Caraway Seeds

Caraway seeds are best known when used in bread, biscuits (cookies) and Cakes. However, they can also be used in savoury dishes too.

Here is a recipe for a warming Autumn/Winter Gammon Stew. Serves six

15ml Olive Oil
1 red onion, Chopped
2 Cloves of garlic, Chopped
454g (1lb) Gammon, Diced (cubed)
Half medium head of cabbage, Chopped
235ml 8floz Water
2 large potatoes, sliced
3 carrots, Chopped
½ Teaspoon Celery seeds
½ Teaspoon Caraway seeds
½ Teaspoon Paprika
Salt & Black Pepper to taste
100g (4oz) Greens such as Spinach, Chard or beet tops

Heat the oil over a medium heat in a large pot. Stir in the onions and cook for about three minutes until tender. Stir in the garlic and the gammon and cook for a further two minutes. Stir in the cabbage and water, bring to a simmer and cover and cook for ten minutes.

Add the potatoes, carrots, celery seeds, caraway seeds, paprika, salt and pepper, cover and simmer for ten to twelve minutes.

Reduce the heat and add the greens and cover and simmer for ten more minutes. Serve with a good home made bread.


The seeds can also be used as a herbal tea too. Half to one teaspoon of the seeds gently pressed in a mortar and pestle, then infused by having boiling water poured on them for five minutes will release the flavours. A tea made from caraway is reputed to help with treating gum disease.

While most people will use herbs and spices for the flavours they add to the diet, all herbs and spices are also reputed to have health benefits too. Caraway seeds are reputed to help with Bronchitis, coughs and colds. As well as helping the body fight off infections. It is also said to be very helpful in reducing the effects of IBS Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Like all natural products that add benefits to health via the diet, they must be used in moderation.

Whiskey Cake

I love making cakes, especially ones for adults that contain or are made with alcohol. So when I was asked if I had a recipe for Whiskey Cake, I knew I had a good one.

So here is my recipe: Whiskey Cake

6oz 170g Chopped Walnuts

3oz 85g Raisins, Chopped

3oz 85g Currants

4oz Plain Flour

1 Teaspoon (5ml) Baking Powder

¼ Teaspoon (1.25ml) Salt

4oz 115g Butter

8oz 225g Caster Sugar

3 Eggs at room temperature, Separated

1½ Teaspoon Love the Diet Mixed Spice

3floz (85ml) Irish Whiskey or Whisky

Icing sugar for dusting optional

Method

Preheat the oven to 325f/170c/Gas Mark 3. And line a 9 x 5 inch (23 x 13 cm) Loaf tin with greaseproof paper, grease the paper and the sides of the tin.

Place the Walnuts, Raisins and Currants in a bowl and sprinkle two Tablespoons (30ml) of the flour, mix and set aside. Sift together the remaining flour with the baking powder and salt.

Cream the butter with the sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks.

Mix the spices with the Whiskey/Whisky.

Fold the butter into the flour mixture.

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Fold in the Whiskey/Whisky mixture until blended, then fold into the walnut mixture.

Pour the mixture into the loaf tin and bake for about one hour, until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Let the cake cool in the tin, dust with icing sugar if using.

Talking Spices

On Saturday I was at the 151st Slaley show. The village fate, in a village in Northumberland. I have my better half to thank for discovering that it was occurring, she spotted signs for the event and while my initial enquiry to see if I could exhibit there were rejected, as all the spaces were gone, after returning from doing another market I had a message asking if I wanted to attend as other people had dropped out. So I went to the village fair at Slaley.

The aspect that I really love about attending shows like these is the real passion for food and cooking. There are many people who are passionate about creating great food, and even the most reluctant cook does use a few herbs and spices. And I love seeing that sparkle you can see in peoples eyes when I make a suggestion of how to enhance the flavour of food by using a particular herb or spice.

One of the aspects that I am pleased to discover, is that many more people seem to want to learn how to use the spices properly. There was a time when if you talked to people about using spices, the folks I was talking to were only interested in adding heat. Thus spicy food was only about the chilli burn to far to many people. Yet having learnt how to use spices from others, I knew that used well, they can enhance the flavours not smother them.

While there are still a few people encountered that want nothing but the chilli burn, the majority are not seeking that macho torture by food, but ways of enhancing the flavours of dishes. Often it is a direct result of travelling to far away places as well as the meeting and mixing of cultures.

There have been three examples of this, that I will deal with in different postings. The first was a woman from Germany who after having had a holiday in Scotland wanted the spices to make a whiskey cake. I will be posting the recipe here soon. Another was a woman from Scotland who had lived in Holland and had wanted to find a particular spice blend that was common there but like hens teeth here. A blend called Shawarma, Shoarma or Shwarma. The different spellings of the name, was half the problem, but I was able to recreate that blend too. I will be posting recipes here soon of how to use this one too.

The next one was a more complex one, as I was being asked to recreate something that was from someone’s memory of a dish that his grandmother cooked. However, he wants it to be very hot, equating spiciness with heat. Therefore, I actually think I may fail to create what he wants, but it has led me to discover the different flavours of a cultures food that I had known little about. So if when my testing of the blend(s) is done, I should have a fragrant Burmese mix too.

I really am excited by all these different flavours that spices can bring.

The Spice of Life

None of us ever knows where life and events will lead us. Having avoided the initial effects of the credit crunch, the collapse of the banks, and I was even predicting it in blog postings elsewhere. The effects still caught up with me.

Therefore, needing to develop other ways of earning my crust, I looked at utilising my skills developed from a life long passion and concern about food. Having previously owned and run a small whole-food shop, I looked at various aspects of my experience there to see if there were skills and previously garnered knowledge that I could use.

When I had the shop, one of the aspects that was profitable and enjoyable was the herbs and spices. I had been lucky, as when younger and lodging with an Indian family, I had learnt how to use many of the spices and utilise them to lift rather bland foods to create something special. Thus, when I started selling the spices, I had some knowledge of how to use them and with good suppliers too, I became well known for my herbs and spices.

However, rents and business rates started to rise and even though the business was paying its way, at that time, I could see it would not last. Therefore I closed it down. At that time it was the right thing to do. But while most supermarkets do now carry an extensive range, they were/are never as fresh as I used to get.

Therefore, I took the chance and started re-contacting my previous suppliers, and while some were no longer trading, enough where so that I could start buying in the stock I needed. As well as selling the herbs and spices I would make my own blends. As I had done previously.

The one important difference between the time I had the shop, and now was the Internet. It was then in its infancy and trying to get to understand how to sell online was not easy. Further, everyone I spoke to had different opinions about how it should be done, and even if it should be done. Most of the business folks that I spoke to and sought advice from, actually told me that the web would disappear in a few years, and I would be wasting my time and money. It was true that the costs I was being quoted then were far more than I could have afforded. Or if I did find enthusiastic people, they would be talking in terms of millions in sales potential, that my small scale ideas would have been lost.

But, the ideas persisted and I have started selling my herbs and spices online, at http://stores.ebay.co.uk/lovethediet It is a small scale operation and I also sell the spices at markets too, but I am pleased about the reaction I am getting thus far.

While I never envisioned this web log as something commercial, with me now selling these spices on line, I can see advantages in providing information that I just don’t have the room on the Ebay site to provide. Further, it enables me to interact with people regarding the way that different herbs and spices can be used.

It was just such an interaction that made me realise this, as I had a question regarding some spices for a Whiskey Cake from a German customer who had just been to Scotland. So over the next few months, I will add a few recipes and ideas of how these spices can be used.

The Low Carbohydrate Diet

I have never been a fan of faddy diets to control weight. Not least because it is only by changing the food habits that is causing the consumption of greater calories than the body needs and changing this permanently can anyone really lose weight and keep it off. Therefore I was rather concerned when my better half said that she was planing to go on a low carb diet.

Having lived on a vegetarian diet for many many years, I understand the need for a good balanced diet. However having expressed my concerns, I am fully supporting her wish to follow this diet. As I am the cook, to her own regret she never learnt to cook, something I am trying to help change, my greatest problem was trying to understand how to cook and prepare interesting meals that we can both eat. As I just do not have the time to make separate meals and dishes.

