are getting.
Problems with short weights are being tackled and if fish has been on the market overnight, the person buying it is aware.
' Contrary to what people think, we are well prepared for 1992.
We are going to be ahead of any market in Europe. '
Traipsing around after William Black through the cold, wet trading floors of Rungis, however, it was immediately apparent that the size of the Paris operation and the variety of fish dwarfed London.
Refrigerated juggernauts from all over Europe wait outside the doors.
He explained that on the Continent it is taken for granted that fish caught on a line by small boats should command a premium for the careful handling that preserves both flavour and texture.
' British fishermen are beginning to use lines rather than nets, but they are selling to the Continent because they'd be daft not to.
' It must sometimes be the case that I bring British fish back to London, but it will probably be in better condition than if it had been bought there as foreign agents insist on good transport and packing. '
We stopped at one of his regular suppliers and cadged a few sea urchins, then the knife to eat them with.
' Fish is such wonderful stuff, so perishable and so delicate, ' enthuses Mr Black, waving at the glorious display of shellfish all around us.
' It is not treated by the trade in Britain with anything like the respect it is given in France.
' In the fish business, 1992 has already arrived.
There is one market across Europe and the prices the Germans and Italians will pay are even surprising the French.
They will pay whatever it takes to get Scots crayfish and Dublin Bay prawns into the shops and restaurants in beautiful condition, when no one back home can be bothered.
That is why I prefer to work from here. '
As an example, he opened a case of red mullet  the fashionable restaurant fish of the moment  which he had just bought.
' Now this is packed in three-kilo boxes, filled properly with ice of just the right size.
Large lumps bruise the skin.
The mullet have been carefully interleaved in the box, rather than shoved in.
' If I bought red mullet in England, I would probably get a two-stone cardboard box.
Two stone is really too large to handle carefully and as for cardboard and ice  well, you can imagine.
The quality of the ice and the arrangement of the fish would be far more haphazard and so, by the time the fish are delivered, their stomachs will have split. '
Alex Griffiths, Marks &amp; Spencer's fish executive, was surprised at the idea that the company might have even contemplated using Billingsgate when it began selling fresh fish nationally four years ago.
' I go to the market regularly to see what is happening, ' he says, ' but our entire trading policy is based on building relations with suppliers.
Our suppliers buy direct from the ports, prepare and pack the fish for us and then we have it on the shelves within 24 hours.
We stipulate temperature and handling at every stage.
Going though another stage would mean a loss of control. '
With restaurants, supermarkets, wholesalers, single fishmongers and foreign buyers all scrabbling for the best fish, the implications for Billingsgate are clear.
In the opinion of Tim Lucas, a director of the wholesale company Simson: ' Billingsgate is, shall we say, a little tired.
There has been such a growth in direct dealing that fish is only getting sent to Billingsgate when no one else wants it. '
But Jim Moran believes Billingsgate has already found its niche.
' Billingsgate is a good place for cheap fish, ' he says.
' There is a need for fish that has been on the market a couple of days.
It is not the image which people like you want to know about, but it is true.
The British like cheap food. '
Nicholas Roe concluded our conversation rather surprisingly by saying: ' Billingsgate is a really tough environment, you work long hours and grow old quickly.
You shouldn't be too hard on it. '
It seems all the more of a waste if those long, cold hours only result in stale fish.
Drink: Desire in search of a name: Do the French have the ' mot juste ' to describe the desire for a reviving drink?
In the first of a monthly series, Michael Jackson hunts in vain
By MICHAEL JACKSON
THANK God it's Saturday.
I know that today is Saturday because already I am thirsty for a dry, hoppy pint of bitter at the end of the afternoon: an aperitif to sharpen my appetite for this evening's Indian meal.
How did you feel as you came to the end of your working week yesterday afternoon?
Boy, I had a thirst.
We say we are thirsty when we mean that we fancy a glass of wine, a pint of beer, a gin and tonic or a shot of whisky  the pleasure of naming our poison  at the end of a busy day or tiresome week.
