The Guardian
When Hari Kunzru started rustling up seaweed salads and sashimi at home, he found that Japanese cookery didn't live up to its forbidding reputation. Here, he indulges his growing obsession with a masterclass from top sushi chef, Nic Watt
Read more...
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
A recipe for culinary superstardom?
The Scotsman
By Kate Patrick
BIG Brother may be dead for the time being, but long live the celebrity chefs who keep the reality TV ball well and truly rolling. Channel 4 viewers will this week be treated to the first instalment of Jamie Oliver's newest crusade: to find, among four green young chefs, somebody capable of running his or her own restaurant - or, as the publicity puts it, "to transform a rundown rural boozer in Essex into a successful upmarket gastropub".
The chefs are not unknown to Jamie, having come through his Fifteen training programme (50 trainees have now graduated from the scheme, which is run by the charitable Fifteen Foundation). Now Jamie's Chef is going to be expected not only to run a kitchen, but, in a massive step-up, to handle front-of-house, source ingredients, pay bills and talk the talk. The day-to-day rigours of being a professional chef responsible for your own - or someone else's - bottom line will be laid bare, a stark warning to anyone with aspirations in this direction: it's no walk in the park.
Read more...
By Kate Patrick
BIG Brother may be dead for the time being, but long live the celebrity chefs who keep the reality TV ball well and truly rolling. Channel 4 viewers will this week be treated to the first instalment of Jamie Oliver's newest crusade: to find, among four green young chefs, somebody capable of running his or her own restaurant - or, as the publicity puts it, "to transform a rundown rural boozer in Essex into a successful upmarket gastropub".
The chefs are not unknown to Jamie, having come through his Fifteen training programme (50 trainees have now graduated from the scheme, which is run by the charitable Fifteen Foundation). Now Jamie's Chef is going to be expected not only to run a kitchen, but, in a massive step-up, to handle front-of-house, source ingredients, pay bills and talk the talk. The day-to-day rigours of being a professional chef responsible for your own - or someone else's - bottom line will be laid bare, a stark warning to anyone with aspirations in this direction: it's no walk in the park.
Read more...
This cook will change your life - yet again
The Guardian
By Laura Barton
It was with a vague biliousness that one greeted yesterday's news that dining rooms are back in vogue, thanks to the "Nigella Effect". Apparently the era of the open-plan kitchen-dining room has made way for a return to formal dining. But it was less a recoiling from the prospect of endless hideous dinner parties that instilled the nausea, more the recurrence of those two little words: "Nigella" and "Effect".
Read more...
By Laura Barton
It was with a vague biliousness that one greeted yesterday's news that dining rooms are back in vogue, thanks to the "Nigella Effect". Apparently the era of the open-plan kitchen-dining room has made way for a return to formal dining. But it was less a recoiling from the prospect of endless hideous dinner parties that instilled the nausea, more the recurrence of those two little words: "Nigella" and "Effect".
Read more...
Monday, January 29, 2007
Shoppers given list of high-salt foods and urged to boycott them
The Guardian
By Rebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondent
Foods containing unnecessary and unhealthy amounts of salt are named and shamed today as Britain's shoppers are urged to boycott potentially dangerous processed foods.
The worst offenders include staple items such as bread, crumpets and cereals as well as the popular meat snack Peperami Sticks, which have about 4g of salt per 100g.
Consumers are being advised to go for widely available lower-salt alternatives, which are much better for their health, says a national campaign group.
Read more...
By Rebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondent
Foods containing unnecessary and unhealthy amounts of salt are named and shamed today as Britain's shoppers are urged to boycott potentially dangerous processed foods.
The worst offenders include staple items such as bread, crumpets and cereals as well as the popular meat snack Peperami Sticks, which have about 4g of salt per 100g.
Consumers are being advised to go for widely available lower-salt alternatives, which are much better for their health, says a national campaign group.
Read more...
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Food Of The Week: Tapas
The Independent
From a pre-dinner snack to haute cuisine, tapas is now a gourmet choice. Andy Lynes offers a contemporary guide.
In recent years, Spanish tapas have been elevated from a few pre-dinner bites of ham or seafood over a glass of sherry in a bar to the main event of the evening. Even some big-name chefs, many influenced by the unbounded haute cuisine creativity of El Bulli's Ferran Adria, are injecting new life into an old idea.
Housed in the Reina Sofia Museum, Arola Madrid, Calle Argumosa, 43, Madrid (00 34 91 467 02 02; arola-madrid.com) offers samples of double Michelin-starred Sergi Arola's contemporary Spanish cuisine, including a version of patatas bravas and Iberian pork loin with manchego, chillies, and pistachio.
Read more...
From a pre-dinner snack to haute cuisine, tapas is now a gourmet choice. Andy Lynes offers a contemporary guide.
In recent years, Spanish tapas have been elevated from a few pre-dinner bites of ham or seafood over a glass of sherry in a bar to the main event of the evening. Even some big-name chefs, many influenced by the unbounded haute cuisine creativity of El Bulli's Ferran Adria, are injecting new life into an old idea.
Housed in the Reina Sofia Museum, Arola Madrid, Calle Argumosa, 43, Madrid (00 34 91 467 02 02; arola-madrid.com) offers samples of double Michelin-starred Sergi Arola's contemporary Spanish cuisine, including a version of patatas bravas and Iberian pork loin with manchego, chillies, and pistachio.
Read more...
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Organic food watchdog considers sanctions on air freight
The Guardian
By Rebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondent
Organic food which is imported to the UK by air could in the future be stripped of its valuable label under proposals put forward yesterday by the country's main organic certification body.
The Soil Association said it was concerned about the growing environmental damage caused by greenhouse gas emissions from flights carrying food around the world.
The organisation launched a one-year consultation on options ranging from carbon offsetting, labelling produce to specify the "food miles" travelled, and an outright ban on the air-freighting of organic food.
Read more...
By Rebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondent
Organic food which is imported to the UK by air could in the future be stripped of its valuable label under proposals put forward yesterday by the country's main organic certification body.
The Soil Association said it was concerned about the growing environmental damage caused by greenhouse gas emissions from flights carrying food around the world.
The organisation launched a one-year consultation on options ranging from carbon offsetting, labelling produce to specify the "food miles" travelled, and an outright ban on the air-freighting of organic food.
Read more...
Friday, January 26, 2007
Air-freighted food may lose organic label
The Guardian
By Mark Oliver and agencies
Food imported to the UK by air may be denied the lucrative "organic" label under proposals being put forward today by the Soil Association.
The UK's main organic certification body is concerned about the "food miles" involved in importing goods by air, which, environmentalists argue, contribute to global warming.
Supermarkets typically charge more for food labelled organic and many customers are increasingly favouring goods which have not been treated with pesticides and other chemicals.
Read more...
By Mark Oliver and agencies
Food imported to the UK by air may be denied the lucrative "organic" label under proposals being put forward today by the Soil Association.
The UK's main organic certification body is concerned about the "food miles" involved in importing goods by air, which, environmentalists argue, contribute to global warming.
Supermarkets typically charge more for food labelled organic and many customers are increasingly favouring goods which have not been treated with pesticides and other chemicals.
Read more...
In praise of ... the Michelin Guide
The Guardian, Leader article
The Michelin man can be a tough creature to love. Pumped up with self-importance, he chomps his way across Europe, applying the same pitiless standards to the simplest and the most lavish restaurants alike. Perhaps most aggravatingly of all, he is French. So many people will shrug their shoulders at the news that his inspectors have this week awarded 122 UK restaurants at least one star in their 2007 guide. They should be celebrating. In 1974, when the guide was relaunched after a long hiatus, there were only 25 - and not one merited more than a single star. The continuing need for Michelin's approval sticks in the throat of a nation whose much-improved food now draws on traditions from across the world. While the star ratings get most of the attention, they represent just one in 20 of all Michelin's recommendations. The introduction of the Bib Gourmand, a nod to restaurants that offer a good three-course meal for less than £28, has helped to dispel the fug of gourmet pretension that still clings to the Michelin brand. (Contrary to myth, the food earns the stars, not the china or the toilets.)
Read more...
The Michelin man can be a tough creature to love. Pumped up with self-importance, he chomps his way across Europe, applying the same pitiless standards to the simplest and the most lavish restaurants alike. Perhaps most aggravatingly of all, he is French. So many people will shrug their shoulders at the news that his inspectors have this week awarded 122 UK restaurants at least one star in their 2007 guide. They should be celebrating. In 1974, when the guide was relaunched after a long hiatus, there were only 25 - and not one merited more than a single star. The continuing need for Michelin's approval sticks in the throat of a nation whose much-improved food now draws on traditions from across the world. While the star ratings get most of the attention, they represent just one in 20 of all Michelin's recommendations. The introduction of the Bib Gourmand, a nod to restaurants that offer a good three-course meal for less than £28, has helped to dispel the fug of gourmet pretension that still clings to the Michelin brand. (Contrary to myth, the food earns the stars, not the china or the toilets.)
Read more...
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Haggis worth addressing
The Scotsman
By Andy McGregor
AS you are probably aware, tonight is Burns Night and some of you will doubtless be dusting off your kilt and dancing shoes in preparation for a night of hearty food, whisky and dancing. Some of you may even have the honour/horror of addressing the haggis or giving the ladies' reply as part of the traditional Burns Supper.
This meal is traditionally three courses of cock-a-leekie soup, haggis and cranachan. These days you might find that the experience has been sanitised slightly, with the haggis served as a starter and a more universally enjoyed main course such as chicken or steak to follow, but Burns purists would surely not approve of downgrading the "great chieftain o' the puddin' race". In some areas of the country it's also been known to substitute stovies for the haggis, though how you go about addressing a stovie is surely a mystery.
While some of you might not be going the whole tartan hog you can still celebrate the life of the Bard even if it is just at home with your family. It is probably too late to make your own haggis, you will be delighted to hear. Trying to stuff a stomach lining with your own mix of sheep offal and oatmeal is not the most pleasant way to spend an afternoon.
Read more...
By Andy McGregor
AS you are probably aware, tonight is Burns Night and some of you will doubtless be dusting off your kilt and dancing shoes in preparation for a night of hearty food, whisky and dancing. Some of you may even have the honour/horror of addressing the haggis or giving the ladies' reply as part of the traditional Burns Supper.
This meal is traditionally three courses of cock-a-leekie soup, haggis and cranachan. These days you might find that the experience has been sanitised slightly, with the haggis served as a starter and a more universally enjoyed main course such as chicken or steak to follow, but Burns purists would surely not approve of downgrading the "great chieftain o' the puddin' race". In some areas of the country it's also been known to substitute stovies for the haggis, though how you go about addressing a stovie is surely a mystery.
While some of you might not be going the whole tartan hog you can still celebrate the life of the Bard even if it is just at home with your family. It is probably too late to make your own haggis, you will be delighted to hear. Trying to stuff a stomach lining with your own mix of sheep offal and oatmeal is not the most pleasant way to spend an afternoon.
Read more...
Why Mr Kitchin is over the moon with his star
The Scotsman
By Emma Cowing
I'M HALFWAY through a phone conversation with Tom Kitchin, chef, restaurateur and rising star of the Scottish food scene, when he interrupts me.
"Hang on," he says. "Martin Wishart's on the other line."
The phone is put down and I hear him pick up another receiver. Words like "Wonderful... fantastic... couldn't believe it" float down the line, until he finally finishes up with: "Thanks man, that means a lot. Let's have a drink on Saturday."
He picks up the phone again. "Sorry 'bout that. Where were we?"
The reason for Kitchin's flustered phone manner is that yesterday morning, around 8:30am, the 29-year-old received a call telling him his Leith-based restaurant had won a Michelin star. The award makes him one of the youngest Scots ever to have received the accolade.
Even more astoundingly, Kitchin's restaurant (called, not entirely surprisingly, The Kitchin) only opened last June. Given that the Michelin guide is usually in the hands of its publishers by autumn, this is quite an achievement.
Read more...
By Emma Cowing
I'M HALFWAY through a phone conversation with Tom Kitchin, chef, restaurateur and rising star of the Scottish food scene, when he interrupts me.
"Hang on," he says. "Martin Wishart's on the other line."
The phone is put down and I hear him pick up another receiver. Words like "Wonderful... fantastic... couldn't believe it" float down the line, until he finally finishes up with: "Thanks man, that means a lot. Let's have a drink on Saturday."
