What the problem is

In a nutshell: people are starving. They can't feed themselves, for two basic reasons: incentives for others to prevent them, and lack of infrastructure. The incentives are easier to address, so I'll talk about that first.

To us, starvation is a tragedy. To others, it's a business opportunity. There is a strong strand of thought that views poverty and inequity as good things; they provide the motivation for improvement, and a motor for economic growth. This is a naïve view at best, so I'm not going to waste time refuting it here.
( As far as infrastructure goes – well, let's think about what's needed to eat well )

Tags: food, politics, science

I was looking through Jane Grigson's book English Food, and caught a reference to Victorian celebrity chef (and inventor of the kitchen timer) Alexis Soyer:

The French chef of the Reform Club, the great Alexis Soyer, caused a sensation by nobly going over to Ireland in the potato famine to save Irish souls with his soup (like most benevolent soups of the time, it was not very nutritious).

Obviously, Jane Grigson is not to be argued with over statements like that any more than Elizabeth David is. I was curious about just how not-very-nutritious it was, though, so I went looking for the recipe.
( recipes and comparisons )

Tags: food

mirabehn, mostlyacat, and I took the high road south to Brighton yesterday, for the joyous and long overdue occasion of angelislington and trukkle's wedding. It was an entirely delightful day, finishing in the Druid's Head (good beer, if a limited selection - Pride, Sussex Best, and Bombardier) by way of Brighton Pier. The sea air did us all good, and mirabehn was in transports and raptures of delight over finding a city with clean unpolluted air, at least on the seafront and in the south lanes.

We also stopped off for lunch at Terre a Terre, which I'd recommend to anyone^[1]. I had "Himmel und Erde" - "Potato, apple, onion and cheddar latkes with frozen fresh horseradish sour cream, golden and crimson pickled beet slaw doused with caraway and dill oil, finished with apple snappers." It very much lived up to the name - earthy and sweet, with a taste rising to heights of deliciousness. My only quibble would be that the promised "apple snappers" turned out to be one thin slice of dried apple. Rather nice still, but neither snappy nor plural. The chunky chips I ordered on the side were pretty much perfect (though definitely approaching the extreme upper limit of how chunky a chip can get before becoming a wedge), but the promised aioli was in fact slightly garlicky mayonnaise, which is really not the same thing at all.

---

[1] At least, anyone who isn't an obligate carnivore.

Tags: elly, food

The bread turned out well, though a 7.5 hour rising time is not ideal for during the day. Something to make before bed and leave to rise overnight, really.

500g multiseed flour (Allinson's, quite nice)
8g sunflower oil
A generous tablespoon of fine sea salt
1/4 teaspoon dried yeast
About 325ml water
Rather a lot of ground black pepper
1 pinch of sugar

I think next time I'll up the yeast a bit more, and see whether I can get it to rise within a couple of hours with this little sugar.

Tags: bread, food

Elizabeth David maintains that dried active yeast doesn't need any sugar to reconstitute, and that letting it work slowly gives you better bread. I'm not entirely convinced by it, but Elizabeth David is one of the people with whom One Does Not Argue if one is wise, and I'd really rather not use any sugar if I can avoid it.

It's certainly clouding nicely, though not producing any perceptible froth (it's had about five minutes so far - one with the 1:1 mixture of yeast granules & sugar that the tin recommends would have a small amount of froth). If it hasn't done anything after another half hour I might add a pinch of sugar to kickstart it.

Tags: bread, cooking, food

I'm back from a weekend in the Raj - well, in Belper, actually. Which for those of you who (like me) had never heard of it is a small town near Derby. Nineteen of us stayed in a converted Baptist chapel and read through (the television adaptation of) Paul Scott's Raj Quartet novels. It was a lot of fun, with some fairly intense dramatic moments, and a certain amount of dressing up in Indian clothing and eating Indian food.
( long )

Tags: food, personal, readthrough

The Large Hadron Collider, at CERN, will be switched on for its first beam at approximately 0930 CET (0730 GMT, 0830 London time, other times around the globe) and the world will not end.