As folks will probably know, the low carb (Carbohydrate) diet is a development of the Atkins Diet. When the Atkins diet was the vogue, I was really intrigued as it seemed to go against intuition and by eating many of the foods that a dieter was normally expected to cut out or severally reduce, yet people were loosing weight. As I was not overweight, my interest was more academic, but even though I had a very open mind, having a better than the average persons understanding regarding nutrition, I had worries about the long term effects of this diet. There was so much interest in this diet as it did work for so many people, that science actually caught up with this and it was simply that eating protein satisfies the hunger craving better than carbohydrates. But as with all diets that restrict any food group, the science also showed that the Atkins diet was dangerous. Quite simply following the Atkins diet people were not getting the full range of nutrition that the body needs.

Thus as the high protein diet was actually working for many people, a less severe alternative to the Atkins diet the Low Carbohydrate Diet emerged as safer alternative. Therefore while I have concerns about anyone I care about going on a diet that stops the intake of any food group, I am less worried about this diet. Also, as I can keep an eye on what she is doing nutritionally, I can make sure that this diet does not make her ill.

So I have been learning to cook meals that are low carbohydrate. Using grated Cauliflower as a rice substitute, or green beans as an alternative to pasta. It is my experience with adapting recipes to be vegetarian that has really helped though. Fortunately she got a book of Low Carb Recipes to help me too. But this book has not been written by a cook as in one recipe for example, while the time for cooking was given the oven temperature was not. Using experience I was still able to make the recipe and it did turn out quite well.

One other aspect to this low carb diet is just how expensive it is. It really has got me thinking that I can design a weight loss diet that does work and is not expensive.

Sea Salt v Table Salt

With baking my own bread, as well as baking bread for others as an Artisan baker, a question came up that made me think. Anyone who has tried to bake bread and forgotten to add the salt will know, well okay its only me that has done this. Well the bread tastes awful. It does make me wonder who tried out exactly how much salt is needed.

Well I gave a sample of a new recipe to a woman to try, and the only aspect that was not perfect for her pallet was the salt. As she does not add extra salt to her own cooking, she notices salt more than most. I too hardly add extra salt so I notice salt saturated foods much more than most people do. It is why I am often very critical of the food industry for adding extra salt to foods. It is added along with sugar to make bland cheap ingredients taste better, and in many cases have any taste at all.

But the one fact that is never said regarding salt is that if you use sea salt, as I do, you actually need 25 to 30% less salt than most recipes state to get the same flavour. Thus, when I baked the test sample for the woman, she noticed that I had failed to make that adjustment as I was using sea salt.

Therefore if people want to reduce the salt in their diet for health reasons, just changing to a good sea salt and stopping using table salt will enable you to cut your salt intake by a quarter.

Spelt Bread

Having baked various types of bread before, trying spelt wheat bread was something that did make me a little concerned. Not least because it lacks the gluten content of standard wheat's, it can be a rather dense bread. But having mastered Rye bread and I can produce a loaf with a light crumb, I was reasonably confident that I had my technique right, but I was prepared for a failure. However, I was very pleased to discover that it worked first time.

I had tried using spelt before, many years ago but with mixed success. However my bread making skills have developed and now I can feel when I have the dough right. As spelt is not a cheap flour and I was using an organic one too, I could not afford to have made to many mistakes.

For those that don't know, spelt wheat is one of the oldest wheat's used for making bread. Used by the Egyptians four thousand years ago. However, it is the taste that really matters and it does make a great bread too.

The White Bread Myth

While looking into the history of bread that I discovered this rather odd fact, that it was during the industrial revolution that white bread became the norm. This was not because it was what people preferred, but the factory owners who also controlled the flour mills, wanted the workers to eat it as with far less roughage it meant that the workers needed fewer toilet breaks.

There is a myth that people preferred white bread and that was why it replaced the traditional wholemeal. But the reality was that it was not until urbanisation and industrialisation that white bread really started to be eaten by all but a few of the elite nobility as white bread was far more expensive to produce. That also meant that there was a demand for white bread as people wanted to emulate the upper classes, but this did not mean that the majority wanted or demanded white bread. Not least because to make white flour you loose 30 percent of the weight and volume when you remove the germ and the bran. Even the middle classes could not afford to loose that much, and in pre industrial Britain nothing was wasted.

Also in pre industrial Britain, bread was a product that was predominantly home baked and even in the 16th and 17th centuries it was possible to sieve out the bran. Therefore if people had truly been demanding white bread why were they not making it like that themselves? There are food historians who see the change to white bread as being consumer led, when the reality was it was imposed upon them by mill owners.

Equally as the population moved from the countryside, they became reliant upon bread made by “Journeymen Bakers” who set up in the new industrial centres. Because of the lack of hygiene with many of these bakers, having white bread enabled the industrialised population to avoid contaminated bread. Put simply, droppings that could be hidden in a wholemeal loaf were much more evident in white bread. This was why the Bakers were Journeymen, as the were often driven out of town because of these problems.

Thus while it was historically true that there was a switch to white bread at the same time of industrialisation, it was not because of a consumer demand for white bread, but imposition and avoiding the low hygiene standards of some of the bakers. Also at the same time as this social change was happening in Britain, on continental Europe, new milling processes were developed. Traditionally all flour had been ground using stones, but with steam power came the ability to use steel rollers to crack and grind the wheat. As stone milling can result in sparks if run to fast, resulting in mill fires. Steel Roller milling avoided this, and more wheat could be ground faster and the technology allowed the bran and germ to be removed making it possible to make white flour cheaper than wholemeal.

As white flour was now cheaper the working population made that switch to white bread, not because it was better but was cheaper. This switch to white bread mirrored another change, the health of the general population also became the worse that it ever was in Britain. While aspects of industrialisation have traditionally be blamed, and that will be true in some aspects, this major change in the diet was really at the centre of this. Further, because white flour was far easier to adulterate, the lower nutritional value of white bread was further reduced by adding items like chalk.

However the adulteration was far more dangerous than adding chalk, as often alum was added to bread. As it aided the rise and made the gluten more elastic it looked like bakers had found a magic ingredient, except that alum is a poison. It stops the body absorbing and making vitamin D, and indirectly white bread added to an epidemic of rickets in Britain.

This changed when Britain started to import wheat from Canada and America. With better wheat growing climates and different varieties, it was possible to have cheap and price stable, bread in Britain and Ireland for the first time.

All this was fine until the first world war, when grain supplies form overseas were interrupted. It took nearly three years for British agriculture to respond and by the end of the Great war all bread was wholemeal. As simply we could not allow thirty percent of the grain to be wasted.

The situation returned where Britain imported most of its bread grain, and white bread regained predominance. Just because it was cheap. As by this point the wheat-germ and the bran were now useful to feed livestock, so rather than grow bread wheat, British farmers just grew wheat for animal feed. As during the inter-war years the market for animal feed was limited, many farms closed down. Further, the wheat industry was controlled by a small group of large companies that milled the wheat and even controlled the bakeries across the nation. Thus white bread became the norm again.

Then came the second world war, and again importing wheat became difficult. However, the experience of the first world war actually provided lessons, and the war time government understood the need to produce food. Fortunately because so many farms had been abandoned and left unproductive, there was the land available to increase food production. Also, because of the waste that milling white flour produced, a type of bread was produced that was called “The National Loaf”. This was a bran rich semi Wholemeal, using a flour known as wheat-meal, containing 85% of the wholemeal. And it is here that the myth of white bread really takes hold.

The National Loaf was universally despised by everyone. It was not until talking to a retired baker who had started his apprenticeship during the war, did I discover that by law bakers could not sell bread on the day it was baked but only on the following day. Thus, during the war The National Loaf was stale bread, and who wants to eat stale bread? Therefore when in the early 1950s bread rationing was ended, the major millers that had controlled the bread industry returned to making the bread that made them the most profit. But also, bread became fresh again.

It was therefore no surprise that white bread became popular, as compared to the stale bread people had grown used to, a basic white loaf was better.