He picks up the phone again. "Sorry 'bout that. Where were we?"
The reason for Kitchin's flustered phone manner is that yesterday morning, around 8:30am, the 29-year-old received a call telling him his Leith-based restaurant had won a Michelin star. The award makes him one of the youngest Scots ever to have received the accolade.
Even more astoundingly, Kitchin's restaurant (called, not entirely surprisingly, The Kitchin) only opened last June. Given that the Michelin guide is usually in the hands of its publishers by autumn, this is quite an achievement.
Read more...
Ramsay gets two more Michelin stars
The Guardian
By Matthew Taylor
Gordon Ramsay added two Michelin stars to his burgeoning empire yesterday as a record number of restaurants in the UK and Ireland were included in the industry's gold-standard guide.
The awards, widely regarded as the ultimate culinary accolade, are given to 15 new restaurants in this year's guide, bringing the total in the UK and Ireland to 122.
Among those are Ramsay's Petrus restaurant, which was given a second star, and La Noisette which was added to the list for the first time.
In the Channel Islands Guernsey boasts a Michelin-starred restaurant for only the second time and Jersey gained a second single-star restaurant.
This year's guide editor, Derek Bulmer, said: "More and more chefs are opening in London, so there are more listed than ever. The Channel Islands have also done well."
Single Michelin stars were awarded to 13 new establishments. Twelve restaurants were stripped of their single awards. The Waterside Inn and the Fat Duck, both in Bray, Berkshire, and Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea held on to their positions as the UK's only holders of three Michelin stars.
The Vineyard at Stockcross near Newbury, Berkshire, identified by Michelin as a "rising star" last year, has now been awarded two-star status.
The new single star additions in this year's guide are: La Noisette, Chelsea; Benares, Mayfair; Arbutus, Soho; L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, Strand & Covent Garden; Seaham Hall, Seaham, Durham; The Abbey, Penzance; The Harrow, Marlborough: Atlantic, Jersey; Christophe, Guernsey; Glenapp Castle, Ballantrae, South Ayrshire; The Kitchin, Edinburgh; The Crown at Whitebook, Monmouth; Chapter One, Dublin.
Read more...
By Matthew Taylor
Gordon Ramsay added two Michelin stars to his burgeoning empire yesterday as a record number of restaurants in the UK and Ireland were included in the industry's gold-standard guide.
The awards, widely regarded as the ultimate culinary accolade, are given to 15 new restaurants in this year's guide, bringing the total in the UK and Ireland to 122.
Among those are Ramsay's Petrus restaurant, which was given a second star, and La Noisette which was added to the list for the first time.
In the Channel Islands Guernsey boasts a Michelin-starred restaurant for only the second time and Jersey gained a second single-star restaurant.
This year's guide editor, Derek Bulmer, said: "More and more chefs are opening in London, so there are more listed than ever. The Channel Islands have also done well."
Single Michelin stars were awarded to 13 new establishments. Twelve restaurants were stripped of their single awards. The Waterside Inn and the Fat Duck, both in Bray, Berkshire, and Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea held on to their positions as the UK's only holders of three Michelin stars.
The Vineyard at Stockcross near Newbury, Berkshire, identified by Michelin as a "rising star" last year, has now been awarded two-star status.
The new single star additions in this year's guide are: La Noisette, Chelsea; Benares, Mayfair; Arbutus, Soho; L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, Strand & Covent Garden; Seaham Hall, Seaham, Durham; The Abbey, Penzance; The Harrow, Marlborough: Atlantic, Jersey; Christophe, Guernsey; Glenapp Castle, Ballantrae, South Ayrshire; The Kitchin, Edinburgh; The Crown at Whitebook, Monmouth; Chapter One, Dublin.
Read more...
Go froth and multiply
The Guardian
By Laura Barton
First it was department stores, then garden centres and bookshops; now it's libraries and even estate agents. It seems you can't go anywhere without being offered a cappuccino and a sofa to enjoy it on. Is Britain turning into one giant cafe?
Read more...
By Laura Barton
First it was department stores, then garden centres and bookshops; now it's libraries and even estate agents. It seems you can't go anywhere without being offered a cappuccino and a sofa to enjoy it on. Is Britain turning into one giant cafe?
Read more...
Whisky guide toasts finer taste of supermarket own-brand malts
The Scotsman
By David Cameron and Alasdair Jamieson
SUPERMARKET single malts have beaten top-brand distilleries in a taste test by one of the world's leading whisky guides.
Tesco's Speyside 12-year-old was given a higher rating than Glenlivet's equivalent, while the store's Islay single malt beat a similar bottle of Bowmore, according to the 2007 Whisky Bible, edited by Jim Murray.
The Tesco tipples also scored better than the malts from its rival, Waitrose.
Experts said the findings proved choosing the best was a matter of personal taste rather than label-driven snobbery.
In the guide book, Tesco's Islay malt is described as "sumptuous and mouth-coating", and Mr Murray notes that it would have been given an even higher score if the colour had been more natural. Bowmore's 12-year-old, which costs up to £10 more than the Tesco bottle but scored four fewer marks out of 100, was said to "reveal greater peaty youth than of old".
The Waitrose alternative was described as "head-thumping, unforgiving peat with a lovely salty depth".
Read more...
By David Cameron and Alasdair Jamieson
SUPERMARKET single malts have beaten top-brand distilleries in a taste test by one of the world's leading whisky guides.
Tesco's Speyside 12-year-old was given a higher rating than Glenlivet's equivalent, while the store's Islay single malt beat a similar bottle of Bowmore, according to the 2007 Whisky Bible, edited by Jim Murray.
The Tesco tipples also scored better than the malts from its rival, Waitrose.
Experts said the findings proved choosing the best was a matter of personal taste rather than label-driven snobbery.
In the guide book, Tesco's Islay malt is described as "sumptuous and mouth-coating", and Mr Murray notes that it would have been given an even higher score if the colour had been more natural. Bowmore's 12-year-old, which costs up to £10 more than the Tesco bottle but scored four fewer marks out of 100, was said to "reveal greater peaty youth than of old".
The Waitrose alternative was described as "head-thumping, unforgiving peat with a lovely salty depth".
Read more...
British eateries shine as 15 join élite list
The Scotsman
By Alison Hardie
THERE are more restaurants in Britain claiming Michelin star status than ever before, with 15 stars added this year.
Some 122 establishments from the Channel Islands to Fort William now boast the top honour. In Scotland, the restaurant at Glenapp Castle in Ballantrae, Ayrshire, joins The Kitchin in Edinburgh as a recipient of a new Michelin single star.
Graham Cowan, the owner of Glenapp Castle, said: "Being awarded the star was a surprise, but we couldn't be happier.
"It is a fantastic award for our head chef, Matt Weedon, and his team, who have proved you can take superb local Ayrshire produce and transform it into Michelin-standard food."
The award also caps more than 12 years of hard work by Mr Cowan and his wife, Fay, since buying Glenapp Castle as a virtual ruin in 1994 to transform it into a luxury 17-bedroom hotel.
There are now eight restaurants in Scotland with one Michelin star, while Andrew Fairlie at Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire retains his two stars.
Read more...
By Alison Hardie
THERE are more restaurants in Britain claiming Michelin star status than ever before, with 15 stars added this year.
Some 122 establishments from the Channel Islands to Fort William now boast the top honour. In Scotland, the restaurant at Glenapp Castle in Ballantrae, Ayrshire, joins The Kitchin in Edinburgh as a recipient of a new Michelin single star.
Graham Cowan, the owner of Glenapp Castle, said: "Being awarded the star was a surprise, but we couldn't be happier.
"It is a fantastic award for our head chef, Matt Weedon, and his team, who have proved you can take superb local Ayrshire produce and transform it into Michelin-standard food."
The award also caps more than 12 years of hard work by Mr Cowan and his wife, Fay, since buying Glenapp Castle as a virtual ruin in 1994 to transform it into a luxury 17-bedroom hotel.
There are now eight restaurants in Scotland with one Michelin star, while Andrew Fairlie at Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire retains his two stars.
Read more...
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Doctors told fish oil can help patients to overcome depression
The Scotsman
By Lyndsay Moss, Health correspondent
MORE GPs should be handing out fish oil supplements to depressed patients instead of turning to drugs, a nutrition expert urged yesterday.
Dr Tom Gilhooly, a GP in Glasgow, said his practice now prescribed omega 3 supplements to people with mild to moderate depression, with as many as 60 per cent seeing a major improvement without antidepressants.
But he said there was a lack of knowledge about the benefits among GPs. Dr Gilhooly, director of the Centre for Nutritional Studies in Glasgow, also said the higher cost of supplements over antidepressants made health boards loath to let doctors prescribe them.
His comments came at a conference in Glasgow looking at food's impact on behaviour.
Read more...
By Lyndsay Moss, Health correspondent
MORE GPs should be handing out fish oil supplements to depressed patients instead of turning to drugs, a nutrition expert urged yesterday.
Dr Tom Gilhooly, a GP in Glasgow, said his practice now prescribed omega 3 supplements to people with mild to moderate depression, with as many as 60 per cent seeing a major improvement without antidepressants.
But he said there was a lack of knowledge about the benefits among GPs. Dr Gilhooly, director of the Centre for Nutritional Studies in Glasgow, also said the higher cost of supplements over antidepressants made health boards loath to let doctors prescribe them.
His comments came at a conference in Glasgow looking at food's impact on behaviour.
Read more...
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Barman Dave is mix master
A BARTENDER from the Capital is mixing it with the cream of the world's cocktail makers after being named the best in Britain.
David Cordoba, 33, from Leith, beat 15 of the nation's best bartenders, to become UK winner in the International Finlandia Vodka Cup 2007 in London last week after previously winning the Edinburgh heat with his White Reindeer Night cocktail.
Mr Cordoba, who works at Bramble Bar in Queen Street, will compete in the international final in Finland on January 30 against national winners from 21 countries. The prize is a holiday in the city of his choice.
Read more...
David Cordoba, 33, from Leith, beat 15 of the nation's best bartenders, to become UK winner in the International Finlandia Vodka Cup 2007 in London last week after previously winning the Edinburgh heat with his White Reindeer Night cocktail.
Mr Cordoba, who works at Bramble Bar in Queen Street, will compete in the international final in Finland on January 30 against national winners from 21 countries. The prize is a holiday in the city of his choice.
Read more...
From tomatoes to yoghurts, soap powder to beer, the packaging that infuriates you
The Independent
Fruit & vegetables
At Budgens, I wanted two oranges only and, not seeing any individual ones on display, reluctantly I picked up a bag of six. Some will rot before I get round to eating them all.
Chris Turnbull
It is no longer possible to buy ordinary tomatoes loose in our branch of Tesco. You have to buy six in a plastic container. Why has this changed? I don't want them packed in plastic.
Alison Sims
Even though cauliflowers are sold almost entirely protected by their green leaves, Tesco insists on putting each one into a plastic bag.
Berjis Daver
I shop at Waitrose and stand at the till each week removing plastic packaging from: swedes, parsnips, passion fruit, peppers, mushrooms, cucumbers, lettuce, bananas, spring greens, cabbage - in fact, nearly all fruit and vegetables.
Christine Walters
I recently bought from Waitrose a small head of broccoli, sold loose, weighing just over 300g. Price 48p, weighed by myself. In the adjacent bin was apparently identical broccoli - not organic - shrink-wrapped and priced at £1.47 for 300g, i.e. an extra £1 for the wrapping.
Dr Ann Soutter
A couple of weeks ago, I bought a half cucumber from Sainsbury's that had originally been a whole shrink-wrapped cucumber cut in half, and then wrapped again in its own plastic wrapper, therefore wrapping it twice.
Marion Marsh
After living in France for four years, I was shocked when I returned to England and found that I couldn't even buy a lettuce in my local supermarket - only pre-packaged, ready washed salad mixes. In France, there is virtually no pre-packaging of fruit and veg.
Esther Race
The most recent annoying practice in Sainsbury's - a cauliflower, minus all its outside leaves, encased in a rigid "football" style, transparent, hinged container. It costs about 50p more than an unwrapped one.
Jan Huntingdon
Today, I almost walked out of Sainsbury's with a single apple in a large plastic Sainsbury's bag. I took my apple out of the bag and gave it back to the cashier.
