Cornwall, but not as the locals know it: Stein’s at Home reviewed

The Stein’s at Home steak menu box (£65) says ‘Love from Cornwall’: it is not for people who live in Cornwall. It is, rather, a cardboard mirror of Padstow, Rick Stein’s slate-covered, teal-painted, monstrous Cornish Center Parcs for upper-middle-class holiday-makers, and it has its own whimsical map of Rick Stein outlets in case you stray too far from the Rick Stein path, like Dorothy heading to her death. I went to Padstow during the first lockdown and heard guilty testimony: some natives enjoyed pandemic because Padstow was almost real again. But that is over now, and here comes the counter-revolution to reassert itself in cardboard. People will follow later.

Cornish people know that this version of Cornwall (bright lobsters, pale cheeses) is not designed for them because they cannot afford it — they work harder and for less money than almost anyone in England — and because it is stupid. The box is not subtle in reminding us of this, probably because it feels it has no need to be. There is a practised argument that any trade is better than none, but I don’t believe it. I reported on the food banks of west Penwith at Christmas; the child poverty rate in St Ives is 36 per cent and in Padstow it is 32 per cent. Even so, Stein is hardly the first artist — the completeness of his teal and slate hell vision makes him an artist, even if I hate the art — to weave myths about Cornwall so convincing few look past them to the truth.

Rick Stein has six restaurants in Cornwall; and, for some reason, one in Barnes. In pandemic he sells various food boxes, whose online pictures convince me that his lobsters have their own lighting director.