Compost

Suddenly there are three upmarketed pub within ten minutes walk of me. Well, the pubs have been there all the time I have been here but in the past year each has gone through major makeovers to attract the increasingly younger, childed families now in the area, and young craft beer heads.

They have also all upped the ante on pub food but without going the whole gastropub route. The pic above if from West Village which used to be the White Cockatoo. It's called a Stockman's Board, and yes, it's a remodelled ploughman's lunch.

As Adelaide swelters, South Australian man cooks a steak in his Holden Monaro

Couldn’t resist kicking of this holiday Compost with this. John Newtown, does this finally meet your criteria for an Australian food invention J

http://bit.ly/1mc2Hha

The secret ingredient in Geoff Beattie’s rich dark fruit cake

‘Geoff looks up once more to that face in the portrait on his wall. “I believe she sees it,” he says. “I believe she sees everything we do in this house. She sees us here. She sees everything I make. She sees everything I do.” And his secret is here. For 24 years he’s been cooking for her. It’s always been her. And she deserves nothing less than perfection.’

Ta to John Newtown

http://bit.ly/1NKTH9X

Cry me a cocktail: the unpalatable rise of body food

‘Experimental food artistes Bompas and Parr are offering a workshop teaching London punters to concoct bitters containing real human tears. Music and candles will be provided to make participants sad or wistful – whatever it takes – and then the resulting tears will be blended with neutral alcohol and various herbs to create the perfect Christmas gift for an acquaintance you wish to frighten. ‘

Makes me wish Gay you had made those sausages out of her own blood.

http://bit.ly/1NKaCwK

Winemakers turn to wild fermentation

‘If wild ferments give so much better results, you might wonder why winemakers ever moved away from them. There are reasons. Pure yeast cultures were developed to make winemaking easier, with more predictable and consistent results. This was and still is the best way to mass-produce large volumes of inexpensive wines. Pure yeast cultures (just one strain of yeast conducts the entire fermentation) provide greater reliability than wild ferments (in which there could be hundreds of strains). Wild ferments can produce strange, even bizarre, aromas and flavours. It seems to make sense, though, that single-yeast ferments produce simpler wines.’

A mate of mine is brewing his own beer and making sourdoughs down in Vic and I wondered again about indigenous yeasts in Australia that must surely have got into early alcohol and bread making in Oz. I went on line and found this article. Does anyone out there know of any research that has been done on indigenous yeasts?

http://bit.ly/1M80etl

Remote Indigenous Gardens Network

‘RIG Network is a national, cross-sectoral networking, research and outreach initiative. We link people, projects and resources to support better practice and undertake projects to help build better local food production initiatives that can deliver social, health and economic benefits to remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.’

Don’t know if any of you follow this mob but it’s a great project.

http://www.remoteindigenousgardens.net/

Alimentum

‘Since 2005 Alimentum has been delighting readers with stories, essays, and poems that use food as a kind of must to inspire memory, ideas, humour, joy, melancholy and reflectoion.’

Barbara Santich put me on to this site. It’s a mixed bag with some quirky pages like the Jukebox (songs about food) and Recipe Poems. Nice to dip into.

http://www.alimentumjournal.com

Compost

Mazi Mas

John Newton and I had a terrific meal at the 5th Mazi Mas Sydneydinner. It's a team of four women who work with partner organisations to support women refugees and asylum seekers get experience and training in hospitality.

Our meal was a combo of Persian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan and was absolutely delicious with highlights for me being Ghormeh Sabzim a Persian stew of lamb and fenugreek leaves, Gow Maluwa, a Sri Lankan dish of cabbage sautéed in unroasted spices (mainly coriander) and fresh green chillies, and handmade squishy and crunchy gaz i.e. Persian nougat. Mind you, the Kachay Qeemay Kay Kabab's were also right up there with these, as was the Persian saffron ice cream which accompanied the nougat (both pictured above), and the Chicken Karahi and the Kashke Bademjan (roasted eggplant with walnut and whey).

It was great to chat with the women as they brought our courses to the table about the food, their experience in Mazi Mas and what their plans are - not all of which involved taking up commercial cooking as a career.

