Quotulatiousness

November 5, 2021

Easy Homemade Chilli Ketchup – Tastes amazing!

Filed under: Food — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 02:00

ChilliChump
Published 31 Aug 2018

In this video I show you my recipe to make your own chilli ketchup! (If you want plain ketchup without the spice then you can leave out the birds eye peppers. At the same time if you want it hotter then add more peppers … or hotter peppers!)

Making your OWN ketchup means you get to control what goes into it … so if you want to reduce the amount of sugar in your diet, but still want to enjoy ketchup, then make your own! Plus this just tastes incredible!

Smoker box: http://geni.us/bbqsmoker
Squeeze Bottles: https://amzn.to/2HOgjyb
Slow Cooker: http://geni.us/slowcook (not the exact one I have, because mine is quite old. But this is a decent one)
Hand blender: http://geni.us/handblend

Ingredients:
1.2 KG Plum Tomatoes
3 Tins plum tomatoes(or another 1.2KG of fresh plum tomatoes)
6 Jalapenos (4 red, 2 green)
25-30 Birds Eye Chillis
2x Red Onions
8 Cloves of Garlic
Piece of Ginger (a bit smaller than golf ball sized)
Piece of Fresh Fennel (about half a fennel bulb)
3x Celery sticks
1 tbsp Dried Coriander Seeds
1 tbsp Pepper Corns
1.5 tbsp Salt
150g Brown Sugar (or equivalent sweetener)
350ml Red Wine Vinegar
Handful of Fresh Basil
1 litre of water (less if you want this to cook down quicker)

————————————————————————

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#chillichumprecipes

Note: All information provided by ChilliChump is furnished only for educational/entertainment purposes only. You agree that use of this information is at your own risk and hold ChilliChump harmless from any and all losses, liabilities, injuries or damages resulting from any and all claims.

November 3, 2021

1915 Yorkshire Parkin for Bonfire Night

Filed under: Britain, Food, History — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 2 Nov 2021

Thank you to my Patreon Patrons – https://www.patreon.com/tastinghistory
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LINKS TO INGREDIENTS & EQUIPMENT**
Sony Alpha 7C Camera: https://amzn.to/2MQbNTK
Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 Lens: https://amzn.to/35tjyoW
Medium Oatmeal: https://amzn.to/2ZAcpTE
Cake Flour: https://amzn.to/3brKkkl
Black Treacle: https://amzn.to/2XZdW5x
Golden Syrup: https://amzn.to/3jPzhWR

LINKS TO SOURCES**
Pot-Luck by May Byron: https://amzn.to/3ExpRHs
Parkin by Anne Fencott: https://www.fencott.com/FencottBooks/…

**Some of the links and other products that appear on this video are from companies which Tasting History will earn an affiliate commission or referral bonus. Each purchase made from these links will help to support this channel with no additional cost to you. The content in this video is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available.

Subtitles: Jose Mendoza

PHOTO CREDITS
Lewes Guy Fawkes Night: Peter Trimming
Andy Beecroft / Filey Brigg at low tide

#tastinghistory #GuyFawkes #Bonfirenight

October 31, 2021

Soul Cakes & Trick-or-Treating

Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 30 Oct 2020

Help Support the Channel with Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tastinghistory
Follow Tasting History here:
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LINKS TO INGREDIENTS & EQUIPMENT**
Canon EOS M50 Camera: https://amzn.to/3amjvwu
Canon EF 50mm Lens: https://amzn.to/3iCrkB8
Currants: https://amzn.to/2T3qItA
Nutmeg: https://amzn.to/2IGDlcb
Clove: https://amzn.to/3dyNWRP
Mace: https://amzn.to/31j625h
Saffron: https://amzn.to/3560pbP
KitchenAid Stand Mixer: https://amzn.to/37hsboA

LINKS TO SOURCES**
The Customs and Traditions of Wales by Trefor Owen: https://amzn.to/37gi6bt
The Book of Hallowe’en by Ruth Eda Kelley: https://amzn.to/3dDb41i
Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween by Lisa Morton: https://amzn.to/348t0xQ

**Amazon offers a small commission on products sold through their affiliate links, so each purchase made from this link, whether this product or another, will help to support this channel with no additional cost to you.

