Posted by We’ve just been in Belgium. Our diet’s been very diverse, incorporating all sorts of beers, all sorts of cheeses and both mayonnaise and spiced mayonnaise. We like to think we know what we’re talking about when it comes to sports nutrition and we can therefore confirm that the revelations about the England cricket team’s dietary stipulations are slightly irritating.
Why? Modern Australia’s pretentious eating habits can no longer be ridiculed because the England cricket team have matched them quinoa for quinoa. You can’t very well mock Australians’ love of tofu and mung beans when your sporting representatives are knocking back the agave nectar. A joke has been stolen. There is no greater crime that that. (There absolutely is – don’t use this as part of your defence if you’re being tried for war crimes.)
The other major irritation arising from this almost certainly Ashes-winning menu is that it’s basically given a load of publicity to a certain manufacturer of protein supplements. We’ve nothing against the brand in question. Its just that this legitimises having an official supplier and repeatedly using their brand name where an ordinary word will do as if no alternative exists. We didn’t try and make out that we’d only been drinking De Halve Maan Straffe Hendrik for the past four days, did we? No – our blurred vision takes in broader horizons.
This is why some players have taken a lot of time to reach their potential in the England team, James Anderson in particular. He bowled well for Lancs, then poorly for England for some years. It was the sudden introduction of middle class foods that did this to him. His delicate Burnley constitution couldn’t handle fresh food. He needed offal, all the bits that the gentry wouldn’t eat, the ones with actual taste and flavour.
I suggest a transition phase for such players in future – muesli maybe, but with gravy instead of milk.
Love how the comments on the article are mostly Murali-bashing. Quite what he has to do with three figures per head meals is beyond me.
Is Straffe Hendrick by any chance related to the Darley Dale Dynamo, Derbyshire and England’s Mike Hendrick?:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/player/14159.html
I wonder what Big Mike chowed down for tea before his evening session exertions? Bakewell Tart?
Is it true that the Belgians put french fries on their waffles?
Yes. And moules on their mayonnaise.
But do they put gravy and cheese on their fries?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poutine
They put gravy & cheese on their fries, but don’t call it poutine. (PS Need really good quality fries/chips and white cheese curds so fresh they squeak. To this I add that Ikea gravy they serve with the meatballs.)
Had to tell Australian/Pommie husband that if he wanted chips at Schiphol he needed to look for the sign that said “Belgian Fries” and that they might be amazed that he did wanted them with no gloop on top of them.
On a related note, the husband is now making chips for a chip buttie. I think I’m going to spew. How can you lot eat such things? #NotOnTheApprovedListOfEnglandTeamFoods
#BetBresWouldEatOne
I was particularly interested that “There are separate meal and drink requirements for England’s Twenty20 and one-day internationals.”
Presumably the idea is that the T20 and Test squads are going to develop different physiques. Maybe, once evolution takes its toll, they are even going to diverge into different species?
Thinking of another sport where different codes promoted different physiques… maybe LOI players will eventually look more like rugby league players, and Test players exhibit the greater physical variety of rugby union?
Certainly Dwayne Leverock deserved to be a Test-match legend, and I’d hate to see cricket not have room (ahem) for the likes of Inzamam or Boon or Ranatunga.
I hope you got paid handsomely for this post
We are still paying for elements of this post.
For some reason this post reminded me about Ashish Nehra eating a banana and bringing it straight back up again on the boundary line.
That’s what posts like this one do, KC. Mess with my mind.
I never should have clicked on the link to the story, because it is with great difficulty that I am going to be able to write this without resorting to profanity.
So, England want healthy and interesting food. Fair enough. But when they trot out some celebrity chef I have never heard of to give the opinion that the food is “on-trend”, that makes me furious.
On-trend food? [Deleted] off. I use bloody agave nectar (superfood my arse) because it dissolves easily in lemonade and iced tea. And kale being nutritious is nothing new. I recall knowing that over 20 years ago, when I first became a vegetarian. [Deleted]ing bloody [deleted] [deleted].
I’ve never heard of Gary Mehigan either.
The chef in the photo with “Chef” is Marco Pierre White, of whom I have heard. Indeed, back in the day, when he had but one restaurant, Harveys on Wandsworth Common, I ate Marco Pierre’s cooking, which was excellent. And not ridiculously expensive back then.
Coincidentally, I walked past the place only last week. It is now, appropriately for this thread, named “Chez Bruce”. Michelin-starred and accordingly-priced.
You are right, Jayne – agave nectar is not good for you, kale is good for you. But these foods are “on-trend” because some trends take a very long time to manifest themselves. Not all trends need to come and go in an instagram, you know.
KC, for example, has been lobbying on behalf of throdkin for years now. Throdkin is not merely super food; it is gradely food. It is certainly on trend, with the peak of the second great throdkin fad predicted to occur around 2075. Do remind us if that prediction proves to be correct.
Mitchell Johnson’s back!