Equally at the same time was the need to feed a starving Europe, thus bread started to be made in ever larger quantises, in factories rather than bakeries. As a result a bakery industry research laboratory was set up in Chorley Wood. While it was supposed to represent all bakers, the smallest through to the largest, as often happens the largest players took control. Out of this what's now known as the Chorley-wood Bread Process was developed. This reduced the bread making process from three hours to one hour.

With lots of marketing, the British public were sold this new bread by all the major players. In fact it became nearly impossible to buy real wholemeal bread, and the only choice was only the different brands of the same bland, white pap being sold as bread.

Good white bread can be very good, but often it is just the bread of choice simply because it is cheap and what is available. Throughout history it has not so much been the bread of choice but what has been imposed by others. During the early Industrial years, it played a part in damaging public health. Equally, during the second world war, a type of wholemeal played its part in improving the nations health. It is for good reason that bread is called the staff of life.

This is where the Chorley-wood Bread Process has harmed real bread. Because so many people have been brought up only eating this poor excuse for bread, they just don't realise what real bread tastes like. As natural bread needs time to mature, for the flavours to develop, cutting the time to a third of the natural process means that majority of bread is flavourless. Further, as the Chorley-wood process, makes a bread that makes people feel bloated and could well be a contributory factor to bowel problems and coeliac disease.

It is telling that in my local village co-operative supermarket, it is the better quality breads that sell out fastest and what is often left is the cheap white pap. Additionally, across the nation there are quality artisan bakers making real bread in many different forms. So while the food industry has tried to ruin bread and most other foods too, real bread still exists and is growing in popularity.

While white bread has its place in the larder, there is nothing better than a good wholemeal loaf. There will never be a time when we will return to everyone making their own bread, nor will the cheap imitation of bread ever disappear, but slowly people are discovering what the food industry has tried to take away from us.

Cooking Seasonally

One of the joys of eating seasonally, is the coming of new crops and new flavours. While not totally new as in something that you have never tried before, but flavours, tastes and dishes that you have not been able to have for a while. Thus it was with delight that I saw the first of the new season Rhubarb in the Greengrocers. When I had a foster garden (Allotment), it was one of those free crops as I have never had a foster garden that did not have it growing in. It was often neglected but once dug up, divided and nurtured again they come up again very well.

So it is really nice to see Greengrocers stocking these items when in season. It is often in these ways that the small independent shops keep the customers coming back. And it is these small shops that make a community.

So with this seasons rhubarb I made a crumble this weekend and pleased my partner no end. If any man wants to know how to please a woman, cook for her.

Cannelloni

There are some pasta dishes that you either see in restaurants or as prepared meals in the supermarkets. Cannelloni is one of these.

It has been one that I have not made for a while, but while out for dinner with my better half, she mentioned that she loved Cannelloni so I had a look for the pasta to use at home. But in Tesco the price was nearly three pounds, and was far to expensive. I even considered making my own pasta to get around that cost, but I knew that I would find it cheaper elsewhere. But Morrisons did not stock it and it was not until last week that I had the opportunity to visit Asda where I found it on the shelf for less than one pound.

Therefore I got some Ricotta cheese and everything else I had to make some Ricotta and spinach Cannelloni While it is a dish that requires you getting your hands in the food, and does take a bit of effort, the resulting meal was much praised by my better half.

However, it was the cost difference between buying the ready made Cannelloni that made me think. While you can bye ready meals Ricotta and spinach Cannelloni for three pounds per portion, with only two or three stuffed tubes. Yet it cost me less than two pounds to make this with four stuffed tubes per serving. This without the artificial additives that often ruin the taste of so many processed meals.

If anyone ever doubted that home cooking was worth the effort, then this dish shows that it is it. Not just with the money saved but with the improved flavour, texture and taste.

A Civilised way to Shop

I live in a former mining village and like most villages across the country, there are limited shopping opportunities. When I first moved here three years ago, it was the local woodland that was the main attraction and had I been looking for good food shopping locations, this would not have been it. I did try supporting the local shops and it does have a greengrocer, but the range is limited and the quality poor. Thus I have had to travel in to the city of Newcastle or the Town of Consett to get fruit and vegetables.

However, last year in the next village a greengrocer opened. And near Christmas I popped in and get some items. I was reasonably impressed with the quality, so I have been intending to return. But as its not cheap to hop on the bus for short trips, it was not worth doing that. Also with the hard winter, walking there was not really an option either, well not until now. With the arrival of spring, I decided that it was worth taking a stroll through the woods to greengrocers for the items that I needed. I was needing a few items to cook a particular dish.

While the quality of some items was not perfect, they were more than adequate for my needs, and the quality of most were better than most places and better than I could get in my village. The price was very reasonable too. For example the leeks were 30% cheaper than most places and half the cost of the supermarkets.

Also as they serve tea as they are next to the road entrance to the forest I was able to stop for a cup before walking back through the woodland landscape. Thus making a very civilised way to go shopping. I will be trying to make the effort to go as regularly as I can, but as with most people, I can only do that when time allows.

Who is cheapest?

It is rather interesting that since I discovered the other Supermarket in Consett and stopped going as frequently to Tesco to do my main shopping, they have started sending me incentives and discount vouchers. As well as the simple fact that I dislike the fact that Tesco is the largest retailer in Britain and I dislike supporting any business that is that dominant in the market, when I discovered Morissons I also discovered that I was saving money too.

While each of the supermarkets like to claim they are the cheapest, often the reality is far more complex as the quality of the items used to make the comparison can be very varied. Therefore, if you compare on a like for like basis, Tesco were and are far from the cheapest. Often the items that Tesco use to compare to prices with will be lower quality. This is one of the reasons why Tesco and Asda had competing television advertising campaigns each claiming they were the cheapest. Well it helped boost the coffers of the television media companies, even if it just confused the consumers.

While I have no love for the cheapest junk that the supermarkets try and foist upon us, for many people cheap food really matters for them. Not least because the poor, that are the majority in this country, struggle to afford to feed themselves.

While I may, and often do, rail about the really poor quality of some of the foods sold by the retailers, majority that are poor are dependent upon the “so called” food the processors and retailers supply. It is not that the poor do not appreciate good food, it is just that they have to buy what they can afford.

It is clear that there is an epidemic of obesity and other health problems as a result of this junk food, but often the debate has been strongly slanted toward blaming the poor for this. When the reality is that it is the salt, sugar and fat content of the cheap foods, often concealed, that is really to blame. After all no one would choose to eat bad or poor quality food.

Further while I am a great advocate for people learning to cook and home cooking, if someone lacks the basic skills and knowledge and are poor, they can not afford to experiment and risk having other family members refusing to eat the food. Therefore the media coverage has been rather bias, blaming the poor for problems that are imposed upon them.

While I will defend the underdog in the food debate, there is a minority among the poor that are culpable in their own poor diets. I have known several people, both male and female, who lived off of takeaway food for their main meal. While relying upon chocolate, crisps and biscuits (cookies) and other snack foods for other meals. They then would claim that they were overweight because of glands or hormone problems. All utter nonsense, as the science just does not back up such claims. Becoming overweight is just a simple equation of energy in and energy out in all but exceptional cases.

However, even people who are attempting to eat carefully and trying to avoid foods that are high in sugar and fat can have problems as the manufacturers far to often saturate supposedly healthy food with sugar, salt or fat. As they are cheap and can help to hide the cheaper low flavour ingredients. Therefore avoiding foods that are laced with the unholy trinity is near impossible sometimes. Even as a regular label reader, I can and do get caught out sometimes too.

The supermarkets are in a price war, or more accurately, in a war of price claims. Unfortunately the lower prices are only achieved trough reducing quality. Additionally the offers are often on the types of processed foods that should be either avoided or eaten rarely therefore, none of the major retailers are that cheap or good value for money.

Eggs

It is said that you learn something new everyday. Well from the news story that a businessman has been jailed for selling cheap imported caged eggs as Organic and Free Range, I learn how to discover if the eggs are from caged production. Under ultra violet light you can see the marks of the bars of the cage imprinted upon the shell. As I have an ultra violet lamp for another task, I was able to confirm this by taking it to the supermarket.