Check out their website mazimas.com.au

We plan on going again J

Food, Interrupted

‘The problem with food is we care too much. Take the example of Diane, a 48-year-old office manager who took part in a study of eating habits in 2010. She believed food was entirely about pleasure and imagination, a matter of “what I like and what I fancy,” she told an interviewer. She obsessed over the variables that might interfere with her enjoyment—as a gourmet might critique the texture of a sous vide chicken breast or frown at the seasoning of a broth. The temperature of her food was particularly important. Diane invited the researchers to a café nearby so they could see her navigate the menu, or rather navigate its dearth of appetizing options. When dinner was served, she ate rapidly but didn’t finish. She would only eat a cooked meal, she explained, when it was still piping hot. So Diane was a picky eater.’

I’m going to make a big call here and say that to call Diane ‘a picky eater’ and to suggest, as the content of this review does, that it was all to do with her food upbringing, is to leave serious questions of Diane’s mental health unexplored. I look forward to reading Bee Wilson’s new book ‘First Bite’ having enjoyed ‘Consider the Fork’, but I hope it is more substantial than this review suggests.

http://bit.ly/1TdNTJU

Gut Thinking

On the other hand, Diane may also be suffering from a particularly barren gut microbiome that is leading her to choose only foods her gut microbes want to eat.

‘But we now know the gut itself, and also the microbes inside it, manipulate what we crave, painting a much more complex picture of the forces that determine the way we see food.’

An excellent article that continues my fascination as life in and on Planet Paul. Chloe Lambert writing in New Scientist 21 November 2015.

I have a pdf copy of the article if you are interested.

In search of Ibn Battuta’s melon

From John Newton:

‘Paul – Aramco world is an online magazine published by the no doubt wicked Saudi Arabian crude oil company. Nevertheless the magazine is magnificent and this issue contains a wonderful story called Ibn Battuta's Melon. Not sure if it's possible to separate the story from the rest of the mag, but scroll down to it.’

Indeed a quite wonderful article on the search for said melon in places with too few vowels in their names. I so want to try qovun qoqi, dry rolled melon studded with black raisins. And all praise to the melon vendor woken at 3am to produce the most likely candidate...me, I’d have had some harsh words for the local who thought it important enough to wake me from a hard earned sleep to satisfy some crazed foodie’s craving for a melon, no matter how famous it was.

https://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/pdf/2015/201506/AramcoWorld_Nov-Dec_2015_USA.pdf

Chinese food and the joy of inauthentic cooking

‘While many of his professional peers may hope to “transport” their diners to some obscure corner of Asia, Talde writes, his food, inspired by taquerias, gyro shops, diners, burger spots, and Chinese takeout, “is meant to remind you that you’re home, in that strange and awesome country where we live.”

Thanks to Alison Vincent for directing me to this smile making poke in the eye of authenticity which as we know is a flawed and ultimately useless concept...we do, don’t we?  One of my fave lines in Shakespeare is from King Lear when Edmund declares ‘Now Gods, stand up for bastards’. I am happy to stand up  for bastard foods even when they go horribly wrong for out of them have come such treats in Sri Lankan cuisine as my dad’s lamb should smore and my mum’s Milo wattalappam J

http://bit.ly/1HjEfEo

A woman is making bread with yeast from her vagina and live blogging it

‘For most women, a bout of thrush usually results in a couple of days of insatiable itchiness and a trip to the chemist.But one woman, feminist blogger Zoe Stavri, rose to the occasion (as any good baker does) and used her excess yeast to, ah, make a loaf of bread. You know what they say? When life gives you thrush, make sourdough.’

