Vittles

Are You Ready For This Jelly?

2010-06-25T07:48:00.001+02:00

Absolutely spectacular jelly sculpture. Just extraordinary.

The Story of the Scotch Egg

2010-04-20T18:38:00.001+02:00

That last Scotch egg I ate came from Safeways, and it gave me the squits. However, I'm prepared to believe that this dish could be done well. Apparently it's served at the Breslin, along with picallilli.

From the Guardian:

Gary Rhodes airily opines in one of his cookbooks: "It doesn't take much to work out where scotch eggs were born. They are a Scottish speciality." Nonsense, Gary. Fortnum & Mason created the egg in 1738 as a portable snack for coach travellers heading west from London along Piccadilly. I spoke with Fortnum's archivist, Dr Andrea Tanner, who said: "the eggs would have been smaller in those days: pullet's rather than hen's eggs. The meat would also have been gamier, like a strong, coarse liver pâté."
Scotch eggs filtered steadily down the social ranks: they grew more common – in both senses – with cheaper Victorian meat, and were thence exported abroad. Mr Bigg's, a Nigerian fast food chain, today serves them alongside "heritage pottage" and jollof rice. Scotch eggs on sticks are classics of the Minnesota State Fair and, according to this online forum, "skotchi eggu" are a staple of Japanese new year (recipe here).

Vegetarian Recipes for Carnivores

2010-04-17T08:47:00.002+02:00

I turned my nose up at Yotam Ottolenghi's New Vegetarian series in the Guardian. Thought it was too poncey.

Mistake. I could live on the sweet potato, herb, lime and quinoa salad, and these recipes from a new collection look wonderful.

Sugar and Mice

2010-04-06T11:56:00.000+02:00

Dormice should seek out the shelter of the nearest teapot, pronto. From the Telegraph:

We know what the Romans would have done with glis glis: put him in a fattening jar first of all, like one of those found, with breathing holes, at Pompeii. Apicius, the Nigella of Rome, cooked them (from his cookery book, we know why liver in France is called foie and in Italian fegato: iecur, the Latin for liver, was often served figgatum, or with figs). His De Re Culinaria has a recipe for stuffed dormouse, as well as dormouse sausage. Petronius describes a feast at which roast dormice were served rolled in honey and poppyseed. This was a luxury food, and if you are lucky enough to live near the Chilterns, dormice are on your doorstep.

Down with Cupcakes!

2010-04-04T10:53:00.000+02:00

THANK GOD! I am not alone.

The Best Thing About Ikea

2010-03-28T10:13:00.000+02:00

The food. From the Independent:

Swedish food like this, with its vitamin-rich sauces, fish full of omega-three fatty acids, and locally-sourced ingredients, is considered as good for your heart as it is for your carbon footprint. With Swedish restaurants like Madsen in South Kensington and and Garbo in Marylebone proving trendy if not entirely aimed at the consumer on a budget, Ikea's food could give Britons a cost-price opportunity to sample a model culinary landscape. It certainly seems to be a success – Ikea has food halls in all its 18 British locations and its restaurants shift 13 million meals a year.

The New Bacon

2010-03-27T19:26:00.000+01:00

The New York Times on the king of "functional drinks":

The Bay Area has at least a half-dozen kombucha start-ups, selling their products at farmers’ markets, health food stores, yoga studios, on blogs and on Twitter. Flavors range from cayenne and mango to fennel and watermelon jalapeño. It’s not uncommon to overhear people talking about their devotion to the products, all of which prompted a San Francisco food blogger, Tamara Palmer, to say recently that kombucha was on its way to becoming “the new bacon.”

Time to Dig Out the Yoghurt Maker

2010-03-18T23:30:00.000+01:00

How to make Greek yoghurt. Slurp.

The Polski Sklep in the High Street

2010-03-18T08:14:00.001+01:00

Oliver Thring in the Guardian:

There's a tiny Polish restaurant by South Kensington tube station in London called Daquise. For 63 years, it has had an almost monastic resistance to change: yellow walls, chipped crockery, plastic flowers and charm. It has been a totem for London Poles since it opened in the 60s: Roman Polanski came daily for dumplings and stews when he was filming Repulsion nearby, and it was always a favourite of cold war spies – Christine Keeler met her Soviet attache there.
Daquise opened in 1947, an emigre's recreation of a country lost to Communism. The food was spartan but homely, the oiled tablecloths a cross between lino and Uhu, and fingerprints smeared the menus. But it was proof that restaurants can be more than the sum of their parts.

You Are What You Eat

2010-03-13T09:00:00.003+01:00

I thought Morgan Spurlock made this point, but it's fascinating. Brains altered by food, by David Kessler in the Guardian. Reminds me of that pig in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that wanted to be eaten.

A venture capitalist who knows the business intimately cited Starbucks as a company that has recognised and responded brilliantly to a cultural need. The caffeine and sugar in the coffee, with their energising effects, are certainly part of the equation, but the chain also offers something much more primal. "It's about warm milk and a bottle," he says. "One of my colleagues said, 'If I could put a nipple on it, I'd be a multimillionaire'."

Great Grandpa's Diet

2010-03-09T18:54:00.001+01:00

NYT's Freakonomics blog:

But did people living in the 1860s really see themselves as eating a simple diet? Not so much. This was an era of frequent food adulteration, with consumer goods being leavened by sawdust, engine grease, plaster of Paris, pipe clay and God knows what else. Responding to the increasing complexity of food in 1870, John Cowan, author of What to Eat; And How to Cook It, lambasted Americans for eating “conglomerate mixtures”—ingredients “mixed in all shapes, in all measures, and under all conditions.” He insisted that these overly processed foods not only led to “a clogged brain” but also a “sickly and unenjoyable life.”

I See Fat Particles

2010-03-08T22:49:00.001+01:00

From The Independent:

"We know that the human tongue can detect five tastes - sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami (a savoury, protein-rich taste contained in foods such as soy sauce and chicken stock)," Russell Keast, from Deakin University, said Monday.

"Through our study we can conclude that humans have a sixth taste - fat."

The Adaptable Anchovy

2010-03-03T08:18:00.002+01:00

Lovely little Bee Wilson piece on anchovies in the Telegraph, with useful tips in the comments. I never would have thought of putting anchovies and garlic in a lamb roast, but then again, I never roast lamb.

Beef is rich in the savoury 'fifth taste’ (known as umami), also found in parmesan, Marmite, tomatoes and mushrooms. The meatiness of beef comes from a group of amino acids called glutamates. Anchovies, meanwhile, are rich in another savoury chemical compound: inosinate. Japanese scientists found that inosinate heightens the savoury taste of glutamate many times: the two work in synergy. In layman’s terms, those anchovies take your beef casserole from merely meaty to seriously flavoursome.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bulb

2010-02-05T10:51:00.001+01:00

Fennel in the Indy.

It is a staple vegetable and herb in Italian cuisine and was prized by Roman soldiers who believed it would keep them in good health. Women took it to keep their weight down, and it was chewed to help digestion. Today, fennel remains a key ingredient in many digestive teas.

It also has a racier aspect to it. It is a stimulant, and one of the three key components of the Swiss-French spirit absinthe, although contemporary brews often omit it. It boasts aphrodisiac qualities, and is said to mimic the female hormone oestrogen. It has even been prescribed as a natural breast enlarger.

From Italy, where fennel is used raw in salads and cooked in pastas, sausages, meatballs and risottos, fennel quickly spread south across to the Middle East and India, where it was assimilated into the national cuisine.

Go to Work on an Egg, or Twenty-Eight

2010-01-31T00:54:00.001+01:00

Hideous secrets of Mrs Thatcher's diet:

"...the Tory leader steeled herself for the 1979 general election with a crash diet that featured no fewer than 28 eggs a week.

The two-week high-protein diet included one day - Thursdays - on which eggs were on the menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The only respite she was allowed in this grapefruit and black coffee, steak and lettuce diet was a glass of whisky "when meat is eaten". Otherwise it was "no alcohol".
The impact of such a diet on her temperament, especially when combined with her famed lack of sleep, can only be guessed at. But the ticks she made against each ingredient on her personal diet sheet seems to indicate that she followed the Mayo Clinic regime – well-known for rapid weight loss – rigorously."

The Guardian.

What a Coinky-dink!

2010-01-28T07:45:00.004+01:00

The web is voracious. Its appetite for "content" is insatiable. And, of course, as the web does not generate any money, the budget for this content is cut again and again, and subsequently the worth of the content plummets in the scramble to shovel more into the internet consumer's gaping maw.
One way to prevent this loss of quality is of course to steal. Someone else does the groundwork, and you merely reproduce it with a few changes here and there. The Daily Mail is notorious for doing this. Yesterday I stumbled across just one such example.

Witness, BBC's Good Food Magazine. A recipe which appeared in the November print issue in 2008, by Mary Cadogan:

Pumpkin, spinach and black bean dopiaza.