Editor: WarwicSN – https://www.youtube.com/WarwicSN

SOUL CAKES
ORIGINAL 16TH CENTURY RECIPE (From Elinor Fettiplace’s Receipt Book)
To make Cakes
Take flower & sugar & nutmeg & cloves & mace & sweet butter & sack & a little ale barm, beat your spice & put in your butter & your sack, cold, then work it well all together & make it in little cakes & so bake them, if you will you may put in some saffron into them or fruit.

MODERN RECIPE
INGREDIENTS
– ½ Cup Lukewarm Ale (Below 100°F/38°C)
– 1 Teaspoon Yeast
– 3 Cups (360g) Flour
– ½ Cup (100g) Sugar
– 4 Tablespoons Butter Softened
– ½ Teaspoon Salt (if you’re using unsalted butter)
– ¼ Teaspoon Nutmeg
– ¼ Teaspoon Clove
– ¼ Teaspoon Mace
– ⅓ Cup Sack or Sherry
– 1/4 Teaspoon Saffron Threads (optional)
– 3/4 Cup Dried Fruit, plus more for decoration. (Optional)
– 1 Egg for Egg Wash (Optional)

METHOD
1. Create an “ale barm” by mixing the yeast with the lukewarm ale and letting sit for 10 minutes. If you are using saffron, mix that into the sherry and let steep.
2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, salt, nutmeg, clove, and mace together. Add the yeasted ale and work it in. Then work in the softened butter and the sack with saffron along with any fruit you are using. Mix until everything the dough comes together, then knead for 5 – 12 minutes. The longer you knead, the more bread-like the cakes will be, but the more they will rise.
3. Allow dough to rise for 1 hour (it will likely not double in size), then punch the dough down and form into small cakes. Cover and allow the cakes to rise for another 20 minutes while you preheat the oven to 400°F/200°C.
4. When the cakes have puffed up, add the optional egg wash and/or additional fruit, or form a cross on the top of each cake using the back of a knife (do not cut the cross in). Then back fro 20 minutes. When baked, allow to cool before serving.

#tastinghistory #halloween #soulcakes

October 13, 2021

500 Year Old Apple & Cheese Pie

Filed under: Britain, Food, Germany, History, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 12 Oct 2021

Use my exclusive link here https://cen.yt/TradeTastingHistory4 to get your first bag from Trade Coffee for free.

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LINKS TO INGREDIENTS & EQUIPMENT**
Sony Alpha 7C Camera: https://amzn.to/2MQbNTK
Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 Lens: https://amzn.to/35tjyoW
Emile Henry Pie Dish: https://amzn.to/3i5go19

LINKS TO SOURCES**
Apple – A Global History by Erika Janik: https://amzn.to/3COmCui
Diary of Samuel Sewall: https://amzn.to/3AKDj9j
The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall by Eve LaPlante: https://amzn.to/3EUBUiU
Das Kochbuch der Sabina Welserin: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieva…

**Some of the links and other products that appear on this video are from companies which Tasting History will earn an affiliate commission or referral bonus. Each purchase made from these links will help to support this channel with no additional cost to you. The content in this video is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available.

Subtitles: Jose Mendoza | IG @worldagainstjose

PHOTOS
Tarte tatin: Loslazos, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…, via Wikimedia Commons

#tastinghistory #applepie

October 12, 2021

Pesto — You Suck At Cooking, episode 73

Filed under: Europe, Food, Humour, Italy — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 02:00

You Suck At Cooking
Published 28 Mar 2018

The YSAC Cook Book is now available: http://hyperurl.co/yousuckatcooking

Pesto. It’s the besto.

http://instagram.com/yousuckatcooking
https://twitter.com/yousuckatcookin
Snapchat: @yousuckatcookin

2 cups basil
Half cup olive oil
half cup parmesan
couple spoonfuls of pine nuts (you can use walnuts if you want)
a clove or two or garlic
a squeeze of lemon
you can salt it a bit more if the parmesan hasn’t done the trick

September 26, 2021

I finally made GARUM | Ancient Rome’s favorite condiment

Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 9 Jun 2020

In nearly every recipe we have from Ancient Rome, a key ingredient is Garum or Liquamen; fermented fish sauce. While it usually takes two months to make, I use an ancient recipe for same day garum which gave me plenty of time to look at the history of Ancient Rome’s favorite condiment.