I’m pretty sure that’s not what my women friends would say. I haven’t followed this story further; I kinda feel weirdly prurient though my interest is in hearing how the bread turns out [Sure, they say, and you used to read Playboy for Gore Vidal’s essays on US politics]. If anyone out there has been following it, I would be pleased to hear an update. There was some discussion along the lines of ‘yeasts ain’t yeasts, Sol’. Can anyone throw light on that question?

http://bit.ly/1kR3XWR

The myth of ‘easy cooking’

‘Food editors are, for the record, acutely aware that their (mostly female) readers want sophisticated meals but feel that the complex recipes offered by chefs are incompatible with their harried lifestyles. So, they make efforts to simplify and streamline, without ever admitting the one thing that cooks really need to hear: that real “easy” cooking, if that’s what you’re after, is far too simple to sustain a magazine and cookbook industry. It relies on foods that can be purchased at a single point of sale and involves a bare minimum of ingredients and a small repertoire of techniques. It leans heavily on things your mom taught you. There are no garnishes of thyme leaves in simple weeknight dinners, and no appetizer salads. Homemade breakfast smoothies are many things, but they are not an “easy” alternative to one of those squeezable yogurt things that you can eat with no hands in the car.’

http://theatln.tc/1N7r5aE

The argument isn’t new, but it’s wittily made. What interested me tho was that I read it at the same time as I read a critique of ‘smart’ homes  - those ones where fridges talk to you and so on – which argued quite cogently that homes are really being made ‘smarter’ for men as what domestic labour is left will still generally fall to women (in the heteronormative household, that is) - http://bit.ly/1lAWI50

Compost

Radish pods, yes, unlovely and something you won't see in Woolies or Coles but you will see when Hapi from Farm to Feast brings them to the Addison Road Markets - great to knock back as they are or strew them through a salad, stir fry or pasta.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/drinking-three-glasses-of-champagne-every-day-can-help-prevent-alzheimers-disease-a3109626.html

Follow This Simple Guide on How to be Gluten Intolerant

With apologies to all of you who are actually gluten intolerant.

http://bit.ly/1MO2S7Y

Recipes for Racism?: Kitchen Cabinet and the politics of food

‘“Food is something we all have in common,” Crabb said at the opening of her episode with Wong in 2012, but what it means to cook, share and consume food differs radically depending on who and where you are. Whatever Crabb and her white dinner date choose to put on the menu – steaks on the barbie for Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott, samosas for Scott Morrison or Chinese for Anthony Albanese and Chris Pyne – their performative consumption of those foods will affirm their identities as Australians, patriots of the rugged land of plenty and aficionados of all cultures, so long as those cultures are contained within consumable dishes.’‘

Crabbe’s show has come in for a round of criticism of late for its subjects. I’m not a fan of the show but also think some of the criticism is drawing a long bow. This piece interested me because of its food-as-cultural appropriation and, in this case, allegedly racism-washing angles. Again I think it draws a long bow but it does raise questions of at what point does eating ethnic become racism-washing?

When I posted it on Facebook, Juan Carlo’s comment was: ‘Brings to mind Pauline Hanson's great quote that she wasn't racist because she ate sweet and sour pork!’

http://bit.ly/1M8itSA

Will political change endanger Myanmar’s rich cuisine?

‘At least all these places are bringing something new to Myanmar, broadening culinary horizons. In a “coals to Newcastle” scenario, Rangoon Tea House provides a “sexier take” on Burmese cuisine, serving deconstructed mohinga, our national dish, for 10 times the price of elsewhere (to a soundtrack of jazz). Its owner has said that “Burmese restaurants in Myanmar lack refinement and restraint” and has even accused local cooks of putting “plastic in their fried food to make it crispier”.’

Can an SBS foodie program be far behind. L

http://bit.ly/1ktpzs9

Quiet Revolutions

‘It turns our farming was invented many times in many places and was rarely an instant success. In short, there was not agricultural revolution.’

An excellent article in New Scientist that broadens the definition of farming to include a wide range of practices by bands of hunter-gatherers who ‘tweaked’ their landscapes through burning,  small scale cropping of wild cereals and yams etc., as we know was part of indigenous practice in Aus.

I have scanned the article for anyone interested.

A Seismic Shift in How People Eat

‘For legacy food companies to have any hope of survival, they will have to make bold changes in their core product offerings. Companies will have to drastically cut sugar; process less; go local and organic; use more fruits, vegetables and other whole foods; and develop fresh offerings. General Mills needs to do more than just drop the artificial ingredients from Trix. It needs to drop after bad for its the sugar substantially, move to 100 percent whole grains, and increase ingredient diversity by expanding to other grains besides corn. Instead of throwing good money lagging frozen products, Nestlé, which is investing in a new $50 million frozen research and development facility, should introduce a range of healthy, fresh prepared meals for deli counters across the country.’