And lo, on November 10th 2008 (weeks after the Good Food edition would have been on the shelves), that peerless chef, "Daily Mail Reporter" unveils a new recipe:

Pumpkin, spinach and black bean dopiaza.

UNCANNY, I tell you. UNCANNY.

Consumer Pressure

2010-01-26T08:15:00.002+01:00

Am feeling more and more tempted to invest in a pressure cooker. New York Times on fifteen minute risottos:

I chopped an onion, diced a clove of garlic and sautéed both in the pressure cooker, lid off. After the onions became translucent, I added a finely chopped head of broccoli and 1 1/2 cups of arborio rice, stirring to coat everything in the oil. I already had stock in the fridge (a simple recipe of Mark’s from “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian”: a quartered onion, two halved garlic cloves sautéed in olive oil, to which I added three tablespoons of soy sauce, carrot peels, a quartered potato, one chopped rib of celery, a bunch of parsley stems, and eight cups of boiling water, cooked under high pressure for five minutes), so I added four cups along with a pinch of saffron and salt, and then locked the lid in place. The prep took longer than the five minutes the dish required to cook; after that, I let the steam out by pressing on the valve with an oven-mitted hand. Then I slid open the lid to find a transformation of rice and broccoli into the creamy, delicious Northern Italian dish. I stirred in a cup of grated parmesan and then tasted it: delicious.

And from a commenter:

Refried beans? 6 cups of dry pintos, 1 chopped onion, several cloves of garlic, and fill the cooker to half-way. Cook at high-pressure for 50 minutes or so, mash a bit, add salt and you’re good to go.

Making Sense of Scottish Vegetables

2010-01-25T13:48:00.001+01:00

I'm lost.

Tomorrow is Burns' Night

2010-01-24T09:57:00.002+01:00

Scotland's loss is Wallasey's gain. Dora Bennett, 85, one of his regulars, wheels her shopping trolley through the door and picks up her meat for the day. "I'll have a haggis," she says, without pausing for breath. Noticing the posters Potter has put up around the shop, she adds: "Oh, I didn't know it was Burns Night, my daughter just said she fancied it."
Michelle is rushed off her feet wrapping round parcels; customers ask as often for haggis as for cuts of beef or sausages.
Potter says this has become the norm. "I didn't sell a lot of haggis in the first year: I'd put a batch on once in a blue moon. But then word got round that I was a traditional Scottish butcher making this award-winning haggis and the orders started to pour in."
Consulting a list of Burns Night orders for more than 100 people, he pours the haggis mixture into a sausage machine. Sliding a white sheep's stomach on to its spout, he fills it until the intestine's white veins bulge under the weight.
I mutter that the sight is enough to turn anyone vegetarian: using the "v" word around here is a dangerous game. "Vegetarians? They're the scourge of the earth," he growls, before plonking an overflowing fleshy bag on to the worktop.

From the Independent.

Pressurised Cooking

2010-01-13T15:26:00.001+01:00

I admit I never really knew what a pressure cooker was till I found this Guardian piece, but anything which can knock out feijoada in forty minutes is fine by me.

Vegetables of the British Isles

2010-01-12T11:01:00.001+01:00

Thank you to William13 for this blog post on Christopher Stock's Forgotten Fruits:

The social, agricultural, and geographical history woven into just a brief introduction to Vaux’s Self-Folding lettuce or the Bedford Fillbasket brussels sprout is incredible.

Stocks’ suggested sites in Scotland, for example, would take the vegetable tourist from the Isle of Arran, where Donald Mackelvie bred the purple-skinned Arran Victory, to the Arbroath home of the Golden Wonder, a chance mutation discovered in a field of Maincrop by John Brown in 1906, and raw ingredient of the original ready-salted crisp.

Along the way, Stocks’ intrepid tourist would encounter William Sim, who abandoned potatoes in favour of emigration and carnations (his is still the best-selling carnation variety in America), as well as the Scottish Potato Bubble of 1900-04, fuelled in part by Archibald Findlay of Fife, a grocer’s son and breeder of optimistically named varieties such as Eldorado and Millionmaker.

Satisfy Your Salsify

2010-01-09T08:13:00.001+01:00

Hugh has a recipe or two in the Guardian for those tackling the ugly root:

The simplest way to prepare these lovely roots is to peel them, put them in a roasting tin, trickle over a little olive or rapeseed oil, add a few bashed garlic cloves and a bay leaf, and roast at 200C/400F/gas mark 6 for 20 minutes. Serve with a sprinkling of flaky sea salt, or follow Jane Grigson's excellent suggestion and sprinkle on some gremolata, that zingy southern Italian condiment made of lemon zest, finely chopped garlic and parsley. Or boil or steam them until just tender, chop small and serve with a mustardy, garlicky vinaigrette and perhaps a few pieces of diced ham, rather as you might with a celeriac remoulade.

Cookie Rumble

2009-12-22T14:18:00.002+01:00

Beautiful photos and recipes for seasonal cookies in the New York Times. Wish I'd read this before I started trying to make some.

Hit the Highway, Hershey

2009-12-16T08:39:00.003+01:00

Anyone who has performed a chocolate taste test will know that compared with its British counterpart, American chocolate has a distinctly different flavour. To many, Hershey's chocolate has a more bitter, less creamy taste than its British equivalent, and seems to have a grittier texture.
It all comes down to what exactly chocolate is. In the UK, chocolate must contain at least 20% cocoa solids. In the US, on the other hand, cocoa solids need only make up 10%.
A Cadbury Dairy Milk bar contains 23% cocoa solids, whereas a Hershey bar contains just 11%.

Much of Europe would scoff at either definition. The continental preference is for richer, darker chocolate, with a significantly higher cocoa solid count. Many European chocolatiers make chocolate with upwards of 40% cocoa solids, a world away from our elevenses bar from the newsagent.
But the cocoa content isn't the only thing which separates British chocolate from its American namesake.

Fears about the takeover of UK chocolatiers Cadbury by US manufacturers Hershey, via the BBC.

Re-Crispening

2009-12-03T21:04:00.002+01:00

Chris Hunt, a plumber, starts the day with packet of pickled onion Monster Munch, has a roast beef Monster Munch sandwich for lunch and a Flamin' Hot flavour bag for dinner.

He is so obsessed with the corn snack that he has even devised recipes to include Monster Munch in rice and pasta dishes.

The 26-year-old finally changed his name after being dared to by friends.

Mr Munch - or Monster to his pals - said: ''I just can't get enough of them. I love all the flavours, but admit roast beef is a particular favourite.

From the Telegraph.

Cooking with Oil

2009-11-27T08:29:00.000+01:00

For Rachel Clayton, the chef responsible for each of those meals, the knowledge that her kitchen’s output is the highlight of 110 workers’ days is just one more problem. Rachel runs the galley on the Captain WPP oil platform. Working 12-hour shifts for two weeks without a break, she and her team prepare everything from scratch — they have to be bakers, butchers, patisserie chefs and salad washers. They do it all on one delivery a week. And, if the weather is bad, even that delivery may not arrive. “That happened on my last trip,” Rachel says. “We were due a boat on the Saturday and it didn’t arrive until Wednesday. We got by though.” Rachel, 31, has been doing this now for four years.

The Times.

Bisque Please

2009-11-20T08:46:00.003+01:00

Mouthwatering lobster bisque recipe from the NYT. I had this once, at party in a marquee of a discreetly grand house in Sussex, most delicate dish I've ever consumed. Gorgeous.

Eating History

2009-11-19T08:52:00.001+01:00

The Celts loved their ham and bacon," says Wood, who hopes her new book of historic recipes will inspire people "to hold themed dinner parties from history". "The first Celts came from the Hallstat region of Austria, where the salt mines are, and they spread a taste for salted pork and lamb. They liked simple foods, like hearty stews, although they didn't have too many herbs. They had a cinnamon-like herb called bog myrtle, but it was the Romans who introduced many of the herbs and vegetables that we now know and love."

Leo Hickman in The Guardian.

Thirsty Thrift

2009-11-11T17:05:00.001+01:00

Cooking with leftover tea, coffee, cider, beer and wine. And you can always use Guinness to rinse your hair.

Peptic Rank

2009-11-08T21:16:00.004+01:00

A fascinating run-down of the amount of time it takes to digest various vegetarian foodstuffs, and the process of digesting meats.

Oh, God, there's more.

Pudding Snub

2009-11-05T14:22:00.002+01:00

Controversy rages in the comments at the Times when Lindsay Bareham tries to reinvent Spotted Dick.

Pudding ist Wichtig

2009-10-29T08:19:00.004+01:00

Times masterclass on making steak and kidney pudding. God I want some now. A reader suggests substituting dried shiitakes for those who cannot stomach offal.