As I have been caught out myself by retailers who will tell lies about the origin of of the eggs, it is useful to have this extra tool. Back when I first moved to the village I live in, the local greengrocer was doing this. However, as I know the codes that tell you what method of production the eggs are from, I soon spotted this. Initially I was prepared to accept that this was a genuine mistake. Then I went to the store again and specifically asked if they had any free range eggs. The eggs however were stamped with the code that said they were caged eggs. What the owner of the shop told me though was extraordinary, he claimed it was a special code for local production. That was and is rubbish as the codes are an Europe wide system.

The matter was reported to the appropriate authorities and they got a heavy slap on the wrist, as this was not the first time they had been caught doing this. I have no idea if they still try to get away with this as I no longer will use the store. I am not the only person who shuns the store, I know that a significant portion of the village avoid using the village greengrocer too.

There will be some folks that do not understand why this really matters, as to them one egg is just the same as another. Well I can taste a difference and free range eggs do taste better. But the issue of the source of eggs matters because of public health. It does happen that eggs can become contaminated and with caged production there is a greater risk for this. Also if there were a recall where caged eggs were suspect, but barn or free range were known to be safe, it could mean that consumers would still eat contaminated eggs thinking them safe.

This is why the businessman who has been convicted was using imported eggs, as the systems within Europe just made it impossible to fool the system and commit the fraud using eggs from inside the European Union.

As a result of this case though, the various bodies that regulate the egg industry have put in place extra measures and checks to close the loopholes that were exploited. Additionally, the supermarkets and major retailers have ensured that this will never happen again.

Sustainable Fish

In my other on line journal, I have long been ad advocate of the need for a moratorium on fishing to allow depleted stocks to recover. Long before the banking collapse, and then I was told that European economic rules did not allow member states to support or subsidies any industry or sector, thus fishermen could not be paid not to fish. These same rules were pushed aside when governments wanted to bail out the banks. But for far less money than it cost to bail out the banks, the fishing industry could have been paid to stay in port for two to four years, while fish stocks could have recovered.

The problem is that far to much of the fishing industry is unsustainable. A major part of that arises from the way the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is implemented in Europe, and for at least thirty years, that scientific advice has been ignored. The politicians always put jobs and short term votes, before the long term viability of the fishing industry.

Thus I am rather sceptical of claims of some sustainable schemes. However, the Marine Stewardship Council scheme does seem to really do what the job it is supposed to do.

However, the greatest problem is getting the message across to the public that sustainability of the fish they eat really does matter. So often when fish is cooked on television in cookery programmes there are frequently no mention of the sustainability of the fish, and often they are using fish that are unsustainable and endangered by overfishing. Equally, many of the supermarkets will make a big “Song and Dance” about using fish from sustainable sources and endorsed by the Marine Stewardship Council, yet will still sell fish and species from unsustainable sources.

Yet here in Britain one major retailer has gone a step further. While M&S (Marks and Spenser) is targeted towards the higher end of the food market and their customer demographic is much more Middle Class than most food retailers, they have signed up to the WWFs Seafood Charter. The first in the UK, and it will mean that by 2015 all their seafood will come from the most sustainable sources. Not just sustainable sources the most sustainable sources, thus ensuring that fish and fishing survives. Now I have no doubt that they have done this for economic reasons, and not least to ensure that they will have stocks for the future, perhaps when others can not obtain fish or seafood at all. But at least it is a move in the right direction and I hope that all the other retailers take note and realise that only by going to true sustainability will they have fish to sell in the future.


A link to see films that tell the story further

Salt in Soup

While I have been busy of late, I have been keeping an observant eye on food issues. And this media story caught my eye. I personally had not previously heard of the organisation; Consensus Action on Salt and Health but I was well aware of the problems of the over use of salt in processed food.

While it does not surprise me that Soup sold in chain cafés is high in salt as these companies are doing nothing more than reheating a processed product. Yet there are often some wonderful small independent cafés out there that serve real home-made soup. And soup in general is a great healthy option. It is a shame that the manufacturers of soups should need to add so much salt, as extra salt shows that they are using inferior ingredients. Often the pre packaged soups are not cheap and some of the brands tested are premium products.

As you can get a food flask and make your own so easily, why not make your own save money and that way you will know that you are not ingesting more salt than is wise.

Supermarket Ombudsman

For the last couple of years there has been a debate about if a regulator was needed to oversee the way that the supermarkets work. Then in January the government announced that they would create an ombudsman to be an independent arbiter of the relationship between the farmers and growers and these multi billion pound retailers.

For many years now there have been stories seeping out that the supermarkets were manipulating the market in such a way that it was damaging British Agriculture. In its simplistic form the farmer would sell to who ever would offer the highest price, while the retailer would want to pay the least it could. That system worked well when every high street had many retailers selling that food to the consumer. But with food retailing now in the hands of just four major retailers, that system has not been working. Now the retailers dictate what price they will pay.

While this has helped keep food cheap for the consumer, it has also placed massive power over food in the hands of a few people. Via this power and this downward pressure upon price, farmers are forced to compromise on the welfare of the animals that we derive our food from. As the taxpayer, through the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs DEFRA, often have to bare the cost disease outbreaks, and as intensive production combined with the downward cost pressure on welfare standards, and the consumer pays for these costs via taxes while allowing the supermarkets to make greater and greater profits.

However, it is the way that the supermarkets are currently implementing the contracts with farmers that is really damaging British agriculture. All the major players in retail will make the farmers who supply them invest in packaging to suit their needs. Further to guarantee supply to meet the supermarkets needs, the farmers and growers have to grow more than is required to meet that contract. As plants or animals never grow exactly to a timetable, to ensure that enough are ready on time, more is produced than is needed. As these contracts as standard forbid the farmer selling this surpluses, the system generates wasted food. This adds costs to the farmer but not to the supermarkets. Then the most pernicious part is if the supermarkets decide to have a special offer be that an extra fifty percent in the pack for the same price or a two for the price of one, it is the farmer or producer that pays these costs not the supermarket. It is like the supermarket deciding to cut the price they are paying to the farmer and making the farmer pay for the cost of doing this.

Therefore it is not surprising that the supermarkets have resisted the appointment of an ombudsman. They, the major retailers, argue that if the system is so bad why are the farmers willing to supply them? While that would have been a legitimate question perhaps thirty years ago when there were still independent retailers about, but now there are no real alternatives to whom the farmers can sell.

Effectively the major retailers force farmers to supply them, on their terms, knowing that the farmers have nowhere else to sell their produce. Further if the farmers protest or go to the media with their complaints, they get de-listed. The supermarkets stop buying from these farmers, often killing the farmers business.

This also explains why it can be really difficult to find British produce in the shops. The major retailers in tying down the farmers to produce on the supermarkets terms stops the farmers from selling via other markets. While also buying from overseas farmers and growers at the lowest price, often to keep the farmers in their place.

By stopping at least the worse aspects of the major retailers practices, the ombudsman will benefit everyone in the food supply chain. However, the supermarkets are trying to tie up contracts ahead of the service starting. Thus making it look as though the ombudsman was never needed as the ombudsman will only be able to look at new contracts not historic or current ones.

While there are many benefits that the major retailers have brought to food, but equally there have been many seriously adverse aspects to food retailing being controlled by just four chains. While having an ombudsman will not change where people shop nor will it increase the prices consumers pay, it will ensure that the farmers and growers get a fair deal from trading with these giants.

Cookery on Television

As I was preparing to start this web log, I noticed a real change to the style of of the cookery and food programmes on television. Before the recession the majority of them were “celebrity chefs” cooking restaurant style food that most people would never really cook. Often with ingredients that no one could normally afford. I could never afford to cook a whole Turbot, at £35-£45 each, I would have to be cooking for a really special occasion. It was food as theatre rather than the real cooking that real people do.

While there are many people who do like to cook impressive dishes for friends and family, most people can not afford to cook the food that top end restaurant chefs cook up. There was a gulf between the cooking on television and the food that the majority of people really eat. I suspect that it was highly paid television producers commissioning programmes that reflected what they were eating in restaurants. Well while eating out is great fun, most of the nation does not feast on or in Michelin stared food.