Sure, they will just find new ways to screw the consumer as they always have, shifting with demand while continuing to find ways to maximise profit – that’s what they are good at which is why the are ‘legacy’ food companies. Thanks to Sarah Benjamin for the link to this article.

http://nyti.ms/1PsOvN4

Move over meat: how the UK can diversify its protein consumption

‘One of the main challenges to diversifying diets in the UK is a lack of knowledge of how to prepare meals without meat, according to the report.’

Gosh, that’s a surprising statement J

http://bit.ly/1Sabk6j

The Battle of Olives

‘The legendary olive trees of Puglia produce some of the finest oil in the world...That’s why the spontaneous death of these trees, presumably by a foreign bacterium called Xylella fastidiosa feels like a black plague.’

A terrifc article by Barbi Latza Nadeau in Scientific American Nov 2015 which focuses on the clash between sceintific effort to identify causes and effective measures and growers mistrust in the face of radical proposed measures and their commercial and identity livelihood.

I have a scanned article for anyone interested.

Compost

Yes they really sold these in Melbourne for the AFL. No, my source didn't taste them so I cannot report.

Handfed

A delightful project I was thrilled to be involved in .

http://www.handfed.org/

Betty Crocker’s Absurd, Gorgeous, Atomic Age Creations

Consarn it!! The NY Times site won’t let me copy some of the many delightful bits of this article, so I can only recommend it as highly entertaining. And the embedded video is like the best of amuse bouches.

http://nyti.ms/1PbKY5C

Ripe and Ready: How ‘evil geniuses’ got us hooked on avocadoes

‘In one small fruit, you can see a glimpse of how the modern food industry works – year-round availability, improved retailing, the elevated status of so-called “superfoods”, the influence of social media and millions spent on marketing.’

In Sri Lanka you see avocadoes in abundance as you did back in my childhood days, except we never ate them as a salad veg or with dressing swimming around in the centre. I only ever knew avocadoes as avocado cream for dessert or as avocado juice. It’s been interesting on my food trips back to Sri Lanka watching guests’s responses to seeing avocado up there with orange, apple, and pinapple at the breakfast juice end, of fluffy whips of avocado sitting next to vanilla ice cream.

http://bit.ly/1RWs6W5

And then there was also this story.

http://bit.ly/1WxzxJN

Almond milk: Good for you - very bad for the planet

‘Alpro’s almond content is just 2% – the biggest ingredient is water, followed by sugar. Like most others, it also contains additives such as stabilisers and emulsifiers. The amount of sugar is less than the natural sugars found in cow’s milk, so it has fewer calories, but there is also less protein – 0.5g to the 3.5g you’ll get in the same amount of cow’s milk.’

(Sigh!) This is the more depressing stat in this article for me than the amount of water it takes to grown an almond. I would bet very few of those who have switched to almond milk bother to check out what it is they are consuming.

http://bit.ly/1LNWH7M

American Dude and His Mum Mock White People’s Hummus in a Surprisingly Likable Parody

This is a really dumb header for a very funny, very clever vid.

http://twentytwowords.com/arab-american-dude-and-his-mom-mock-white-peoples-hummus-in-a-surprisingly-likable-parody/

Michelle Bridges calls people who grow their own food 'freaks'

I had no idea who Michelle Bridges was and I have even less interest in knowing anything further about her.

http://bit.ly/1lbiA7e

Compost

This week has been one of those where the cacophony of confusion about what is or is not healthy to eat, what will or will not make you a supermodel, what will or will not make you the sexiest lover on earth – okay I made that one up – has driven me past drink. So, at the risk of offending someone somewhere, my choice for pic of the week goes to this clever food hack - well, I think it’s a food hack, or maybe it’s a bleeding heart hack, or maybe it;s a hack of a hack, it certainly is to me a heck of a hack.

