HAVE you voted yet? Been chomping to get to the polling booth, or just sick of the whole thing and want it to end.

Here’s a bit of light relief from all the political excitement of the last four weeks. What do our politicians like to eat?

GOURMET GORDON

Gordon Brown‘s favourite dish is ‘rumbledethumps.’ Eh? As Gordon Brown is a Scot, any Scot will tell you it is the delicious Scottish dish made from cabbage, swede and potatoes, often using leftovers from Sunday lunch.

England has Bubble and Squeak, Ireland Colcannon, and in Scotland, Rumbledethumps. He enjoys making vegetable and mozzarella parcels at the weekends for his family.

TORY DISH

On the other hand David Cameron’s favourite smell is food cooking on a bbq, but makes a mean Italian sausage meat pasta.

LIB DEM PAELLA

Nick Clegg’s wife is Spanish, so eats a lot of Mediterranean and Spanish food, Paella being one of his favourites when out as a family as they can all share it and he loves his wife’s ham & Cheese Croquetas. He does however have a favourite biscuit. Rich Tea (when no one is looking and can dunk) or HobNobs if not. Although apparently when he is back in his constituent he eats a lot of cakes which the Spanish aren’t very good at making!

Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish Party favourite is not surprising another Scottish dish Cullen Skink; Clare Short, The independent MP for Birmingham Ladywood is a fan of Japanese food – but she didn’t taste rice or spaghetti until she got to university and David Blunkett likes fine dinning (slightly different to his Yorkshire upbringing of bread and dripping).

As they say in the trade, revenge is a dish best served cold. Who will be celebrating tomorrow in No 10, living it up on Caviar and Champagne, or maybe they’ll just be making do with bubble and squeak, there is still a credit crunch you know….

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David Cameron used a visit to Fuller’s brewery this week to take a pop at supermarkets’ cut-price deals on alcohol. It comes ahead of the big leaders’ debate which takes place tonight on ITV1. Last week, the Tory leader visited Warburtons in Bolton, as well as Bestway Cash & Carry in Cardiff.

He slammed the government’s recent cider tax hike – deferred until the next parliamentary session.

He said he wanted to get Britain’s pub trade “thriving” and remarked deep discounting in supermarkets was “encouraging irresponsible behaviour. “We need to stop it, he said”.

Cameron also promised tackling underage drinking by making it easier for police and local authorities to strip alcohol licenses from supermarkets and convenience stores.

FOODIES ON TWITTER

While Twitter is playing a key role in the general election campaign, one foodie event next week will be streamed LIVE on the social networking site, the 2010 FreeFrom Food Awards in London’s King’s Cross, hosted by celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson.

The FreeFrom Food Awards, now in their third year, are the only industry awards that celebrate excellence in this rapidly expanding sector anticipated to reach a turnover of around £300 million in the UK and $2.6 billion worldwide by 2012 – the year of the Olympic Games in London.

The awards were started by www.foodsmatter.com, the very successful website and allergy portal that logs over half a million hits on its 3,000 plus pages every month and includes the only dedicated site covering all aspects of freefrom food GO HERE FOR MORE DETAILS

THE PRODUCTS

Over 1,000 products were whittled down to a shortlist of 200 covering 15 categories including not only the expected (gluten-free breads, cakes or biscuits) but gluten and dairy-free ready meals, scones, sweet tarts, Bakewell’s and cake bars, Christmas foods and, for the first time, gluten-free beers!

For the full shortlist GO HERE

Judges for the awards included Simon Wright, chair of judges for the Q Awards, the Food and Drink Innovation Network ‘s Jeffrey Hyman, Jane Suthering, president of the Guild of Food Writers, Not Just Food ‘s Jane Milton, Michelle Berriedale-Johnson, editor of foodsmatter.com and other members of the Foodsmatter judging team.

Products were judged not only on their taste (although their taste is, of course, crucial) but on their packaging, the number of allergens that they exclude, their nutritional profile and how difficult it is to manufacture that specific food freefrom. (For example, while it is relatively easy to create a successful gluten and dairy-free fruit cake it is very much more difficult to create a fresh gluten-free bread.)

Main sponsors for the 2010 FreeFrom Food awards are TESCO and
The Innovation Award is sponsored by LIVWELL

For more on freefrom food GO HERE.

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