While it may have helped sell advertising, it was not encouraging people to cook at home. As the last time I checked most people live in a house and not a restaurant. Also there were programmes that were trying to tell people what they should eat, all fronted by rich celebrity chefs. Often the tone was rather patronising too; “come on you poor fat people, this is what you should be doing”.

I could see the benefits of what they were trying to do, but it is patronising to have someone who can afford to always buy the best, telling you that you are not doing the best for your family. While as a foodie and lover of good food and good ingredients, I could see what the aim was, but often these programmes were failing. Often quite simply as these chefs were known for their fancy and indulgent cooking, often expensive too, and they were now telling us that we should be cooking and eating better.

Fancy cooking has its place on television, but having the same chefs then telling us that we should be eating better really is not that useful. While I can go around a supermarket and see preprepared foods that I know I can cook better and cheaper, I realise that not everyone will have that skill. I am critical about the education system that fails to give children the all round skills for life beyond school. Personally I think that all children should be taught about food and cooking in school, boys and girls.

Equally I don't think that it is fair that whenever food is mentioned, obesity is not far behind. While I am a firm believer in the calories in, energy out principal of maintaining a healthy weight, as fully supported by science, there is often a blame culture imposed upon fat people;“Your fat because you eat to much”.

While I will be posting latter about obesity and diets latter, I want to keep on the topic of cookery on television. And while television has concentrated upon using celebrity chefs in recent years, occasionally they have looked for a gimmick that has worked. The first that caught my attention was a series called “Two Fat Ladies”. What actually made this work was the passion they both had for food and cooking.

They were two women put together for television, and given the gimmick of a motorbike and side car. When one of them died, television looked for another gimmick to play with. Thus a series called “The Hairy Bikers” emerged. Again it was the personalities of the two presenters that made the original show work. However, for television they looked like a one trick pony, and unlike other television cooks, they were ignored for a while. Then they reappeared as “The Hairy Bakers”.

These irrepressible Northern Bikers, one of them a local lad, have a passion for good food. Not the fancy restaurant food that has been the mainstay of television for far to long, but the type of food that really gets cooked and eaten. There latest series “Mum knows best” has had them visiting real families and discovering the food and recipes that have been passed down the generations.

I had wanted to see the series from the start, but other commitments meant it was only yesterday that I saw the first episode. Well I found it entertaining and informative. The aspect that makes it worthy of telling the world about this, is that there is a lot of good information and recipes on the website too.

This is not a complete history of cooking on television, but while I am not qualified to give that history, the aspect that stands out from this potted history, is that it is real cooks that have longevity. People like Delia Smith, Rick Stein and not the celebrity chefs that are just showing off what they can do. It is the cooks that genuinely want to share the food and the skills that last.


It would be really interesting to hear who your favourite cook is, so lets share that here too.

Meat in your Mince

Mince or ground beef, can be a really versatile ingredient. However, it can be very variable in quality too. As mince can contain a lot of fat and connective tissue often the budget mince ends up being far less value than it first appears.

While I personally do not have much time for the “cant cook, wont cook brigade”, I genuinely feel for folks that do not have the money to buy, cook and eat the best food available. Thus, I have been experimenting with the mince that the majority of people actually buy. While I wish it were different, the majority of people buy their mince from a supermarket. It took me a while to find a decent local butcher after moving to the village, but I did locate one. There I can buy good mince at a price that is equivalent to the supermarkets, but it is in terms of quality that it genuinely wins out.

While the quality is very good, it is not as good as well hung beef. Hanging beef enables the meat to dry out and the natural enzymes in the meat tenderise and add flavour to the meat as it hangs. While traditionally all beef was handled in this way, most retailers do not do this as it adds costs. It is this change that has enabled the major retailers to reduce the price of beef.

While there is an argument that cheaper food helps the poor afford foods they could not otherwise afford. However, this has had other costs particularly in the context of food and cooking, the flavour of the meat. Further, the constant downward pressure on price for meat means that farmers are forced to reduce the welfare standards to reduce costs. Equally, the downward pressure on the price means that the supermarkets will source the meat they sell from wherever it is cheapest. That can lead to meat that would not pass as fit within Britain (or your nation), can enter the food chain. While I am not going into the details here, there have been examples of this happening. This is why knowing where your food comes from can be so important.

While the supermarkets have abused the labelling regulations to hide the fact that people have been buying imported meat, for the most part you can tell where the meat has come from. The real difficulty arises with processed food and ready meals. Last year when the BBC were asking the largest retailer in the UK where the chicken in just one ready meal came from, they were originally told it was British. Then they said it was European but they could not say exactly what country. Finally they acknowledged it was from Thailand. While the label on the ready meal said it was British.

Now in this example there were no health implications, but if there had been a disease outbreak that effected chickens, consumers would never know that they are eating a suspect food. This is why I personally favour cooking from scratch.

With the cheap mince from the supermarket, I have a special way of cooking the mince. I will chop a couple of onions and over a low heat cover the chopped onions with the mince and cook without adding any extra fat. As the ground beef and the onions cook in the fat that is already in the meat, no extra fat or oil is needed. Further as you are slow cooking the meat, any bits of connective tissue that is in the meat is tenderised too.

Once cooked the meat is drained, this removes the excess fat, and this means you end up with less fat than even the lean mince that you will often be charged extra for. Also, as the mince will have been made from meat that has not been hung, this removes the excess moisture from the meat as well. This can be separated and the liquid added back to a dish if needed.

This system of cooking mince can also be used for very lean mince and especially if you are cooking in bulk. My local butcher has a discount for buying five pounds (weight) of mince, and I will cook this all at once and freeze portions ready to add latter. Alternatively I will prepare many dishes and freeze them.

This is why I can not understand why even busy people will waste money on ready meals and processed food. Cooking from scratch is obviously cheaper and more economical. However by cooking in batches like this, it is possible to genuinely save time. As most pre-prepared meals made at home can be cooked straight from the fridge or freezer. Further it allows parents in particular to ensure that there children are getting a balanced diet. Equally it is possible to cook a Chilli con Carne for the adults and one that the children can and will eat.

While this way of cooking mince is a guide to enable folks to cook the budget type ground beef, it is only one of many ways to cook mince. However it is a great starting point and when I have previously shown people how much fat can come off a packet of mince, they have been shocked. I first developed this method when trying to help some friends who wanted to loose weight. It amused them that I as a vegetarian, as I was then, knew more about cooking meat than they did. While you do need some fat to add flavour to meat, any meat, I would suggest trying this and see for yourself just how much fat and how little meat is in your mince.

Cottage Pie Recipe

Recipe

Two Medium Onions Roughly chopped
500g 1lb 2oz Mince (Ground Beef)
1 or 2 cloves of Garlic, Optional
5ml 1 tspn dried mixed herbs
One large carrot, grated.
600g 1lb 4oz floury potatoes
A knob of butter
145ml ¼ pint Milk
Salt & Pepper

Method

Chop a couple of onions and cover the bottom of a thick based pan, set over a low heat. A simmering setting.
Crumble the mince (ground beef) over the onions.
Place the garlic on top of the mince.
Sprinkle the dried herbs over the mince, do not stir and cover the pan with a lid.
After fifteen to twenty minutes give the mince a stir. The meat at the base of the pan will be starting to cook and releasing its fat. Cover and continue cooking for 15 to 20 minutes
Drain the mince through a colander, reserving the cooking liquids. If the cooking liquids are stored in the fridge, the fat will solidify and can be removed leaving the stock behind for use latter.
Peel and cut the potatoes into even sized pieces and boil until cooked and soft.
Add the grated carrot to the mince and half fill a baking dish.
Mash the potatoes adding the milk and butter. Add salt to the mash.
Season the mince with salt and pepper, and cover the mince with the mashed potato.
Into a pre heated oven at 130°C/250°F/Gas mark ½ and cook for one hour. This slow cooking will release the moisture from the carrot and slow cook the meat breaking down the tougher parts of the meat too.
Finish off by grilling the top for 5 to 10 minutes until golden brown.