It came via Facebook with this request with which I was happy to comply: Post this ribbon to support Fearmongering Awareness. And then, eat your damn bacon. It's not going to kill you that much faster than anything else.

Best Before?

‘The bottom line is that although aspects of today’s food production, processing and storage might make what we eat a bit less nutritious, they are also making foods more available and that is far more important’. (Chloe Lambert, New Scientist, 17 October 2015)

What level of nutritional decline is being spoken of here? The article cites a US survey of 43 crops which found a decline in six key nutrients since 1950: Vitamin C down 15%, Iron down 15%, Vitamin B@ down 38%, Calcium down 16%, protein down 6% and phosphorus down 9%. So a challenging conclusion to me that I am still grappling with and will need to consider along with research on whether in fact availability is leading to any increase in quantity to offset loss in nutritional content.

The article makes some other challenging statements, for example citing a 2012 study that found that in terms of minerals in vegies the difference between organis and inorganic is pretty small, and that frozen fruit and vegetables can be more nutritious than what’s on the shelf in the supermarket as they have ‘been in suspended animation from the point of harvest...Peas can lose half of their Vitamin C in the first 48 hours after harvesting, but if frozen within the 2 hours of picking they retain it’.

I have scanned a copy of the article for anyone interested.

And I would love to be linked to articles that make counter arguments.

Native rice may hold key to food future

‘Australian native rice may contain valuable genes that could help buffer the world's rice crop against the damage wrought by rising global temperatures.’

Harvesting the seeds for analysis and experimentation is apparently not without its risks – in this case crocs lurking in the flood plains where the wild rice grows, just waiting for a bit of Yummius botanicus humanus to drop by. Only in Australia, eh.

http://ab.co/1MZ5g0s

And there are other dangers than the crocs...

We need to stop Australia’s genetic heritage from being taken overseas

‘Most of Australia’s mineral heritage has been sold cheaply as unprocessed ore. Our international customers increase its value many-fold through innovative manufacturing. Then we buy it back. Should we follow the same path with our genetic heritage so that one day Australian farmers will be forced to buy from overseas agricultural companies new drought-tolerant crop varieties sporting Australian genes? Or should we build genetic IP in Australia for the sustainable benefit of Australians?

http://bit.ly/1GsA8pe

Hainan Chicken Rice in Singapore: A short history

‘The first chicken rice vendor was Mr Wong Yi Guan 王义元 who in the 1940s peddled his Hainanese chicken in the Hainanese enclave with two baskets slung on a bamboo pole across his shoulders. He later moved into a coffee shop along Purvis Street thus starting Singapore's first Hainanese chicken rice stall. Mr Wong's stall was known as "Commie Chicken 共產雞" and he had the nickname "Uncle Commie 共產叔".

Ta to John Newtown for pointing me to Johorkaki Singapore Food Travel Blog http://johorkaki.blogspot.com/ which boasts 260million+ views on Google. It’s mostly a review style blog from my quick look around, including of his foodied travels in other countries, like a food and wine tour group through the Swan Valley in WA.

Jean Duruz, I wonder if you know this blogger?

Porridge in the Panopticon

‘The lip-smacking ‘Devonshire Pie’ trailblazers the neglected combo of gooseberries and tripe – or ‘bleached stomach’, as the editors gloss it. ‘

Ta to Helen for the link to this review of Jeremy Bentham’s Prison Cooking. A collection of Utilitarian recipes. No, it’s not a joke, it really is by Bentham; recipes for use in his Panopticon, an experimental prison which failed, not however because of the food. The book is available from the Transcribe Bentham project.

The review is at http://bit.ly/1S5IDrs

Food Festivals Are Fundamentally Bad

“The last time charitable giving has been used so cynically and blatantly to excuse morally suspect behavior was the selling of indulgences by the Catholic Church — and that caused that Protestant Reformation.”

