i'd hate to say raw food is becoming mainstream because the word conjures up thoughts of things becoming diluted and losing the pioneering optimism when they hit the 'almost normal' point on a weirdometer. you know what i mean. the music i used to listen to that came on a flexidisc you got with a handmade fanzine. it was special then. inspired by a burning fire in the artist's gut. once the band became more popular the quality of the music somehow diminished. for me, the studio production erased the beauty of the earlier stuff, which was so rough around the edges, with off-key singing and no backing vocals. three tracks at most. that was the beauty of it.
so now i'm torn. first, there's somewhere like vitaorganic, the flexidisc of raw food restaurants. it's quaint but the service is slow, the surroundings could do with some tlc and you have to wait forever for a table at lunchtime. oh yes, and the really great raw stuff only comes out in the evenings. and the website's pants. so along comes SAF and elevates raw food eating out to a whole 'nother level. smart designer interiors, groovy cocktails, and the food is definitely cuisine - refined, elegantly presented and more than just a little bit clever.
then, apparently, there's to be a raw food range in waitrose later this year thanks to one of the guys behind london's raw food cookery school. i'm sorry, i'll say that again: RAW FOOD RANGE IN WAITROSE!!!
i am so excited i can hardly contain myself. there's chris and zoe at purely raw and anya's raw faeries doing raw menu home deliveries and now this. can it be true?
i can buy raw cacao goodies at my local health food store. shazzie has a chunk of whole foods' shelving all to herself. it's growing. people have heard of raw. juice bars everywhere you look. so, can there possibly be any reason to fear the loss of integrity as raw food moves through the 'totally off the scale' to 'a bit dodgy' on the nation's weirdometer?
independent article on the inexorable march of raw (though note the rubbish broken link to the cookery school, which i'm sure you can work out how to fix yourself.)