Cooking Real Food

Yesterday I posted regarding the meat content, or should that be lack of it, in hot dogs. This is illustrative of reason why I started writing here about cooking, food and farming issues. While these issues were always important to me, and I would hope to others too, there were situations and activities that were occurring just beyond my perception.

For me the real revelation came when I spotted a “Convenience” Pancake mix in the village shop. As pancakes are so easy to make I was really confused as to how any company could even dream of selling a product like this. Even if it was made for catering market, making a pancake batter is really simple.

At the time I was willing to lay the blame upon the education system, as all young people should be taught basic cooking skills. While I personally think this should start in the home, and with most families it does, schools also have a role to play as well. As no matter what else we may think that education is for, it is used to develop workers and economic skills. Thus allowing all young people learn some basic cooking skills will help them become independent latter when the leave school and leave home, but it may even inspire some to go further and have a career in the catering industry.

Equally, when the banking system collapsed and people needed to save money, one of the easiest ways I thought I could help was by showing how folks could cook and eat well via some videos and by writing. Again it seemed that lack of knowledge and skills were at the heart of the matter. The more people I talked to about food and cooking the more this seemed to be confirmed.

I had always known that there are a significant part of the population that will stick to the same foods and meals all the time, but was it that some folks were just to lazy to cook as others and stereotyping would have us believe or was it that people were just clueless. As I wanted to watch a TV programme on what manufacturers put in children's food, I watched that yesterday. And in that programme there was a dietitian working out of a hospital with young mothers who related a incident where she gave a woman a potato and a peeler and the woman asked what she did next?

Now I was aware of the joke that some people do not even know how to boil an egg. I had always assumed that was a myth as I learnt that as a child by osmosis rather than ever really being taught it. Latter I learnt tricks to do it better, but I genuinely am shocked that some people can not deal with the basics of cooking and food preparation.

I even started looking at what people were buying in the supermarket. I even tried to talk to people that I knew about this and offered suggestions of cheaper and better alternatives that they could cook from scratch. But this did not always go down well. While I know that people do live busy lives, and time can be at a premium sometimes, often with a bit of planning though it is possible to have pasta sauce for example ready in the fridge or freezer ready.

Yet the part that I least understand about peoples attitude towards food, is that often it is the unemployed and those not working that cook the least. When I have been unemployed it was only by cooking from scratch that I was I able to make ends meet.

Therefore near the start of the credit crunch I started filming some of the things I was cooking with the aim of helping people to learn some simple ways of cooking great meals. I also sought out some advice so that I could make them as best I could and provide some good quality information. However, each organisation that I spoke to had there own agenda and it made me very confused and the information that each body wanted included would have made the videos boring.

While I posted the original preview a while ago, and I tried to make the video entertaining, I realised that I needed to do more work before I was ready to post these films. So I continued to film so that when I was ready and had the time, I could try and help the folks that want the help.

This delay helped me realise that there are some people out there who just don't want help, no matter that they need it. Therefore I will offer help and advice to those who want it. I genuinely hope that the videos will entertain as well as inform.

The reasons why I became a vegetarian and why I stopped have already been related here, but this happened when it was near impossible to find vegetarian recipes so I had to learn to adapt recipes to be vegetarian. Thus I learnt more about cooking and what worked and what did not than most people ever do. Therefore this skill has given me the skills to cook and cook well, that I want to pass on in these videos.

While I was a vegetarian for more than twenty years, there was a real cultural change to food in Britain. Even when I was a child, even the poor demanded good food, and food was far more than just fuel. As even the poor took pride in producing good meals especially on a limited budget. So while I was expanding my diet via discovering new ingredients and flavours, other people were limiting their diets. Equally at the same time there was a cultural adjustment where instead of sitting down to meals together, people started eating alone. Families would have several sittings, one for each member of the family. This actually makes cooking more difficult for the cook in the family, as she, and unfortunately it will normally be a woman, then has far more work to do. It is this aspect of the cultural change that has enabled the food industry to sell more of the expensive processed food to people.

But this is the aspect that really surprises me, particularly when children are involved. Even as a vegetarian I noticed this as there appeared many vegetarian forms of processed food too. While I looked at and tried some of these, reading the chemical list, sorry ingredients list told me that I really did not want to eat them. While convenience foods do have a place in the kitchen and the diet occasionally, to have the whole of my diet based upon this would make me very depressed.

I have a real love of good food, and I love sharing food too. My better half has become my number one taste tester. It is this love of food that I want to share, here is the original video

Sweet Potato & Butternut Squash Soup

Half a Butternut Squash
Two small or one Large Sweet Potato
One Vegetable Stock Cube
Water
Two Bay Leaves
Salt And Pepper to taste

The Squash and the sweet potato can be roasted first. This can be done the day before while cooking another dish. However if this has not been possible then just follow the same method as this can be made with roasted or un-roasted veg.

Method

Peel and chop the vegetables into even sized chunks.
Place in a pan and pour on 2 pints or 1.25 litres of water.
Add a vegetable stock cube and two bay leaves.
Bring to the boil and turn the heat down and let the vegetables simmer for half an hour.
There is no need to add salt during cooking as stock cubes have a lot of salt in them already.
When the vegetables are cooked drain the vegetables reserving the cooking stock.
Remove the bay leaves and put the vegetables into a blender. If you don't have a blender you can use a potato masher (ricer) or a stick blender, but it will not make the soup as smooth.
Use some of the cooking stock to blend the soup.
Pour the blended mixture back into the remaining stock, reheat, check the seasoning and add a little salt if needed and pepper to taste and serve hot.

What are you really Eating?

One of the exciting aspects of the Internet and with interacting with people from other parts of the world, is that it can enable me to learn via the investigation of tangents prompted by a comment. Personally I can not even remember when I last had a hot dog. To the best of my recollection it was when I was a child. Therefore, I had no idea what was in one.

I have to emphasise that this applies to Britain and Europe, and while via systems like the GATT agreement (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), the rules are very similar across the globe, specifically I can only talk about European regulations here. I place this note here as while I am sure of the information regarding Europe, different rules and regulations apply in other parts of the world.

Anyway a question was raised about what is in a hot dog? In Britain they come under the rules that govern sausages and a sausage has to contain a minimum of 46% forty six percent of meat to be legally called a sausage. As items like hot dogs contain less than this, Hot Dog sausage manufacturers stay within the law by calling the things like Hot dogs or Frankfurters.

I did some digging to try and discover what was permitted and it was not easy. As it seems that manufacturers don't like to admit what garbage they are really feeding us. But looking at the labels and knowing that meat can be twenty five percent connective tissue and twenty five percent fat, fifty percent of the stated meat content may not even be meat then I found two brands that had less than nine percent meat in them.

Well, the question has to be asked what are you really eating?

What's Awful about Offal?

A comment made on the previous posting actually raises an interesting point. As an awful lot of offal does go into processed meat products. As my American friend points out, most Americans would baulk at the idea of eating the edible offal. It is not really that different here in Britain, as some people will and do turn up their noses at Liver, Kidneys, Heart et al. Yet all are incredibly good food and good value too.

Here in Britain, people of my generation, were put off eating Liver at school. As simply the liver we were served in “liver and onions” we did not know if we were meant to eat it or repair our shoes with it. Yet even at a relatively young age, I also knew that liver when turned into a pate was very good. Equally I knew from an early age that other offal went into other meals, the classic that springs to my mind was a Stake and Kidney pudding.

When I was a child, and I almost hate myself for saying this but it was true, you either ate what you were given or you went hungry. This prevented us becoming fussy eaters and it meant that we did eat our greens and a whole range of foods that some folks now struggle with. To be quite honest I don't think I could cope with a child that refused to eat vegetables. But as I know how to hide vegetables in a dish, I would hope that I would never have that problem.

Its the same trick though that the food industry uses to hide the poor quality cuts in meat products. In Britain (and Europe) you can include twenty five percent fat and twenty five percent connective tissue, tendons, skin etc. and still call it meat. So that 100% burger or hot dog could only have half the meat you think. Even reading the label will not enlighten you. Further that meat may contain offal too. While the percentages differ a little across the pond, the situation is similar in the US as it is in Europe.