Squash

2009-10-21T20:20:00.000+02:00

Drool-inducing page of squash and pumpkin recipes at the Times.

What Is It?

2009-09-29T07:54:00.000+02:00

Click here to find out.

Retro Hell

2009-09-15T22:23:00.002+02:00

Recipes from the 1950s, and from hell:

Title: Oven-Fried Corn Flake Chicken
Categories: Cereals Poultry Main dish 
Servings:  4

    3 lb Chicken; Cut Up, Fryer
    2 ea Eggs; Large, Slightly Beaten
    4 T  Milk
2 1/2 c  Corn Flakes; Crushed *
    2 t  Salt
  1/2 t  Pepper
    5 T  Butter; Melted

*    Crush but do not pulverize the corn flakes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Wash chicken and pat dry.  Mix together
eggs and milk.  Separately mix corn flake crumbs, salt, and pepper.  Dip
chicken into milk and egg mixture then into the crumb mixture coating each
piece evenly.  Set in well-greased baking pan.  Drizzle with melted
butter.  Bake, uncovered, for 1 hour.

Title: Lemonade Fried Chicken
Categories: Poultry Main dish  
Servings:  4

    6 oz Frozen Lemonade Concentrate
    1 c  ;Water
2 1/2 lb Fryer; Cut up
  1/4 c  Flour; Unbleached
    1 t  Salt
  1/4 t  Black Pepper; Ground
    1 c  Vegetable Oil
    2 T  Butter; Melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Mix lemonade concentrate and water in a
small bowl.  Pour over chicken in larger bowl.  Refrigerate 2 hours or
longer.  Drain chicken and reserve liquid.  Mix together the flour, salt,
and pepper in a small paper bag.  Add well drained chicken, one piece at a
time, and shake to coat evenly.  Heat oil in large skillet over moderate
heat.  Add floured chicken; cook until evenly browned, turning pieces over
carefully.  Remove chicken and arrange in a single layer in a shallow
baking pan.  Brush chicken with melted butter.  Add reserved lemonade.
Bake uncovered about 1 hour, basting chicken with lemonade from pan every
15 minutes.  About 15 minutes befre chicken is done, drain off excess
juice from pan.  Serve hot.




Title: Pepsi-Cola Cake With Broiled Peanut Butter Frosting
Categories: Cakes Desserts Soda pop 
Servings:  8

------------------------------------CAKE------------------------------------
    2 c  Flour; Unbleached
    2 c  Sugar
  1/2 lb Butter
    2 T  Cocoa; Unsweetened
    1 c  Pepsi
  1/2 c  Buttermilk
    2 ea Eggs; Large, Beaten
    1 t  Baking Soda
    1 t  Vanilla Extract
1 1/2 c  Marshmallows; Miniature
----------------------------------FROSTING----------------------------------
    6 T  Butter
    1 c  Brown Sugar; Dark, Packed
  2/3 c  Peanut Butter
  1/4 c  Milk
  2/3 c  Peanuts; Chopped

CAKE:
 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease and flour 9 X 13 X 2-inch pan.
Combine flour and sugar in large bowl.  Melt butter, add cocoa and Pepsi.
Pour over flour and sugar mixture, and stir until well blended.  Add
buttermilk, beaten eggs, soda, and vanilla.  Mix well.  Stir in
marshmallows. Pour into prepared pan.  Bake 40 minutes.  Remove cake
from oven and frost while still warm.
FROSTING:
Cream Butter, sugar, and peanut butter.  Add milk and stir well.  Add
nuts.  Spread over warm cake.  Place frosted cake under broiler about
4-inches from  heat source.  Broil just a few seconds, or until topping
starts to bubble.  DO NOT scorch!  Let cool at least 30 minutes before
serving.

Eighty Seven Flavours of Ice Cream

2009-09-02T08:22:00.002+02:00

Heroic foot- (and palate-) work by an NYT reporter, who investigated the most astonishing ice creams in New York. Here's a few of the more outré flavours:

"Banana ice cream ... littered with buttery fragments of vanilla cake
garden-fresh mint chocolate cookie dough ... topped with micro-diced candied hazelnuts
Crumbling blocks of carrot cake ... swathed in a vanilla ice cream thick as frosting
Toppings, like saba (Italian grape syrup) and sriracha, are the draw. I was too timid for the tamari, but the marriage of ginger syrup and curry powder was magical
salted caramel pretzel and bitter chocolate mint"

Jamie and the Welfare State

2009-08-31T08:05:00.002+02:00

If you ever wondered what happened to Jamie Oliver's school dinner plan, there's an update in the Independent, along with a brief history of British school nutrition, from 1880 on.

The journey of the school meals service from 1880 to today has been a difficult one. After a faltering start, the Liberal government in 1906 passed legislation allowing all local authorities to serve free school meals. Provision was patchy. Even by the start of the Second World War, only half the country's local education authorities were offering them.
In the 1940s, it became national policy to deliver a nutritionally balanced school meal to all children which gave them 40 per cent of their daily protein and 33 per cent of their energy needs. This was enshrined in legislation in 1944. A typical menu would be steak and two veg followed by rhubarb crumble.
This largely remained in force until 1980, when Margaret Thatcher – known as the "milk snatcher" when she withdrew free milk from all children over seven in 1971 – decided to remove the rest of the food as well.
Her 1980 Education Act ended the obligation of local authorities to provide school meals. And meals no longer had to have a fixed price. Many secondary schools introduced cash cafeterias and the day of the Turkey Twizzler dawned. For those entitled to free school meals in areas which abolished the service, a packed lunch was introduced.
Only after Jamie Oliver's intervention did ministers become serious about standards. On the day the television chef delivered a petition to the then prime minister, Tony Blair announced a £280m revamp for the service.
Initially, the drive for healthier eating proved disastrous, with a 5 per cent drop in take-up in the first year. The drop has now levelled off, though.

Soyful Sinner?

2009-08-27T07:31:00.002+02:00

As a lactose intolerant I consume a lot of soya. Soya is, we're told, bad for the environment and bad for the indigenous peoples whose rain forest is grubbed up for its cultivation. But 90% of global soy-bean protein goes into animal food, not soya milk and tofu, and soya plants have a higher protein yield per acre than any other common crops.
This TLS review of The World of Soy, edited by Christine M. Du Bois, Chee-Beng Tan and Sidney Mintz reveals a fact or two, as well as mentioning some intriguing dishes ("pock-marked woman’s bean curd" anyone?) but nothing on the whole lady-hormones controversy (is it good or bad for women?). Of course, it sounds like the best essay in the collection is by an anthropologist, natürlich:

Among the outstanding contributions to this volume (which is part of the University of Illinois Press’s excellent Food Series) is Erino Ozeki’s “Fermented Soybean Products and Japanese Standard Taste”, an anthropologist’s approach to cultural differences in taste preferences. She gives a model of the Japanese “pattern of flavours repeated in many dishes” that represents “the favourite taste of that cuisine”. It is probably a little easier to specify the elements of this pattern for the Japanese “standard taste” because there are only two – the fish stock called dashi, an infusion of dried fish and seaweed, and fermented soy products, namely soy sauce and miso – than it would be for the less uniform French, Italian or, come to it, British taste. This approach could be very fruitful in exploring the differences between similar cultures – the American flavour pattern will have a sweet foundation that is not so apparent, for example, in British taste preferences.

Fear of Fat

2009-08-24T09:00:00.003+02:00

Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking has rocketed to number one in the US bestsellers' list thanks to Julie and Julia. Of course, it's real French cooking and it's forty years old, so the recipes are coming as a shock to today's cooks:

Mindy Lockard, 34, of Eugene, Ore., made Poulet Sauté aux Herbes de Provence, which calls for a whole stick of butter, for a recent dinner party.

“I found the recipes, actually, much easier than I thought they were going to be, but the amount of butter was a bit overwhelming,” she said. “There’s a picture of me cooking, and I have this glow, and it’s from too much hot butter. I expected to break out the next day.

“My husband loved it and asked if we could have it again the next day. I actually said, we probably shouldn’t have this in the same month.”

Ms. Child, who died in 2004 at the age of 91, liked to say, “ ‘Oh, butter never hurts you,’ ” her editor, Judith Jones, recalls.

From the NYT.

Don't and DON'TS

2009-08-20T08:49:00.000+02:00

The artist Aleksandra Mir asked 1,000 ordinary cooks — they’re all listed in the back — for their tips on how not to mess it up in the kitchen. The results are loosely collected under headings from “Burns” through to “Worms”; they range from the practical “Do not fry with hot oil when naked” and “Do not boil avocado. Turns to soap”, to the intriguing: “Do not wear your wife’s new dress while cooking spaghetti sauce.” And “Do not fry pasta with marmalade”.