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LINK TO COLATURA DI ALICI: https://amzn.to/30o2Dmg

LINKS TO SOURCES**
The Roman Cookery Book by Elizabeth Rosenbaum: https://amzn.to/2zg73QV

Tasting Rome by Katie Parla and Kristina Gill: https://amzn.to/2Affi01

Ferment by Holly Davis: https://amzn.to/37bDtIK

https://coquinaria.nl/en/roman-fish-s…

The rise and reorganization of the Pompeian salted fish industry – Steven Ellis: https://www.academia.edu/678386/The_r…

**Amazon offers a small commission on products sold through their affiliate links, so each purchase made from this link, whether this product or another, will help to support this channel with no additional cost to you.

LINK TO Making A Cure for the Black Plague | Galen and the Four Humors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtCKA…

GARUM
ORIGINAL RECIPE From The Geoponica
If you wish to use the garum at once — i.e. not expose it to the sun, but boil it — make it in the following manner: Take brine and test its strength by throwing an egg into it to see if it floats; if it sinks it does not contain enough salt. Put the fish into the brine in a new earthenware pot, add oregano, put it on a good fire until it boils — i.e., until it begins to reduce. Some people also add defrutum. Let it cool and strain it two or three times, until the liquid is clear. Seal and store it away.

MODERN RECIPE
INGREDIENTS (Amounts are approximate)
– 2 Quarts (1900ml) Water
– 1lb (450g) Sea Salt
– 2 Teaspoons Dried Oregano
Defrutum or Honey
– 2lbs (900g) Whole Fish (oily)

METHOD
1. Add salt to the water and stir to dissolve. You may not need the full amount, so start with about 3/4s. Place an egg in the water and if the egg floats, stop adding salt.
2. Add the whole fish and the oregano (and defrutum if you are using any) to the water and place over medium-high heat and boil for 30 – 40 minutes. Every ten minutes, mash with a spoon to break up the fish.
3. Once the water has reduced to about half the amount, remove the pot from the heat and allow to cool.
4. First, pass through a colander and then strain through a kitchen cloth or paper towel until the garum is free of particles. Then bottle in a sterile bottle and refrigerate.

Music Credit
“Gigue” From 3rd Cello Suite
Exzel Music Publishing (freemusicpublicdomain.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b…

Photo Credits
chef PNG Designed By CHENXIN from https://pngtree.com/
Garum Mosaic – Claus Ableiter / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…)
Adana Mosaic – Dosseman / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…)
Galen – Wellcome Collection / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…)
Snails Mosaic – Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…)
Seneca & Nero – By Eduardo Barrón – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index…

#tastinghistory #garum #ancientrome #foodhistory

September 8, 2021

500 Year-Old Pizza VS Today

Filed under: Europe, Food, History, Humour, Italy — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 25 May 2021

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10 inch removable bottom pan: https://amzn.to/3f8ZZI0
Rose Water: https://amzn.to/3oL0xqI

LINKS TO SOURCES**
Scappi Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4Ymv…
Tomato Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beBQg…
Pizza – A Global History by Carol Helstosky: https://amzn.to/3bHFPCQ

**Some of the links and other products that appear on this video are from companies which Tasting History will earn an affiliate commission or referral bonus. Each purchase made from these links will help to support this channel with no additional cost to you. The content in this video is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available.