That is not thirst.
To enjoy it, we do not need to be dry: just in need of a restorative or relaxant, or maybe a focus for a social moment or brief encounter.
We call it ' thirst ' in lieu of a more accurate description.
No, not more accurate: ' thirst ' is not accurate at all as a description for this apparently indescribable condition.
It is a desire millions of us know and share, yet for which we have no name.
This desire that can not find its name (though it would dare speak it, if it could) is pleasurable.
It is as enjoyable as feeling gently hungry or amorous.
No, not amorous: randy  we have a word for that.
Any of these conditions is pleasurable so long as there is a good likelihood of satisfaction in reasonably short order.
Let puritans and pessimists damn, disapprove or dismiss these appetites; that is their loss.
Those of us who enjoy them need only a name for each condition, so that we may discuss them in expectation and in recollection.
Come to think of it, neither hunger nor randiness hits quite the spot.
Peckishness and lust, perhaps?
Or does that sound like a firm of country solicitors?
This is to digress.
What of this thirst that can be satisfied by an unquenching drink?
Wine is not quenching, but no less in demand for that.
Try to quench your thirst with a light, fresh white and you will drink enough to put you on your back.
Beer is, quite rightly, Britain's favourite Friday night drink.
It can momentarily blunt a thirst, but not altogether cut it.
The nearest to being quenching is the ' white ' beer of Berlin.
Anything with even a modest smack of hops dries the palate ready for the next one.
So, of course, does alcohol itself.
It may for a moment seem to quench but it dehydrates, as purportedly healthy abstainers are forever telling me.
To quench is more than to refresh although our lying, lascivious eyes tell us the two are the same.
Does any drink look more quenching than one of those Italian or French patent aperitifs, swirling in a refractive pink or russet oiliness, clothing the melting ice: a Campari, Dubonnet, Lillet or (too rare in this country) a Picon?
Are they quenching?
No, refreshing.
In Strasburg, they have been known to lace beer with Picon, thereby ruining both drinks (as Queen Victoria reputedly did with claret and malt whisky), but still the result is not especially quenching.
Perhaps a shimmering dry Martini cocktail (minimum dilution, stirred, not shaken; and served straight up) looks even more refreshing, though its effect is that of a silver mallet.
In the right place (possibly New York, but San Francisco is better), the Martini is the ultimate ' Thank God it's Friday ' drink.
The requirement for such pleasures is a matter of time and place, and it does not have to be Friday, Berlin or Strasburg, New York or San Francisco.
Not feeling thirsty, but fancying a drink, has a world of moments.
Some Frenchmen start the day with a coffee and calvados.
The people of Munich call their version of Weissbier ' breakfast beer ' and have it with a pair of coddled veal sausages.
New Orleans favours a mid-morning milk punch, or its own variation on the gin fizz.
If the moment is before a lunch on the plane, it really ought to be a Bloody Mary.
If it is at an elegant dinner table, there is a choice between a fino sherry (or a manzanilla) or champagne.
None of these requires anything even approaching a thirst.
Do we really ' wash down ' a good meal with claret?
Port is immediately suggested by Stilton; cognac by coffee.
I do not fully appreciate the experience of an American late-night movie without a bourbon, or a book at bedtime without a single malt.
These are not moments of thirst... but nor are they causes of drunkenness (unless one tries to pack all such experiences into one day).
We do not drink because we are thirsty.
Nor, if we are in civilised cast of mind, because we wish to become drunk.
A friend of mine says that her body tells her, without being asked, the season of the year.
At the end of summer, her body stops wanting gin and tonics and suddenly desires whisky.
If it were only a matter of alcohol, would a body care?
People will nevertheless say that the desire is for nothing more than alcohol.
So why not a pill or an injection?
Because there would be no colour, no ritual, no time and place, no glorious variety.
Worst of all, there would be no aroma, taste, texture or finish.
These are sensuous pleasures at their most enjoyable when we ritualise them, but how do we feel when we desire them?
We, who have so many words in our language, have none for this.
