Threat to British Sunday roast - FROM A DISTANCE by Carmen N. Pedrosa

One of our fondest memories from our London exile was the Sunday roast. We took up the culinary habit from our British hosts. With no maids around, the Sunday roast was the simplest meal to prepare – you put the roast beef, roast pork or in leaner times, the roast chicken in the oven and –voila – you have a meal. The difference was in the side dishes – roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, roast pork with stewed apples, roast chicken with corn fritters etc. etc., good wine and healthy assorted greens salad for a delicious healthy meal. Where we lived on the fringes of Hyde Park, we also had arguably the best coffee shop in London, where we bought excellent coffee to top up a leisurely Sunday meal. So why am I summoning this memory today in the midday-heat of Manila?

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I sympathize with our British friends who are anxious that this idyllic institution of a family feast around the Sunday roast is now threatened. The unfortunate discovery of the mad cow disease and a recent break-out of the foot and mouth disease in its piggeries has made the UK seem like one unhappy abattoir. Of course, there is roast chicken as an alternative but this only makes the situation worse, chicken being the cheap alternative to beef and pork and more likely to be resorted to only on weekdays rather than on the celebratory week-end.

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I love the British, having spent a good twenty years of my life there in periods before and after I married. It is also the country where our children grew up and received the best education that money could buy and yet it was mostly free. (That’s how Veronica Pedrosa of CNN got her accent!) Still, although I can be said to be emphatically Anglophile, I can be objective when it comes to the mad cow disease and the break-out of foot and mouth in their piggeries. I am patriotic enough not to wish these diseases in our isles. Still, we have to be fair. The first step, I think, is clarify in the public mind that the two cases of animal disease are quite distinct.

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The mad cow disease affects cattle; i.e., the source of beef and the foot and mouth disease affects pigs; i.e., the source of pork. The two are similar insofar as both cases are isolated phenomena. It is not as some publicity would make it that all of Britain is now engulfed by a carnivorous disaster. There have been cases of mad cow disease found in some cattle but latest reports are that it is being adequately checked. While there were 384 suspected cases last year, this year’s figure is only 210 or a reduction of 45.3 percent, according to a report received by the British Embassy. This does not mean in any way that the cattle are in fact infected but since the discovery of the disease, the British authorities were not taking any chances. Any slightest hint of suspicion was enough. This is as far as the disease, as found in cattle, is concerned. The question on whether the disease can be transferred to humans is still a subject of debate. The measures being undertaken by British and other European countries with cases of the disease are to guarantee the safety of meat coming from their farms, whether this be beef or pork.

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The discovery of the mad cow disease and the possibility that it could be transferred to humans was a sensation in the British press several years ago. It was grist for the tabloid mill and inevitably a subject that lent itself to attack government ineptitude. As far as the foot and mouth disease is concerned, however, this is not a new disease. It can strike piggeries in any country at anytime. Even here in the Philippines, we see warnings when entering animal farms to dip footwear in disinfectant to avoid contamination. It is UK’s bad luck that the two cases affecting their animal food industry should hit the country at the same time.

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Although great care and attention are being paid to eliminate suspicious cattle, etc. so the matter can be put to rest, the British authorities are concerned that publicity might go out of hand and hurt other areas of their economy. They are anxious that even their tourism might be affected if people were to believe stories that made it appear that disease among their cattle and piggeries was pervasive. In fact, the foot and mouth disease outbreak was confined to a place in Northern Scotland and another in Devon. It is like finding out that there was foot and mouth disease in a piggery in Bulacan and making it a big story that would condemn all piggeries in the Philippines as diseased. This is what the British want to avoid without minimizing their efforts to ensure the safety of their foods whether for their own consumption or for export.

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I was recently in Bulacan and I was dismayed that the mad cow disease stories are threatening even the local beef industry there. A family was reported "to have suffered from food poisoning because they ate beef with mad cow disease." An enterprising reporter interviewed members of the family. With the mad cow disease as its top story, the tabloid was sold out prompting other tabloids to repeat the story. I commiserated with Mila Doctoleco, who is in charge of media in Governor de la Cruz’s office as she gave a lecture to the reporters. "Maawa naman kayo sa mga matadero. Mawawalan sila ng hanapbuhay." The trouble is that the members of the family rather liked their new-found fame. Even after the doctor told them that it could not have come from mad cow disease because incubation of the disease takes between five to 30 years and even that at this point of medical research will not be ascertained as coming from mad cow infection, they retorted, "Basta, mad cow ito."

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