Jade Beecroft
I've often wondered why Tesco packages sweet potatoes in little black plastic trays with cellophane wrapping. Of all the vegetables, the sweet potato is among those least vulnerable to damage or bruising.
Kevin Curtin
Tesco or Marks & Spencer's finest range of fruit and vegetables come on trays with a hard plastic top followed with a second plastic wrapping to encase the tray. It is ridiculous.
Allison Burns
Morrisons also sell individual bananas in a plastic tray wrapped in clingfilm. Great campaign!
Julie Williams
Ready meals
Products like hummous, paté, dips and olives have an unnecessary double layer - they often have a cardboard outer sleeve in addition to the plastic container, when this could suffice if it was sealed and had the information printed on the outside.
Paula Mills
Shopping in Asda just today, I found a beaut - surplus packaging a-go go. Müller are the culprits and it's their "Müllerice" range. I thought, "blimey, that's a lot of card for six packaged yoghurts" - it's the sheer size of the packaging compared to the size of the yoghurts that struck me.
Richard Smith
A low from M&S that I spotted several weeks ago: microwave porridge for one. How sad is that? Homemade porridge takes five minutes to make, is cheap, nourishing, untainted, with estrogen-mimicking chemicals, and creates no waste.
Emily van Evera
Tesco wrapping groups of tins in plastic film - if I want four tins of beans I don't need the shop to wrap them for me.
Ian Cessford
Occasionally, I buy a takeaway cheeseburger from McDonald's with the intention of eating it immediately. They always put the wrapped burger in a paper bag without asking. The McDonald's is next to a playing field which regularly fills with rubbish from their customers.
James Green
Yeo Valley organic yoghurt tubes are in a plastic tray and a cardboard box - just the box would be sufficient. This is quite surprising as normally "organic" companies are more environmentally friendly.
Lorraine Harvey
Waitrose frozen fish comes wrapped in sealed clear plastic bags with a re-sealable zip. This is then packed in a box. I often leave the box at the checkout.
Philippa Towler
Drinks
Carling, Carlsberg and Stella all protect their lager in a tin can. However, if you buy their multi-packs those same cans are further protected in a cardboard box and to protect the box is a covering of plastic.
Richard Quinlan
When I go to the Continent, my beers come in bottles that have all been reused. Here, every time I have a beer, the bottle gets smashed, driven around, melted, put back together again and driven to the brewery for refilling. Why can't we just keep re-using the bottles like our friends across the Channel?
Jim Bell
Confectionery and bread
The chocolate bars in a Cadbury's Selection Box are wrapped in a protective foil, then a glossy paper wrapper, sat in a moulded plastic tray, before being put in a cardboard box.
Jack Downey
A couple of years ago, Mr Kipling started wrapping his cake slices in packs of two, within a pack of six. Exceedingly wasteful...
Dawn Preston
Easter eggs - often the box is twice as big as the egg itself, sometimes even bigger.
Douglas Chester
I recently went into a café where coffee and cakes were being bought for the office: eight coffees in paper cups put in cardboard containers... eight cakes put in individual paper bags, put in a paper carry bag. How many times in the day does that happen?
Rachael Foster
Read more...
Fruit & vegetables
At Budgens, I wanted two oranges only and, not seeing any individual ones on display, reluctantly I picked up a bag of six. Some will rot before I get round to eating them all.
Chris Turnbull
It is no longer possible to buy ordinary tomatoes loose in our branch of Tesco. You have to buy six in a plastic container. Why has this changed? I don't want them packed in plastic.
Alison Sims
Even though cauliflowers are sold almost entirely protected by their green leaves, Tesco insists on putting each one into a plastic bag.
Berjis Daver
I shop at Waitrose and stand at the till each week removing plastic packaging from: swedes, parsnips, passion fruit, peppers, mushrooms, cucumbers, lettuce, bananas, spring greens, cabbage - in fact, nearly all fruit and vegetables.
Christine Walters
I recently bought from Waitrose a small head of broccoli, sold loose, weighing just over 300g. Price 48p, weighed by myself. In the adjacent bin was apparently identical broccoli - not organic - shrink-wrapped and priced at £1.47 for 300g, i.e. an extra £1 for the wrapping.
Dr Ann Soutter
A couple of weeks ago, I bought a half cucumber from Sainsbury's that had originally been a whole shrink-wrapped cucumber cut in half, and then wrapped again in its own plastic wrapper, therefore wrapping it twice.
Marion Marsh
After living in France for four years, I was shocked when I returned to England and found that I couldn't even buy a lettuce in my local supermarket - only pre-packaged, ready washed salad mixes. In France, there is virtually no pre-packaging of fruit and veg.
Esther Race
The most recent annoying practice in Sainsbury's - a cauliflower, minus all its outside leaves, encased in a rigid "football" style, transparent, hinged container. It costs about 50p more than an unwrapped one.
Jan Huntingdon
Today, I almost walked out of Sainsbury's with a single apple in a large plastic Sainsbury's bag. I took my apple out of the bag and gave it back to the cashier.
Jade Beecroft
I've often wondered why Tesco packages sweet potatoes in little black plastic trays with cellophane wrapping. Of all the vegetables, the sweet potato is among those least vulnerable to damage or bruising.
Kevin Curtin
Tesco or Marks & Spencer's finest range of fruit and vegetables come on trays with a hard plastic top followed with a second plastic wrapping to encase the tray. It is ridiculous.
Allison Burns
Morrisons also sell individual bananas in a plastic tray wrapped in clingfilm. Great campaign!
Julie Williams
Ready meals
Products like hummous, paté, dips and olives have an unnecessary double layer - they often have a cardboard outer sleeve in addition to the plastic container, when this could suffice if it was sealed and had the information printed on the outside.
Paula Mills
Shopping in Asda just today, I found a beaut - surplus packaging a-go go. Müller are the culprits and it's their "Müllerice" range. I thought, "blimey, that's a lot of card for six packaged yoghurts" - it's the sheer size of the packaging compared to the size of the yoghurts that struck me.
Richard Smith
A low from M&S that I spotted several weeks ago: microwave porridge for one. How sad is that? Homemade porridge takes five minutes to make, is cheap, nourishing, untainted, with estrogen-mimicking chemicals, and creates no waste.
Emily van Evera
Tesco wrapping groups of tins in plastic film - if I want four tins of beans I don't need the shop to wrap them for me.
Ian Cessford
Occasionally, I buy a takeaway cheeseburger from McDonald's with the intention of eating it immediately. They always put the wrapped burger in a paper bag without asking. The McDonald's is next to a playing field which regularly fills with rubbish from their customers.
James Green
Yeo Valley organic yoghurt tubes are in a plastic tray and a cardboard box - just the box would be sufficient. This is quite surprising as normally "organic" companies are more environmentally friendly.
Lorraine Harvey
Waitrose frozen fish comes wrapped in sealed clear plastic bags with a re-sealable zip. This is then packed in a box. I often leave the box at the checkout.
Philippa Towler
Drinks
Carling, Carlsberg and Stella all protect their lager in a tin can. However, if you buy their multi-packs those same cans are further protected in a cardboard box and to protect the box is a covering of plastic.
Richard Quinlan
When I go to the Continent, my beers come in bottles that have all been reused. Here, every time I have a beer, the bottle gets smashed, driven around, melted, put back together again and driven to the brewery for refilling. Why can't we just keep re-using the bottles like our friends across the Channel?
Jim Bell
Confectionery and bread
The chocolate bars in a Cadbury's Selection Box are wrapped in a protective foil, then a glossy paper wrapper, sat in a moulded plastic tray, before being put in a cardboard box.
Jack Downey
A couple of years ago, Mr Kipling started wrapping his cake slices in packs of two, within a pack of six. Exceedingly wasteful...
Dawn Preston
Easter eggs - often the box is twice as big as the egg itself, sometimes even bigger.
Douglas Chester
I recently went into a café where coffee and cakes were being bought for the office: eight coffees in paper cups put in cardboard containers... eight cakes put in individual paper bags, put in a paper carry bag. How many times in the day does that happen?
Rachael Foster
Read more...
Monday, January 22, 2007
Poppadums seek approval of officialdom
The Times, Food & Drink
Jeremy Page in Delhi
For lovers of Indian food, variety and spice are essential components of a perfect meal. But it appears that the poppadum, a staple accompaniment, can be subject to too much variety — in shape, size, flavour and consistency. It may be crispy, circular and spicy or chewy, plain and square.
So now the United Nations food and health agencies are to lay down international standards for how the poppadum can be manufactured.
It will join Cheddar cheese and dried shark’s fin on a list of internationally traded food products drawn up by the Codex Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants. Such a listing would give an importer or an individual consumer a basis for legal action if the poppadum in question fell short of Codex standards.
The list — also known as the Codex Alimentarius — will specify that poppadums, or papads, should be “thin circular discs” from 5cm (2in) to 25cm in diameter, and between 0.3mm and 1.2mm thick.
Read more...
Jeremy Page in Delhi
For lovers of Indian food, variety and spice are essential components of a perfect meal. But it appears that the poppadum, a staple accompaniment, can be subject to too much variety — in shape, size, flavour and consistency. It may be crispy, circular and spicy or chewy, plain and square.
So now the United Nations food and health agencies are to lay down international standards for how the poppadum can be manufactured.
It will join Cheddar cheese and dried shark’s fin on a list of internationally traded food products drawn up by the Codex Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants. Such a listing would give an importer or an individual consumer a basis for legal action if the poppadum in question fell short of Codex standards.
The list — also known as the Codex Alimentarius — will specify that poppadums, or papads, should be “thin circular discs” from 5cm (2in) to 25cm in diameter, and between 0.3mm and 1.2mm thick.
Read more...
The food tradition that is well worth preserving
The Guardian
By Zoe Williams
It's the nation's first marmalade festival, right in the middle of February, like a whole new kind of solstice. It will be held in the Lake District. Well, come on, where else would you hold a made-up jam-variant solstice? A competition for the best marmalade, which two bishops have already entered, is going to be judged by the WI. Quick! Someone tell Woman's Hour, before the whole thing gets pinched by The Daily Service!
Read more...
By Zoe Williams
It's the nation's first marmalade festival, right in the middle of February, like a whole new kind of solstice. It will be held in the Lake District. Well, come on, where else would you hold a made-up jam-variant solstice? A competition for the best marmalade, which two bishops have already entered, is going to be judged by the WI. Quick! Someone tell Woman's Hour, before the whole thing gets pinched by The Daily Service!
Read more...
How to ... Store, prepare and eat truffles
The Scotsman
WHAT ARE THEY?
WHEN SHOULD I EAT THEM?
WHERE CAN I BUY THEM?
HOW SHOULD I STORE THEM?
HOW DO I PREPARE THEM?
WHAT SHOULD I SERVE THEM WITH?
ANYTHING ELSE?
Read more...
WHAT ARE THEY?
WHEN SHOULD I EAT THEM?
WHERE CAN I BUY THEM?
HOW SHOULD I STORE THEM?
HOW DO I PREPARE THEM?
WHAT SHOULD I SERVE THEM WITH?
ANYTHING ELSE?
Read more...
A rare blend
The Scotsman
By Jim Gilchrist
MISAKO Udo's infatuation with Scotch whisky was sparked by a teenage encounter with a White Horse - of the 40 per cent ABV variety - in her native Nagasaki. A few years later, when she arrived in Scotland for the first time, she found to her incredulous disappointment that the pub back home stocked a better range of whiskies than her newly adopted howff in Edinburgh. Twenty years on, this effervescent Japanese tour guide, naturalised Scot and evangelical whisky aficionado is doing her bit for what she regards as our appallingly under-appreciated native spirit. Her book, The Scottish Whisky Distilleries, is a vastly compendious guide to our existing distilleries - not to mention evoking the ghosts of those which sadly are no more.
When we meet in (naturally) the Leith rooms of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, she's delighted to find me nursing a single malt. So many Scots, she argues, simply don't appreciate what she regards as a precious national heritage. "It's a real shame," she says.
Read more...