Subtitles: Jose Mendoza

PHOTO CREDITS
Stuffed pizza from Giordano’s: By TNVWBOY – https://www.flickr.com/photos/tnvwboy…, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index…
Lombardi’s Pizza: By Beyond My Ken – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index…
Sushi Pizza: Quinn Dombrowski from Berkeley, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…, via Wikimedia Commons
Pizza Bagels: Mike Mozart https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeepers…

MUSIC CREDITS
“Bushwick Tarentella” – Thatched Villagers by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-…
Artist: http://incompetech.com/

#tastinghistory #pizza

August 30, 2021

A History of American Barbecue

Filed under: Americas, Food, History, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered
Published 29 Jun 2020

Different cultures have been roasting meat over a fire since prehistory, but the practice took on special meaning in the United States. The History Guy remembers a brief history of American barbecue.

This is original content based on research by The History Guy. Images in the Public Domain are carefully selected and provide illustration. As very few images of the actual event are available in the Public Domain, images of similar objects and events are used for illustration.

You can purchase the bow tie worn in this episode at The Tie Bar:
https://www.thetiebar.com/?utm_campai…

All events are portrayed in historical context and for educational purposes. No images or content are primarily intended to shock and disgust. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Non censuram.

Find The History Guy at:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheHistoryGuy
Join the History Guy for history trivia at https://www.quizando.com/TheHistoryGuy

The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered is the place to find short snippets of forgotten history from five to fifteen minutes long. If you like history too, this is the channel for you.

Awesome The History Guy merchandise is available at:
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Script by THG

#ushistory #thehistoryguy #foodhistory

May 31, 2021

“For four generations our culture and education has been in the hands of an unholy hybrid of Marxism and Rousseau’s Romanticism”

Filed under: Education, Europe, Tools — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In the most recent edition of the Libertarian Enterprise, Sarah Hoyt regrets not learning some traditional — manual — skills when she was younger, and how children today are even worse served by the education system:

… there are are other things. I mean, husband and I to an extent were thrown in to the world with no clue how to do the most basic things, like home maintenance or how to clean with proper products, how to take care of clothes, how to do anything with our savings other than let it sit in the bank, how to organize and sort files and records. It goes on. (I do still tend to use bleach for most things. It’s cheap. I have at least learned what it will damage.) Our first ten years of marriage would make a good sitcom, as they had a repeating pattern: figure out we need to do something; extrapolate how it can be done; invest untold amount of time and effort into doing thing; find out after that it can be done in a simpler and cheaper way. And then people wonder why I curse.

And so many times, we just come up on something that must be done — even now — and have no clue how to get to the place where we can even think about how to do it. Teaching the kids what we never learned has been fun, too.

Heck, even in my religion — and I taught it was a young woman — I keep coming across these massive gaps where no one ever taught me what to do or why. As for the education my kids got: pfui.

In the same way, I’ve spent most of my adult life learning history, grammar, natural science and the basics of things that I supposedly learned the advanced form for with my degree, but without anyone ever teaching me the fundamentals.

Kind of like part of my degree is the study of literature but until I read Dwight Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer I’d never realized that books are composed of conflict and reaction units. (No, not physical conflict, though heck, you could sell that.) Instead I tried to fit them into the structure of plays and wondered why it wasn’t working.

Because no one had ever taught me the basics. I mean, I knew how to do a lot of advanced things, even as a beginning writer. I just had no clue how to do the basic things. And it showed.

For four generations our culture and education has been in the hands of an unholy hybrid of Marxism and Rousseau’s Romanticism. (The two are related in that both believe that natural man left to his own devices creates paradise.)

I can understand how those scarred by the long war of the 20th century would decide that they were going to ditch all the evil bad things in civilization and let the children grow up “naturally” so they would be sweet and innocent angels. (Spit.) I understand but I don’t forgive. If they thought what they saw in the war was the result of Western Civilization, they’d never studied other civilizations or for that matter hid in a playground and watched the children be “natural”.

Then the cascade started. People who only half learned could only half teach. On top of which the doubts instilled in them about the purpose of civilization made them teach less than half. And the next generation knew less. And then less.