Katharine Whitehorn on Cooking in a Bed-Rabbit Hutch

2009-08-12T09:26:00.002+02:00

Dear Guardian,

You commission Katharine Whitehorn and Nancy Banks-Smith over and over again, and for that I love you and you are the best newspaper in Britain.

Anyhow, here's Whitehorn on tiny kitchens.

"Norman Tebbit has Written a Cookbook and Apparently it's Quite Good"

2009-08-09T10:06:00.001+02:00

You could have knocked me down with a pheasant feather. In the Observer:

Norman Tebbit has been cooking up a storm – or at least a squall – of a different kind. Inspired by a trip to his favourite butcher's, during which he was informed that most people are too fearful of game to cook it, even though it is often so much less expensive than "rubber-boned" supermarket chicken, Lord Tebbit has written a slim cook book with the sole aim of persuading us to eat more of it. Partridge, grouse, woodcock: all your favourite birds are here, together with chapters on hare and rabbit, scallops and spider crabs.
Mrs T's old henchman makes for a surprisingly peaceful companion at the cooker, the odd dig at political correctness and metric measurements aside (he informs us, for instance, that his illustrator, Debbie, is a keen fisherman, "not, I am glad to say, a fisherperson"). His recipes are comforting and straightforward, his tone calm and encouraging, his reverence for his "gurus" Jane and Sophie Grigson positively sweet.
Most striking of all, though, is his inclusion of a recipe for pheasant with brown rice. Brown rice? Norman! Are you going soft in your old age, or what?

Thighs of the Nymphs of Dawn

2009-08-07T08:16:00.002+02:00

A short history of frogs' legs, in the Guardian, and some depressing news about vanishing frogs' legs:

As elsewhere in the world, the amphibians' habitat in France – where frogs' legs have been a recognised and much remarked-upon part of the national diet for the best part of 1,000 years – is increasingly at risk, from pollution, pesticides and other man-made ills. Ponds have been drained and replaced with crops and cattle-troughs. Diseases have taken their toll, and the insects that frogs feed on are disappearing too. Alarmed by a rapid and dramatic fall in frog numbers, the French ministry of agriculture and fisheries began taking measures to protect the country's species in 1976; by 1980, commercial frog harvesting was banned.

Water of Life

2009-08-06T09:08:00.000+02:00

Spotted this comment after a Telegraph piece by Rowan Pelling on whisky:

Take one bottle of moderately-priced Scots whiskey (nothing special) and add one small bottle each of Dr. Bach's "Rescue Remedy" and "Aspen" (for fear of things unknown), shake gently to mix and store in kitchen near the tea caddy.

Whenever you think about getting sick through influenza or any other illness, pour half and half the whisky mix and very strong hot tea (preferably Kenyan) with a slice of lemon. Drink in big sips at any time of day. After 5:00 PM do not add tea but fill cup to brim with mix and drink one every hour until bed (sooner rather than later). You will forget the fear of illness and live better through natural chemistry. I don't do the whisky part any more... but it still works.

Economy Gastronomy = Baloney

2009-08-03T13:51:00.002+02:00

I like Allegra McEvedy, and I love her recipes, but I'm really not sure that she's the person to produce a credit crunch cookery book:

We plan to show you how to make one "bedrock recipe" - today it's warm poached salmon with hollandaise sauce, new potatoes and asparagus - and use up the leftover ingredients in two or three further "tumbledown" dishes. In terms of a set of bedrock and tumbledown recipes, what you can do with one whole fish is just amazing.

Sounds good, no? Except that the tumbledown dishes have what, to me, look like incredibly long ingredient dishes with much reliance on fresh herbs (which is of course great if you can grow them in your garden, but pricey if you get them from the supermarket like the time-poor readers McEvedy cites), white wine, asparagus, double cream, creme fraiche, assorted veg and two different types of potatoes.

Contemplating an Affair?

2009-08-02T07:42:00.001+02:00

Why not become a butcher instead? Julie Powell of Julie and Julia did just that.

Those familiar with grisly 19th-century British history might know that one popular theory among Jack the Ripper armchair criminologists posits that the killer was a practising butcher. I have developed a small addendum to this hypothesis. I am by now fairly confident that should I want to surgically excise a streetwalker's liver, I could manage it. I will even confess that I can sort of imagine the appeal. Don't get me wrong: I'm not an advocate for slashing prostitutes' throats and rummaging through their innards as a valid lifestyle choice. But in a weird way, I see the butchering part of what Jack did as separate from the killing, the frenzy, the rage. And I see it as maybe containing the tiny kernel of sanity still left to him. Maybe it was his forlorn way of trying to fit the pieces back together, or at least understand how they once fit. I look at that crosscut organ sitting on the table, its workings so mysterious but its dimensions so satisfying, dense and symmetrical and glassy smooth, and I feel a sort of peace, a small piece of understanding.

Peggy Olson Wrote a Cook Book

2009-08-01T10:33:00.002+02:00

Well, that's how I'd tag this lady to get people to pay attention, but she was clearly a lot more than a pop culture reference. Peg Bracken was an advertising copywriter in the 1950s and 1960s who wrote I Hate to Cook, and touched a nerve or two in pre-Feminine Mystique days. See her recipe for Skid Road Stroganoff:

Start cooking those noodles, first dropping a bouillon cube into the noodle water. Brown the garlic, onion and crumbled beef in the oil. Add the flour, salt, paprika and mushrooms, stir, and let it cook five minutes while you light a cigarette and stare sullenly at the sink.

That cigarette ingredient reminds me of my grandmother's favourite seasoning, fag ash, although Peg's love of canned goods also puts me in mind of Cooking in a Bedsitter, which I love to read but never cook from.
I Hate to Cook sold millions and made Peg a celebrity, despite her second husband's judgment that the book stank.

via Salon's Broadsheet.

The Not-so Obvious Question

2009-07-30T09:28:00.002+02:00

So the FSA has announced that organic food contains no extra health benefits for humans. That's fine, I'm not wedded to the idea, but what I want to know is,

1) Does organic food benefit the health of the countryside?
2) Does an organic raising benefit the health of the cows, sheep, fowl and pigs?
3) If the countryside benefits, do humans ultimately get a health boost?
4) Does organic food taste better? In my experience, yes.

Milking It

2009-07-28T09:03:00.003+02:00

I remember reading in Sylvia Plath's diaries (someone published them – I didn't steal them out of her bedside cabinet, honest!) about Ted Hughes bringing her steak and creamy milk in hospital to help her recuperate from an operation. It's funny how our notion of "healthy food" changes over time, but wonderful when a longterm study confirms old wisdom. The Independent has a piece titled: "Milk was the elixir of life for pre-war Britons".

Researchers from the University of Bristol in the UK and the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Australia followed up a study originally done between 1937 and 1939 in pre-war Britain, when 1,343 families from England and Scotland kept detailed food diaries for seven days.
More than six decades later, the researchers successfully traced 4,374 of the children involved in the original study and found out what had happened to them between 1948 and 2005.
They found a third of them had died, including 378 deaths from heart disease and 121 deaths from stroke. Those with the highest dairy intake averaging 471 grams a day, over 90 per cent of it as milk, had a 23 per cent lower risk of dying compared with those with the lowest intake of 89 grams a day. The study was funded by the World Cancer Research Fund.
Richard Martin, from the University of Bristol, senior British author of the study, published in the journal Heart, said: "The more milk and calcium the children consumed the lower their mortality. It is possible that there is an influence of milk drinking on hormonal or growth factors that set you up to be better off in the long term. Calcium is also important – it is involved in cell signalling and helps maintain the normal physiology of the blood vessels."

I bet none of that milk was skimmed, either.

First, Catch Your Swiss Eggs

2009-07-26T11:11:00.001+02:00

Alix at The Vintage Cookbook Trials tackles a 145-year-old recipe with aplomb:

The layout of the book is dense, and complicated. Each recipe is a single paragraph, with no ingredient list – to know what is in a dish requires the entire recipe to be read through to the end. Many of the recipes read like a Choose Your Own Adventure, for example Salmon Fillets à l’Indienne (recipe No 205) requires one to also make Indian Sauce (No. 73), which in turn requires some Tomata (sic) Sauce (No. 21), which again requires you to use an ounce of glaze from No. 14, which is a second boiling of stock, so you have to have first made some stock (various recipes). It’s exhausting. There’s no helpful pictures either, just minute woodcuts of dishes like Croustade of Larks.

