big in chile

Recently I was quoted in the Independent, espousing the virtues of Chilean meat culture. It seems that the piece has been picked up in Chile, where one of that country’s leading news sites has based an article on the original feature. They’ve quoted me directly (albeit without mentioning my name), and rather than explain that I’m some some desperately lonely blogger with a tragically limited social life and a penchant for bizarre cooking challenges, they’ve referred to me as a friend of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, and proclaim that I’m responsible for the great man’s interest in meat. Indeed, as a badly translated version of the page explains:

Fearnley became addict to the savage knife after one of its friends traveled to our country and it told his experience him. “For the Chileans to buy meat it is an event, in the supermarkets have lengths containers and a staff of 7 to 8 butchers, all experts in the subject. In my first week of visit I went to five roasted. This it is a tremendous event of males, where the woman only feels to talk”, she summarizes the writer on the experience of its companion.

I like this new development. From now on, when people talk about HFW (as I’ve decided to call him) in my presence, I shall blithely explain how I’m the sole reason for his success, offering this article as proof. And I shall strut around like Francis Drake must have done after bringing potatoes back from the New World, as if I were responsible for some seismic shift in British culinary culture.

And then I’ll bring out my own savage knife, and slaughter something. Probably.

15 Comments

  1. Haha! So given that ive met you for half an hour i expect a mention as your childhood hero…

  2. You’re nothing without your robot BBQ, nothing!

  3. Did you also introduce HFW to the undercooked bacon and 6 vanilla thickshake combo?
    It was Walter Raleigh who discovered the Potato and also invented the modern bicycle.

  4. Huge Furry Wishingstool purchases healthfoods where I “work”

    :)

  5. Although most people assume Raleigh introduced the potato to Britain, it’s likely that history has treated him kindly – he only ever set foot in Virginia, where the potato was not indigenous. Drake, meanwhile, did return with sassafras, tobacco & potatoes.

    Ahh, the six-litre milkshake. I won’t be doing that again.

    I still undercook my bacon though…

  6. History’s full of misunderstandings that eventually become treated as fact. The Earth was meant to be inherited by some bloke called Mike. No idea how that whole meek thing came about.

  7. I thought i was the Greek who inherited the earth?

  8. I think that’s what I was trying to remember. Bill Bailey, isn’t it?

  9. I demand to be mentioned as the CHILEAN one who actually cooked that famous BBQ and then invited you to Chile!!…

  10. Yeah yeah yeah…

    OK, it was you, my good friend Andres of Santiago, Chile. The entire web community owes you a huge debt of gratitude.

  11. Ant, it was monty python’s life of brian.
    When jesus is talking and they [brian and his lovely mother] can’t hear.

    MAN #2:
    You hear that? Blessed are the Greek.
    GREGORY:
    The Greek?
    MAN #2:
    Mmm. Well, apparently, he’s going to inherit the earth.
    GREGORY:
    Did anyone catch his name?
    MRS. BIG NOSE:
    You’re not going to thump anybody.
    MR. BIG NOSE:
    I’ll thump him if he calls me ‘Big Nose’ again.
    MR. CHEEKY:
    Oh, shut up, Big Nose.
    MR. BIG NOSE:
    Ah! All right. I warned you. I really will slug you so hard–
    MRS. BIG NOSE:
    Oh, it’s the meek! Blessed are the meek! Oh, that’s nice, isn’t it? I’m glad they’re getting something, ’cause they have a hell of a time.

    I love that last line!

  12. I always thought it was the GEEK who would be blessed.

    Very disappointing.

  13. Brian Blessed’s a geek?

  14. Fraser, think it was : the geek shall inherit the mirth.

    Oh my god, i just envisioned a new reality TV show called “life of Brian blessed”. It would attract viewing figures proportionate to B3TA.com

  15. I’m International!!!!! (though I have been in NZ papers before, but they’re not really foreign) And it’s all down to you !!!! (and Andres)!!!!
    I have HFW’s number if you want it, Fraser. Sorry we missed the bbq, but my sister, who turned up late after beimng stuck in an M25 jam, says hello.