More than once, as an inquisitive student, I’d go to my teacher and ask why something worked the way it did or didn’t work the way they said, only to be given a glib explanation I knew was wrong. I must have been 11 the first time I realized the teacher had no more clue than I did. (This was a good thing. It set me on a path of researching and investigating on my own.)

By the time my kids were in school it had become more so, partly because to justify themselves, and abate the feeling they were incompetent, people derived entire theories on why they shouldn’t learn the basics, learning the basics was bad, and you could be so much better by learning naturally.

I don’t have enough words to revile the “immersion” method of language learning, particularly was applied in our schools. Yes, sure “but the military used it” – yeah, but the military could enforce LIVING in the language. It also — which seems to elude most people — does teach people grammar and vocabulary in formal classroom settings.

[…]

Part of the unlearning are people who never learned enough to realize what works and what doesn’t trying to do things in ways that only work for a very few highly gifted individuals. That’s how we got whole word, new math, total immersion, whateverthehelltheyretryingnow all of which involved “less work for teachers” and the vague hope that unschooled children, or children who learned “naturally” were just somehow “better”.

Kind of like what would happen if I decided my digit dyslexic, half-baked way with wood meant my making, say, a table that was lopsided and wobbly made the table better and more authentic.

April 1, 2021

How to Make Preserved Lemons in the Workshop

Filed under: Food, Humour, Tools, Woodworking — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Uri Tuchman
Published 12 Jul 2019

Preserved lemon recipe:
For the lemons:
– 6 lemons
– 300 gram salt
Cutting board:
– 40x25x1.5 cm cherry wood
Knife:
– 20x5x0.2 cm O1 steel
– 10x3x2 cm Maple wood
– 4x3x2 cm walnut wood
Airtight container:
– 14x14x1.5 cm cherry wood x2
– 10x14x1.5 cm cherry wood x4
– brass screw rod x8
– brass thumb nut x8
Serving board
– 20x6x1.5 cm beech wood
– 6x1x0.5 cm walnut
Fork:
– 6x1x0.2 cm brass plate
– 1cm brass tube
– 10 wooden handle from some nice burl

Mix everything in a bowl and you’re golden!

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/urituchman
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/urituchman/

Music:
Acid Trumpet
Kevin MacLeod
incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b…

March 21, 2021

The two Britains, gastronomically speaking

Filed under: Britain, Food, Health — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Theodore Dalrymple on the British diet (at least before the neverending lockdowns):

“The Joy of Cookbooks” by shoutabyss is licensed under CC BY 2.0

As in many other things, the population has divided into two: those with increasingly refined tastes in gastronomy, and those who eat mainly junk and takeaway food for the quickest but also crudest possible gratification.

Gastronomy often seems the only aesthetic sphere in which the modern British display any real interest. Their dress, their music, their art (or at least such as gains any publicity), their literature, and of course their architecture, are hideously ugly, even militantly so, but a Michelin-starred restaurant receives their adulation — or did in the now-distant days when restaurants were open.

But the modern interest in food is not the same as a mass market for fish, which has, alas, mainly to be cooked, and the fact is that the British are, grosso modo, too lazy and ignorant to cook properly. Many millions of them would be horrified by the sight of a whole fish, or even any part of a raw fish: they don’t want to eat anything that hasn’t been through a complex industrial process, had chemicals and preservatives added to it, and cannot be just stuck in a microwave for a few minutes before consumption in front of the television. Besides, they wouldn’t know what to do with a fish, let alone a crustacean.

It is said that about a fifth of British children do not eat a meal with another member of their household (family would, perhaps, be a misleading term) more than once a fortnight, turning meals into asocial and even furtive occasions. Many households do not have a dining table, and in my visiting days as a doctor I discovered that the microwave is often a household’s entire batterie de cuisine.

This slovenly and asocial approach to eating — evident in the detritus left behind in British streets as people eat wherever they happen to be, in their cars, walking along, in trains and buses, in fact anywhere but a dining room and with others — is not the consequence of poverty, but of a degraded style of life.