Dainty and Complicated: Real Vegan Food

2009-07-15T14:49:00.000+02:00

Laura Barton in the Guardian:

Four years ago, my own approach to vegetarian cooking was transformed after a visit to Fresh, a small chain of restaurants in Toronto that specialises in predominantly vegan food (stop wrinkling your noses there at the back). It was organic, sustainable, and perhaps most importantly, a-wriggle with flavour and texture. There were salads made with shredded carrot, white radishes called daikon, yellow beets and napa cabbage in a lime-peanut dressing. There was coconut tempeh (a solid, protein-rich ingredient made with whole, fermented soya beans, which tastes three million times better than it sounds) and black bean tostadas. And more than anything, there were the restaurant's signature rice-bowls: brown basmati rice with a choice of toppings — the ninja, for instance, which offered salad greens, wasabi dill dressing, crispy tofu cubes, sun-dried tomatoes, sunflower sprouts and spicy ginger-tamari dressing. Smitten, I bought the restaurant's cookbook, Fresh at Home.

It Ain't Easy Being Vegan

2009-07-02T06:41:00.002+02:00

Read to believe: an incredibly meticulous piece of research by bloggers in LA who tested food at 17 supposedly vegan joints for, well, things that vegans don't eat. The results may or may not surprise you, depending on your level of cynicism about the restaurant industry.

Revered Food Writer Had Strong Opinions About Food, Writing

2009-07-01T08:52:00.003+02:00

The Guardian has been rootling through Elizabeth David's book collection and annotations, and finds her "bitchy", because, you know, she should have been sugar and spice like a proper lady. Anyway, word choice aside, it does include a recipe which David dubbed "just about the most revolting dish ever devised." It's from the Belfast Women's Institute:

Italian salad
1 pint cold cooked macaroni
½ pint cooked or tinned pears
½ pint grated raw carrot
French dressing to moisten
2 heaped tablespoons minced onion
½ pint cooked or minced string beans
Mix the chopped macaroni and vegetables; moisten with French dressing, ﬂavouring with garlic if liked. Serve on a dish lined with lettuce leaves. Decorate with mayonnaise and minced pimento or chives.

Pizza the Action

2009-06-18T12:22:00.001+02:00

Len Deighton's groundbreaking 1960s cookbook for men to be reissued. Read all about it in the Independent:

His kitchen education began shortly after he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in 1952. "I was an art student on vacation, and got a job at the new Festival Hall's restaurant as a temporary kitchen porter. One day I was mopping the floor when the fish chef asked me if I would do some jobs for him, as his assistant hadn't arrived. My first task was skinning Dover soles. I must have been a good student because he then showed me how to fillet them. From then onwards, my days were spent as unofficial assistant to the fish chef, though I was still paid only porter's wages. I once asked my chef why he'd chosen me for this sudden elevation. He said everyone had noticed the way I 'hung around watching the cooks'. He was right. During my student vacations, I continued to work in kitchens in England and abroad, and I not only hung around watching the cooks, I became one of them."
Was there one chef who influenced him? "Philip Harben," said Deighton. "He was a short, hyper-active man with a neatly-trimmed beard who'd become a TV star in the 1940s. His TV series was called The Grammar of Cookery and one of his many books, The Way To Cook, is subtitled 'Common Sense in the Kitchen' and begins, 'This is not a recipe book.' Harben persuaded me that French cooking provides the best systematic basis for anyone learning to cook anything. My mother provided the skills, and my time spent working in restaurants the professional attitude, but Harben was scientific and he was the one who pointed me in the right direction."
During his six years as a student, punctuated by vocational cheffing, Deighton bought several classic cookbooks. Because he didn't want to see them spattered with Bolognese sauce, he never took them in the kitchen. Instead, he wrote out recipes on slips of paper, adding little drawings and diagrams, and pinned them over the cooker. One evening at dinner, a graphics guru called Ray Hawkey, working for The Observer, walked into Deighton's kitchen and spotted the fluttering recipes. Those, he said, could be published if the lettering and drawing were better. "English newspapers were being drastically revised at the time," Deighton recalls. "Ray and Mike Rand were graphic designers and wanted my cookstrips to be part of a new magazine-like look. The Observer management regarded the changes with dread and would commit to only six strips. But when they started getting letters from male readers, they extended my contract to 50 strips to make up a course in French cooking."

Voener?

2009-06-17T18:03:00.002+02:00

The vegetarian doener. Apparently. Although no giveaways as to what's in it. The legumic equivalant of those strange rotating cones of meat?

How to Cook Injera

2009-06-17T08:57:00.000+02:00

Lovely piece from Hannah Pool in the Guardian, plus video.

Hidden Dining in Berlin

2009-06-14T09:58:00.002+02:00

Why is it that every NYT piece about Berlin always has to contain some stupid error? This is a nice article, but they've got Pappelallee in "the Mitte section" ("the Mitte section"? What is this? 1945?). I went to Cookies and Cream years ago and found the dining much more exciting than the clubbing, and the Shy Chef has cropped up before, though I've never heard of Rodeo Club. Sounds good!
Years ago I did go to another "underground restaurant" which offered one sitting a week, in a low-lit house crowded with flea-market ephemera and rickety velvet-covered chairs. The food reminded me of student conferences, but that wasn't the point. Oh, and then there was this place, and that certain other establishment in Neukoelln. Gads, why do I never keep proper diaries?

Raw vs Cooked

2009-06-11T09:53:00.001+02:00

Some of the dishes in this Independent piece on raw-foodism sound appealing, but you'd need a degree in nutrition to avoid malnutrition. Plus unlimited supplies of exotic goodies like agave. Here's one that sounds edible:

Cabbage avocado salad with hemp and coriander

Serves 4

6 cups finely-shredded cabbage (mix of purple and green)
Quarter of a cup red and yellow peppers, diced
One-and-a-half avocadoes, diced
3 tablespoons hemp oil (or flax oil)
One-and-a-half tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons red onion or leek, diced
Quarter of a cup hulled hemp seeds
3 tablespoons loose coriander leaves
Half a teaspoon of sea salt

Toss all ingredients together, squeezing as you mix to "wilt" the cabbage and cream the avocado. Serve immediately.As a variation, add chopped fresh herbs or your choice of diced vegetables. This dish works equally well with kale, chard or spinach.

Pucker Up

2009-06-09T08:10:00.000+02:00

'Croatian nutritionist Dr Lejla Kazinic Kreho who has published a study on the best natural viagra based on data gathered by King's College London said: "The knowledge collected at King's College shows pickled cabbage is the best natural viagra.

"It may be hard to believe that saurkraut is one of most powerful aphrodisiacs, but the British data is conclusive."'

Macrobiotics and the FBI

2009-06-03T10:21:00.001+02:00

An interview with Gregory Sams. Some highlights:

During his rehabilitation in Britain, Sams and his brother Craig (who later started Green & Black's chocolate), heard that the macrobiotic bookshop in New York had been raided and its books burnt. "It was the FBI," he says. "The very idea that hamburgers and milkshakes were bad for you was deemed to be seditious and anti-American. Craig and I decided that whatever this macrobiotic thing was, we wanted to be part of it. I'd been a veggie since I was 10, but I'd been eating a lot of crap like ice cream. After this, I became a lot more serious."

"There was one time when Yoko needed a blood transfusion and she only wanted vegetarian blood," he recalls. "So I spent the day ferrying vegetarians I knew to the hospital in her Rolls-Royce to check if they were a suitable match."

Literary Food Porn

2009-05-30T18:37:00.002+02:00

Another Jezebelly food blog, this time a collection of extracts from literature which celebrate, of course, FOOD. Lashings of ginger beer, cream cakes, head cheese and bitter melon: Literary Food Porn.
I've been hunting for good descriptions of bran mashes in pony books (or maybe I'm confusing a passing mention with my own memories of mixing horse food by hand – slippery linseed, flaked oats, bran, garlic powder and sugar beet slop), an elusive part of Pippy Longstocking where our heroine combines chocolate candy cigars with raspberry sweets (a flavour combination I've been trying to replicate for years), and I'd also highly recommend the whole of The Taste of Dreams, by Vanora Bennett.

Re-pasts

2009-05-29T08:45:00.002+02:00

My new favourite food blog: The Vintage Cook Book Trials:

Adventures in the land of brewis, fidget pie, singin' hinnies and other assorted olden delights, as well as a trawl through the best and worse of post-war recipery - a blog where we test out vintage recipes from cookery books we find at car boots and down the chazzer, and document (and eat) the results.

Delighted to see they have a recipe (""Welsh Eggs"") from Make a Meal with Cheese. If this is the same, truly strange WI cheese recipe collection that I once found in a mouldering New Forest holiday cottage, then I look forward to a 2009 interpretation of "surprise fudge". Hint, it had cheese in it.

Fat Shaming

2009-05-24T06:57:00.004+02:00

Take on the industrialised food industry and politics? Or be mean to fatties? MeMe Roth chooses the latter course of action in her campaign against obesity. Gaby Wood does a nice job with the interview:

But chastisement is not the same as persuasion, and some of Roth's formulations are of such questionable sanity that they can't possibly help her cause. For instance, she tells me: "The defence has been made in the case of sex criminals that there is pleasure on the part of the victim. The same is true with what we're doing with food. We may abuse our bodies with food, but it's incredibly pleasurable. From a food marketer's point of view, when your quote unquote victim is so willing and enjoying of the process, who's fighting back?"

