Category Archives: eating

The act of eating. Dining, products, flavours.

eating, en passant, food, hl

Hot cross buns save the day

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On Good Friday my mother usually makes her fantabulous hot cross buns. Unsurpassed in the history of Australia. Or something like that. Usually there are just four of us devouring the buns. This year there were unbidden guests.

Dad was serving the buns. We were making our familiar drooling, moaning noises.
hotcross09

Perhaps our pre-orgiastic vocalisations acted as an incantation, calling up spirits from Easters past. They marched across the tablecloth.
arrivalofchicks

They surveyed our Easter breakfast. At first we were seduced by their seeming innocence. Their yellow fuzz illuminated our breakfast table.
chickcurious

We noticed small groups forming amongst our visitors. “How sweet!” we thought. “It’s a group hug.” … or was it something more like a rugby scrum?
chickspiracy

While we had been observing our cute little friends do their group hug, other visitors were busy… The hugs had been a diversion!
chicknibble

The yellow guests were as voracious as locusts. And when challenged, defended their bounty. They had the arrogance of conquerors, standing atop the battlements of a fallen fortress.
chickmunch

We cowered in our seats as the fluffy yellow marauders started mutating into hideous, daemonic things.
chickmutation

To our surprise, the frightening feasting horned chickens of Easter began to collapse. The mutation had not been a transformation into their true form, but in fact the hideous effect of a food allergy.
chickdeath

They couldn’t take the peel. We were saved! Beware of peel-hating Easter invaders!

eating, food, hl, local, media, society

Sow stalls in Australia

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I don’t think most Australians have any particularly awareness of the conditions for livestock animals in Australia. We hear occasional stories from overseas and can, of course, read books such as Fast Food Nation or The Omnivore’s Dilemma to get even more of an idea. We know that chickens lead an awful life in battery farms, but I imagine many people think “barn laid” and many other opaque terms indicate markedly better welfare for the chickens. Scepticism is, justifiably, growing.

But what of the cattle and pigs? The Guardian (one of very few traditional newspaper to have nurtured an intelligent food section into the digital age) had an article, The price of bacon, on January 6th describing the conditions of pigs in some European pig farms. The blurb for the article summarises the unpleasant content:

Pigs kept on slatted, concrete floors; pregnant sows in cages so small they can’t move; piglets castrated without pain relief; tails routinely docked to prevent animals attacking each other. This is the truth behind the European pig industry – and so behind most of the pork we eat.

It piqued my curiosity regarding the situation in Australia. It turns out, for instance, that sow stalls are in use here, and not only is there an RSPCA campaign against their use, but there’s also one of those de rigueur marketing propaganda sites, sowstalls.com.au, to explain why Australia should still use them. I love Issue Spin 101 paragraphs like

While several countries have moved to ban sow stalls or restrict their use, all Australians would agree that this country should make its own independent assessment based on sound scientific research, which meets our unique environment, cultural and geographical situation. (Link)

The site is completely silent about its authorship or affiliation, but a whois search reveals the owner as Australian Pork Limited. No surprise.

Now let’s just see how The Guardian describes sowstalls:

A sow stall is a narrow metal cage, on a bare concrete and slatted floor, in which pregnant sows spend all three months, three weeks and three days of their gestation. They can move a few inches back and forwards, but not turn around. Lying down and getting up is difficult, too.

I’m not particularly sentimental about animals which we eat, but I do get grumpy when people use weasel words to justify the mistreatment of those animals. I understand the economic imperatives of farming and food production. I know that there must be compromises where vast numbers of humans need food. I don’t think the final cents-per-unit should justify this sort of treatment.

I wonder if there are readers in Australia with close-hand knowledge of the treatment of food/farm animals in Australia? Is it generally better than some of the worst aspects of European or USAmerican farming described in books and the media?

eating, en passant, food, society

American food nightmares (Men’s Health)

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A few years ago, an American friend of mine in Denver told me of a chain restaurant (he worked there) which had served a slice of cake containing something like 2300 calories. Despite my sweet tooth, that just seemed foully excessive. Not long ago I found a magazine article that confirmed he wasn’t lying and that there are a lot of people consuming unimaginable calories in the USA… Another post in my quest to find disgusting food the world over, here’s a beautiful illustration of just how many calories can be packed into one pointless meal.