Many years ago I noticed that shops in poor areas where there were many immigrants of Indian origin had enormous piles of a vast array of vegetables so cheap that the problem was carrying them home rather than their cost. I would see Indian housewives selecting their purchases with care and attention: the quality and not just the price mattered to them. Uncompelled by economic necessity to shop there, I would nevertheless do so; but I never saw poor whites doing so. The problem with all those vegetables was that they required cooking, preferably with skill, which very few poor whites, as against poor Indians, had. And this is a cultural problem, if the taste for and consumption of a diet of junk food (what the French more vividly call malbouffe) is a problem.

The Indians are fat, with bad health consequences, from eating too much good food; the native British, with bad health consequences, from eating too much bad food. The prevalence of obesity in Britain, greater than in most other European countries, is possibly one of the reasons that its death rate from COVID-19 is so high, among the highest if not actually the highest. And this obesity is immediately obvious on arrival in Britain from any European country.

March 19, 2021

QotD: English food

Filed under: Britain, Economics, Food, History, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

For someone who remembers the old days, the food is the most startling thing about modern England. English food used to be deservedly famous for its awfulness — greasy fish and chips, gelatinous pork pies, and dishwater coffee. Now it is not only easy to do much better, but traditionally terrible English meals have even become hard to find. What happened?

Maybe the first question is how English cooking got to be so bad in the first place. A good guess is that the country’s early industrialization and urbanization was the culprit. Millions of people moved rapidly off the land and away from access to traditional ingredients. Worse, they did so at a time when the technology of urban food supply was still primitive: Victorian London already had well over a million people, but most of its food came in by horse-drawn barge. And so ordinary people, and even the middle classes, were forced into a cuisine based on canned goods (mushy peas!), preserved meats (hence those pies), and root vegetables that didn’t need refrigeration (e.g. potatoes, which explain the chips).

But why did the food stay so bad after refrigerated railroad cars and ships, frozen foods (better than canned, anyway), and eventually air-freight deliveries of fresh fish and vegetables had become available? Now we’re talking about economics — and about the limits of conventional economic theory. For the answer is surely that by the time it became possible for urban Britons to eat decently, they no longer knew the difference. The appreciation of good food is, quite literally, an acquired taste — but because your typical Englishman, circa, say, 1975, had never had a really good meal, he didn’t demand one. And because consumers didn’t demand good food, they didn’t get it. Even then there were surely some people who would have liked better, just not enough to provide a critical mass.

And then things changed. Partly this may have been the result of immigration. (Although earlier waves of immigrants simply adapted to English standards — I remember visiting one fairly expensive London Italian restaurant in 1983 that advised diners to call in advance if they wanted their pasta freshly cooked.) Growing affluence and the overseas vacations it made possible may have been more important — how can you keep them eating bangers once they’ve had foie gras? But at a certain point the process became self-reinforcing: Enough people knew what good food tasted like that stores and restaurants began providing it — and that allowed even more people to acquire civilized taste buds.

Paul Krugman, “Supply, Demand, and English Food”, https://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/mushy.html.

February 13, 2021

MORE cultural appropriation foods!

Filed under: Americas, Europe, Food, History, India, Japan — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

J.J. McCullough
Published 14 Nov 2020

How much famous food is just copied from some other country? Thanks to Jack Rackham for the shogun animation!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaQz…

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January 19, 2021

QotD: British foods

Filed under: Britain, Food, History, Quotations, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

… it is worth listing the foodstuffs, natural or prepared, which are especially good in Britain and which any foreign visitor should make sure of sampling.

First of all, British apples, one or other variety of which is obtainable for about seven months of the year. Nearly all British fruits and vegetables have a good natural flavour, but the apples are outstanding. The best are those that ripen late, from September onwards, and one should not be put off by the feat that most British varieties are dull in colour and irregular in size. The best are the Cox’s Orange pippin, the Blenheim Orange, the Charles Hoss, the James Grieve and the Russet. These are all eaten raw. The Bramley Seedling is a superlative cooking apple.

