FESTIVAL OF BRITAIN

We always been a generous-hearted nation when it comes to welcoming immigrant foods. You can find bits from almost every culinary culture under the sun embedded in our own if you look with well-informed enough taste buds. Our love of Indian and Chinese food have helped shape our tastes for a couple of hundred years, […]

MEDITERRANEAN HOGWASH (2)

Moreover – If you think about it, you’ve been slaving away in the broiling sun for most of the day, probably several kilometres from where you live, or bobbing about on the briny catching fish under an equally broiling sun, come to that. You don’t want a bit of grilled sea bass with a […]

MEDITERRANEAN HOGWASH

The picture above is of a Sicilian pastry, la rustichella, a ‘sweet dainty of beguiling charm’ to quote that admirable book, Summer in the Islands (available at all intelligent book shops; and, failing them, Amazon). The book goes on ‘The pastry is ineffably light and crumbly, with the hidden richness produced by using strutto (pig […]

DIETARY BLUES

Here we go again. Another day, another awful warning about the appalling effects of appalling diets. I in 6 deaths. Kills 89,9000 Britons a year. Type 2 diabetes on the increase. And cancer. And heart disease. Global problem. Wailing and gnashing of teeth. The usual suspects – sugar, processed foods, fizzy drinks, too much meat, […]

SEEDS OF DELUSION

It’s started again – the season of hoeing and sowing, of visions and delusions, the triumph of hope over experience, when visions of carrots no larger than my middle finger and scarlet as a guardsman’s tunic, beetroot the size of plums, earthy and sweet, and multicoloured salads sit in frothy lines across my veg […]

IN COD’S ROE WE TRUST

I’m always a bit suspicious of the taramasalata I see in supermarkets, and that routinely served up as part of the meze collection in many eateries claiming to serve Middle Eastern food. They’re altogether too pink and creamy, whereas mine is sort of the colour of sand and stiff as paste. I have no idea […]

MAKE MINE MAS HUNI

It’s not often I come across a breakfast that disturbs my pantheon of personal favourites – granita di caffe con panna e brioche (Irrera 1910, Messina, Sicily) ; wild asparagus omelette (Vigna la Corte, Monte Lucretili, Lazio) ; kipper + tea, toast & marmalade (home); croissant filled with pistachio cream (Caltanisetta, Sicily) ; sfogliatelle + […]