However, here I will stick to what is allowed in Europe and specifically Britain. And here items like Heart meat has to be listed separately on the labels of processed foods. Now heart is a very flavourful meat, but as it is a heard working mussel it requires longer cooking times to make it tender. Thus in a pie from a food manufacture, its inclusion can normally be detected when the pie is chewy and tough.

Its rather funny, funny peculiar that is, as just last week the Food Standards agency here in Britain started a campaign to get people to use low fat milk. This will help fight obesity. Well as I have now got off the floor and stopped rolling around laughing, and changed my wet underwear, I thought what a waste of time and money. As the difference between full fat milk and skimmed milk is just one percent of the fat in milk. Had they tackled the amount of hidden fat in processed meats, well that would really help. But that actually requires doing something and not just making it look as though you are doing something.

I personally do not have any problems with eating offal. I am a great fan of nose to tail eating. Not only does this reduce waste, but it also means that farmers actually get a reasonable return on the whole of an animal. If you only use the prime cuts, the farmer has to send more animals to slaughter just to meet the demands for the prime cuts. While the rest of a beast does go to the processed food industry, the reluctance to eat the cheaper cuts and the offal perpetuates the problems of food and farming.

While I know that the readers of my other Blog will have already heard this and will be bored by this, but I stopped eating meat and became a vegetarian when I discovered what cattle were fed and the writers of this book were predicting BSE long before it (BSE) had even been discovered. The difficulty for me was that I did not know what I was eating. As people became more demanding regard quality and provenance, I felt that it was only right to support the farmers that were now doing what I wanted. Yet many of the people who would extract the urine from me for being a vegetarian, will happily eat all the processed meat that the food industry can offload on them, while I can know where the meat or offal I eat comes from. Often right down to the breed.

Most people are already eating offal hidden in processed foods. This is something that amuses me when folks say that they would never eat this or that! This is why I think that cooking is such a fundamental skill, as only if you can cook from scratch can you truly know what is in your food.

Eating offal has a long and honourable tradition in Britain and Europe. When folks have tried a food and genuinely do not like it, then I respect that. What I can never understand is people that will not even try. Especially as these people will readily eat foods manufactured for them without any knowledge of what really goes into it. Further, I respect that there are cultural differences between the foods that different nations will eat. I don't think I could ever eat insects, yet in some cultures they are delicacies. The difference here, is most of the foods that people say they would never eat, they already are consuming.

There is just one last detail that I would like to mention for my American reader, that haggis are coming. Last week I read that America is changing its import regulations so that the traditional Scottish Haggis can be imported into the US. I have eaten this myself, and who knows, the Scottish could convert Americans to eating offal on a regular basis.

British Food Culture

I know that to some people the term British Food Culture is an oxymoron, but that's a stereotype that is just as unfair as all stereotyping is. If you read sections of the media, Britain is full of overweight people who never cook and rely upon take out food to eat. While there is a growing number of people who have problems with their weight, often it is the hidden calories in processed food that causes the problem. At a latter date I will be posting on that issue. But no matter how good anyone is as a cook at home, we all enjoy take out food. It may be that its an occasional treat
or something that time constraints mean folks have to do to ensure that there is a hot meal on the table. As with all foods it is a matter of balance.


One of the wonderful aspects of modern Britain is the range of different foods and cuisines that are now available. However in Britain we have always borrowed cuisines from other parts of the world, you only have to think of the spice trade of the 15th and 16th Centuries. Further it was the access to the spices from the east that drove the creation of the British Empire. Yet as logic dictates these exotic foods were the preserve of the rich.


Thus the majority of the British people did not have access to these spices. Further, the foods that the lower classes ate were considered poor quality. This created the illusion that British food and cooking was low quality and bland. When we move towards the 17th and 18th Centuries, with the nobility doing their grand tours of Europe, continental cuisine became seen by the upper classes as being the hight of taste. This excluded and denigrated British foods even more. This cultural attitude also had the effect of stopping the Scots from harvesting the Herrings from the Scottish coast, yet the fishermen from Norway, Holland and Denmark seeing that we did not want our own fish, established their own fleets to harvest the Herrings.


As when Britain became the first industrial nation and people started to move from the land to the city the link to the land, the farmer and producer was lost for some, it was never lost entirely. While the attitudes towards the foods that the lower classes ate was even further disregarded, among the people who lived in the towns and the industrial areas, this “Peasant cuisine” developed.


This dismissive attitude of British food as tasteless and bland was reinforced in print in Mrs Beeton's book of Household management. Where, for example, was the instruction to boil cabbage for thirty minutes. This reflected the upper class attitude that vegetables were bad for you. Mrs Beeton and her husband (who was the driving force behind the publications) were writing for a market. And a major part of this attitude towards the British cuisine was simply that the upper classes indulged in the continental foods and food styles from Europe and ignored the indigenous ones.


This continued until the first world war, when the appalling waste of human life, lost Britain many of the people who knew how to cook and grow good food. This loss of skills reinforced the myth that British cooking was poor. As simply people turned to books like Mrs Beeton's and cooked to death vegetables and undercooked the wrong cuts of meat.


Further, the lack of respect for food meant that between the first and second world wars there was a decline in Agriculture and Horticulture. The solutions to this from the British government was to import food and further undermine the production of good food in Britain.




The second world war helped highlight the danger of relying on importing our food rather than growing our own. While one of the effects of rationing ensured that the nation ate a balanced diet, it was far from exciting.


Therefore by the 1960s when rationing was over and trade was allowing food to be be imported again, the old standard model was back reinforcing the same stereotype that only French food was worth eating. By the 1960s and 1970s it was still presumed that French food was the hight of gastronomy, this was to ignore the great foods that were always here.


But even during the last few hundred years of this potted history, in local communities and across the regions that form the tapestry that is Britain good regional and local food thrived. Additionally because of the Empire, people were returning from far flung parts of the world bringing back dishes borrowed from many diverse nations. This was happening long before many people assume, and there have been curry houses in Britain for over one hundred years. While Chinese communities have been here for many centuries influencing our foods too.


Therefore Britain has always had a good food culture, it is just that it has been hidden and ignored. While I personally despair of the people that travel to Spain and insist that they will only eat British foods, half the fun of travelling is the discovery of great new foods, flavours and dishes, the increase in mass travel has enabled the growth of the world cuisine that is now available in Britain.


However, while this great food revolution has gone on in some sectors of the community, in other parts of the nation, peoples diets have become even more limited. Personally I am baffled by the attitude that views food purely as fuel. Food is and should be a pleasure and it is not that great flavours are only available to those with money, as good food can be cheap too. After all a good hearty vegetable soup is very easy and cheap to make. So it is not poverty that has created these culinary wastelands.


But if you just base the view of British food upon the “Cant Cook, Wont Cook” Brigade, then the view of our national cuisine will be distorted. However in this last decade there has been a growth of the “Gastro Pubs”, pubs that have developed food that goes beyond the Stake and chips or Fish and Chips menu. The growth of Farmers Markets, a wonderful import from the United States, and an explosion of ingredients from across the globe in our shops.


I do like using many of the wonderful ingredients available, most I had previously been sourcing from different stores. Indian spices from Indian stores, as often you can get great advice on using them too. Equally I love the farmers markets as there you can get good ingredients direct from the farmer and producer. While there are times when I do feel that some of the producers are expecting to much for their produce, most are reasonable. Now reasonable does not mean cheap, but good value. That said, I often find that good quality items like sausages will be cheaper than the premium ranges that are in the supermarkets and are better tasting too.


The last time I made a Lancashire Hot Pot, I bought the neck of lamb and the kidneys at a farmers market for less than I would have paid for the cheapest cuts in the supermarket or even my local butchers. And it was good meat too.


Using potatoes and a cheap cut of meat like neck of lamb, herbs and onions and you have a main meal that takes little time to prepare and is slowly cooked so that it does not prevent folks doing other tasks or jobs, and can feed a family. The irony is that if you visit one of the “Gastro Pubs” this is likely to be one of the dishes on the menu that will prove very popular, yet it is so easy to cook at home. As I personally maintain, good food is not about having lots of money.