Men’s Health 20 Worst Foods of 2009

I’m particularly impressed by the following two items:

Baskin Robbins Large Chocolate Oreo Shake
2,600 calories
135 g fat (59 g saturated fat, 2.5 g trans fats)
263 g sugars
1,700 mg sodium

Marie Callender’s Creamy Parmesan Chicken Pot Pie
1,060 calories
64 g fat (24 g saturated fat)
1,440 mg sodium

Marie Callender’s perpetrates the ultimate sleight of hand here: the nutrition information says this medium-size entrée has two servings, but honestly, when have you ever split a potpie? …

… but there’s much more indigestible “joy” to be found in the Men’s Health list. Ugh.

Honestly, if you’re going kill yourself with meals that are four times the recommended daily energy needs of an athlete, you should do it with homemade pastry, chocolate, custard, ice-cream, macarons, homemade bread and delicious cheeses!

eating, food, morsels, travel

Icelandic cuisine

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I was contemplating a holiday to Iceland. I was reading the guidebooks. The Rough Guides’ description of Iceland’s culinary delights stopped me dead in my tracks:

Harðifiskur, wind-dried haddock or cod, is a popular snack, eaten by tearing off a piece and chewing away …

Hákarl (Greenland shark) is a more doubtful delicacy, as it is first buried for up to six months in sand to break down the high levels of toxins contained in its flesh.

About the only endemic vegetable is a type of lichen that’s dried into almost tasteless, resilient black curls and snacked on raw or cooked with milk.

You can read it all at roughguides.com.

For the sake of balance, I’ll mention that I own the fascinating Icelandic Food & Cookery by Nanna Rögnvaldardóttir (Hippocrene Books), and enjoyed one semester of Old Icelandic at uni.

chocolate, eating, food, hl, media, society

The cruelties of good nutrition – or the day the broccoli came home to roost

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The internet is full of conspiracies. The food world is full of oft-misguided fears. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s my turn to contribute to the imaginative world of food conspiracies. I’m not talking about corn chips causing rubella or tofu causing homosexuality or crappy shiraz infused chocolate being unusually popular amongst bloggers… No! The military-industrial-vegetable complex is attempting a green coup.

I am disturbed, disturbed! An article in The Guardian late last year drew my attention to the existence of a list. A subversive, deeply disturbing list. A list with earth-shattering implications for my hitherto guilt-free diet of pastry and chocolate. As if we needed more proof that things haven’t been right in the United States in recent years, Yale University has developed an Overall Nutritional Quality Index. Suspiciously, it has been given a brand name… more evidence of commercial conspiracy!

The NuVal™ Nutritional Scoring System summarizes the overall nutritional value of food. It uses the Institute of Medicine’s Dietary Reference Intakes (quantitative reference values for recommended intakes of nutrients) and the Dietary Guidelines For Americans (advice from the Department of Health and Human Services, HHS, and the Department of Agriculture, USDA, about how good dietary habits can promote health and reduce risk for major chronic diseases) to quantify the presence of more than 30 nutrients – including vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants; sugar, salt, trans fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol. The system also incorporates measures for the quality of protein, fat, and carbohydrates, as well as calories and omega-3 fats. The NuVal™ System also takes into account how these nutrients influence health based on broadly accepted, published scientific literature. (Link)

Now, just look at their top items (top nutritional score is 100), as shown in The Guardian:

Broccoli 100
Blueberries 100
Okra 100
Orange 100
Green Beans 100

BROCCOLI?! Say what?! This is like a conspiracy with the parents of the world, forcing fuzzy green stuff down the throats of the innocents. My parents did it. My parents’ parents did it. Broccoli is an instrument of torture, not nutrition! I’m surprised cauliflower isn’t equal first. Oh look, it is… below is the more comprehensive list direct from NuVal. Brussels sprouts don’t get a mention, but I’ll bet they’re lurking in the background, ready to pounce.

Apricots 100
Asparagus 100
Beans (yellow and green) 100
Blueberries 100
Broccoli 100
Cabbage 100
Cauliflower 100
Kiwi 100
Lettuce (Green Leaf, Red Leaf & Romaine) 100
Mustard Greens 100
Okra 100
Orange 100
Spinach 100
Strawberries 100
Turnip 100

Just lucky I’m growing strawberries (100) to eat with my Rice Bubbles (23) and oats (88) with full fat milk (52) every morning!

Meanwhile, I thought asparagus was just a phallic joke of a higher being, causing smelly pee and crap supermarket produce disappointments in the process. But no! We should all be munching our way through green sticks, green leaves, green sticky things, green fruit, and TURNIPS. Sheesh.

