Gather ye rosebuds

I found a bottle of rosewater at the back of my cupboard and I've no idea how the hell it got there or if I bought it at some time in the far distant past in the expectation of doing something exciting with it. The level of the liquid has gone down a bit but I'm sure that's more due to evaporation than any consumption on my behalf. It's really turning into quite a puzzle as to why I was ever enticed into buying it in the first place - was I planning a special Moroccan or Middle Eastern meal ? Was it the secret ingredient in Hadji Beys Turkish Delight which I vaguely remember tackling once with limited success ?
Sadly I've never been tempted to experiment with the rosewater perhaps since on the odd occasions when I've tidied up the cupboard and sneaked an inquisitory sniff of the colourless liquid it has instantly brought to mind thoughts of cosmetic counters and aromatherapy. So I firmly replaced the top and stuck it away in the dark inner recesses to be revisited another day. But recently rosewater has undergone a little bit of a revival and so my bottle has now got pride of place at the very front of my glass cupboard where it can catch the eye of visitors as they peer at my battery of oils, seasonings, spices and cook's tricks. " Rosewater ? " they query " That's very unusual, what do you use that for ? " I look them straight in the eye and knowledgeably point out that right up until Victorian times rosewater was indispensable in British cookery, that it adds a fragrant element to a pawpaw and dill raita served with curry, that it makes an exquisite creme caramel or panna cotta and that all soft summer fruit compotes benefit from the judicious addition of a little rosewater. And then I turn around a little too quickly and guiltily promise myself that one of these days I will get around to trying some of these recipes.

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Sunday afternoon at the bioscope

Here's a classic restaurant sketch from the early days of Monty Python when a chance remark from a customer sets off a chain reaction of abject apologies. One thing we can say for certain is that this restaurant was definitely not fashioned on any in Cape Town. Most of them couldn't give a toss about giving you a dirty fork.
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I'm reading: Sunday afternoon at the bioscope

Dilly Diner of the Week

In a past life this week's Dilly Diner was the revered No 1 Courtroom in Marlborough Street Magistrates Courts in London, second only in importance to the Old Bailey. Within it's walls the famous and infamous argued their cases, this is where Charles Dickens spent long hours on hard wooden benches reporting on crime for the Morning Chronicle, where Napoleon lll was tried and where Oscar Wilde parried jibes with the Marquis of Queensberry. Today it is our Dilly Diner of the Week because it has been transformed into a fine dining room called Silk.
In the swinging sixties it proved handy in rounding up those who proved a tad too swinging for the establishment to tolerate. In 1970, John Lennon was charged for exhibiting pictures deemed too steamy for the London Art Gallery and the law did show Keith Richards some leniency in 1973 when he was fined R 2,500 for possessing marijuana, heroin, mandrax, a revolver and a shotgun.
Much of the original legal furniture has been incorporated into the design including the judge's bench, a witness stand and jury benches but the only things being handed down nowadays are jellied oysters and caviar or braised loin of veal with roasted root vegetables. Pre dinner drinks are served in the unique bar and it's novel use of three original Ladies Cells, now private booths complete with bunk bed and ice bucket for the chilled champagne, charmingly fashioned from the original Victorian lavatory.

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That Was The Week That Was

It was a bad week for foodies the world over as a new report released in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology took a pop at that hallowed anointment of TV chefs and foodies everywhere – EVOO. Tune in to any food channel and that grinning, arm waving, air punching host will be touting extra virgin olive oil. That want you to use it for everything from salad dressings to adding fat to the top of your soup. But it seems that it’s not quite the food hero that everyone thought it to be. The University of Maryland reported that olive oil was found to reduce blood flow in arteries by 31 percent after consumption. This is significant in relation to blood clots and heart attacks, as well as angina. It's suggested that people be aware of any relationship between consuming olive oil and an angina attack. Also, it was found that olive oil "causes significant damage" to the endothelial cells that line the inside of arteries. This damage causes inflammation which leads to atherosclerosis. Eat fried eggs I say.



On to an oil spill of a different nature. The Louisiana Seafood promotion and Marketing Board launched a road show this week t to improve the perception of the delicacies caught in Gulf waters following the deluge of potential contamination created by Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil leak. Their message is that Louisiana's seafood is not only tasty, but there is none anywhere that is tested more rigorously. They have a healthy budget of $30 million kindly provided by their arch villain BP



Meanwhile still on the subject of fish, the San Francisco Magazine reported this week what everyone already knew - it’s an unfortunate truth in the restaurant industry but it's incredibly difficult to source and serve truly "sustainable" seafood. There's little transparency in the supply chain, wholesalers are under pressure to meet client demands, and the public wants to have its fish and eat it, too. The result: even chefs with the best of intentions are serving up meals that rely on threatened fish species caught using ecologically damaging methods. No surprises there but I’m sure it couldn’t possibly be the case here in South Africa ……could it?

