Extra Matter

Eat This Newsletter 024

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15 February 2016

Waste not

  1. A video – why beats me – on which bit of Parmigiano-Reggiano to buy, next time you have a choice. What they don’t calculate is the edible cheese to rind ratio of following their advice, and what that does to the cost per usable gram. Of course, the rind has its uses too.
  2. Towards an Inclusive Food System. I’m sticking this one in here as I really don’t know what to make of it. It seems inchoate and odd and possibly even content-free. But there are also some interesting insights. I should probably consider writing something myself.
  3. Would a modern medium-sized farm have room for horse-power? And if it did, would horse-meat be considered one of the worthwhile farm products? I somehow doubt it, even after reading The Old Foodie’s Horse Flesh as Human Food hash. One tiny quibble; the quote belongs to Hermann M. Biggs, renowned for his work as Commissioner of Health for New York State.
  4. An interview with a German home baker transplanted to Maine, where she turned a hobby into a small business. Karin Anderson’s bread blog makes me feel like a lackadaisical slouch, even though …
  5. … inspired by the article about sourdough in Aorta Food, to which I linked last time, I decided to stimulate myself and attempt an almost 100% rye sourdough, a four-day process that was not without difficulties. The proof, of course, is in the eating, and the eating was mighty fine.

Speaking of which, I’m conscious that my selections tend to follow well-worn ruts. If you’ve a story that could bump me out of those ruts, do let me know.

Podcasts

The haybox through history Insulation offers morally superior cooking

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huffduffer icon   Huffduff it

hayboxThis year’s Amsterdam Symposium on the History of Food was dedicated to The material culture of cooking tools and techniques and was full of fascinating stuff. I especially enjoyed a talk on the hay box, the original slow cooker. The principle is simplicity itself. Bring a pot full of food to the boil and then insulate it really well so that it cools down very slowly. The food continues to cook as it cools down and if your insulation is good enough you can come back hours later to find a hot, properly cooked meal.

The haybox actually has quite a long history, with three Gold Medals awarded to a Mr Johan Sörensen at the Paris Exhibition in 1867. Various patents were granted to Sörensen and others, and the idea was promoted for “fishermen, pilots, and others whose small vessels are not generally so constructed as to enable them to procure hot food while at sea” and, eventually, domestic cooks.

In his talk, Jon Verriet traced the ups and downs of the haybox from around 1895 to the present day. It was most popular in times of war, but always with a moral element to it, even if the moral lesson shifted slightly.

Notes

  1. There’s a terrific account of The Self-acting Norwegian Cooking Apparatus in the New York Medical Journal, vol 10 (1870). Do not be distracted by either the preceding item (The Effects of Hashish) or the one after (When to Trephine). Thanks to Hedon for the link.
  2. The most recent incarnation of the haybox is the Wonderbag, created by a development worker after a restless night and now offering to save the planet and pull people out of poverty.
  3. Aside from that, most of the online writing about the haybox is survivalist stuff. I’m not linking to that.
  4. The banner image is from Ford Madox Brown’s The Hayfield. I’d like to think that his supper is under one of the little haystacks. The cover illustration is from The Fireless Cook Book, by Margaret J. Mitchell.
Extra Matter

Eat This Newsletter 023

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1 February 2016

  1. Big news! Rachel Roddy, guest on the programme last October, has just won the André Simon award for best food book of 2015. That’s reason enough for a second helping of our conversation. Publication tomorrow in the US adds extra piquancy.
  2. Should you bribe your children to eat vegetables? "Over the past 50 years, psychologists’ answer … has evolved from 'D’uh, of course!' to 'Probably not!' to 'Maybe yes?'." Not very helpful, I know, but there’s something there for everyone.
  3. Something Sour in the Middle Class. Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous meditation on another existential question: “[W]hat is behind this trend to make their own bread, particularly sourdough bread? Why bake yourself, when the shelves are already filled?”
Podcasts

An English woman’s take on Italian cooking Second helpings from Eat This Podcast 2015

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:17 — 6.1MB)

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rachel-roddy-coverRachel Roddy, after about 10 years of hard slog, is an overnight sensation.

She’s just scooped the André Simon award for best food book in 2015, a very big deal indeed for a first book. I’d been warming up this second helping for a day or two before that news came through last Friday. My original reason for revisiting this episode was that her book, Five Quarters: Recipes and Notes from a Kitchen in Rome, is due to be published in the US tomorrow, 2 February, under a somewhat different title: My Kitchen in Rome: Recipes and Notes on Italian Cooking The different titles were just one of the things we talked about and that are worth sharing again; Rachel’s well-deserved award provides an extra reason.

There’s a lot more packed into the original, full-length episode. Rachel talked about how a website turned into a book and about how she’s discovering life and cooking in one of the less glamorous towns of Sicily, the subject of her next book.

Extra Matter

Eat This Newsletter 022

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25 January 2016

Combination platter

  1. For starters, this week on the podcast, a second helping from 2015: talking to Anissa Helou at Koshari Street in Lonodn about koshari and street food.
  2. Somehow everybody seems to be dissecting “Indian” food. This time, it’s the turn of Shylashri Shankar to trace the journey From An Imperial To A National Cuisine.
  3. And if that makes you long for different ways of eating rice, The Old Foodie has lined up a selection of Variations on a Theme of Fried Rice.
  4. Sticking with cereals, at last, someone who actually understands the different hulled and heirloom wheats.

There’ll be another second helping next week. Let me know if there’s anything you think should be heard again. And then, back to normal programming.