By Jim Gilchrist
MISAKO Udo's infatuation with Scotch whisky was sparked by a teenage encounter with a White Horse - of the 40 per cent ABV variety - in her native Nagasaki. A few years later, when she arrived in Scotland for the first time, she found to her incredulous disappointment that the pub back home stocked a better range of whiskies than her newly adopted howff in Edinburgh. Twenty years on, this effervescent Japanese tour guide, naturalised Scot and evangelical whisky aficionado is doing her bit for what she regards as our appallingly under-appreciated native spirit. Her book, The Scottish Whisky Distilleries, is a vastly compendious guide to our existing distilleries - not to mention evoking the ghosts of those which sadly are no more.
When we meet in (naturally) the Leith rooms of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, she's delighted to find me nursing a single malt. So many Scots, she argues, simply don't appreciate what she regards as a precious national heritage. "It's a real shame," she says.
Read more...
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Study proves school meals help learning
The Observer
By Anushka Asthana
Children who ate healthy school meals instead of packed lunches scored higher marks in tests, were less disruptive and concentrated longer in the classroom.
A study involving thousands of pupils and hundreds of parents and schoolteachers has confirmed the theory that transforming a child's diet improves how they learn and behave.
Two years after Hull City Council offered free, nutritionally balanced lunches to all young children in primary and special schools, the city is experiencing calmer classrooms, where children are more enthusiastic and more confident socially.
Read more...
By Anushka Asthana
Children who ate healthy school meals instead of packed lunches scored higher marks in tests, were less disruptive and concentrated longer in the classroom.
A study involving thousands of pupils and hundreds of parents and schoolteachers has confirmed the theory that transforming a child's diet improves how they learn and behave.
Two years after Hull City Council offered free, nutritionally balanced lunches to all young children in primary and special schools, the city is experiencing calmer classrooms, where children are more enthusiastic and more confident socially.
Read more...
The good, the bard and the haggis
Scotland on Sunday
By Sue Lawrence
BURNS Night approaches, and with it come the time-honoured rituals of a Burns supper - from the haggis being piped in and drams being drunk in abundance, to the wonderful 'Address to a Haggis' being recited by a bekilted extrovert. But all over the land, less formal Burns suppers will also be taking place, featuring simple dishes such as haggis, neeps and tatties, with or without a toast to the bard.
Start your weekend early and cook chicken breasts stuffed with haggis on Thursday, the Bard's birthday, and invite round a few like-minded patriots for a bit of a party. Or just keep it simple and cook for two.
Read more...
By Sue Lawrence
BURNS Night approaches, and with it come the time-honoured rituals of a Burns supper - from the haggis being piped in and drams being drunk in abundance, to the wonderful 'Address to a Haggis' being recited by a bekilted extrovert. But all over the land, less formal Burns suppers will also be taking place, featuring simple dishes such as haggis, neeps and tatties, with or without a toast to the bard.
Start your weekend early and cook chicken breasts stuffed with haggis on Thursday, the Bard's birthday, and invite round a few like-minded patriots for a bit of a party. Or just keep it simple and cook for two.
Read more...
Thirsty work
Scotland on Sunday
By Jackie McGlone
NEVER trust a man, who, when alone in a room with a tea cosy, doesn't try it on his head. This is the code by which Billy Connolly has lived his life, which explains why the madcap funny man is enthroned, like the national treasure he is, in the garden of his Candacraig country seat, crowned with a tea cosy and hugging an exuberant silver teapot on wheels.
It's a deliciously witty, surreal image, typical of a chap who drinks several cups of tea a day and enjoys them immensely, despite tea being only his second favourite drink. It's no surprise that the Big Yin's first choice would be alcohol, but unfortunately he's no longer allowed that, since he freely admits that he drank his share all at once, "Not knowing it was supposed to last me a lifetime." Connolly's ideal companion for a cuppa would be God. Should the Almighty be otherwise engaged, he would like to ask Keith Richards or Nelson Mandela round to his Aberdeenshire estate.
Read more...
By Jackie McGlone
NEVER trust a man, who, when alone in a room with a tea cosy, doesn't try it on his head. This is the code by which Billy Connolly has lived his life, which explains why the madcap funny man is enthroned, like the national treasure he is, in the garden of his Candacraig country seat, crowned with a tea cosy and hugging an exuberant silver teapot on wheels.
It's a deliciously witty, surreal image, typical of a chap who drinks several cups of tea a day and enjoys them immensely, despite tea being only his second favourite drink. It's no surprise that the Big Yin's first choice would be alcohol, but unfortunately he's no longer allowed that, since he freely admits that he drank his share all at once, "Not knowing it was supposed to last me a lifetime." Connolly's ideal companion for a cuppa would be God. Should the Almighty be otherwise engaged, he would like to ask Keith Richards or Nelson Mandela round to his Aberdeenshire estate.
Read more...
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Prawn again: return of the 1970s
The Telegraph
Mark Palmer is thrilled that the food of his youth is back on the hostess trolley.
Read more...
Mark Palmer is thrilled that the food of his youth is back on the hostess trolley.
Read more...
Manna Mia! Meals to sing about
The Telegraph
By Kate Robinson
... meets the owner of London's newest Swedish restaurant
Let's face it. The country that introduced the reliable Volvo and the ever-practical ball bearing hasn't been a major player on the world's culinary stage
But one woman is determined to prove there is more to the Scandinavian country than a smorgasbord of Ikea stores, Abba hits and hackneyed meatball dishes.
Anna Mosesson, an aristocratic Swede, has boundless enthusiasm and an earthy sense of humour. She keeps me waiting at her new restaurant, Upper Glas in Islington, while she takes her cocker spaniel home. "He was front-of-house this morning," she says, roaring with laughter.
Read more...
By Kate Robinson
... meets the owner of London's newest Swedish restaurant
Let's face it. The country that introduced the reliable Volvo and the ever-practical ball bearing hasn't been a major player on the world's culinary stage
But one woman is determined to prove there is more to the Scandinavian country than a smorgasbord of Ikea stores, Abba hits and hackneyed meatball dishes.
Anna Mosesson, an aristocratic Swede, has boundless enthusiasm and an earthy sense of humour. She keeps me waiting at her new restaurant, Upper Glas in Islington, while she takes her cocker spaniel home. "He was front-of-house this morning," she says, roaring with laughter.
Read more...
A true grenade with an explosion of scarlet
The Telegraph
By Xanthe Clay
The sparkling seeds of the pomegranate add an exotic, healthy kick to dishes of every kind.
If ever a fruit has a powerful reputation, it is the pomegranate.
It was a pomegranate that tempted Persephone in the Underworld, and by eating just four seeds she condemned herself to spending four months a year in hell.
In classical and medieval times it was the ultimate symbol of fertility, because of its many seeds and lascivious red interior. Later, it gave its French name - grenade - to an explosive device.
More recently, it has been celebrated as a new superfood, packed full of powerful antioxidants. A regular intake of pomegranate juice is also said to guard against hardening of the arteries and slow the growth of prostate cancer.
There’s even a suggestion that pregnant women who drink pomegranate juice will help their babies’ brains develop.
Read more...
By Xanthe Clay
The sparkling seeds of the pomegranate add an exotic, healthy kick to dishes of every kind.
If ever a fruit has a powerful reputation, it is the pomegranate.
It was a pomegranate that tempted Persephone in the Underworld, and by eating just four seeds she condemned herself to spending four months a year in hell.
In classical and medieval times it was the ultimate symbol of fertility, because of its many seeds and lascivious red interior. Later, it gave its French name - grenade - to an explosive device.
More recently, it has been celebrated as a new superfood, packed full of powerful antioxidants. A regular intake of pomegranate juice is also said to guard against hardening of the arteries and slow the growth of prostate cancer.
There’s even a suggestion that pregnant women who drink pomegranate juice will help their babies’ brains develop.
Read more...
Food detective: pheasant
The Times
By Sheila Keating
Game, it seems, is making a comeback in the supermarkets, and according to the promotional website Game-to-Eat, the market is now worth £38 million.
For those who have never indulged in game birds, pheasant (in season until the end of January) is a gentle starting point, one step up from a tasty, free-range chicken — perhaps because the fashion is to hang the birds for two to three days, rather than seven to ten, which creates a much gamier bird.
Any shooting of birds, of course, is steeped in controversy.
Read more...
By Sheila Keating
Game, it seems, is making a comeback in the supermarkets, and according to the promotional website Game-to-Eat, the market is now worth £38 million.
For those who have never indulged in game birds, pheasant (in season until the end of January) is a gentle starting point, one step up from a tasty, free-range chicken — perhaps because the fashion is to hang the birds for two to three days, rather than seven to ten, which creates a much gamier bird.
Any shooting of birds, of course, is steeped in controversy.
Read more...
Taste test... Feta cheese
The Times, Food & Drink
By Ben Machell
Look out for: a rich creaminess balanced with a crumbly texture. There should be a touch of saltiness and a distinctive tang from using sheep or goat’s milk.
Read more...
By Ben Machell
Look out for: a rich creaminess balanced with a crumbly texture. There should be a touch of saltiness and a distinctive tang from using sheep or goat’s milk.
Read more...
Foodie at large: Scotch myths
The Times
Burns Night is almost upon us, and every tartan-blooded Scot will be celebrating in traditional manner with noggins of whisky and a steaming haggis while a man in a kilt gets all excited about “the great chieftain o’ the puddin’ race”. (There’s nothing Slade could have taught Robert Burns about the commercial value of a good seasonal tie-in.)
For diners at Boisdale, home from home for Celtic expats in London, the night’s celebrations have been stretched into a fortnight, and they’ll be piping in Macsween haggis, wild salmon from the Dunkeld smokery on the Taye, and ribs of 28-day-old Scottish beef right through to next Saturday.
Owner Ranald Macdonald is as Scottish as they come. The son of the 23rd Captain and Chief of Clanranald, he’s a descendant of the Macdonald of Boisdale who told Bonnie Prince Charlie to stop all his rabble-rousing nonsense, and the many greats nephew of Flora Macdonald, who helped spirit him away after the Jacobite army was defeated at Culloden in 1746. Ranald also claims kinship with Elvis’s maternal grandmother, which rather pleases his music-loving side.
Anyway, he was shocked when he learnt I’d never eaten haggis, and decided to remedy the situation and at the same time introduce me to the new range of rare single malts he has launched with Berry Bros & Rudd. And very fine they both were. The haggis was a revelation, which we decided was probably down to the fact that at Boisdale they roast rather than boil it, and serve it with a very good veal reduction.
On the minus side, Ranald rather scuppered the Scottishness of the occasion by declaring that haggis was probably introduced to Britain by the Romans (his forebears would therefore have had to enjoy it as a takeaway from the other side of Hadrian’s wall), and that the national drink of Scotland is no more whisky than it is Irn-Bru.
“Essentially, haggis is an unevolved sausage,” he says, “a mix of blood, offal and local cereal stuffed inside a stomach lining. You’ll find versions of it in rural communities throughout Europe.” In most countries that developed into the meatier sausage that we know today. “But in a poor area such as the Highlands, they wouldn’t have had frying pans, or ranges — just a hole in the roof and a pot over a fire — so virtually everything you had would be boiled. And that’s how it’s stayed.” And hence, also, the haggis’s frankly medieval appearance.
And as for the Scottish love of whisky, that didn’t really come about until the early 19th century, apparently. “No, the real national drink of Scotland is claret,” says Ranald, himself a former wine merchant. “Since the 1600s the English had been stuck with oxidised red wine from Portugal as they were their most important partner in the wool trade. But in Scotland, with our French alliance, we drank claret, and had done since the 14th century. So fond of it were we that by 1616 James VI of Scotland [and James I of England] enacted a bill through Scottish parliament limiting my family to one hogshead of claret a year because he believed that the barbaric behaviour of the clans of the west coast was all down to our inordinate love of red wine. Whisky had been produced since the 15th century, but didn’t really take off until after 1780 when the tax on claret made wine too expensive for most people.”
So there we have it, and all from a Scot. So be sure this Thursday to raise a glass — just make sure it’s filled with claret, not scotch.
020-7730 6922; www.boisdale.co.uk
Read more...
Burns Night is almost upon us, and every tartan-blooded Scot will be celebrating in traditional manner with noggins of whisky and a steaming haggis while a man in a kilt gets all excited about “the great chieftain o’ the puddin’ race”. (There’s nothing Slade could have taught Robert Burns about the commercial value of a good seasonal tie-in.)