Another contribution from Helen. I haven’t been to any event in the Sydney festival in a very long time – can’t afford it, so I don’t know to what extent the critique here applies and would be interested in responses. Does any income generated go to charities? How heavy is it reliant on brand promotion, placement and sponsorship? I’m pretty sure it hasn’t ever boasted anything like: ‘"In seven years, we've served 33 tons of meat and enough beer to fill three average-sized swimming pools.", nor "more than 40 of America's best chefs, who travelled a combined 40,370 miles to participate in the event" which seems a stoopid figure to be spruiking even if it isn’t food but the chefs clocking up the miles here.

http://www.eater.com/2015/10/26/9611788/food-festivals-bad

Grafting fruit tree branches on city trees to grow free apples

‘The sterile, ornamental fruit trees of San Francisco will be returned to their “roots”, thanks to a group of urban agriculture activists known as the “Guerrilla Grafters”. The city’s barren population of apple, plum, and pear trees lining parks and street corners will begin to bear new life—and the fruit they produce will be free for all–if grafters get their way.”

Now this  kind of food hacking I can absolutley understand J I love how they only graft where people living or working near the trees agree to be stewards.

http://bit.ly/1PRQCtN

The Psychology of Overeating. Food and the culture of consumerism

‘This book investigates how developments in food science, branding and marketing have transformed Western diets and how the food industry employs psychology to trick us into eating more and more – and why we let them. The first book to introduce a clinical and existential psychology perspective into the field of food studies, this is key reading for students and researchers in food studies, psychology, health and nutrition and anyone wishing to learn more about the relationship between food and consumption. ‘

Thanks Colin for drawing my attention to this book and giving me a headache.

http://bloomsburycp3.codemantra.com/Marketing.aspx?ID=KimaCargill&ISBN=9781472581099&sts=b#21

The Archive of Eating

Thanks to Colinalso for this much less brain taxing link to a lovely article on the compendium of Barbara Ketcham Wheaton, which, frankly, puts all my half-hearted attempts at various indexings of recipes to shame. I do hope someday some library does put this wonderful resource on line.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/magazine/the-archive-of-eating.html

Food Paradoxes: Equity, Access and Excess

The 3^rd Australian Food, Society and Culture Network Workshop has called for papers.

This one day symposium examines contemporary politics and paradoxes of food in the context of equity, access and excess.  In a world where increasing poverty and disadvantage contribute to hunger and health disparities, we are seeing the systematic collection of surplus food that is re-circulated and distributed through local networks, food charity services and food banks.  At the same time social issues like obesity are interpreted as symptomatic of excess and a mismatch between biological and social environments, and over-consumption of readily accessible processed foods.  Equity, access and excess are thus nodes of complex cultural systems that contribute to current practices of how we eat and the everyday performances and representations of food politics.  This symposium invites papers that focus on the dynamics of food equity, access and excess from a variety of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives. The overall aim of the symposium is to open broad discussion that explores and potentially draws together the relationships between these paradoxes and politics. Postgraduate and early career researchers are especially welcome.

To submit a paper please send your abstract (250 words) and contact information to the Network Convenors – Associate Professor Teresa Davis (teresa.davis@sydney.edu.au) and Associate Professor Megan Warin (megan.warin@adelaide.edu.au) by November 30th 2015.

Compost

First some fun.

The pic above is from a stall in the Campo di fiori  where there were several of these quite entrancing bouquets mixing chilies with fruit and flowers.

And then there's this:
http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-recipes/dessert/a35046/spinning-cake-video/
 
Food and Words presents Magnus Nillson
‘Join Magnus Nilsson for an evening of food stories that provide a glimpse into the mind of this creative chef, his writing, the Nordic region, and the cycle of life at his restaurant Fäviken Magasinet in Sweden. In Australia to launch his latest book, The Nordic Cookbook (Phaidon Press), Magnus will recount his adventures and the making of the book, with Barbara Sweeney from Food & Words. The Nordic Cookbook draws on the history and culture of the region to present a guide to Nordic home cooking.’
Looking forward to this with great interest. Of the six chefs in the Netflix Chef’s Table series, he was one I particularly liked.
http://us5.campaign-archive2.com/?u=18379082669eb4fa2fd48f147&id=bde027b001&e=9b96885df3
 
Where are all the women chefs?
‘But today, in the food industry and in the restaurant industry, I think the male approach dominates and the female one is overlooked. In a lot of kitchens, food is treated as a problem to be solved, something to dominate—something that has to give up its secrets. Kitchens are turned into laboratories, filled with tools and weapons: vacuum packers, sous-vides, probes, and all the other stuff. Sometimes the instinctive part gets lost. It almost makes me weep to be told that to confit a duck leg in plastic underwater is just as good as to confit in duck fat. The loving, nurturing side of the trade, the instinctive side—and, I would say, the feminine side—is being forgotten.’

