As one door closes

Now you know you should be avoiding sushi if you want to save the world’s tuna population and I for one wouldn’t like to speculate on exactly what those 1500 eco-warriors gathered in Copenhagen are scoffing, suffice to say that it won’t be bloody curried chickpeas. But maybe help is at hand for all you sushi squeezers out there. The Japanese, for whom eating sushi is a national obsession, have been cooking up a devious plan and soon the chicken of the sea may become the battery hen of the estuary. As the world's love affair with raw fish depletes wild tuna populations, long-running efforts to breed the deep-sea fish from egg to adulthood may finally be bearing fruit. Though the challenges are daunting, the potential profits are huge. By the end of this year, an Australian company says it will begin selling small amounts of southern bluefin tuna hatched in its fishery. A Japanese firm breeding the more prized Pacific bluefin tuna hopes to start sales in 2013 and ship 10,000 fish by 2015. Unfortunately though there’s a downside. Currently the bulk of the tuna farmed today isn't bred from eggs; it is caught in the sea and fattened on farms, which does nothing to save nature's dwindling stock and kinda defeats the object of the exercise. However before long they’ll be churning out Tolly the Tuna by the million, bustling along little conveyor belts all over Asia, wending their way from farms straight to sushi bars and if that thought isn’t enough to put you off this pervasive piscine treat just remember that Bluefin tuna are like lions and tigers. They are at the very, very top of the food chain. And they eat other fish so what you have to do is catch wild fish to create bluefin tuna. So goodbye to the anchovies, the sardines and the herrings which are already fished to the max." It’s just like my old Dad always used to say “ As one door closes, another door slams in your face.”

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Sunday afternoon at the bioscope

Don't you just hate it when people start throwing things at you in a restaurant, I'm not talking about waiters and plates here by the way. Then everyone blames everyone else. Check out this clip from Just a Laugh. FeedBlitz subscribers should visit the site to view.

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Dilly Dner of the Week

The quaintly named "Pea Soup Andersen's" in the little town of Buellton. California, just north of Santa Barbara is this week's Dilly Diner. The name says it all in terms of the diner's signature dish - delicious Split Pea Soup, but it's much more than that, for Pea Soup Andersen's has a spirit of wholesome family warmth which draws people again and again through its doors. In a world where many restaurants only survive for 12 months or less, this Dilly Diner is heading for it's centenary.
It all began on Friday, June 13th, 1924, when Anton Andersen, born in Denmark purchased a piece of the Golden State, California. Anton, who was trained in exclusive restaurants in Europe and New York, put his tuxedo in mothballs and donned a bib apron, soon to become his personal trademark. He and his charming wife, Juliette, opened a tiny restaurant and named it "Andersen's Electric Cafe," in honor of their prized possession, a new electric stove.Juliette was from the east of France and an expert cook, so she prepared many of the recipes; the most popular with the customers was her split pea soup.With the demand for their split pea soup increasing steadily, the Andersen's soon had to locate large suppliers of peas far from their area. Just three years after the first bowl was served, they were amazed to realize they needed to order ONE TON of peas! When Anton faced the problem of what to do with one ton of peas, he solved it by putting them in the window, proclaiming the restaurant, "The Home of Split Pea Soup," Though a ton of peas seemed a staggering amount then, Andersen's today "splits" many tons of peas every month, transforming them into the famed soup. ..averaging thousands of bowls a day!

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That Was The Week That Was

More bad news for His Gordoness this week as he has handed control of Maze and his restaurant at The London in New York back to the hotel, nine months after doing the same at his Prague, Paris and LA restaurants. Gordo has once again relinquished ownership of an overseas property to ease its ongoing debts, which reached £10m in the group’s 2008 accounts. To limit its financial liabilities, GRH has now sold back all owned overseas property while arranging for the restaurants to continue operating under the Gordon Ramsay brand. The only exception will be the group's fourth Maze restaurant at Melbourne's Crown Casino, due to launch early next year, which will continue to be owned by the group. No mention here of his Cape Town restaurant but then maybe we don’t figure in the scheme of things down here at the tip of Africa. Gordo is rapidly becoming a boring old fart!


Speaking of old farts the latest Anglo-Saxon hit on the Parisian literary scene — a work so successful that the capital’s leading English-language bookshop has had to expand its shelf space for it. But l’oeuvre in question is not a book. It is a tin of baked beans — or rather thousands of tins, which have found their way into the W H Smith store in Paris as it seeks to capitalise on rising demand for British food in France. The bookshop set up a small section dedicated to traditional British foodstuffs amid its more conventional fare — novels by the likes of J. K. Rowling and Sebastian Faulks, or newspapers, including The Times — last year. British favourites like jelly babies, custard, Polo mints, Ribena, Walker’s crisps and now Heinz Baked Beans proved so popular that W H Smith had to double the size of the department this summer. But surely baked beans are American?