For diners at Boisdale, home from home for Celtic expats in London, the night’s celebrations have been stretched into a fortnight, and they’ll be piping in Macsween haggis, wild salmon from the Dunkeld smokery on the Taye, and ribs of 28-day-old Scottish beef right through to next Saturday.
Owner Ranald Macdonald is as Scottish as they come. The son of the 23rd Captain and Chief of Clanranald, he’s a descendant of the Macdonald of Boisdale who told Bonnie Prince Charlie to stop all his rabble-rousing nonsense, and the many greats nephew of Flora Macdonald, who helped spirit him away after the Jacobite army was defeated at Culloden in 1746. Ranald also claims kinship with Elvis’s maternal grandmother, which rather pleases his music-loving side.
Anyway, he was shocked when he learnt I’d never eaten haggis, and decided to remedy the situation and at the same time introduce me to the new range of rare single malts he has launched with Berry Bros & Rudd. And very fine they both were. The haggis was a revelation, which we decided was probably down to the fact that at Boisdale they roast rather than boil it, and serve it with a very good veal reduction.
On the minus side, Ranald rather scuppered the Scottishness of the occasion by declaring that haggis was probably introduced to Britain by the Romans (his forebears would therefore have had to enjoy it as a takeaway from the other side of Hadrian’s wall), and that the national drink of Scotland is no more whisky than it is Irn-Bru.
“Essentially, haggis is an unevolved sausage,” he says, “a mix of blood, offal and local cereal stuffed inside a stomach lining. You’ll find versions of it in rural communities throughout Europe.” In most countries that developed into the meatier sausage that we know today. “But in a poor area such as the Highlands, they wouldn’t have had frying pans, or ranges — just a hole in the roof and a pot over a fire — so virtually everything you had would be boiled. And that’s how it’s stayed.” And hence, also, the haggis’s frankly medieval appearance.
And as for the Scottish love of whisky, that didn’t really come about until the early 19th century, apparently. “No, the real national drink of Scotland is claret,” says Ranald, himself a former wine merchant. “Since the 1600s the English had been stuck with oxidised red wine from Portugal as they were their most important partner in the wool trade. But in Scotland, with our French alliance, we drank claret, and had done since the 14th century. So fond of it were we that by 1616 James VI of Scotland [and James I of England] enacted a bill through Scottish parliament limiting my family to one hogshead of claret a year because he believed that the barbaric behaviour of the clans of the west coast was all down to our inordinate love of red wine. Whisky had been produced since the 15th century, but didn’t really take off until after 1780 when the tax on claret made wine too expensive for most people.”
So there we have it, and all from a Scot. So be sure this Thursday to raise a glass — just make sure it’s filled with claret, not scotch.
020-7730 6922; www.boisdale.co.uk
Read more...
Don't buy the hype: fast-food ads cover up a mix of fat and fiction
The Independent
By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent
They're all at it. This week Burger King was criticised by the Advertising Standards Authority for giving viewers a false impression of its premier brand, the Whopper. Instead of the large version praised by burly men singing a "manthem" in one of the company's television commericials, the store was serving far smaller burgers.
In the spirit of investigative inquiry, The Independent launched its own survey of fast-food classics as portrayed on advertising billboards and compared them with the real thing. The contrast, to say the least, was stark.
The Independent ordered a Big Mac from McDonald's, a Double Whopper from Burger King, a Cheesy Bites pizza from Pizza Hut and a Bargain Bucket from KFC. Our conclusions are presented alongside. In the meantime it is worth pointing out that even if the hype is seductive these are dishes that could seriously extend your waistline.
All the companies stress that their food is suitable for the whole family, but all four were loaded with salt and sugar, and two had more than the total recommended amount of calories, salt and fat for a whole day. Even on a subjective level, the food was greasier and less wholesome than it appeared in advertisements.
Read more...
By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent
They're all at it. This week Burger King was criticised by the Advertising Standards Authority for giving viewers a false impression of its premier brand, the Whopper. Instead of the large version praised by burly men singing a "manthem" in one of the company's television commericials, the store was serving far smaller burgers.
In the spirit of investigative inquiry, The Independent launched its own survey of fast-food classics as portrayed on advertising billboards and compared them with the real thing. The contrast, to say the least, was stark.
The Independent ordered a Big Mac from McDonald's, a Double Whopper from Burger King, a Cheesy Bites pizza from Pizza Hut and a Bargain Bucket from KFC. Our conclusions are presented alongside. In the meantime it is worth pointing out that even if the hype is seductive these are dishes that could seriously extend your waistline.
All the companies stress that their food is suitable for the whole family, but all four were loaded with salt and sugar, and two had more than the total recommended amount of calories, salt and fat for a whole day. Even on a subjective level, the food was greasier and less wholesome than it appeared in advertisements.
Read more...
Friday, January 19, 2007
Paris hits back at eau minérale as adverts pour scorn on its water
The Times
By Charles Bremner in Paris
The makers of France’s most popular mineral water have angered the Government, the Paris council and Green groups with a campaign implying that the capital’s tap water is undrinkable and polluted.
City officials, who are proud of the quality of their eau du robinet, have hit back, saying that much of Cristaline, the bottled water, comes from the same underground source that supplies an industrial port city.
Behind the feud lie declining sales in a saturated market for mineral water, which the French still drink in greater volumes than the tap version. Cristaline, a low-cost eau minérale, has covered Paris with posters showing an open lavatory with a red cross and the tagline: “I do not drink water that I use.”
Read more...
By Charles Bremner in Paris
The makers of France’s most popular mineral water have angered the Government, the Paris council and Green groups with a campaign implying that the capital’s tap water is undrinkable and polluted.
City officials, who are proud of the quality of their eau du robinet, have hit back, saying that much of Cristaline, the bottled water, comes from the same underground source that supplies an industrial port city.
Behind the feud lie declining sales in a saturated market for mineral water, which the French still drink in greater volumes than the tap version. Cristaline, a low-cost eau minérale, has covered Paris with posters showing an open lavatory with a red cross and the tagline: “I do not drink water that I use.”
Read more...
Just say no to cooking
The Guardian
Mothers typically spend nearly three years of their lives stirring, baking and stewing. It doesn't have to be this way, says Joanna Moorhead.
Last week, to my horror, I found out that I can expect to do one of my least favourite activities about 45,990 times over the course of my lifetime. That is the equivalent of an hour a day, or 17 days a year, or, perhaps most alarmingly, almost three years in all.
The activity is cooking, and, even if you do enjoy it, you should still be perturbed by Quorn's survey into the time women spend hunched over the stove. Reading the news reports about this, my first thought was: why is this research all about women and the time we spend in the kitchen? The only mention of men came on the issue of how tricky they are to prepare food for, with a quarter of the women questioned saying they regularly prepare separate meals for their partner.
Read more...
Mothers typically spend nearly three years of their lives stirring, baking and stewing. It doesn't have to be this way, says Joanna Moorhead.
Last week, to my horror, I found out that I can expect to do one of my least favourite activities about 45,990 times over the course of my lifetime. That is the equivalent of an hour a day, or 17 days a year, or, perhaps most alarmingly, almost three years in all.
The activity is cooking, and, even if you do enjoy it, you should still be perturbed by Quorn's survey into the time women spend hunched over the stove. Reading the news reports about this, my first thought was: why is this research all about women and the time we spend in the kitchen? The only mention of men came on the issue of how tricky they are to prepare food for, with a quarter of the women questioned saying they regularly prepare separate meals for their partner.
Read more...
Tories plan strict quotas for makers of fatty foods
The Times, Corporate Law
By Patrick Hosking
Food and drink manufacturers could be given strict quotas for producing fatty and sugary foods and alcohol under plans to tackle obesity and excessive drinking being considered by the Conservative Party.
Under the plan drawn up by the Working Group on Responsible Business, set up by David Cameron last July, producers would be allocated production limits allowing them to produce a certain quantity of fatty food or alcoholic drink.
Manufacturers wanting to produce more would have to buy credits from companies prepared to produce less. The regime would give a financial incentive for producers to make products containing less fat, sugar, salt and alcohol.
Read more...
By Patrick Hosking
Food and drink manufacturers could be given strict quotas for producing fatty and sugary foods and alcohol under plans to tackle obesity and excessive drinking being considered by the Conservative Party.
Under the plan drawn up by the Working Group on Responsible Business, set up by David Cameron last July, producers would be allocated production limits allowing them to produce a certain quantity of fatty food or alcoholic drink.
Manufacturers wanting to produce more would have to buy credits from companies prepared to produce less. The regime would give a financial incentive for producers to make products containing less fat, sugar, salt and alcohol.
Read more...
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Headteachers’ new eating targets
The Herald
By GERRY BRAIDEN, Local Government Reporter
Headteachers will have to meet targets aimed at increasing the number of children eating healthy school meals, in the first initiative of its kind in Scotland.
In an effort to reverse the continuing decline in uptake of school meals and the resulting financial drain, Glasgow City Council officers are in discussions with all secondary school heads to establish "individually tailored action plans".
Read more...
By GERRY BRAIDEN, Local Government Reporter
Headteachers will have to meet targets aimed at increasing the number of children eating healthy school meals, in the first initiative of its kind in Scotland.
In an effort to reverse the continuing decline in uptake of school meals and the resulting financial drain, Glasgow City Council officers are in discussions with all secondary school heads to establish "individually tailored action plans".
Read more...
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Warning over drug tests on imported food
The Guardian
By Rebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondent
Government regulators were today urged not to put consumers at risk by watering down protection from illegal and harmful toxic drugs in imported food.
The Soil Association said the testing of food safety was already "woefully inadequate" and could be scaled back by funding cuts. It called on regulators not to forewarn producers which products and drugs would be tested.
At a key meeting tomorrow, the government's veterinary residues committee is expected to bow to pressure from the food industry and agree to publish its testing plans for imported animal produce in advance. The produce includes honey, farmed fish and chicken.
Read more...
By Rebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondent
Government regulators were today urged not to put consumers at risk by watering down protection from illegal and harmful toxic drugs in imported food.
The Soil Association said the testing of food safety was already "woefully inadequate" and could be scaled back by funding cuts. It called on regulators not to forewarn producers which products and drugs would be tested.
At a key meeting tomorrow, the government's veterinary residues committee is expected to bow to pressure from the food industry and agree to publish its testing plans for imported animal produce in advance. The produce includes honey, farmed fish and chicken.
Read more...
'Traffic light' labels ad ready to go
The Guardian
By Mark Sweney
The Food Standards Agency is tonight launching the TV campaign to promote its controversial "traffic light" food labelling system designed to promote healthier eating.
A series of 10-second, animated ads - developed with ad agency United London - aim to show how simple the system is for identifying products with high fat, sugar and salt content.
The £2m the FSA is spending on the campaign amounts to only half that being spent by a food industry joint marketing initiative that launched last week, promoting an alternative labelling system.
Read more...
By Mark Sweney
The Food Standards Agency is tonight launching the TV campaign to promote its controversial "traffic light" food labelling system designed to promote healthier eating.
A series of 10-second, animated ads - developed with ad agency United London - aim to show how simple the system is for identifying products with high fat, sugar and salt content.
The £2m the FSA is spending on the campaign amounts to only half that being spent by a food industry joint marketing initiative that launched last week, promoting an alternative labelling system.
Read more...
Let's take stock
The Guardian
By Tom Norrington-Davies
It's easy to reach for a cube for added flavour, but if you want to add some oomph to a dish, nothing beats making the real thing. And it's less fiddly and time-consuming than you might think.
No wonder the French think we are heretics in the kitchen. Some of this country's top chefs admit to culinary penchants that must surely get tongues wagging over the pond. Heston Blumenthal puts space dust in his chocolate puddings; Tom Aiken has a thing for Bird's custard powder and, recently, G2's very own Marco Pierre White said there was "nothing wrong with stock cubes". Quelle horreur!
Read more...
By Tom Norrington-Davies
It's easy to reach for a cube for added flavour, but if you want to add some oomph to a dish, nothing beats making the real thing. And it's less fiddly and time-consuming than you might think.
No wonder the French think we are heretics in the kitchen. Some of this country's top chefs admit to culinary penchants that must surely get tongues wagging over the pond. Heston Blumenthal puts space dust in his chocolate puddings; Tom Aiken has a thing for Bird's custard powder and, recently, G2's very own Marco Pierre White said there was "nothing wrong with stock cubes". Quelle horreur!