However there is an irony here, as on television there is a plethora of cooking programmes that have developed over the last ten to fifteen years. In the same period there has been a growth in the sales of cookery books, yet also an apparent decline in the number of people cooking. Yet foods and dishes that were once disregarded as being “British Peasant Food” has become the mainstay of these programmes and books.


This is just one example of the food that forms part of the diversity of British food culture that is alive, well and creating great meals across the nation.

Lancashire Hot Pot

Ingredients


675g 1½lb Neck of Lamb cutlets
2 lambs Kidneys
675g 1½lb Waxy Potatoes
1 Large Onion
2tbsp chopped fresh thyme
150ml ¼pint Lamb Stock
25g 1oz butter, melted
Salt & Pepper


Method


Remove any excess fat from the lamb.
Skin and core the kidneys and cut into slices
Scrub and thinly slice the potatoes and slice the onion
Arrange a layer of potatoes in the base of an oven proof dish
The dish needs to be one of three pint capacity 1.8 litre
Arrange the cutlets on the potatoes to form a single layer.
Place the sliced kidneys on top.
Add a layer of onions and sprinkle this with the chopped Thyme
pour the stock over the layers and season with salt and pepper.
Layer the remaining potatoes on top so that the potatoes form a lid covering all the other ingredients.
Brush the potatoes with the melted butter and put the lid on the dish. If you don't have a lidded dish cover with foil.
Cook in a preheated oven at 180ºC/350ºF/Gas Mark 4 for 1½ hours
Remove the lid or foil and cook for a further 30 minutes until golden brown on top.


Serves Four

Devils Food Cake Recipe

In my other blog, I made a posting regarding me baking my own birthday cake rather than having my better half use a packet mix. As I refuse to allow products into my kitchen that have emerged from a chemical plant and not a kitchen. Personally I do worry about what additives are put in our food. While they are all tested to see if they are safe, over the years a not insignificant number have been banned as they were latter discovered to cause health problems.

In the 1980s the book E for Additives became a surprising best seller. Surprising as it was just a list of the chemicals that were added to our foods in the form of colours, preservatives, flavourings etc. The industry reaction was to change the labels from the EU codes, the E numbers, to the chemical name. However some of these additives were removed from the approved list as a result of the book.

It is one of the bizarre aspects of some processed food that to produce them the nutritional bits are removed. Corn Flakes being the classic example. The kernel is removed first and and the corn is flattened and toasted. As the Kernel is where all the vitamins and minerals are naturally stored, these vitamins and minerals have to be artificially added. The manufacturers even boast of the added vitamin and mineral content of their product. Now while I personally like corn flakes and I do not think they are a bad food, it says something about the mindset of food manufacturers that they will mess about with our food only with the aim of making a normal food, maize (corn) in to a product.

While the rational projected by the manufacturers and processors is often about convenience, but the question needs to be asked, whose convenience? If it looks as though the convenience is just for the manufacturer then it probably is.

In Europe HVO, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil the cheapest of the cheap oil or fat that can be used in foods, has long been associated with cardiac illness, while still legal is via publicity being removed from products. The EU even changed the regulations so that it could not be hidden in products as vegetable oil. In Denmark and New York it is now banned. However, reason why manufacturers love this oil is not its low cost, but it adds months to the shelf life of a product. If baked with butter, a pastry would last only four to six weeks. HVO can make that 12 months or more. That can save a food manufacturer millions.

So while no food processors and manufacturers are not deliberately trying to poison their customers, the corporate mentality of the food industry means that dubious items are used. Therefore, by staying with this rule of not using anything that contains items that you can not find in the kitchen is a good rule to follow.

The irony that I should be talking about what I would call Devils Food, the over processed rubbish that the food industry loves to sell us having just discovered this American classic that is called Devils Food. The difference is the cake is just straight forward fattening and indulgent. While many of the over processed foods are fattening just from extra sugar and fats that are added to make them cheap, or have longer life and profitable. However, this is one of those wonderful treats that can be part of a family celebration. I personally love dark chocolate but a good milk chocolate can be used, if that is your personal taste.

I love discovering new dishes from different nations, and if anyone has something interesting to share, lets share it here.

Devils Food Cake Recipe

Ingredients

100g 3½oz Dark Chocolate
250g 9oz Self-raising Flour
1tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking Soda)
225g 8oz Butter
400g 14oz Dark Muscovado Sugar
1tsp Vanilla Extract
3 eggs
125ml 4 floz Buttermilk
225ml 8oz Boiling water

Frosting
300g 10½oz Caster sugar
2 egg whites
1 tbsp lemon Juice
3 tbsp Orange Juice

Method

Set the Oven to 190°C/375°f/Gas mark 5
Lightly grease two 20cm/8 inch round cake tins and line with greaseproof paper.
Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of water.
Sieve the flour and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl.
Separately beat the butter and sugar in a bowl until pale and fluffy.
Beat in the vanilla extract and one at a time the three eggs.
Fold the melted chocolate into the butter sugar mixture until well blended.
Gradually fold in the flour, a little at a time works best.
Then stir in the buttermilk and the boiling water.
Divide the mixture between the tins and cook in the preheated oven for thirty minutes
Leave to cool in the tins for five minutes as this helps the cake release from the tin, then cool on a wire rack until fully cool.

In a bowl set over gently simmering water, as you would melt chocolate, put all the frosting ingredients.
Whisk, this works best with an electric whisk, until thickened and forming soft peaks.
Remove from the heat and whisk until cool.
The heat will cook the egg whites while continuing to whisk will keep the frosting smooth.
Spread about a third on one of the cooled cakes and make a sandwich then coat them both with the remaining frosting.

Men Cooking

Yesterday I had the need to do some shopping. While there were some essentials that I needed such as more bread making flour, for the most part I was ready to see what was in stock and fresh. This lead me to three bargains The first being an organic Free Range Chicken. Now I know that my reader will think “well that's all right for you I cant afford organic”. But as it was only ten pence dearer than the equivalent non organic, so it was worth paying that tiny extra cost, as I know the flavour will be superior.

The next item was a Pork Shank (Ham Shank). This I have already slow roasted with Rosemary as the herb helps humans to digest the fat. This I will strip of meat and make a curry with. The other bargain was some sprats. These I have put in the freezer and will cook for my better half tomorrow. The Chicken, Ham Shank and the fish were less than six pounds and will make five or six meals.

There were a few other items that I got, but as I prefer to shop for my vegetables and fruit at a greengrocers, I still have to get my vegetables, this I will do tomorrow. However, as I was at the checkout in the supermarket, the cashier was asking the woman in front how do you use fresh ginger. I heard her reply and I chipped in that its better to peel ginger with the bowl of a spoon as this helps retain more of the vitamins and minerals. We had a little chat and she left as I packed my bags. The cashier commented that I would be doing some baking, well I did have nine pounds (weight) of flour.

It is one of those wonderful things about food that you can share ideas and tips so easily. Food and cooking are such rich topics for conversation too. Anyway while waiting for the bus back to my village, the woman who I had been chatting to about the ginger was at the next stand and we talked for a while too. She said that it was quite refreshing to find a man that can cook. I told her that was why my better half picked me as her partner. When her bus came I returned to my wait for my bus.

At my stand was a woman senior from my village that I knew and was a nodding acquaintance. After some chat about the weather, such a British way of starting a conversation, she said that she could not help overhearing that I cooked and baked. She told me that her farther had always baked the bread when she was a “Nipper” (Translated to Child). We chatted for a while and she said something that made me think. Her mother was not that good a cook until she had an oven with a thermostat and could get the temperature constant. I think that in so many ways we are really so lucky to have the luxury of good ovens these days.

As I live in a former mining village, where bread would have been baked in the bread oven next to the coal fire, baking and cooking would have been a bit more hit and miss. And working the oven would have taken time to learn and it was only from use that experience was gained.

Also I am grateful that I don't have the outdated attitude that men don't do the cooking. For me it was a relief when women's liberation came along, I could get into the kitchen and women could buy a round in the pub.