But then, do the French, Spanish or Italians have a word for it?
Perhaps they do; maybe I have not being paying attention; too busy with the eau-de-vie, anis or grappa.
Do the Greeks have a word for it?
Could we borrow, beg or invent one?
Answers in a bottle, please.
If you are feeling  for lack of a better word -thirsty, let's meet again next month.
Same time, same place?
It will be my turn to get them in, I think.
Food and Drink Update: Menu for number 10
By MICHAEL JACKSON
THE silly question is an essential ingredient to most competitions.
In the case of the last round of the Young Cook of Britain competition, to be judged on 17 October, regional finalists were asked which famous person they would like to cook for.
Julia Noon, aged 12, of St Anne's on Sea, Lancashire, took the politic and patriotic route and wrote to 10 Downing Street to find out the Prime Minister's favourite foods.
She received a reply within four days.
Food and Drink Update: Seriously Spanish
By MICHAEL JACKSON
AS CHEAP and ersatz tapas bars continue to pop up on London street corners, it is easy to overlook serious Spanish food.
Benat Arroyabe, a young chef from San Sebastian, proved a notable exception during the last year by producing food of great elegance and flavour (witness capiscums filled with fresh cod and parsley sauce) in the Basque-oriented Guernica restaurant at 21a Foley Street, London W1 (01-580 0623).
Jose Ramon, a new chef who arrived at the Guernica two months ago, will hopefully maintain these high standards.
Another breeze from the Basque country, this one long-awaited, will be felt in the cookery world from 12 October with the publication of Maria Jose Sevilla's Life and Food in the Basque Country (Weidenfeld &amp; Nicolson, 12.95).
The author, a co-founder of the information department promoting Spanish food in Britain, has refrained from the greasy chorizo and rough rioja marketing rush.
Instead, she has spent the last two years working on a book chronicling Basque life through its kitchens and markets.
Food and Drink Update: Small beginnings
By MICHAEL JACKSON
THE restaurant industry has two things in common with the film industry: the high failure rate among its small businesses and the abundance of ' how to ' wisdom.
The message behind ' How to open and operate a small restaurant '  a series of six lectures in Chester organised by Leith's School of Food and Wine  may well be chapter and verse on ' how not to '.
The lecturer, Martin Wood, counts equally successful those students of the courses he has given since 1984, at Leith's School of Food and Wine in London, who subsequently decided not to open restaurants.
Mr Wood's own experience in the restaurant business spans 20 years.
Numbering among those of his students who have opened restaurants is Sian Sutherland-Dodd, whose London restaurant, Sutherlands, was named 1989 Soho Newcomer of the Year by The Good Food Guide.
' The course is good because it makes you think about things like how to lay out a kitchen, ' Ms Sutherland-Dodd says.
She recommends as essential, however, working in someone else's restaurant first, as she did in Nick Lander's L'Escargot.
Martin Wood's course begins on 1 November, running six consecutive Wednesdays at the Greenbank Centre, Eaton Road, Chester, Cheshire, from 6.30pm.
Fee 175.
Drink: October wine rack
By ANTHONY ROSE
AS WE reported at the beginning of September, an increase in the fixed price agreed each year between Champagne's growers and merchants seemed inevitable, putting further pressure on prices that are already affected by rising demand.
Sure enough, due to prospects this year of a vintage declaration and an estimated shortfall of supply over demand (although the latest estimated harvest figure has gone up from 250 to 274 million bottles), the price per kilo of grapes was fixed at 26.77 French francs, a 13.78 per cent increase over last year.
Among the champagne houses that have already increased their prices to the wine trade are Moet et Chandon (9.6 per cent), Laurent Perrier (4.9 per cent), Bollinger (about 3 per cent) and Lanson (about 4 per cent).
The following companies are planning further increases in the new year as well: Mumm (about 4 per cent) and Heidsieck Monopole (about 4 per cent).
Those holding their prices, at least until the new year, include Veuve Clicquot and Perrier-Jouet.
Even where price increases have taken place, retailers with good stocks may be able to cushion the blow for a while.