Read more...
Illegal coffee crops threaten endangered animals
The Guardian
Coffee drinkers have been unknowingly consuming a brew made from beans grown illegally in one of the world's most important natural parks, a report revealed today.
The conservation charity WWF said beans grown in the Bukit Barisan Selatan national park in Sumatra, Indonesia, were being bought by local traders and mixed with legally grown beans before being exported.
The 324,000 hectare (800,620 acre) park is a Unesco world heritage site and one of the few protected areas where three endangered or critically endangered species - Sumatran tigers, elephants and rhinos - coexist. It is also the home of unique and threatened plant species' such as the giant flower amorphophallus spp.
Read more...
Coffee drinkers have been unknowingly consuming a brew made from beans grown illegally in one of the world's most important natural parks, a report revealed today.
The conservation charity WWF said beans grown in the Bukit Barisan Selatan national park in Sumatra, Indonesia, were being bought by local traders and mixed with legally grown beans before being exported.
The 324,000 hectare (800,620 acre) park is a Unesco world heritage site and one of the few protected areas where three endangered or critically endangered species - Sumatran tigers, elephants and rhinos - coexist. It is also the home of unique and threatened plant species' such as the giant flower amorphophallus spp.
Read more...
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Don't hold back on eggs
The Times, Times2
By Amanda Ursell
Scientists have created chickens whose eggs could produce life-saving drugs. Our nutrition expert has many other reasons why it is good to eat plenty of eggs
Apart from alcohol, eggs are perhaps the only victual that has traditionally carried advice on consumption limits. How many of us still have the now outdated “No more than four eggs per week” message lingering in our subconscious?
The original advice was given because eggs, like shellfish, are a source of pre-formed cholesterol and the assumption was that they raised levels of cholesterol in our blood when we ate them.
The American Heart Association has now revised its four-eggs-per-week restriction, however, after research has indicated that little of the cholesterol in eggs is absorbed in the intestine and that eggs do not greatly influence cholesterol levels in the blood.
Read more...
By Amanda Ursell
Scientists have created chickens whose eggs could produce life-saving drugs. Our nutrition expert has many other reasons why it is good to eat plenty of eggs
Apart from alcohol, eggs are perhaps the only victual that has traditionally carried advice on consumption limits. How many of us still have the now outdated “No more than four eggs per week” message lingering in our subconscious?
The original advice was given because eggs, like shellfish, are a source of pre-formed cholesterol and the assumption was that they raised levels of cholesterol in our blood when we ate them.
The American Heart Association has now revised its four-eggs-per-week restriction, however, after research has indicated that little of the cholesterol in eggs is absorbed in the intestine and that eggs do not greatly influence cholesterol levels in the blood.
Read more...
A serious case of caffeine overdose
The Guardian
By Oliver Burkeman
If you stand on the corner of Regent Street and Wigmore Street in central London, you are within five miles of 164 branches of Starbucks. This is a fact that is liable to provoke sudden dizziness, followed by a deep, soul-corroding fear for the future of humankind, sending you scuttling to your bedroom to throw yourself, sobbing, underneath a pillow - although this won't help much either, since that pillow itself is within five miles of 158 branches of Starbucks, if it's my bedroom you're in, which, now I come to think of it, I hope you aren't.
Read more...
By Oliver Burkeman
If you stand on the corner of Regent Street and Wigmore Street in central London, you are within five miles of 164 branches of Starbucks. This is a fact that is liable to provoke sudden dizziness, followed by a deep, soul-corroding fear for the future of humankind, sending you scuttling to your bedroom to throw yourself, sobbing, underneath a pillow - although this won't help much either, since that pillow itself is within five miles of 158 branches of Starbucks, if it's my bedroom you're in, which, now I come to think of it, I hope you aren't.
Read more...
Why screwtops may not be such a corking way to keep red wine fine
The Times, Britain
By Valerie Elliott, Consumer Editor
They thought that the problem of corked wine had been solved by introducing the screwtop. But now red wine producers are grappling with an even worse issue: the whiff of rotten eggs.
Experts believe that one in 50 screwtop bottles — or 200,000 bottles worldwide — may be affected by a chemical process known as sulphidisation. When the metal cap is removed, the consumer is hit with a smell of sulphur — likened by some to burning rubber, spent matches or even a schoolboy stink bomb.
Shoppers are being advised to take extra care when choosing their wine, especially if it is to be laid down in a cellar.
Read more...
By Valerie Elliott, Consumer Editor
They thought that the problem of corked wine had been solved by introducing the screwtop. But now red wine producers are grappling with an even worse issue: the whiff of rotten eggs.
Experts believe that one in 50 screwtop bottles — or 200,000 bottles worldwide — may be affected by a chemical process known as sulphidisation. When the metal cap is removed, the consumer is hit with a smell of sulphur — likened by some to burning rubber, spent matches or even a schoolboy stink bomb.
Shoppers are being advised to take extra care when choosing their wine, especially if it is to be laid down in a cellar.
Read more...
Men should eat their reds and greens
The Times, Britain
By David Rose
Tomato-broccoli diet 'helps prostate'
Combination may curb cancer
Eating tomatoes and broccoli in the same meal could help men to fight prostate cancer.
A study suggests that when they are both present in a regular diet, the two foods — known for their cancer-fighting qualities — help to reduce tumours more effectively than when they are eaten separately.
Prostate cancer is the most common male cancer in Britain, accounting for almost one in four cancers in men. Each year about 32,000 cases are diagnosed and more than 10,000 men die from it.
Researchers from the University of Illinois believe that different compounds in the vegetables can work together to attack cancer cells along different biological pathways. They suggest that men should regularly consume servings of up to three quarters of a head of raw broccoli and two to three tomatoes to help fight the disease.
Read more...
By David Rose
Tomato-broccoli diet 'helps prostate'
Combination may curb cancer
Eating tomatoes and broccoli in the same meal could help men to fight prostate cancer.
A study suggests that when they are both present in a regular diet, the two foods — known for their cancer-fighting qualities — help to reduce tumours more effectively than when they are eaten separately.
Prostate cancer is the most common male cancer in Britain, accounting for almost one in four cancers in men. Each year about 32,000 cases are diagnosed and more than 10,000 men die from it.
Researchers from the University of Illinois believe that different compounds in the vegetables can work together to attack cancer cells along different biological pathways. They suggest that men should regularly consume servings of up to three quarters of a head of raw broccoli and two to three tomatoes to help fight the disease.
Read more...
Food matters: Does dining en famille really benefit children?
The Times, T2
By Amanda Ursell
It has often been said that the more we eat together as a family, the better adjusted our children will be, and a recent study seems to confirm our suspicions. In an experiment published in the Journal of Adolescent Health that involved nearly 10,000 adolescents, it was found that those who had dinner with their parents six nights out of seven were much less involved in antisocial behaviour, drug and alcohol abuse, smoking, depression and eating disorders than those who didn’t.
Should we be replacing ASBOs with shepherd’s pie with Mum and Dad? No, says Professor Andrew Hill, of Leeds University: “The researchers would probably have found a similar result had they had simply encouraged the same teenagers to spend time with their parents per se, doing anything from playing football to watching television. It is the time together that is valuable, not necessarily the sharing of a meal.”
Read more...
By Amanda Ursell
It has often been said that the more we eat together as a family, the better adjusted our children will be, and a recent study seems to confirm our suspicions. In an experiment published in the Journal of Adolescent Health that involved nearly 10,000 adolescents, it was found that those who had dinner with their parents six nights out of seven were much less involved in antisocial behaviour, drug and alcohol abuse, smoking, depression and eating disorders than those who didn’t.
Should we be replacing ASBOs with shepherd’s pie with Mum and Dad? No, says Professor Andrew Hill, of Leeds University: “The researchers would probably have found a similar result had they had simply encouraged the same teenagers to spend time with their parents per se, doing anything from playing football to watching television. It is the time together that is valuable, not necessarily the sharing of a meal.”
Read more...
Don't hold back on eggs
The Times, T2
By Amanda Ursell
Scientists have created chickens whose eggs could produce life-saving drugs. Our nutrition expert has many other reasons why it is good to eat plenty of eggs
Apart from alcohol, eggs are perhaps the only victual that has traditionally carried advice on consumption limits. How many of us still have the now outdated “No more than four eggs per week” message lingering in our subconscious?
The original advice was given because eggs, like shellfish, are a source of pre-formed cholesterol and the assumption was that they raised levels of cholesterol in our blood when we ate them.
The American Heart Association has now revised its four-eggs-per-week restriction, however, after research has indicated that little of the cholesterol in eggs is absorbed in the intestine and that eggs do not greatly influence cholesterol levels in the blood.
Read more...
By Amanda Ursell
Scientists have created chickens whose eggs could produce life-saving drugs. Our nutrition expert has many other reasons why it is good to eat plenty of eggs
Apart from alcohol, eggs are perhaps the only victual that has traditionally carried advice on consumption limits. How many of us still have the now outdated “No more than four eggs per week” message lingering in our subconscious?
The original advice was given because eggs, like shellfish, are a source of pre-formed cholesterol and the assumption was that they raised levels of cholesterol in our blood when we ate them.
The American Heart Association has now revised its four-eggs-per-week restriction, however, after research has indicated that little of the cholesterol in eggs is absorbed in the intestine and that eggs do not greatly influence cholesterol levels in the blood.
Read more...
Monday, January 15, 2007
Whose dish is it anyway?
The Times, T2
New celebrity recipe books appear weekly and TV food shows fill the schedules. But how much work is put in by the star chefs themselves? Catherine Blyth on the growing importance of food’s backroom specialists.
Read more...
New celebrity recipe books appear weekly and TV food shows fill the schedules. But how much work is put in by the star chefs themselves? Catherine Blyth on the growing importance of food’s backroom specialists.
Read more...
Friday, January 12, 2007
Carrot and chip for food industry
The Guardian
As down-to-earth Yorkshire folk, despite Matthew Fort's comments (So you fancy chips with everything? Go ahead, January 11), we would like to invite him up to Scarborough to see exactly what goes on in the production process of the oven chip. It was disappointing to read his description of McCain Rustic Oven Chips as "extruded polystyrene". Our oven chips are simply prepared, using potatoes that are only washed, peeled, cut, lightly fried in sunflower oil and then frozen. To imply that McCain's processes "denature the ingredients" is simply untrue. We make good, high-quality products that are simply prepared from simple ingredients. We are proud to be the UK's largest single customer for British potatoes. All our products are now prepared with sunflower oil, which lowers the level of saturated fat. Customers can see we've made better, healthier products and that we're providing better labelling to ensure they can make informed choices.
Bill Bartlett
Corporate affairs director, McCain Foods
Read more...
As down-to-earth Yorkshire folk, despite Matthew Fort's comments (So you fancy chips with everything? Go ahead, January 11), we would like to invite him up to Scarborough to see exactly what goes on in the production process of the oven chip. It was disappointing to read his description of McCain Rustic Oven Chips as "extruded polystyrene". Our oven chips are simply prepared, using potatoes that are only washed, peeled, cut, lightly fried in sunflower oil and then frozen. To imply that McCain's processes "denature the ingredients" is simply untrue. We make good, high-quality products that are simply prepared from simple ingredients. We are proud to be the UK's largest single customer for British potatoes. All our products are now prepared with sunflower oil, which lowers the level of saturated fat. Customers can see we've made better, healthier products and that we're providing better labelling to ensure they can make informed choices.
Bill Bartlett
Corporate affairs director, McCain Foods
Read more...
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Dinner's off but you should still brace yourself for the bill
The Guardian
By Gaby Huddart
Restaurant dining isn't cheap these days. Indeed, getting change out of £40 for drinks and dinner is a pretty mean challenge in the noughties. So, this week's widely reported story that many of the nation's best eateries are insisting on credit card numbers at the time of booking and, unless given plenty of notice of cancellation, charge a hefty fee for a no-show seems outrageous. A downright rip-off, in fact.
The three-Michelin-starred Fat Duck in Bray charges £80 per person for cancellations with less than two days' notice. At the two-Michelin-starred Le Gavroche, in London, the charge is £60 per head for no-shows, with Le Pont de la Tour, The Square and Bentley's among the capital's other restaurants to be named and shamed. Surely they should be red-faced about such hard-to-swallow policies?