Meanwhile this week two chefs unveiled their favourite baked bean recipes. In homage to the famous Heinz icon they came up with what I suppose could best be described as 57 ways to leave your lover. Traditionally baked beans are mostly used on toast, jacket potatoes or with a full English breakfast, but a pair of chefs have come up with a host of new ways to eat humble baked beans. Adam Wilcock and Steve Scuffell produced the 57 recipes using baked beans - including a fondue, a soufflé and even a bean smoothie. They started experimenting cooking with the traditional snack after research found more people were eating them in unusual ways. Their bizarre concoctions - which also include Heinz Sushi with Wasabi mayonnaise - have now 'bean' made available online but will next year also feature in a recipe book.
Chef Adam Wilcock says: “Whilst Heinz Beanz have been a staple of dishes such as English breakfasts and a topping for jacket potatoes, it’s great to see that people are getting creative and extending their use to a whole variety of dishes.
"The ’57 Wayz to Eat Heinz Beanz’ list will provide inspiration to add a highly nutritious, convenient and economical food staple to a whole variety of new dishes. Put it on my Xmas wish list.

I'm reading: That Was The Week That Was

Silly season

Well the silly season is upon us which far from making this daily blog an easier task, it is actually much more difficult since there is such a plethora of truly ridiculous thoughts to muse on that it's doing in my head. However as my dozen or so regular readers will no doubt dwindle to less than single numbers may I take this opportunity to thank you now for your support throughout the year (I shall wear it with pride) and to wish you all belated greetings for 2008. I am indebted to my good friend Mr S C Rooge for the following politically correct legal waiver.
Please accept without obligation, express or implied, these best wishes for an environmentally safe, socially responsible, low stress, non addictive, and gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday as practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice (but with respect for the religious or secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or for their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all) and further for a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated onset of the generally accepted calendar year (including, but not limited to, the Christian calendar, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures). The preceding wishes are extended without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform, or sexual preference of the wishee(s).

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You'll do Yule bird

Any threat of a potential problem and the answer seems to be to set up a hotline. If there’s one thing we always need it’s another hotline …..a hotline to Zuma….a hotline to the Russians……and now a hotline to Turkey. Turkey? I’m sorry it’s not an actual hotline to Turkey it’s The Turkey Hotline (which probably goes to India) which has been set up by the British Turkey Federation (BTF) to help cooks negotiate any pitfalls they might encounter in roasting their festive bird. A team of eight experts are on hand to offer advice on defrosting, cooking times and carving techniques until 5pm on Christmas Eve. Like all hotlines, on Xmas Day when you really need them they’re closed.
So why does everyone suddenly need this hotline? Surely with the wealth of cooking info shoved into our faces every day even the dullest of us can’t help but be culinary literates? And what about all those ever so helpful TV cooks, haven’t they tackled the issue of the Xmas roast ad nauseum? Well it seems that they’re the dark chappies in the woodpile, so to non PC speak. Confusion over cooking the perfect turkey has been exacerbated by conflicting methods proposed by celebrity chefs such as Nigella Lawson and Delia Smith. Piggy Lawson has insisted that cooking a 6.5kg (14lb 5oz) turkey for only two hours and 45 minutes is perfectly adequate to deliver moist, succulent and tasty meat. Meanwhile, the Ice Maiden Smith suggests that the correct cooking time for the bird, assuming it is stuffed, should be four hours and 50 minutes. I’m sure Gordo’s advice would be “ When it’s white it’s raw and when it’s dark brown it’s f#cked. Yes, yes, yes!” By the way the Food Standards Agency, the government watchdog, offers yet another "safe" cooking time – four hours and 20 minutes. My advice is simply to place your turkey in a low oven, the weight of the bird and the temperature are really irrelevant, and leave it there until the neighbours start complaining about the smell, possibly about the 2 nd or 3 rd of January. In the meantime tuck into something that you really enjoy instead of some dry old pumped up bird.

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Dilly about chilli

I've had enough of it now, all this bloody hero worship of the mighty chilli. I really can't fathom out what it is all about because despite the plethora of chilli products available on the supermarket shelves, the myriad of dishes on the menus in every restaurant from Thai to Tunisian, trendy to passe, fusion to con fusion, I really have no idea what chilli tastes like. Normally you can judge these off centre tastes by deciding whether they taste like chicken or not, which seems to be the universal tasting standard but chilli definitely does not taste like chicken. In fact I'm not sure what you're supposed to taste apart from pain.
You see, on our tongues there is an abundance of pain receptors called vanilloid receptor 1 ( VR 1) which pick up the searing sensation of chilli peppers. Now note there were several very telling words in that sentence....." pain receptors "......." searing sensation ". Not once did I mention taste buds or taste receptors . By the way VR 1's are also situated in other parts of our bodies where you definitely will not find taste buds. If you've ever worked with chillis and forgotten to wash your hands before rubbing your eyes or going to the toilet you'll have experienced what I'm talking about. It's the capsaicin, the pungent ingredient found in chilli peppers which activates VR 1.
They've infiltrated every cuisine from Asian to Eastern, from Mexican to Italian, African to Andalusian. You'll find them in curries and casseroles, sauces and salsas, pastas and sausages, achars, chutneys, relishes, marinades, dressings and even bloody chocolate and what are the magic words used in every recipe " add chilli to taste " ! How the hell can you add chilli to taste, it doesn't have any bloody taste ! It burns. Well it adds a hot taste they say, but there is no such thing as a hot taste......... salt, sour, bitter, sweet and even umami but no hot ! Sure it adds zest, yes maybe a bit of excitement and of course it provides a kick but taste is not something that it adds. So let's put the bloody pepper back in it's place by recognising it as a pain provider not a flavour.

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