But with Christmas not that far off, some forward champagne planning is definitely in order.
An impressive new range comes from Thresher's five new Wine Rack stores (four in London, one in Gerrards Cross) which, with a 12.5 per cent case discount, aim to offer the cheapest champagne prices in the high street.
Two of the best-value offers in the Wine Rack are the attractive Bricourt Carte Noire (9.99 bottle/ 8.74 case bottle) and Charles Heidsieck 1982, a classy, golden vintage champagne (12.99 bottle/ 11.37 case bottle).
Also worth seeking out is Victoria Wine's new 1983 vintage champagne with its classic ' biscuity ' character (11.99) as is Waitrose's rich, winy 1983 Extra Dry vintage fizz (10.50).
And now for something completely different: cheap and cheerful claret.
Two good examples from Victoria Wine are its house claret, juicy and a touch almondy, a good buy at 2.89; and Baron Rocheau 1988, 2.49, which is soft, a touch green and stalky, but still good value.
Also from selected Victoria Wine stores is a sauternes in half-bottles with all the creamy, nutty complexity you might expect from a more elevated chateau, a snip at 2.99.
Going Out to Eat and Drink: Days of pie and mash: Susan Ellicott tucks into plates of British tradition
By SUSAN ELLICOTT
ONE PIE, one mash.
One pie, two mash.
Two pie, one mash.
Two pie, two mash.
The menu at Manze 's, in London's Tower Bridge Road, by Bermondsey Antiques Market, may not be extensive but at 1.20 for one pie, one mash - sloshed with parsley sauce  there is little reason for customers to argue.
' Well, there is a choice, ' says Graham Poole, whose grandfather started the shop in 1895.
' They can take it or leave it. '
This is a no-nonsense restaurant full of regulars: a child on Dad's shoulders; teenagers in Day-Glo shorts who skateboard away afterwards; workmen in overalls; weary shoppers with bulky carrier bags stopping off before getting the bus home.
The lunch hour is like a time warp  give or take a few price increases.
The walls are covered with original cream and emerald tiles.
Without the restaurant's 10 grey and white marble tables, wooden pew-like seats and two whirring overhead fans, the interior would have the atmosphere of a beautiful  and meticulously clean  Victorian public convenience.
' The hardest thing is keeping it looking the same, ' says Mr Poole, ' mainly because of modern health and safety regulations. '
He winces as he recounts how builders recently suggested he replace the ' M. Manze ' above the door  in gold-leaf on glass  with a plastic sign.
Someone else quoted him 30 to replace a broken fan.
Imagining his grandfather turning in his grave at the very thought, he paid 120 to repair the old one.
Generations of customers will thank him.
Many remember eating jellied eels  still on the menu, along with eels and mash  with their parents.
And the restaurant is often crowded with aficionados getting their fix of nostalgia.
A novice struggling through one of Manze's pies  crisp golden pastry on top and soggy pastry below  is quickly spotted and given a cursory instruction in the art of pie-eating by a Bermondsey-born professional.
' You don't look like you're enjoying that.
That's because you didn't put vinegar on it.
You sprinkle it on and then cut the pie into pieces. '
But why the soft pastry?
' Why do Beefeaters wear those silly hats and hang around the Tower of London?
It's tradition, isn't it? ' says Dennis Thompson, an ambulance driver who eats at Manze's at least three times a week.
He mops his brow as he demolishes a double helping of pie, salty mash and pale green gravy.
' At home you can never get the gravy like they do here, ' confides one elderly woman.
' They use the water from the jellied eels. '
Mr Poole, however, is not giving away any secrets.
He is none too pleased that one of the waitresses has let on that the pies are made with two different pastries.
Outsiders are not invited into the basement kitchen.
' We've always used the same recipe, ' he says.
Scotch beef comes from Smithfield Market, fresh each day, boned and minced.
The vinegar  one plain and one with chilli  comes in whisky bottles.
Two gallons are used daily.