Read more...
By Gaby Huddart
Restaurant dining isn't cheap these days. Indeed, getting change out of £40 for drinks and dinner is a pretty mean challenge in the noughties. So, this week's widely reported story that many of the nation's best eateries are insisting on credit card numbers at the time of booking and, unless given plenty of notice of cancellation, charge a hefty fee for a no-show seems outrageous. A downright rip-off, in fact.
The three-Michelin-starred Fat Duck in Bray charges £80 per person for cancellations with less than two days' notice. At the two-Michelin-starred Le Gavroche, in London, the charge is £60 per head for no-shows, with Le Pont de la Tour, The Square and Bentley's among the capital's other restaurants to be named and shamed. Surely they should be red-faced about such hard-to-swallow policies?
Read more...
So you fancy chips with everything? Go ahead
The Guardian
By Matthew Fort
It had to happen. It is diet time, detox month, to pay for all those Christmas potatoes roasted in Nigella's goose fat. A period of healing through eating ... chips. Chips? Chips!? Sadly, not those fried in vegetable oil or even extra virgin olive oil or (best of all) beef dripping. No, those oven-ready bits of what appear to be extruded polystyrene are the latest vegetable to be given the nod from the health police.
Read more...
By Matthew Fort
It had to happen. It is diet time, detox month, to pay for all those Christmas potatoes roasted in Nigella's goose fat. A period of healing through eating ... chips. Chips? Chips!? Sadly, not those fried in vegetable oil or even extra virgin olive oil or (best of all) beef dripping. No, those oven-ready bits of what appear to be extruded polystyrene are the latest vegetable to be given the nod from the health police.
Read more...
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Breakfasts would never be the same without it
The Times
By Tim Luckhurst
Research for The Grocer magazine should depress all who consider the tang of preserved citrus fruit a vital fortification for the daily grind. Contempt for marmalade among Britons aged under 45 is propelling this most rewarding breakfast foodstuff towards extinction.
Last year 441,000 British households stopped buying marmalade. Among those still appreciative of its robust and bracing flavour, 81 per cent are aged 45 or over. The continental habit of smothering bread in jam has become dominant among people not yet enjoying middle age.
Of course, a taste for highly sweetened strawberries, raspberries or blackcurrants does not necessarily denote a treasonable frame of mind. The risk is that casual choices by people with immature, fast-food-sated palates will deprive them of a treat that they should grow to adore.
Read more...
By Tim Luckhurst
Research for The Grocer magazine should depress all who consider the tang of preserved citrus fruit a vital fortification for the daily grind. Contempt for marmalade among Britons aged under 45 is propelling this most rewarding breakfast foodstuff towards extinction.
Last year 441,000 British households stopped buying marmalade. Among those still appreciative of its robust and bracing flavour, 81 per cent are aged 45 or over. The continental habit of smothering bread in jam has become dominant among people not yet enjoying middle age.
Of course, a taste for highly sweetened strawberries, raspberries or blackcurrants does not necessarily denote a treasonable frame of mind. The risk is that casual choices by people with immature, fast-food-sated palates will deprive them of a treat that they should grow to adore.
Read more...
The truth about aphrodisiacs
The Guardian
By Jill Fullerton-Smith
For thousands of years certain foods have been thought to stimulate sexual desire. But how do they work? It's all in the nose..
Read more...
By Jill Fullerton-Smith
For thousands of years certain foods have been thought to stimulate sexual desire. But how do they work? It's all in the nose..
Read more...
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Adding milk to tea could be bad
The Herald
By Stewart Paterson
Adding milk to tea could be a factor in the UK's high rate of heart disease, according to a study.
Scientists have concluded that the health benefits of the nation's favourite drink are being diminished by the British practice of taking tea with milk.
Read more...
By Stewart Paterson
Adding milk to tea could be a factor in the UK's high rate of heart disease, according to a study.
Scientists have concluded that the health benefits of the nation's favourite drink are being diminished by the British practice of taking tea with milk.
Read more...
Researchers see bias in private-funded studies
The Guardian
By Polly Curtis, health correspondent
Research into the health benefits of drinks including fizzy pop, juices and milk may be severely biased in favour of food industry funders, American doctors say today. A survey of research on the nutritional value of drinks found that studies funded entirely by food and drink companies were approximately eight times more likely to produce results favourable to their funders, compared with studies which had no industry funding.
The findings threaten to revive the row which started in the pharmaceutical industry about how independent scientists can be when they receive funding from a commercial source. The authors of the review of research conclude: "Industry funding of nutrition-related scientific articles may bias conclusions in favour of sponsors' products, with potentially significant implications for public health."
Read more...
By Polly Curtis, health correspondent
Research into the health benefits of drinks including fizzy pop, juices and milk may be severely biased in favour of food industry funders, American doctors say today. A survey of research on the nutritional value of drinks found that studies funded entirely by food and drink companies were approximately eight times more likely to produce results favourable to their funders, compared with studies which had no industry funding.
The findings threaten to revive the row which started in the pharmaceutical industry about how independent scientists can be when they receive funding from a commercial source. The authors of the review of research conclude: "Industry funding of nutrition-related scientific articles may bias conclusions in favour of sponsors' products, with potentially significant implications for public health."
Read more...
Superfoods: Garlic
The Guardian
By Amanda Grant
Garlic is the most widely used medicinal plant in history. A member of the onion family, it is known for its antibiotic, antifungal and antiviral properties, and has been used by the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Chinese to help cure a variety of ailments from bronchitis and influenza to whooping cough.
Today, medical journals contain countless scientific studies investigating the ability of garlic to help fight infections, as well as provide potential benefits for diabetes, asthma and cancer sufferers.
Read more...
By Amanda Grant
Garlic is the most widely used medicinal plant in history. A member of the onion family, it is known for its antibiotic, antifungal and antiviral properties, and has been used by the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Chinese to help cure a variety of ailments from bronchitis and influenza to whooping cough.
Today, medical journals contain countless scientific studies investigating the ability of garlic to help fight infections, as well as provide potential benefits for diabetes, asthma and cancer sufferers.
Read more...
French business school appoints professor of champagne
The Guardian
By Alexandra Smith
It must surely be the dream job. British-born Australian Stephan Charters is to spend his working days sipping the finest French champagne, all in the name of research.
Leading French business school, Reims Management School, has appointed the international wine expert as the head of its champagne chair.
The professor of champagne will be responsible for developing the research activities for the chair and implementing a series of specialist courses at masters, MBA and executive education level.
The school, which has excellent links with the industry, has attracted a steady flow of executives to its MBA and executive programmes. One of the first things on Dr Charters' agenda will be to develop an executive summer school for the summer of 2007.
Read more
By Alexandra Smith
It must surely be the dream job. British-born Australian Stephan Charters is to spend his working days sipping the finest French champagne, all in the name of research.
Leading French business school, Reims Management School, has appointed the international wine expert as the head of its champagne chair.
The professor of champagne will be responsible for developing the research activities for the chair and implementing a series of specialist courses at masters, MBA and executive education level.
The school, which has excellent links with the industry, has attracted a steady flow of executives to its MBA and executive programmes. One of the first things on Dr Charters' agenda will be to develop an executive summer school for the summer of 2007.
Read more
Monday, January 08, 2007
A question of taste and quality
The Guardian
By Matthew Fort
There are two questions for the consumer to ponder - is organic food good (ie does it taste better than non-organic food)? And is it good for you (ie is there a qualitative nutritional difference)?
To take the second question first, the track record of "conventional" farming does not inspire confidence, whatever Mr Miliband may say. Perhaps he relies too much on the advice of scientists, who don't care about taste, or special advisers, who see agriculture as just another industry.
Read more...
By Matthew Fort
There are two questions for the consumer to ponder - is organic food good (ie does it taste better than non-organic food)? And is it good for you (ie is there a qualitative nutritional difference)?
To take the second question first, the track record of "conventional" farming does not inspire confidence, whatever Mr Miliband may say. Perhaps he relies too much on the advice of scientists, who don't care about taste, or special advisers, who see agriculture as just another industry.
Read more...
Organic farmers hit back after minister casts doubt on healthier food claims
The Guardian
By Audrey Gillan
The organic food industry rounded on a government minister yesterday after he said there was no proof that organic produce was healthier than ordinary food. David Miliband, the environment, food and rural affairs secretary, said that buying organic food was a "lifestyle choice", and produce grown with the use of pesticides and other chemicals should not be regarded as second-best.
His views were condemned as "patronising" to consumers and "insulting" to organic farmers by the Soil Association, the organic farmers' organisation. Its director, Patrick Holden, said: "I actually think it is rather sad because it suggests that David Miliband is profoundly ignorant of the benefits that are motivating people to buy organic food. The industry has grown without the support of the government and we thought we finally had it on our side. I find it amazing the minister is being so dismissive." Asked about the benefits claimed for organic food, Mr Miliband said: "It's a lifestyle choice that people can make. There isn't any conclusive evidence either way."
Read more...
By Audrey Gillan
The organic food industry rounded on a government minister yesterday after he said there was no proof that organic produce was healthier than ordinary food. David Miliband, the environment, food and rural affairs secretary, said that buying organic food was a "lifestyle choice", and produce grown with the use of pesticides and other chemicals should not be regarded as second-best.
His views were condemned as "patronising" to consumers and "insulting" to organic farmers by the Soil Association, the organic farmers' organisation. Its director, Patrick Holden, said: "I actually think it is rather sad because it suggests that David Miliband is profoundly ignorant of the benefits that are motivating people to buy organic food. The industry has grown without the support of the government and we thought we finally had it on our side. I find it amazing the minister is being so dismissive." Asked about the benefits claimed for organic food, Mr Miliband said: "It's a lifestyle choice that people can make. There isn't any conclusive evidence either way."
Read more...
Food industry pushes own labelling system
The Guardian
By Mark Sweney
The food industry is tonight launching its biggest-ever joint TV campaign to promote a healthy food labelling system that aims to derail the Food Standards Agency's own "traffic light" plan.
A coalition of 24 companies including Tesco, Coca-Cola, Cadbury Schweppes, Sunny Delight and Kellogg's are ploughing £4m into an 18-month campaign to promote the "guideline daily amount" system.
The campaign is set to go head-to-head with the FSA's own marketing push, thought to be worth around £1m, which is due to break later this month.
Read more...
By Mark Sweney
The food industry is tonight launching its biggest-ever joint TV campaign to promote a healthy food labelling system that aims to derail the Food Standards Agency's own "traffic light" plan.
A coalition of 24 companies including Tesco, Coca-Cola, Cadbury Schweppes, Sunny Delight and Kellogg's are ploughing £4m into an 18-month campaign to promote the "guideline daily amount" system.
The campaign is set to go head-to-head with the FSA's own marketing push, thought to be worth around £1m, which is due to break later this month.
Read more...
The future's not orange: marmalade looks like toast
The Guardian
It is enough to make Paddington Bear contemplate a return to darkest Peru: marmalade, once a staple item on every British breakfast table, has fallen so far out of fashion that nearly 500,000 households stopped buying it altogether last year.
Latest sales figures from the market analyst TNS show that sales of marmalade dropped by 4.4%, representing some 441,000 households, to £53.9m in the year to November 2006.
Meanwhile, honey and jam, marmalade's rivals on the nation's toast, both increased their sales last year, with honey rising by 5.7% to £66.9m and jam growing by 1.4% to £88.3m.
Marmalade's slide has been attributed to its not being sweet enough for young consumers. Fans of marmalade tend to be older, with 81% of all marmalade sold eaten by the over-45s.
The trade magazine the Grocer says children find the taste of marmalade too strong. "Marmalade is suffering from an image crisis that manufacturers have failed to address during the past 12 months," it says. "The challenge for both retailers and manufacturers is to bring more children to the category."
Meanwhile, spending on organic jam was up 25% on 2005.
Read more...
It is enough to make Paddington Bear contemplate a return to darkest Peru: marmalade, once a staple item on every British breakfast table, has fallen so far out of fashion that nearly 500,000 households stopped buying it altogether last year.
Latest sales figures from the market analyst TNS show that sales of marmalade dropped by 4.4%, representing some 441,000 households, to £53.9m in the year to November 2006.
