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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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.

Podcasts

Egyptian street food in London Second helpings from Eat This Podcast 2015

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:12 — 5.4MB)

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koshariAs promised, another second helping from one of 2015’s episodes, before we get to the new stuff. This time, I’m remembering my trip to the little place in St Martin’s Lane in London that serves a couture version of koshari, the iconic street food of Egypt. And one trouble with these second helpings is that there’s not much new to say about the topic or the episode, so I’ll just point you to the full episode from March 2015 and let you explore there. (I will also repeat the relevant show notes below).

Speaking of new stuff, a couple of weeks ago, I was depressed about not being able to go to the Amsterdam Symposium on the History of Food this year. Thanks to the great generosity of a friend, I was able to go, and the first new episode of the year will be one I recorded there. There wasn’t any tulip bulb soup on offer this time, and perhaps that’s just as well.

Notes

  1. Koshari Street is at 56 At Martin’s Lane, London, WC2N 4EA. And online
  2. Anissa Helou is also online and her book Mediterranean Street Food is still available.
Extra Matter

Eat This Newsletter 021

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18 January 2016

Dig deep

  1. What ails the British curry restaurant.
  2. Maybe Pushpesh Pant – The chronicler of Indian food – has an answer.
  3. But don’t let Bruce Palling know about Pant inspiring contemporary chefs. Palling says Don’t mess with traditional dishes.
  4. Speaking of traditions, here’s an exhumation and autopsy of Chinese Restaurant Syndrome. You can’t keep a good myth down.
  5. Discarding an ill-deserved good reputation is probably just as difficult, but one professor says the sun has set on vitamin D supplements.
  6. Self-promotion slot: I learned about a database that links art and artefacts, many of them kitchen kit.