Salt and pepper sit on the tables in old jam-jars: ' The biggest containers possible and they still get nicked, ' says Mr Poole.
On Saturdays, hungry customers queue along the pavement beneath Manze's green awning that is sandwiched between a dry-cleaner's and a men's clothing store.
The smell of stewed eels streams from a steaming vat into the busy street.
Even the late Roy Orbison has eaten pie and mash here.
He turned up unannounced one day, during a break from a television appearance, with a minder who wanted to give him a taste of real working-class London.
A youthful ' Big O ' smiles from a signed photograph among the plastic bottles behind the counter.
' The trouble is, ' says Mr Poole, ' people say now, ' How long before he died did he come here? '
' Manze 's, 87 Tower Bridge Road, London SE1 (01-407 2985).
Open Mon 11am-2pm, Tues-Thur from 10.30am, Fri-Sat 10am-2.30pm.
Going Out to Eat and Drink: Old delis at the centre of the soul system: Delicatessens are the culinary outposts of our European immigrants.
Ellen Galford joins the queues in Scotland to buy heritage over the counter
By ELLEN GALFORD
FOR immigrant communities  Italians, Jews, and others who have the passion for good, simple food bred into their souls  a traditional delicatessen is the centre of the universe.
The name of the old homeland may have been wiped off the map, the native Tuscan village may have mutated into Chiantishire, but in London's Soho or downtown Manhattan, in Glasgow or in East Coast America's polyglot suburbs, these are the places where history  private and collective  is still alive.
Originally, the deli was an antidote to culture shock, where all the salt, sweet, hot, sharp, garlicky flavours of home could be conjured up between two pieces of bread.
Meals were eaten on shop premises  noisy, welcoming outposts of the mother country.
To post-war generations, the deli has become a way to stay connected, through the taste buds with their roots.
Scotland's Italian immigrants have been the most generous and benevolent of culinary missionaries.
Their contributions to the serious arts of fish-frying and ice-cream making are well documented; they have allayed indigenous suspicion about garlic; and, in Glasgow and Edinburgh, they have established two of the country's finest delicatessens.
In Glasgow, Fazzi Brothers' Caffe-Bar, adjoining the Cambridge Street branch of the family's 70-year-old delicatessen business, fits in nicely with the Glaswegian notion of la dolce vita: sparky but unhurried conversation, compulsive people-watching, searching critiques of the nearby Sauchiehall Street shoe shops, and comparative study of each other's purchases, all washed down with copious amounts of coffee and a plate of voluptuous cakes.
In the morning, breakfasts may be classic continental with fresh fruit juice and Italian-style croissants and pastries, or savoury treats such as focaccia  slabs of rich bread dough baked with herbs and olive oil.
The beans for the house coffee are roasted fresh every day in the Fazzis' other premises in Clyde Street.
By some mysterious alchemy it seems possible to drink two or more cups of the mellow cappuccino or caffe crema without suffering the jangle of caffeine overload.
The espresso, in small cups, is dark and serious and packs a more powerful punch.
Italian-style cold drinks, such as iced coffee granita or a zingy blend of fresh fruit juices and grenadine, are also worth exploring.
For a more serious snack, aficionados make time to study the delicatessen counter before ordering.
Any of the meats, cheeses, marinated vegetables or salads on sale can be made into a custom-designed sandwich.
The charcuterie, with seasonal variations, includes about two dozen different Italian salamis and sausages, Parma ham and the more delicately flavoured San Daniele.
Look out also for such exotica as malegato, an aromatic Italian equivalent of traditional Scots black pudding.
At lunch hours things get busy as customers queue up for the small range of soft pasta dishes and such daily specials as vegetable lasagne or a spicy Italian-sausage casserole  all moderately priced and consistently good.
For those with a sweet tooth (few Glaswegians are without one), the gateaux are suitably elaborate.
As Fazzi Brothers is to Glasgow and the west of Scotland, the magisterial Italian food and wine merchant Valvona and Crolla is to Edinburgh and the east.