This is quite historic; it is (as far as I know) the first occasion on which it has been definitively, authoritatively, and scientifically proven that this will not be the case. There's even a risk assessment (PDF link).

So I suggest we endeavour to celebrate it by consuming items topologically identical to the LHC - eg., ring doughnuts, iced ring biscuits, onion rings, bagels, &c. - around that time. Suggestions of other suitable food items are welcome.

Pass it on.

Tags: food, science, shiny things

(via thekumquat

Usual drill. Bold what you've had, strikeout what you wouldn't want to eat (again), and italicize what you haven't had but would like to. Add an asterisk to anything you had to look up.

It's a remarkably American list, or at least includes all sorts of things that are quite common here.

( long )

Tags: food, meme

Cheers muchly to those who commented on my last post - it was almost universally really helpful.

And now, as they say, for something completely different.

The Bicon accommodation this year provides no useful kitchen equipment or utensils. I'm told they have a "two-ring hob and basic grill", microwave, kettle, toaster, fridge, and freezer. (This is for the standard rooms. Those booking for en-suite get an oven too, and a couple of extra hobs.)

If the hob/grill arrangements are what I think they are, basically you can forget about them for anything other than heating stuff up, and not fast at that. Also, attempting to cook more than one item at once is doomed to either failure, or extreme slowness.

So, having survived multiple conventions, LRP seasons, and other camping-type things on less, here's my guide to eating under those constraints.

( Read more... )

Tags: bicon, food

Recipe as requested by weegoddess.

Part 1: Take a generous pile of red lentils - I don't generally measure anything so I can't be more precise. Pour in a generous glug of soy sauce and a sprinkling of sea salt, and top up with cold water. Put it on to heat, and cook the lentils as you would normally - boil them for 15 minutes or so. I skim the foam off the top when it's boiling, but you don't have to if you can't be bothered. Around that point, add in a generous dose of sage and marjoram and leave it to simmer till Done.

Part 2: Take a moderate-to-generous amount of bacon, ham, or other dead pig product, chop it into small portions, and fry it up. When it's nice and hot, mix in some spices - I used smoked paprika and some rather nice urfa biber imported as a guest-gift by sunspiral. After a while, turn the heat up to 11, toss it around a bit, and pour in a large glug of red wine vinegar or suitable substitute (either red wine or balsamic vinegar work well) and let that bubble off in a fun dramatic manner. When that's glazed on and there's no liquid left the bacon is done, so set it aside till the lentils are done.

Part 3: Add part 2 to part 1, and stir them around on the heat till they reach a suitable consistency. Then serve!

Tags: food

My oven is (at last) fixed.

Poll #974233
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 18

What should I cook first?

This!

Tags: food

Courtesy originally of the BBC, more recently of both eddie777 and vashti. Bold the ones you've eaten, italicize the ones you dislike.
( the list )

Tags: food, meme

( recipe )

Tags: cooking, food

Tonight's dinner-of-sorts (odd sleeping habits mess up mealtimes, sadly): roast red pepper stuffed with rice seasoned with fresh ginger, tarragon, and chopped apricots. Will have to remember this mixture for later, it works well.

( Edited to add the actual recipe, in order to preempt requests from Certain Parties. )

Tags: cooking, food

Noriko Takiguchi writes about what sushi is, how it is said that one should enjoy it, and why, in a seven-part (so far) series.

The history of sushi goes back as long as to B.C.400 in South East Asia, where people used uncooked rice to marinate raw fish for preservation purposes. Fish was sprinkled with salt and buried in rice. Rice’s fermentation helped fish last long, and provided a rare source of protein at that time. Only fish was served and rice was thrown away.

When this kind of preserved fish came north to Japan around 8th century, people started eating both the fish and the rice. The rice was soft and slightly sour due to the fermentation. This sourness was later replaced by just adding vinegar to cooked rice, when people in Edo era (17th century to mid 19th century) wanted to eat sushi quickly without waiting the fermentation time. But this was not yet the sushi as we know it. The vinegar rice was served not only with fish but also with some vegetables and cooked dried food. We still see developed versions of this kind in many parts of Japan.

http://bayosphere.com/node/973 is the last part, the only one from which all the others are linked.