Now a selection of the bottom-scorers (from The Guardian):

Dark chocolate 10
White bread 9
Salami 7
Hot dog 5
Cheese puffs 4
Milk chocolate 3
Apple pie 2
Crackers 2
Fizzy drinks 1
Popsicle 1

I am so offended. How dare these pseudo-scientists place chocolate, clearly the most important fully-rounded foodstuff (ok, it lacks a little in fibre), so thoroughly low down their list. Any nutritionist worth their salt (or miso) knows that chocolate has nothing in common with hot dogs or cheese puffs! Bah. Well, I’ve had enough of these sell-out scientists and their faddish enthusiasms for unspeakables. No doubt there’s some murky industry organisation in the background, funding their “research”. If I were a salami farmer or a chocolate breeder, I’d be talking to my lawyers (or funding better research).

cooking, eating, food, hl, macarons, recipes

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas… macarons!

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It seemed time for a little Christmas spirit, though most of it seems to be passing me by at the moment. On the occasion of a little lunch at my place for friends, I wanted to serve some new flavours of macarons to my faithful tasters.

Christmas flavours? What could I do? Christmas makes me think of fruitcake and Christmas pudding, spices and nuts. I’ve done a macaron filling with inclusions before (the Winter Solstice event) and wasn’t so convinced of its success. Part of the delight of a macaron is the flavour and unobtrusive texture of the filling when married with the light, just slightly crisp shell. Sometimes I’ve seen small nut inclusions which have worked, but nothing else.

I have a jar of Mother’s Fruitmince (one of those strange brands which differs from household to household, if you know what I mean), but I couldn’t see how to successfully build that into a filling without a lot of experimentation. Instead, I went for two options:

1. Christmas spices and citrus
2. A berry summer flavour which would bring back memories of childhood summers (meaning Christmas in Australia!)

Ladies and gentlemen, I present:

Orange and Christmas spice macarons — macarons à l’orange et aux épices de Noël

The gerbets (small ones) feature a white chocolate ganache incorporating some fantastic Seville orange marmelade which has featured previously in my macarons, cinnamon, clove and nutmeg. The result: warm woody spice notes and a lingering bitterness from the orange. Very much a Christmas macaron.

Strawberry and musk macarons — macarons fraises musquées

The larger macarons were filled with a mixture of strawberries softened in sugar over low heat and then puréed, combined with white chocolate to make a pseudo-ganache. The final touch, which might make some Australian hearts flutter: a few drops of musk. (Many of us grew up with ‘musk sticks’ as a childhood confectionery item, unfortunately increasingly hard to get now.) This filling was sweet (a little too sweet for some) and really wonderful, even if I do say so myself.

To add to the specialness of these macarons, I used a gel colouring, rather than the often inadequate domestic liquid colours, and on top of them all are beautiful edible sparkles! I need to work on my star shapes though;)

And one tip for those who want to make macarons… do not make macarons when it’s raining or very humid. Macarons absorb moisture very very quickly, so they will start softening as soon as they’re cool or out of their storage container. A simple observation: if condensation forms instantly on a container taken out of the fridge, your macarons are likely to have a short lifespan in best condition (less than a day).

cooking, eating, food, media, morsels, society

France, celebrity chefs and bad diet

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I’m sure you’re all familiar with the cliché about how well the French eat. You know, fresh produce markets everywhere, everyone eating good cheese and drinking decent wine. No fatties, no fast food diets, blah blah blah. We read this garbage often in nice comfy middle-class lifestyle rags and see it perpetuated in breathless television travel shows. Reality is, of course, a bit different.

The Guardian has two articles (with interesting links) about the popularity of celebrity chefs in France and the rise of one chef, Cyril Lignac, who is campaigning for better eating in much the same way as Jamie Oliver does in Britain. [1,2]

You see, the French don’t (as a whole) eat fantastic, fresh, healthy, homemade food. They behave rather a lot like Australians, in that they have access to a wide array of restaurants at many budget levels, can buy produce of reasonable quality and like to talk about food, but don’t always cook frequently and are quite fond of large meals and fatty or sweet snacks. Similar, EXCEPT that on the one hand the French have a stronger concept of good food, quality ingredients and more (cakes! cakes! chocolate! cakes!), and on the other hand have much larger numbers of socially disadvantaged or disenfranchised communities who fall entirely outside the much-vaunted food culture.

So yes, the French have great dining culture, marvellous markets (with their own flaws), etc etc. But at the same time, fast food joints are packed out with teenagers, discount supermarkets do high trade in canned and long-life foods, and frozen meals are popular in time-poor or can’t-cook households.

(There are many nuances one could explore here, but I just wanted to draw attention to the articles in The Guardian. I might write more about this in the future.)