Meanwhile, honey and jam, marmalade's rivals on the nation's toast, both increased their sales last year, with honey rising by 5.7% to £66.9m and jam growing by 1.4% to £88.3m.
Marmalade's slide has been attributed to its not being sweet enough for young consumers. Fans of marmalade tend to be older, with 81% of all marmalade sold eaten by the over-45s.
The trade magazine the Grocer says children find the taste of marmalade too strong. "Marmalade is suffering from an image crisis that manufacturers have failed to address during the past 12 months," it says. "The challenge for both retailers and manufacturers is to bring more children to the category."
Meanwhile, spending on organic jam was up 25% on 2005.
Read more...
Sunday, January 07, 2007
NHS prescribing drugs ‘when diet might help children with autism’
Sunday Herald
By Judith Duffy, Health Correspondent
THE NHS is failing to provide advice on nutrition which could help children with conditions such as autism and attention deficit disorder, amid a culture of prescribing powerful drugs with potential side-effects.
That is the claim made by Dave Rex, lead child health dietician with NHS Highland, who has warned that despite evidence that special diets can help some individuals, nutrition is still being treated as a "Cinderella" subject in the health service.
Speaking ahead of a major conference on diet and children's behaviour later this month, Rex told the Sunday Herald that while many NHS professionals will prescribe powerful drugs, they are reluctant to consider dietary interventions.
"It is very strange that we within the NHS are in the culture of prescribing medication which runs the risk of side-effects," he said, "yet we are so nervous about giving tailor-made advice on what a healthy diet would look like.
"As soon as you talk about diet and autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), people assume you are going to be suggesting something wacky, because some people have done so in the past.
"But you can give responsible, tailor-made advice on diet, which is more likely to do good than harm."
Read more...
By Judith Duffy, Health Correspondent
THE NHS is failing to provide advice on nutrition which could help children with conditions such as autism and attention deficit disorder, amid a culture of prescribing powerful drugs with potential side-effects.
That is the claim made by Dave Rex, lead child health dietician with NHS Highland, who has warned that despite evidence that special diets can help some individuals, nutrition is still being treated as a "Cinderella" subject in the health service.
Speaking ahead of a major conference on diet and children's behaviour later this month, Rex told the Sunday Herald that while many NHS professionals will prescribe powerful drugs, they are reluctant to consider dietary interventions.
"It is very strange that we within the NHS are in the culture of prescribing medication which runs the risk of side-effects," he said, "yet we are so nervous about giving tailor-made advice on what a healthy diet would look like.
"As soon as you talk about diet and autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), people assume you are going to be suggesting something wacky, because some people have done so in the past.
"But you can give responsible, tailor-made advice on diet, which is more likely to do good than harm."
Read more...
On the breadline: Britons to pay £1 a loaf... and rising
The Guardian
By Denis Campbell
The price of a loaf of bread is set to break through the £1 barrier because of the soaring cost of wheat.
Global shortages of the cereal owing to crop failures pushed bread prices up in 2006 and a further expected increase of about 15 per cent will raise the cost of a standard white loaf by about 6p.
A Hovis square cut white loaf has risen by 22 per cent since last autumn and now costs 94p at Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons and Waitrose, and 99p in Somerfield.
Read more...
By Denis Campbell
The price of a loaf of bread is set to break through the £1 barrier because of the soaring cost of wheat.
Global shortages of the cereal owing to crop failures pushed bread prices up in 2006 and a further expected increase of about 15 per cent will raise the cost of a standard white loaf by about 6p.
A Hovis square cut white loaf has risen by 22 per cent since last autumn and now costs 94p at Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons and Waitrose, and 99p in Somerfield.
Read more...
Too few fish in the ocean to keep humans in good health
The Observer
By Denis Campbell
The official advice that Britons should eat more fish as a health benefit may be altered amid growing fears that the policy is threatening efforts to conserve diminishing stocks of cod and other popular species.
The Food Standards Agency currently recommends that everyone should eat at least two portions of fish a week, including one of oily fish such as salmon, mackerel and sardines as the omega-3 fatty acids and minerals found in fish can help combat heart disease.
Read more...
By Denis Campbell
The official advice that Britons should eat more fish as a health benefit may be altered amid growing fears that the policy is threatening efforts to conserve diminishing stocks of cod and other popular species.
The Food Standards Agency currently recommends that everyone should eat at least two portions of fish a week, including one of oily fish such as salmon, mackerel and sardines as the omega-3 fatty acids and minerals found in fish can help combat heart disease.
Read more...
Food For The Year
The Independent
Good food is going global and the best chefs are carving out international empires. Andy Lynes tastes the future.
The global restaurant scene has never been more dynamic than now. In 2007, established chefs will continue to expand their empires into intriguing new locations
Read more...
Good food is going global and the best chefs are carving out international empires. Andy Lynes tastes the future.
The global restaurant scene has never been more dynamic than now. In 2007, established chefs will continue to expand their empires into intriguing new locations
Read more...
Saturday, January 06, 2007
TV companies vie for rights to long-lost Cumbrian cookbook
The Independent
By Ian Herbert
Willie Fowler was never terribly optimistic about his chances of making it as a food writer and, in his own lifetime, his expectations were right. His book, Countryman's Cooking, published in 1965 and detailing culinary exploits in his own Cumbrian kitchen, failed resoundingly and was out of print within a few years.
Though the down-to-earth Cumbrian always railed against self-styled gourmets - thay had a habit of jeering at those "who prefer egg sauce with their salmon instead of shrimp", he always said - Fowler's book has now become one of Britain's most improbable culinary hits, after a publisher in the foodie's paradise of Ludlow, Shropshire, bought the book for 50p in a charity shop and decided to republish. David Burnett expected a few hundred sales but is not far off 10,000 - and rising - and currently on his fourth reprint in as many months.
Read more...
By Ian Herbert
Willie Fowler was never terribly optimistic about his chances of making it as a food writer and, in his own lifetime, his expectations were right. His book, Countryman's Cooking, published in 1965 and detailing culinary exploits in his own Cumbrian kitchen, failed resoundingly and was out of print within a few years.
Though the down-to-earth Cumbrian always railed against self-styled gourmets - thay had a habit of jeering at those "who prefer egg sauce with their salmon instead of shrimp", he always said - Fowler's book has now become one of Britain's most improbable culinary hits, after a publisher in the foodie's paradise of Ludlow, Shropshire, bought the book for 50p in a charity shop and decided to republish. David Burnett expected a few hundred sales but is not far off 10,000 - and rising - and currently on his fourth reprint in as many months.
Read more...
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Turnaround experts engineer a roadside rescue for Little Chef
The Guardian
By Simon Bowers and Julia Kollewe
Little Chef, the breakfast fry-up specialist, has secured a rescue deal that will save most of the struggling roadside restaurant chain's 231 sites.
Its rescuer is RCapital, a small private equity group which specialises in turning around the fortunes of businesses in crisis. The group has paid an undisclosed sum, thought to be about £10m, to take about 195 Little Chefs out of the hands of its administrator, PricewaterhouseCoopers, which was formally appointed yesterday.
Read more...
By Simon Bowers and Julia Kollewe
Little Chef, the breakfast fry-up specialist, has secured a rescue deal that will save most of the struggling roadside restaurant chain's 231 sites.
Its rescuer is RCapital, a small private equity group which specialises in turning around the fortunes of businesses in crisis. The group has paid an undisclosed sum, thought to be about £10m, to take about 195 Little Chefs out of the hands of its administrator, PricewaterhouseCoopers, which was formally appointed yesterday.
Read more...
Vegetable Boxes: The organic gourmet
The Independent
From curly kale to cavalo nero - veg boxes can bring unfamiliar ingredients to the table. Terry Kirby savours the challenge.
It looked extraordinarily tempting. Glistening with what I assumed to be the dew of a Devon morning and flecked here and there with traces of rich, dark soil, the box of organic vegetables was handed over on my north London doorstep by Nancy, the local Riverford Organic Vegetables delivery person. Eagerly, I carried it into my kitchen, donned my apron and prepared for battle. My mission? To tackle the problem that seems eventually to confront everyone who has ever taken delivery of an organic box: what do you do what that king-sized bag of curly kale?
Read more...
From curly kale to cavalo nero - veg boxes can bring unfamiliar ingredients to the table. Terry Kirby savours the challenge.
It looked extraordinarily tempting. Glistening with what I assumed to be the dew of a Devon morning and flecked here and there with traces of rich, dark soil, the box of organic vegetables was handed over on my north London doorstep by Nancy, the local Riverford Organic Vegetables delivery person. Eagerly, I carried it into my kitchen, donned my apron and prepared for battle. My mission? To tackle the problem that seems eventually to confront everyone who has ever taken delivery of an organic box: what do you do what that king-sized bag of curly kale?
Read more...
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
The gadget graveyard
The Guardian
By Tim Hayward
Remember that amazing Italian coffee maker you once got for Christmas? Or the cool juicer that was going to transform your diet? Tim Hayward offers a definitive guide to the kitchen tools we all have - but never actually use.
* Wok accessories
* Pasta machine
* An inexplicable plastic thing
* Various coffee makers
* The random culinary souvenir
* Some really bad kitchen knives
* Juicer
* A small collection of miscellaneous woodenware
* Garlic tools
* Mandolin grater
Read more...
By Tim Hayward
Remember that amazing Italian coffee maker you once got for Christmas? Or the cool juicer that was going to transform your diet? Tim Hayward offers a definitive guide to the kitchen tools we all have - but never actually use.
* Wok accessories
* Pasta machine
* An inexplicable plastic thing
* Various coffee makers
* The random culinary souvenir
* Some really bad kitchen knives
* Juicer
* A small collection of miscellaneous woodenware
* Garlic tools
* Mandolin grater
Read more...
Monday, January 01, 2007
Leader: In praise of... vegetarianism
The Guardian
What with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's real-meat mincemeat and Nigella Lawson's goose fat, Christmas 2006 seemed at times to be one of the meatiest. A week after the event, many Britons are still recycling the Yuletide bird and pulling the stringy bits from between their teeth. Yet a large minority also eschewed the Christmas flesh-fest in favour of alternatives that have come a long way since the days of textured vegetable protein. Humane meat is now more popular than ever, representing a huge break from the cruelty of the factory farm, but vegetarians still look elsewhere. Ethical doubts about meat date back to Plato. Now environmental concerns are entering the equation too: when it takes 10 kilos of feed to make one of beef, cattle-farming swallows land and all too often forest. Like most human ideas, vegetarianism is rarely applied with perfect logic. Vegetarian Hindus in Kerala justify eating fish by labelling it a type of egg laid by the sea. Vegans object that those who continue to chomp on cheese and eggs collude with an industry that continues to kill animals. It is also true that there are ethical dilemmas about many non-meat foods in the modern world - like the fruit and vegetables flown in from distant continents at the expense of the ozone layer. For all that, vegetarianism confronts ethical questions that a lot of us prefer to ignore. And, on a day when new year's resolutions are being set, it is likely that more people than ever will decide that this seasonal turkey will have been their last.
Read more...
What with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's real-meat mincemeat and Nigella Lawson's goose fat, Christmas 2006 seemed at times to be one of the meatiest. A week after the event, many Britons are still recycling the Yuletide bird and pulling the stringy bits from between their teeth. Yet a large minority also eschewed the Christmas flesh-fest in favour of alternatives that have come a long way since the days of textured vegetable protein. Humane meat is now more popular than ever, representing a huge break from the cruelty of the factory farm, but vegetarians still look elsewhere. Ethical doubts about meat date back to Plato. Now environmental concerns are entering the equation too: when it takes 10 kilos of feed to make one of beef, cattle-farming swallows land and all too often forest. Like most human ideas, vegetarianism is rarely applied with perfect logic. Vegetarian Hindus in Kerala justify eating fish by labelling it a type of egg laid by the sea. Vegans object that those who continue to chomp on cheese and eggs collude with an industry that continues to kill animals. It is also true that there are ethical dilemmas about many non-meat foods in the modern world - like the fruit and vegetables flown in from distant continents at the expense of the ozone layer. For all that, vegetarianism confronts ethical questions that a lot of us prefer to ignore. And, on a day when new year's resolutions are being set, it is likely that more people than ever will decide that this seasonal turkey will have been their last.
Read more...
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