(via http://xplane.com/xblog/index.php )

Tags: food

Looks like nou has been a good influence on me, at least in departments other than the going-to-bed-early one.

This one's terribly simple, I got it straight out of "A Wolf in the Kitchen" by Lindsey Bareham. Quantities, as always with my cooking, are approximate.

Potatoes, some. I used eight medium-small ones, boiled (slightly too much, I thought, but it seems to have worked out).
Eggs. Half a dozen.
Onions, one and a half large red. Diced.
Salt & black pepper, some. Chervil, dried, lots. The recipe says tabasco, but I didn't have any, so I just grabbed the first thing from the cupboard that went with eggs.
Um. That's it.

Boil the potatoes. Start the onions frying, then when they're about half done tip in the potatoes.

While they're on, crack the eggs into a large bowl (I used a ceramic casserole dish for these quantities) and whip them up with the seasonings. Leave to stand, then when the other half is edibly done tip it into the bowl and mix them all up a bit.

The oven should be warmed up by this point, at 150 Celsius or whatever that is in Foreign, and the dish (naturally) goes in there for ten or fifteen minutes. It's largely comprised of egg, so you'll be able to tell when it's Done.

Tags: cooking, food
Current Music: Jazz FM

I ended up making it by the standard soup methodology, ie. bung it all in the pan and don't let it boil. Works out pretty well, though I made far too much (and now have all the Nigerian pepper soup in the world ever) and it would've been better if I'd actually had a blender.

Tags: cooking, food

(Edit: bad typing redacted.)

This was prompted by remembering the international food fair from my days at Cranfield - it was about 85% foreign students and at the beginning of every academic year they rounded up as many nationalities as possible and induced them to do ethnic food stalls. We had Russian borscht (with Hellman's Mayonnaise) which didn't impress me much, thin & watery, but thickened up a bit it would be lovely. Iraqi applish semolina, French apple pancakes, African stew (the gentleman apologised profusely for not having been able to get goat for it. Bit hard in the middle of nowhere, Home Counties). And a rather gorgeous Nigerian fish soup containing approximately three kilos of black pepper.

Googling around, it seems to go sort of like this - the lady who made it wasn't all that interested in explaining it at the time, she just liked having people eat it.

FISH. Lotsa fish.
Pepper. All the recipes I've found say chilli peppers or even ahbaneros, but I distinctly remember black pepper so I'll use that. All the black pepper in the world ever.
Tomatoes.
Onion.

I'm figuring on pan-frying small chunks of fish in large quantities, then just doing a long slow tomato sauce stew thing with the pepper and some previously fried onions, and then seeing whether it worked and what else I need to do with it.

Tags: cooking, food
Current Music: London

(Edit: bad spelling and typing removed at nou's request, because she says I have to get used to using an iBook keyboard with no functioning backspace key.)

Have had a very nice dinner, and (apparently as always) nou cooked a truly ridiculous amount of lovely food, though by some sort of heroic effort we were able to save -some- space for the main course after filling up on chilli-dusted melon chunks, prosciutto crudo & melon on little sticks, vegetable sushi, and the truly goooooooorgeous garlic & anchovy dip. Which proved to be wise, given just how good the squid in red wine & the courgettes were. (And the other things, the technical details of which I forget at this late stage.)

Met some very nice people, the LJ usernames of whom I promptly forgot (yes, gentle reader, it was that sort of party - it seems I'm fated to end up at parties wherein all the people present are introduced, or at least introduceable, by at least two names. Theatre people, roleplayers, mudders, LJers. Damn the lot of us) but will no doubt find out at some stage.

nou kindly let me try out a new paintbrush on her back, and pictures will be forthcoming. In retrospect, I should've chosen a different one, but I managed, and will be using it quite happily on other occasions.

Tags: food

From reuss

Recommend to me:

1. a movie
2. a book
3. a musical artist, song, or album
4. a LiveJournal user not on my friends list
5. what I should have for dinner
6. a website
7. a quote

Then put this in your LiveJournal and I'll do the same for you.

Tags: films, food, livejournal, meme, music