I try to pin her down to something more specific. Let's just do a sample day, I say. What about breakfast? Roth grimaces. "I hate to say this, because I think it's counter to what most people should do, but I never in my whole life have enjoyed breakfast. For me, it doesn't work as well as other things."
Right, I say. So how about lunch?
She squirms visibly. "You're taking me where I don't want to go ... What works for me doesn't work for a lot of people."
Well, you've said that, I insist, so taking that into account: lunch? Roth hesitates. "I discovered when I was in college that I work best when I get a workout in and eat after that. Sometimes I'll delay when I eat until I get a workout in. But I don't let a whole day go by without running four miles."
OK, I go on, but supposing you couldn't work out until four o'clock in the afternoon - would you not eat until after that?
"I might."
I look at my watch. It's 3.30pm. Alarm bells start to ring in my head. How about today, I ask. Have you eaten at all today?
Roth is a little quiet.
"No," she says.

Note also, the punchline to this Sophie Dahl interview...

The May Hole

2009-05-20T07:47:00.002+02:00

I fell into a May hole. Have still been reading about food though, and here are a few crumbs from today's Guardian:

the £5 meal challenge
and four recipes from The Iraqi Cookbook, which make me wish the shops were open already so I could go and buy some vegetables to stuff.

Celebrity Cookbooks Need Editors Too

2009-04-26T08:25:00.002+02:00

I'm predisposed to love Sophie Dahl, because she always seemed to be a licence to voluptuousness, and in theory her new food memoir should be a "sensuous feast" (ect ect) but by God it's badly written, judging by this extract in the Daily Mail:

"the purdah of shorthand"
"I wanted to share the joy I took in great silken smoothies made from nut milk, cups of raw honey and a plethora of exotic Amazonian berries coloured like the rainbow."
"she could make appealing leftovers out of nothing"

Now, either this prose was unimaginably bad and did get edited, or else no one at Bloomsbury is willing to make an education out of the process. Imagine if you'd signed on Sophie Dahl, and taught her to write well! Quids in, no?

The Weird World of Sour Dough

2009-04-16T18:03:00.001+02:00

Long and lovely essay by Mark Vanhoenacker in the Independent. Am not sure about his etymology, but the rest is fun.

Observer Incites Class Warfare

2009-03-29T09:35:00.004+02:00

The Observer Food Blog asks, "what are the most hilarious middle class [why not upper too?] foodie nightmares you've ever heard?" ""Which cretin has pointed the Brie?!" is a great one, also:

"The catalogue was already quite a lengthy one and is growing all the time and the current incumbent at the top of the pile is my brother-in-law, Matt. He is a good northern lad and a long time supporter of Sheffield Wednesday who would definitely mark himself down as being credible on a street level, even if said street was a leafy avenue with nice detached houses. However, during a family holiday in Devon, while scouring the aisles of a sparsely stocked budget supermarket with my nephew and niece in tow he was heard to wail to my sister:

'The children are getting upset. Quick, where are the grissini?'"

Scraping Out the Larder

2009-03-25T10:23:00.001+01:00

Nice little piece in the Guardian with some olde recipes from the Guildford Library's collection of cookbooks:

In 1917 towards the end of the first world war, German U-boats effectively blockaded British ports. With supplies from Australia, Canada and South America interrupted, meat became suddenly scarce and expensive.
Mrs CS Peel, a popular food writer of the day, published her Eat Less Meat Book with the subtitle: War Ration Housekeeping. And it is still true today that one of the easiest ways to cut down on the food bill is to reduce meat consumption.
This recipe for cheese scraps is delicious spread on toast, sprinkled with a little Worcestershire sauce and grilled for a few minutes as an instant rarebit.
"Ingredients: Odds and ends of cheese, margarine, made mustard [as opposed to the powdered stuff], salt, pepper, cayenne.
Method: Take any pieces of cheese and grate them and then work them into a smooth paste with the other ingredients, using enough margarine to make the paste smooth. Press into an earthenware terrine with a cover. Excellent with hot biscuits or toast, or to use as sandwiches."

What's the Opposite of Apotheosis?

2009-03-24T07:27:00.002+01:00

A doener kebab flavour Pot Noodle, that's what. Almost as poor taste as the £30 Harrod's Pot Noodle.

Seeds of Change ect ect

2009-03-20T08:26:00.001+01:00

The Obamas are going to plant a vegetable garden, says the NYT. I hope the soil is OK, lord only knows what's gone into it over the years to get that perfect "bowling green" finish.

The Clintons grew some vegetables in pots on the roof of the White House. But the Obamas’ garden will have 55 varieties of vegetables — from a wish list of the kitchen staff — grown from organic seedlings started at the executive mansion’s greenhouses.
The Obamas will feed their love of Mexican food with cilantro, tomatilloes and hot peppers. Lettuces will include red romaine, green oak leaf, butterhead, red leaf and galactic. There will be spinach, chard, collards and black kale. For desserts, there will be a patch of berries. And herbs will include some more unusual varieties, like anise hyssop and Thai basil. A White House carpenter who is a beekeeper will tend two hives for honey.
Total cost for the seeds, mulch, etc., is $200.

Isn't the Internet Scrumptious?

2009-03-17T08:57:00.000+01:00

I just discovered a site dedicated to reviewing crisps. I love you, Internet!

Nifty Thrifty

2009-03-15T08:54:00.002+01:00

The Observer notes that the Credit Crunch is prompting a surge in home cooking and changing the UK's supermarkets:

This new frugality has various consequences: first, people are cooking more and eating out less. At Morrisons, sales of the ingredients for Sunday roasts are up 44% on the year; at Asda, beef kidney sales are up 74% and pork shoulder 58%. When Sainsbury's featured basic beef chunks on an in-store recipe card, purchases rose by 2,000%. Tesco brought pork hocks back last year after a 10 year absence and sales doubled in six months. Early this year, there was even an unexpected run on onions.
Food is the only retail sector that is growing, albeit very slowly, according to the British Retail Consortium.
There is also evidence that people are shopping more carefully. According to a report by marketing consultant Futurelab for budget supermarket Aldi, 43% of shoppers have started taking a list with them, and 29% have started using coupons. Many have also returned to doing one big shop a month - and it isn't just cash-strapped parents: a quarter of 16- to 24-year-olds are now bulk buyers.
"I've started soaking barley overnight and making soups to take to work," says Katherine, 25, a fashion merchandiser. "I'm single but I make enough for four and stick it in the freezer. I reckon I save about £40 a week."

A raft of new or relaunched cookbooks are on their way too, from Four Ingredients to How to Feed Your Whole Family a Healthy, Balanced Diet with Very Little Money and Hardly Any Time, Even if You Have a Tiny Kitchen, Only Three Saucepans (One with an Ill-Fitting Lid) and No Fancy Gadgets Unless You Count the Garlic Crusher.

In Praise of Butter

2009-03-13T08:57:00.001+01:00

Rose Prince drums her churn in the Telegraph:

The Fat Panel, an independent group of experts, has ruled that our best known celebrity chefs use too much saturated fat in their recipes and are urging temperance. A single serving from a recipe by Nigella Lawson, Gordon Ramsay and Rick Stein can contain more than 100 per cent of the recommended daily allowance of saturated fat, they moan. Swapping butter for margarine or a vegetable oil spread would reduce the fat content of some recipes by at least half, they counsel.
What a blow they have struck. If there is one thing left in this gloomy, credit-crunched life where every pursuit is spoiled by over zealous health and safety measures, it is the comfort of eating. Cooking out of our favourite books is a cheap way to cheer ourselves up. Restaurants may be going bust left, right and centre, but cook books have come into their own. What are celebrity chefs for if not the sensuality of their hugely indulgent creamy soups, buttery sauces and rich puddings? The idea of Nigella Lawson licking a finger dipped into a bowl of cake batter made with margarine makes me feel sick, but it makes perfect sense when there is butter in the mix.

...

Butter is not the bogey man of the bad diet, as we have been led to believe. Butter contains vital nutrients; the vitamins in the fat help us absorb calcium and it also has strong anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties. There is also evidence that our bodies are much better able to process the fats in butter than those in refined vegetable fat. The only truly healthy vegetable oils are expensive, unrefined, cold pressed "virgin" oils, such as olive oil.In contrast margarines, or "spreads", are made from refined vegetable fats. They can be hydrogenated – a thickening method that produces harmful "transfats" that increase the risk of heart disease, cancers and, according to the Food Standards Agency, have no known nutritional benefit.