Here, unfortunately, no restaurant area is yet available to allow customers to eat what they buy where they buy it, but the time spent waiting for a takeaway sandwich will be an invaluable education in Italian food.
The shop, established in 1934 and now run by the founder's grandsons, is undoubtedly one of the most important delicatessens in the country, vast in its range of goods and uncompromising in its quality.
Outside, it is easy to miss: the narrow shopfront is identified only by the Italian flags hanging overhead.
Inside, customers thread their way between stacks of every imaginable pasta, pickles and condiments, flasks of vintage olive oils, stacks of imported biscuits, panforte and panettone.
Service is at a counter backed by one of Britain's most comprehensive collections of serious Italian wines: more than 500 different varieties are on offer.
To the novice first impressions may be chaotic, but the temptation to turn away and come back at some quieter time should be resisted.
There are few, if any, quieter times.
Here again, all the glories of the delicatessen counter  marinated artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes in virgin olive oil, seafood salads and the rich home-made pesto  are available in sandwich form.
Those wanting to voyage further than comparatively familiar delicacies such as coppa, pancetta or fennel-flavoured salami, should look upwards.
At certain times of the year, hanging from the ceiling amid the festoons of dried sausages, cheeses, onions and garlic, will be a haunch of wild boar.
When manager Victor Contini judges that the moment is right, the haunch is brought down to be skinned, boned, cured and thinly sliced like Parma ham.
At 5 per quarter, this rarity is not exactly a budget snack, but with a focaccia still warm from the oven and accompanied by a few herb-steeped olives, it could be the most extraordinary sandwich you ever eat.
Going Out to Eat and Drink: More scope for cross-cultural encounters
By ELLEN GALFORD
LONDON UNCLE Ian's Deli-Diner has got things determinedly backwards.
Old World trappings of the Jewish corner shop have been forsaken in favour of the glaring lights, imitation bentwood chairs and lurid indoor awnings of a suburban American fast-food parlour.
Yet portions cling to the style of days gone by, when a salt beef sandwich might have been the single meal of the day.
The manic tone behind this two-year-old north London deli, however, is timeless.
Uncle Ian is fond of jokes and posters.
A meal eaten in his deli is likely to be spent reading the likes of ' Your spouse found out you're having an affair?
Well, have Uncle Ian cater it!!! '
Experienced Temple Fortune locals seem to prefer to peer away from the posters at the television set perched atop the soft drinks cooler.
Mostly timeless, too, is the kosher-style deli menu: salt beef on rye with mustard; chopped liver; pastrami and salad; chicken soup ' with everything '; and the odd interloper, like peanut butter and cream cheese.
(Emily Green) Uncle Ian's Deli-Diner, 1105 Finchley Road, Temple Fortune, NW11 (01-458 3493).
Open 9am-11.30pm daily, except 4pm closing Fridays.
Like all good delis, La Galicia in Clapham is a family concern, run by Gloria Ricot with help from her twin sister Clara.
After 12 years of growing success with the shop, Gloria opened a wine/tapas bar on the premises in May this year.
With stocks consisting largely of wines from Navarra and Rioja, the place now has the unusual advantage of both on- and off-licences for alcohol.
The salty, fishy odour of baccala (dried salt cod) hits you at the door, and there is a good selection of Spanish pork products, not forgetting chorizo sausage and serrano ham.
There are eight varieties of olives, bulk and bottled, including a Californian one stuffed with jalapeno; olive oil, most famously Carbonell whose comely wench pictured on the labels must be the emblem of Spanish olive oil in British imaginations, comes in gallon tins rather than fancy little bottles.
A wide range of deCecco pasta, among the best of the dried brands, jostles for space on the shelves next to pretty tin boxes of turron, Spanish almond nougat.
In the compact bar space at the back of the store you can perch on a stool and eat tapas, sandwiches or a hot meal, washed down with cappuccino or Spanish beer.
The Ricots make paella almost every day by popular demand; the Saturday special is churros (fried twisted dough) and a hot cup of chocolate for 1.
(Linda Sue Park) La Galicia, 148 Clapham Manor Street, SW4 (01-622 0599).