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A roo by any other name

It's not often that I feel any sort of sympathy for the Aussies, those with that bloody whining accent and a poorly performing rugby team but it seems they have a bit of a problem on their hands - just what do you call a dead kangaroo ? When they're alive it's no problem - Cyril, Skippy and other such terms of endearment all spring to mind but it just doesn't seem right to toss another Skippy on the barbie.
They want to farm more kangaroo meat but it seems chefs are very reluctant to put it on the menu as there is customer resistance to chomping on such a cuddly animal which may have been skipping around the bush a few days previous. So in a bid to make this hopping marsupial more appealing the Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia is running a competition to come up with a more palatable culinary name. " Roadkill " and " Yummy " are definite no no's but some early suggestions include marsu, marla and the Aboriginal wallagang.
I wish them the best of luck in their search for a catchier name and who knows maybe they'll pass on the ones they're not going to choose to us because we could also use a more consumer friendly description for Natal cane rat or something more snappy for crocodile !

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Waiter there’s a cow in my petrie dish

The mad scientists are poised to take over as the race is on to produce in-vitro meat. In-vitro? Learn the terminology cos’ that’s the stuff they grow in a lab instead of in a cow and could end up in your local Mr A’s sooner than you think. Now I know you’re thinking that it’s kinda weird and there’s no way any sane person would tolerate this process so it may surprise you to know that the bunny huggers are not only endorsing the concept but encouraging it. In fact PETA whom I’m sure you’ve heard of and sort of lumped in with planet savers, eco warriors, dragon slayers inter alia, have actually offered a $1 MILLION prize for the first scientist to produce marketable in-vitro meat. That’s as big a prize as for the winner of America’s Got Talent but I don’t think he gets a headline show in Vegas! Of course it’s all perfectly logical as one scientist explained both in terms of "future global food crises" and also space travel: "Further out, if we have interplanetary exploration, people will need to produce food in space and you can't take a cow with you." You can send a monkey but you can’t take a cow???? I’m confused.

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The man who changed the taste of a nation

Chicken Tikka is Britain's favourite dish and after a night at the pub more Brits head for the local curry house rather than to the fish n' chip shop - what it the world coming to ? Well strangely enough this behaviour is hardly surprising when you realise that, despite popular misconceptions about the taste for curry being a relatively new phenomenon, the British have been eating curry since the Napoleonic Wars and the pioneer was not a Bangladeshi refugee setting up shop 30 or 40 years ago in Soho but a well-to-do Indian entrepreneur who opened the first Indian restaurant in Marlybone, London, almost 200 years ago.
Sake Dean Mahomed was quite a character. Following service with the East India Company, he married Jane Daly, an Irishwoman, became the first Indian to write a book in English and opened the Hindoostane Coffee House in Marlybone, London. At the time Marlybone was a residential district for the well-off and hoping to cash in on the area's popularity with former merchants and seafarers who settled there after making fortunes on the subcontinent, Sake obviously was an early believer of Conrad Hilton's, yet to be espoused blueprint for business success, location....location....location.
Unfortunately for Sake he was a bit before his own and Conrad Hilton's time and although the food he produced was outstanding and was eagerly consumed by those who knew a good mulligatawny when they saw one, there was not yet a culture of eating out in London as everyone of the class that he was catering for, had servants who waited on them, hand and foot in the comfort of their own homes. It would be another 80 years before the " little chef from Nice ", Auguste Escoffier would come to London to open the Savoy Hotel and start the trend of sophisticated gentry going out to eat. In 1812 Sake was declared bankrupt.
Not in the slightest way disheartened by this setback he moved with Jane to Brighton in 1814 and opened another first, the first vapouring and shampooing baths offering Turkish steam baths and body massages and became so popular that he was appointed Shampooing Surgeon to King George IV and William IV. Obviously a good advertisement for his own services, Sake lived to the ripe old age of 102 and the tombstone marking his grave in St Nicholas' churchyard in Brighton simply says " Sake Dean Mahomed of Patna Hindoostan "
As far as curry restaurants were concerned, by 1939 there were still only 6 Indian restaurants in Britain, by 1982 there were 3,500 and by now there are over 8,500 in almost every small town in the country and reputedly there are more Indian chefs in London than in Delhi.

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