Red Velvet

2009-03-11T10:43:00.003+01:00

I first had red velvet in miniature form at one of those chic London cupcake joints that make me think of eating disorders ("Eat the special cake, it's tiny so it's OK; take your pleasure in small doses, don't want too much, don't eat too much, stay in control") and then I tried to make it for my birthday last year, even though it's dairy-based and that brings me out in boils. It's the most extravagant, moist, obscene kind of cake I've ever come across and should certainly not be eaten in bonsai form. It's far surperior to those gooey "death by chocolate" concoctions and swampy Black Forest gateaux you get on every sweet trolley.
So can I point you to The Cookbook Chronicles, which has a straightforward, much tried and lovingly tested recipe for a triple layer red velvet with bourbon cream? I can? I thought so. Here it is.

Bread of Heaven?

2009-03-08T18:52:00.002+01:00

A friend posted a recommendation, a book called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. It has 289 rave reviews on Amazon. I think I have to buy it. The Publishers' Weekly review as follows:

While the phrase artisan bread typically evokes images of labor-intensive sessions and top-notch ingredients, for authors Hertzberg and François it means five minutes. An intriguing concept—high-quality, fresh bread in less time than it takes to boil water. The authors' promises of no kneading, no starter, no proofing yeast and no need for a bread machine is based on the concept of mixed and risen high-moisture dough stored in the fridge for up to two weeks (dough is cut into pieces and popped in the oven for fresh loaves as desired). Note: for those tracking minutes, the five-minutes doesn't include the 20-minute resting time for dough or 30 minutes for baking. After concise, introductory chapters on ingredients, equipment, and tips and techniques, readers are presented with the master recipe, a free-form loaf of French boule that is the model for all breads in the book. Three main chapters—Peasant Loaves, Flatbreads and Pizzas and Enriched Breads and Pastries—are filled with tempting selections and focus on ethnic breads and pastries including Couronne from France; Limpa from Scandinavia; Ksara from Morocco; Broa from Portugal; and Chocolate-Raisin Babka from the Ukraine, but the basics (Oatmeal Bread, Bagels, White Bread) are all here, too. A smattering of companion recipes such as Tuscan White Bean Dip and Portuguese Fish Stew are peppered throughout. While experienced bakers and true gourmands will skip this one, those looking for an innovative approach to making bread just might find it in these recipes.

Food Bloggers of 1940

2009-03-06T11:51:00.000+01:00

Jonathan Miles in the NYT on Mark Kurlansky's (he of Cod and Salt) latest book, The Food of a Younger Land.

In 1939, Katherine Kellock, the Federal Writers’ Project editor responsible for the travel guidebooks that succored many unemployed writers through the Great Depression (Saul Bellow, John Cheever and Richard Wright among them), hatched a new idea: a book, to be entitled “America Eats,” about “American cookery and the part it has played in the national life.” Writers fanned out across the republic to document — via field reports, essays, stories, poems, recipes and interviews — what academics have taken to calling “foodways.” Among the topics covered were New York soda-luncheonette slang, Georgia possum cookery, Minnesota lutefisk, geoduck clams in Washington State, Montana’s fried beaver tail, Colorado food superstitions (“You will receive mail from the direction in which your pie is pointing, when it is set down at your place at the table”), a Choctaw “funeral cry” feast and “a Los Angeles sandwich called a taco.” Throughout 1940 and 1941, raw copy flowed into Washington, D.C., where it was farmed out to rewriters — including Nelson Algren — for shaping into book form. Then came Pearl Harbor.

Decades later, Kurlansky has retrieved the pile of manuscripts and created a book which I can't wait to read.

Amaranth

2009-03-03T08:07:00.003+01:00

I posted a little about the lack of inspiring quinoa, millet and amaranth recipes out there and I'm still searching, but saw this by Allegra McEvedy in today's Guardian:

Amaranth bread is already in our health shops, as an alternative to wheat, but this tropical crop has so much more to offer: its leaves may be used to make a delicious soup (I tried it in Brazil) called callaloo. It is revered for its high protein content, as well as being one of the fastest-growing and highest-yielding cereals on the planet. Beyond being ground into flour for bread-making it can be used for porridge, or the grains may be popped and puffed like corn or rice and used as a cereal or snack.

Protein eh? Now I have to find something to coook with it. COuld be perfect for the Hungry in Berlin Doenerspende challenge.

If Psychogeography = Iain Sinclair, then the Psychogourmet is...

2009-02-27T09:23:00.001+01:00

Geoff Nicholson!

New blog, just unveiled, with book to follow.

A psychogeographer according to Guy Debord is someone who studies "the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals."

So I suppose the psychogourmet would be someone who studies “the precise laws and specific effects of the eating environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals.”

Challenge to All Budget Foodies Out There!

2009-02-26T16:51:00.001+01:00

Can you create a good meal for two for the price of a döner?

Hungry in Berlin are asking you to rise to the challenge!

Fair Frigidaire?

2009-02-19T10:12:00.003+01:00

Can you live without a fridge? Article from today's Guardian about, er, white-good cold turkey?

As drastic as the move might seem, a small segment of the green movement has come to regard the refrigerator as an unacceptable drain on energy, and is choosing to live without it. Muston estimates that her own fridge, which was in the house when they bought it five years ago and probably dates back much longer, used 1,300kWh per year, or produced roughly 2,000lbs of CO2 - the same amount from burning 105 gallons of petrol. And even a newer, more efficient model would have used too much energy, she says, "because I'm getting along fine without one".
Muston now uses a small freezer in the basement in tandem with a cool box upstairs; the cool box is kept cold by two-litre soft drink bottles full of frozen water, which are rotated to the freezer when they melt. (The fridge, meanwhile, sits empty in the kitchen.)

OH, so they get to keep a freezer. I have a fridge and no freezer – does that make me better or worse? What about the tactics in Katharine Whitehorn's Cooking in a Bedsitter, of marinades and newspaper wrapping and a half suitcase under the bed? And larders, now sacrificed to open plan kitchens and utility rooms?

Why Does It Have to be Either/Or?

2009-02-18T08:51:00.002+01:00

Silly headline in the Times: "50 of the World's Best Food Blogs: The End of Cookbooks?". Of course not, you fools. Horses for (four) courses. You think a new Elizabeth David or MFK Fisher is going to work in Blogspot format? Numpties.
The blog in the number one spot gets an endorsement that would make Gordon Ramsay blush:

1. Orangette The ultimate food lovers' blog. The seductive powers of food writing are not to be underestimated - Molly Wizenberg’s words even won her a husband. I cooked for almost 12 hours straight after discovering this blog - recipes range from the simple to the delectable: tomato sauce, hasselback potatoes, chickpea salad, chocolate granola. Wizenberg redeems the most uninteresting food – her cabbage gratin is one of my culinary hits of the year.

Recipe Round Up

2009-02-11T11:31:00.002+01:00

Another great selection of seasonal receipts from the Times:

How Dolphins Make Sushi

2009-01-31T08:45:00.001+01:00

In the Independent:

The scientists observed a wild Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin repeatedly performing a complex set of manoeuvres in the Spencer Gulf off South Australia. First, on spotting her prey, the female flushed a cuttlefish out of the dense weeds where they generally hide, into an open area with clear visibility. Adopting a vertical pose, head down and tail up, she pinned it to the sandy sea floor with her snout.
With a flick of her powerful tail, the dolphin then killed the fish with a rapid downward thrust that broke the cuttlebone. Divers who were watching heard a "loud click" as the bone snapped, the research team reported in the online science and medical journal PLoS ONE.
Next, the dolphin expelled the toxic black ink that cuttlefish squirt at predators when attacked, lifting the dead fish high in the water and repeatedly whacking it with her snout to release thick clouds of ink. Finally, it was time to get rid of the large, hard bone. The dolphin dived back down to the sea floor, where she scraped the fish along the sand, stripping off the skin until the bone popped out. And hey presto: an appetising morsel akin to calamari was ready to be tucked into.

You Blow My (Bacon) Rind

2009-01-29T19:35:00.001+01:00

The Bacon Explosion:

"He bought about $20 worth of bacon and Italian sausage from a local meat market. As it lay on the counter, he thought of weaving strips of raw bacon into a mat. The two spackled the bacon mat with a layer of sausage, covered that with a crunchy layer of cooked bacon, and rolled it up tight. They then stuck the roll — containing at least 5,000 calories and 500 grams of fat — in the Good-One Open Range backyard smoker that they use for practice."

Although I have to say, it sounds classier than the Stonner.

Kneady Person

2009-01-23T08:31:00.003+01:00

I haven't delved far into Dan Lepard's "How to Bake" series in the Guardian because I can never be arsed to knead dough for long, but I've just realised that my food processor has a setting for doing just that. So let's have a rummage:

Winter Apple Loaf
Soya and Linseed Loaf
Basic techniques for numpties like me
Pizza Dough
Pigs in Duvets
Sesame Ginger Halva
Berliners
Simple Walnut Tin Loaf (with red wine)

Bean Feast

2009-01-18T08:12:00.001+01:00

Scrapbooking a couple of Nigel Slater bean/pulse recipes: yellow split peas with spicy butter and beans with tomato, coriander and coconut milk.

