Curcumin, the active ingredient in turmeric, also has been
shown to have wide reaching positive impacts on brain functioning. It causes
mild stress to brain cells triggering the production of antioxidant enzymes
that hold down free radicals and the accumulation of toxic proteins. Some
animal studies also suggest that it may reduce damage from strokes and could
help alleviate depression and anxiety (Mattson, Mark What Doesn't Kill You...Scientific
American, July 2015). I love that Big Science every now and then finds that
old wives or indeed old ayurvedic's tales have some truth in them.
But enough schadenfreude...this week’s pic comes courtesy of
Martin Boetz new venture in bringing his Portland farm produce to the Inner
West, the frontiers of the IW at that...St Peters! Between this and the Addison
Road Markets and popping up the road to see what’s on the quick sale trays at
Arcella Fresh up the street I am one very happy urban foodista.
Fork to Fork
Ta to Helen Campbell for directing my attention to this. It
will be interesting to see it working.
‘Fork to Fork is a project that aims to provide an
online marketplace for the sale
of Tasmanian food. The project is run by Sprout Tasmania. Sprout Tasmania is a not for profit organisation dedicated to supporting local food producers who would like to get their ideas in the ground, growing and to market’
of Tasmanian food. The project is run by Sprout Tasmania. Sprout Tasmania is a not for profit organisation dedicated to supporting local food producers who would like to get their ideas in the ground, growing and to market’
Green is the new black:
the unstoppable rise of the healthy eating guru
‘The wellness blogger is, crucially, photogenic and young, which is why
“wellness” looks so much more desirable than it did a decade ago, when it wasGillian McKeith, say, telling us all to eat more fibre. Eat like me,
look like me, is the message. Typical photo poses include sitting on a beach
lounger in a bikini while drinking from a coconut, or reclining in a rustic
kitchen in skinny jeans, a cute porcelain bowl of vegetables in one hand. There
are differences, however: some bloggers endorse juice fasts, whereas others
scorn juice and compare its sugar content to Coca-Cola; some promote fasting,
others advise against. Such subjective disagreements are perhaps inevitable
among a profession in which no training is required.’
Depressing reading, the comments included.
Why does food taste
different on planes?
‘Taste buds and sense of
smell are the first things to go at 30,000 feet, says Russ Brown, director of
In-flight Dining & Retail at American Airlines. “Flavour is a combination
of both, and our perception of saltiness and sweetness drop when inside a
pressurised cabin. Everything that makes up the in-flight experience, it turns out,
affects how your food tastes. “Food and drink really do taste different in the
air compared to on the ground,” says Charles Spence, professor of experimental
psychology at Oxford University. “There are several reasons for this: lack of
humidity, lower air pressure, and the background noise.”
Also the attitude of the flight stewards has a really really big impact,
and who you are sitting next to and how gross it is that they ordered the nasi
goreng chicken...But seriously, some fascinating info in here about how being
inside a plane plays havoc with your senses generally.
Land of pork and honey
‘At Truck
De Luxe, you can while away the
hours on a patio that stretches into the street, tucking into a cold beer and a
soft pretzel with bacon jam, or its signature pancake tower, which is layered
with pulled pork and slathered with maple syrup. In the past five years, Israelis’
passion for pork has blown up, says one of the restaurant’s owners, Ori
Marmorstein. And since the pork industry is monopolized by only a few pig
farms, mostly in Israel’s northern Arab-Christian area, demand has made pork
prices skyrocket almost 100 percent, he says, with some cuts up to about $8 per
pound... But at the truck, the staff is quintessentially Tel Aviv:
beautiful, hedonistic, blasé, flirty young things who see good food and alcohol
not as moments of gratification, but as a way of life. Ignoring the country’s
loaded and increasingly depressing political scene is exactly the point, and
pork is a means to that escape.’
Okay, you all know I love pork, but why oh why does it have to come in a
pulled pork stack smothered in maple syrup. The point of an accompaniment to
pork for me is to balance its sweetness with something sour like in a classsic
Sri Lankan pork curry where goroka (aka gamboge) makes the fat the more
unctuous by its sharpness. Transgression and rebellion via food I applaud, but
can we do it with some discernment?
What? Too flippant?
Big Plates Are the
New Small Plates
‘At Provision No. 14, the Filipino-style fried suckling pork leg
arrives at the table on a silver platter with a large white-handled knife
stabbed in the middle. The upright serrated blade is the chef’s mic drop. It’s
the kind of gesture that dares you to question it.’
No, what it does is tell me that the chef is up himself, and the rest of
the article just confirms it.
The madness of
drinking bottled water shipped halfway around the world
‘Bottled water’s global boom is arguably driven by fear, firstly among
developing world consumers who worry about water quality from the tap, and
secondly among developed world consumers about the health impacts of sugary
drinks.’
It has been one of the most successful unnecessary campaigns in years, get
us to (a) drink more water per se and (b) drink bottled water. Such a frisson
still when to the inevitable questoin of do I want still or sparkling water I
answer ‘tap water’.
Curry on cooking:
how long will the UKs adopted national dish survive?
Salim’s restaurant, which he has owned for 15 years, is one of thousands
comprising the £3.6bn Indian restaurant industry in Britain. It is a
quirk of colonialism, globalisation, and modernisation that a curry has become
as synonymous with British culinary culture as fish and chips. But in
Conservative Britain – where the attitude toward migrants is becoming
increasingly and explicitly hostile – this culinary mainstay is in sharp decline not
due to lack of demand, but to a lack of skilled chefs.
Well, that’s it. The end of Empire and God Save the Queen and all who sail
in her. Look, if this means the end of crap Bangladeshi curry, rejoice all ye
say I.
Oh, all right, the article has some excellent points to make about the
nature of the labour market at this end of the food sector not only in the UK
but generally in Western economies and the abuse of labour arguments in
anti-immigration polemic and politics. Mind you there is also a thead of neo-imperialism
in all of this curry-national-dish-exploitation-of-former-colonial-serfs that
isn’t canvassed,
Thanks for another interesting collection - but no link for Green is the new Black?
ReplyDeleteI agree regarding pork - have never understand the whole bacon & maple syrup thing.