Analyse This!

Thanks to my pal Hackstaple, I was alerted to the story doing the rounds at the moment about the Dorset baker who was hauled over the coals by her local Trading Standards department for selling Robin Tarts. These delicious-sounding, sweet confections have a marzipan effigy of a robin on them, apparently - but not a trace of the bird in the actual ingredients.

Ivan Hancock, Dorset county's trading standards manager, is quoted as saying:

"The fact is that a piece of food needs to be properly described so that the consumer can tell what it is.

There's nothing wrong with using other names but it must be accompanied by the true name of the food.

Consumers have the right to know what is in food."

Personally, I think the same process of labelling should be applied to the brains of (at least some) Trading Standards Officers.

Where will it all end? I was reminded by a post in Crofty's estimable blog, of the delights of the Yorkshire Curd Tart.

When I consumed these in my youth, it never for a minute crossed my mind that they might contain the minced up remains of northern Iraqis who had travelled to our fair county to sacrifice themselves for the good of the White Roser's.

It's political correctness gone mad!