Open 9am-7.30pm Mon-Sat.
MANCHESTER Laps has been an institution for almost 60 years.
Many a Jewish courtship has got off to a somewhat greasy start over pickled brisket sandwiches and chips on fine evenings outside the deli.
The less pubescent diner can cast a detached eye on this ritual from six Formica-topped tables inside the tiny deli-restaurant.
Although Laps has now passed out of the benign hands of David and Lotte Lapidus, who ran it for some 50 years, the tradition lives on as does the style of cuisine, best described by the Yiddish word hamisch.
Nothing fancy and lots of it.
Pickled brisket and chopped and fried fish are the specialities, although at times Laps bizarrely mixes the Eastern European tradition with that of south Lancashire.
There can be few other places in the world where you can wash down a chopped herring sandwich with a glass of hot Vimto.
(Martin Kelner) Lapidus, 21 Bury Old Road, Prestwich (061 740 3095).
Open Tues-Thur 5.30pm-11pm; Sun 11.30am-3pm.
Food: Feast of indelicate edibles: Chaim Bermant hankers for herrings
By CHAIM BERMANT
DELICATESSEN, as the name suggests, means delicate edibles, but delicate these edibles are not.
They assault the sense, savage the palate, ravage one's innards and announce themselves in loud, pungent terms so that one gets wind of them long before one catches sight of them.
But I love them.
Basically they are titbits and are designed to excite the appetite rather than assuage it.
As food they are meant principally for the non-hungry, the non-domesticated, those who can just summon the energies to open a tin of pate de foie gras or unwind a rollmop.
I was born in what is now Russia, and when I came to Scotland shortly before the war the small Jewish grocery shops in the Gorbals district of Glasgow were my main link with home.
I still remember their names: Ixe 's, Fogels, Ettingers, Callendars.
And their wares: huge, steaming loaves of black Russian bread, glossy bagels, crispy pretzels, cinnamon cakes, long, crudely circumcised phallic rolls of salami, pickled gherkins and  their hallmark - open barrels of salt herrings.
I only had to shut my eyes and inhale and I was back in Russia.
To me delicatessen means herring, 1,001 varieties of herring, but I did not always regard them as such if only because I virtually lived on them.
The herring was to the Eastern European Jew what potatoes were to the Irish, which is surprising, for the herring is a salt-water fish and in Russia and Poland one rarely got a glimpse of the sea.
But Jews know a good thing when they taste it and alighted on the herring because it was inexpensive, piquant, nutritious and versatile.
The herring was never quite considered a member of the fish family.
The carp and pike, which were found locally, were kitted out with lavish trimmings and served on the Sabbath and at festivals.
The humble herring was treated as crude workaday fare, and in our household we might have pickled herring on Sunday, soused herring on Monday, herrings in sour cream on Tuesday, schmaltz herring on Wednesday, and herrings fried in matzo meal on Thursday.
When we moved to Scotland I discovered the greatest delicacy of all  the smoked herring, or kipper.
I am sure the warm affinities between Scots and Jews arise out of appreciation of herrings.
I also came upon a mysterious animal I had not seen before: much larger than the herring, redder and infinitely more expensive.
They called it smoked salmon and I immediately concluded it was some sort of rich man's herring.
The Gorbals is no more and neither are the small Jewish grocery shops.
One is hard pressed even to find them in London.
Instead one has delicatessens which are more brightly lit and infinitely more hygienic than the small corner shops I have known, but with their fridges and freezers and extraction fans they have tamed their wares and robbed them of their pungency.
One's sense of smell, always deeply involved in the joy of the delicatessen, has been rendered virtually redundant.
But more than that, all the goods, and especially the innumerable varieties of herring, have gone upmarket.
If salmon is still the rich man's herring, one can no longer think of herrings as the poor man's salmon for they have become so expensive that one buys them by the troy ounce.
All of which shows that one man's staple is another man's delicatessen or, rather, that the necessities of one generation can become the luxuries of the next.