One Hump or Two?

2009-01-12T09:17:00.000+01:00

Every wondered how to cook camel?

One for the Book List

2009-01-04T13:15:00.001+01:00

An Independent article on slow cookers mentions

Judith Finlayson, author of The 150 Best Slow Cooker Recipes and Delicious & Dependable Slow Cooker Recipes, for some sage advice on how to finish the week in style. "It's true that slow cooking does tend to mitigate flavour. But this can be dealt with by using lots of aromatics like onions and garlic. Instead of grinding peppercorns, I crush them in a mortar so they release their flavour slowly as the dish cooks. So too with, seeds such as cumin, fennel, coriander. With rosemary and thyme, I'll often use the fresh version but toss the whole stem in, along with the leaves. The stem cooks slowly, releasing flavour and keeping the dish seasoned. Also I'll add spices such as fresh chillies at the end of the cooking time, and just cook them long enough for the flavours to meld," she says.

Is this the Quinoa Recipe I've Been Searching For?

2009-01-03T10:32:00.001+01:00

Yotam Ottolenghi's quinoa salad with dried Iranian lime? Feta, sweet potato, wild rice, sage, oregano and... something so esoteric that it has to be ordered on line. Dried Iranian lime. Oh well.

There's Gold in Them Thar Loaves

2009-01-02T16:42:00.000+01:00

'A young Normandy baker faces a goldrush when he opens his doors today after the New Year bank holiday.

Julien Vitrebert has let it be known that two tiny ingots of real gold – worth €400 (£386) each – will be hidden in two of the almond-paste tarts traditionally sold by French bakers in January ...

M. Vitrebert has had two tiny ingots of 18-carat gold engraved with the bakery's name. They weigh 3.63 grammes – enough, M. Vitrebert says, "to make a decent ring if melted down".'

From the Independent.

Soup, Beautiful Soup

2009-01-01T14:01:00.001+01:00

Just bookmarking these gorgeous sounding things from the Times: beetroot and apple borscht, parsnip soup with chestnuts and mixed herb pesto, savoy cabbage and white bean soup.

As the Pound Plummets Against the Euro Like Someone Who's Bungee-Jumping with Tooth Floss

2008-12-10T13:51:00.002+01:00

I discover a new favourite blog, in which a courageous lady cooks something new in a slow cooker every day. Fudge! Chai lattes! Nuts! Dumplings! Somebody give her a book deal already.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown on Lentils

2008-11-21T18:53:00.001+01:00

and how to avoid the farting.

Salsify – Didn't She Win the Oaks in 1990?

2008-11-07T11:09:00.002+01:00

A seasonal veg tempura including salsify, beetroot and Jerusalem artichokes from Yotam Ottolenghi in the Observer.

A reader's letter to the Times explains some history:

I suspect that Smith’s “squichanary”, (which the recipe refers to as “roots”) is scorzonera (black salsify), which had been introduced to England in the late 17th century. Eighteenth-century cooks tended to treat scorzonera, salsify and skirrets as more or less interchangeable — for example, Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery made Plain & Easy (1747), in which a recipe for fricasseed skirrets ends: “So likewise you may dress Root of Salsify and Scorzonera”. The Compleat Housewife contains a recipe for skirret pie rather similar to Swanwick’s; it too includes cinnamon, sugar, white wine and candied orange peel.

Aldo Buzzi is strict:

Salsify is usually cooked in butter. The roots are scraped clean, leaving the first three or four centimetres of leaf. You cut them into approximately 8cm chunks and immerse them in water to which you have added lemon or vinegar to prevent them from going black; then you toss them into boiling water (to which you have added a level spoonful of flour and two of vinegar for each litre of water, and salt as required), cover and set them to simmer until they are tender (to test, squeeze between two fingers). Then you drain them and sauté them in butter, seasoning them with salt and black pepper to taste. Truly, salsify is the oyster among vegetables and, like all oysters, it demands champagne as an accompaniment.
Savoury delicacies such as the oyster plant cooked in butter need to be eaten in ideal conditions. The room must be south-facing, get plenty of sun, and be well lit after dark, avoiding neon lighting at all costs as this gives the food a macabre hue, and avoiding darkness, too, as this diminishes the sense of taste and smell. Candlelight will do if this improves the situation. The floor must give warmth; that is, it must be wooden. The table should be large (even if we are on our own), covered with the most pristine of tablecloths. Upholstered chairs should have upholstered arm-rests to rest one’s arms every now and then, as they are kept very busy during the meal. Scents should be reduced to a minimum, lest they blend unsatisfactorily with the aroma of the food.

But Angela Hartnett just sautées it in thyme leaves.

Keen on Quinoa

2008-11-06T18:45:00.002+01:00

I'm experimenting with all-things non-wheat just now, and after discovering that flaked rice makes for fucking awful porridge, I'm branching out into millet, amaranth and quinoa. The trouble is that the Google results aren't so inspiring. It's all Gillian McKeith and gluten-free stuff that just doesn't thrill. I did find this nice NYT piece on quinoa but it doesn't tell you what to blooming well cook it with, or give you any reason to eat it other than "Health".

The W.I. Go on Digging for Victory in Climate Change War

2008-11-01T09:58:00.001+01:00

'As concerns grow about food security in the wake of climate change and rising oil prices, buying local, using compost and growing your own vegetables also fits in with recent expert advice to return to the wartime values of the "Dig for Victory" campaign.

Ruth Bond, chairwoman of the WI public affairs committee chair, said women can lose weight and save the planet.

"Our members have shown that reducing food waste is good for the environment, your pocket and even your waistline.

"It's true that meal planning reduced the temptation to nibble on leftovers, but participants also found a support network in their Love Food group, which encouraged everyone to talk about things that were bothering them such as weight problems. It's easier to make changes when you know you're not going it alone."'

The Telegraph

Brown Trout

2008-10-31T08:08:00.002+01:00

A Flemish TV chef has, not surprisingly, pissed off a lot of people by travelling to Berchtesgarten to film a (now scrapped) special on what the 'great man' liked to eat. Zoe Williams sums it up in the Guardian:

Popular history has it that Hitler was a vegetarian. This is always dredged up as a grim irony, that such a murderous person should eschew animal products, but I think the grim ironists are wrong: partly because there is nothing about enjoying the odd pork chop that predisposes a person to acts of genocide, but mainly because it is not quite accurate. Here is a partial list of the dictator's favourite foods: squab, liver dumplings, caviar and succulent trout in butter sauce. So you see, not only was he not a vegetarian, he didn't even like vegetables.

Getting British People to Appreciate Polish Food

2008-10-30T09:27:00.001+01:00

If we wanted to buy a Polish sausage or a jar of sauerkraut, most of us could now do so fairly easily. However, most of us do not. Tesco's most popular Polish products with non-Poles are drinks and sweets, while few of us have ever attempted a Polish recipe, including me. However, Woroniecki, and his head chef at Wodka, Andrzej Pastuszak, don't doubt that in time we could be eating barszcz with the same enthusiasm as bolognese. And, in order to speed up the conversion process, Andrzej has agreed to teach me how to cook three East European classics – pierogi, herring salad, and leczo.

If there's one Polish dish which can make the leap into our cooking pots, it is pierogi. These stuffed dumplings, similar to ravioli, are filled with anything from sauerkraut to cheese. They are the most popular thing on the menu at Wodka – the kitchen makes 300 of them every day.

"We are going to make them the way my grandmother and mother made them – by hand," says Pastuszak, rolling out the dough and cutting out circles with a glass. He then dollops a spoonful of filling (made of sauerkraut, ceps and onion) in the middle of each circle, folds it over and pinches around the edges – a satisfying process.

Andrzej tells me that, when he was a child in Poland, they used to put everything from oxtail to strawberries in them, and he still makes them with his own children today.

Clare Rudebeck cooks with chef Jan Woroniecki in the Independent.

Tis the Season

2008-10-28T13:11:00.003+01:00

The Times has yet another excellent round up of seasonal veg, meat and fruit and dozens of recipes for cooking them. Just wait till I get my first bag of kale ('pasta with kale, chilli and anchovy') or a swede ('rustic root vegetable broth with walnut pesto') or brussels ('brussel sprout and goat cheese soufflé')... Oh, and 'celeriac Anna'. Want.

Gourd Almighty

2008-10-20T08:36:00.002+02:00

Twenty things to do with pumpkin and squash, rounded up by Nick Wyke in the Times. Some highlights:

roast butternut squash with coriander pesto (Jill Dupleix)
roast pumpkin with goat cheese and walnuts (Jill again)
squash and feta super salad with gingery soup (Natalie Savona)
spiced pumpkin cake (Gordon Ramsay)