Secondly, salt fish, especially kippers and Scottish haddocks. Thirdly, oysters – very large and good, though artificially expensive. Fourthly, biscuits, both sweetened and unsweetened, especially those that come from the four or five great firms whose names are a trademark. Fifthly, jams and jellies of all kinds. These are usually best when home-made, with the exception of strawberry jam, which is nearly always better as a manufactured product. Some varieties not often seen outside Britain are blackcurrant jelly, bramble jelly (made of blackberries) marrow jam with ginger, and damson cheese, an especially stiff kind of jelly which can be cut in slabs. In addition, no one who has not sampled Devonshire cream, Stilton cheese, crumpets, potato cakes, saffron buns, Dublin prawns, apple dumplings, pickled walnuts, steak-and-kidney pudding and, of course, roast sirloin of beef with Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes and horseradish sauce, can be said to have given British cookery a fair trial.

The only alcoholic drinks which are native to Britain, and are all widely drunk, are beer, cider and whiskey. The cider is fairly good (that brewed in Herefordshire is the best), the beer very good. It is somewhat more alcoholic and very much bitterer then the beers of most other countries, all save the mildest and cheapest kinds being strongly flavoured with hop. Its flavour varies greatly from one part of the country to another. The whiskey exported from Britain is mostly Scottish, but the Irish kind, which is sweeter in taste and contains more rye, is also popular in Britain itself. One excellent liquor, sloe gin, is widely made in Britain, though not often exported. It is always better when home-made. It is of a beautiful purplish-red colour, and rather resembles cherry brandy, but is of a more delicate flavour.

Finally, a word in praise of British bread. In general it is close-grained, rather sweet-flavoured bread, which remains good for three or four days after being baked. It is seen at its best in the kind of double loaf. Rye bread and barley bread are hardly eaten in Britain, but the wholemeal wheat bread is extremely good. The great virtue of British bread is that it is baked in small batches, in a rather primitive way, and therefore is not at all standardised. The bread from one baker may be quite different from another down the street, and one can range about from shop to shop until one is suited. It is a good general rule that small, old-fashioned shops make the best-flavoured bread. Throughout a great deal of the North of England the women prefer to bake their bread for themselves.

George Orwell, “British Cookery”, 1946. (Originally commissioned by the British Council, but refused by them and later published in abbreviated form.)

December 26, 2020

QotD: British meals – fish, fowl, and vegetables

Filed under: Britain, Food, History, Quotations, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

There are not many methods of cooking birds which are peculiar to Britain. The British regard as inedible many birds – for instance, thrushes, larks, sparrows, curlews, green plovers and various kinds of duck – which are valued in other countries. They are also inclined to despise rabbits, and rabbit-rearing for the table has never been extensively practiced in Britain. On the other hand they will eat young rooks, which are shot in May and baked in pies. They are especially attached to geese and turkeys, which (at normal times) are eaten in immense quantities at Christmas, always roasted whole, with chestnut stuffing in the case of turkeys, and sage and onion stuffing and apple sauce in the case of geese.

Fish in Britain is seldom well cooked. The sea all round Britain yields a variety of excellent fishes, but as a rule they are unimaginatively boiled or fried, and the art of seasoning them in the cooking is not understood. The fish fried in oil to which the British working classes are especially addicted is definitely nasty, and has been an enemy of home cookery, since it can be bought everywhere in the big towns, ready cooked and at low prices. Except for trout, salmon and eels, British people will not eat fresh-water fish. As for vegetables, it must be admitted that, potatoes apart, they seldom get the treatment they deserve. Thanks to the rain-soaked soil, British vegetables are nearly all of excellent flavour, but they are commonly spoiled in the cooking. Cabbage is simply boiled – a method which renders it almost uneatable – while cauliflowers, leeks and marrows are usually smothered in a tasteless white sauce which is probably the “one sauce” scornfully referred to by Voltaire. The British are not great eaters of salads, though they have grown somewhat fonder of raw vegetables during the war years, thanks to the educational campaigns of the Ministry of Food. Except for salads, vegetables are always eaten with the meat, not separately.

George Orwell, “British Cookery”, 1946. (Originally commissioned by the British Council, but refused by them and later published in abbreviated form.)

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