Nothing like kicking off a newsletter with a controversial proposition. I generally have a problem with gender essentialism so have problems with this article. I think of the many male chefs who don’t approach food as a to be solved and who also love and produce ‘ the food that women love: regional, instinctive cooking that is not being celebrated in the top-fifty lists’. And are there no women chefs who approach food as ‘something that has to give up its secrets’? I think there are way more structural and systemic and just plain mysogynist reasons for the absence of women chefs. Arnold herself points to one significant barrier: ‘Children, as we all know, take your world, your love, and, in my case, they took my food. It took quite a few years once I came away from looking after small children to find my courage again.
 
Anyone know examples where it is the male partner who takes on the responsibility of the children while the woman chef continues her career?
 
http://luckypeach.com/where-are-all-the-women-chefs/
 
This “Proudly Feminist” Restaurant Is Run Entirely By Asylum Seeker Women
‘There are nine asylum seekers running the show tonight. Helping the two lead chefs with food prep, making drinks, and providing service on the floor are women from countries all over the world, including Uganda, Rwanda, Iran, Burundi, Fiji and Nigeria. “One of the great things about this program is that they’re not just reproducing their own cuisines, everyone involved gets to learn the recipes from different cultures and backgrounds” Lloyd tells me.
 
Being a long time supporter of initiatives like this where food and hospitality provide opportunities for cross-cultural support I’ve signed up to get news of upcoming Mazi Mas events like the one described.  http://mazimas.com.au/
I will post notices of events via Compost and my FB page.
 
http://bzfd.it/1jn2s1b
 
Felafel Nation. Cuisine and the Making of National Identity in Israel. Yael Raviv
 ‘When people discuss food in Israel, their debates ask politically charged questions: Who has the right to falafel? Whose hummus is better? But Yael Raviv’s Falafel Nation moves beyond the simply territorial to divulge the role food plays in the Jewish nation. She ponders the power struggles, moral dilemmas, and religious and ideological affiliations of the different ethnic groups that make up the “Jewish State” and how they relate to the gastronomy of the region. How do we interpret the recent upsurge in the Israeli culinary scene—the transition from ideological asceticism to the current deluge of fine restaurants, gourmet stores, and related publications and media?’
 
I’ve been reading a few articles about the questions posed in this abstract of this book so I am very much looking forward to getting it as I am to reading this chapter John Newton sent me https://www.academia.edu/14992595/Jewish_Meals_in_Antiquity
 
Also planning on rocking up to the launch of Palestine Fair Trade Australia https://www.facebook.com/events/405694319620548/
 
And then there’s this http://bit.ly/1MAFVp5
 
The Surreal Thrill of Moscow Dining
‘Their dishes resembled edible Magritte canvases, like a branch covered with glistening red berries that turned out to be made of chicken liver. A mystery broth alternated sour black-currant-filled dumplings with foie-gras-filled sweeter ones. A quantity of bark was set aflame. One dish arrived atop a birch stump that was later opened to reveal another dish inside it. When my friend and I complimented their cooking, the Berzutskys pressed their hands to their hearts and nodded gravely, like opera singers at a curtain call. ​​‘
 
And in the local grocery store the shelves are empty and somewhere bulldozers are pushing mountains of imported cheapo canned goods into vast trenches in Siberia.
 
http://bit.ly/1VTCiEU
 
Pete Evans given award which recognises ‘quackery’
"Is Evans genuine? I don't know. Check out the lengthy disclaimer on his Facebook page to see how he protects himself from his own pronouncements. But he is certainly influential, and he has a wide following, so when he pushes something of highly dubious quality or scientific evidence, then it has to be a worry. It's all the quackery he promotes, some of it dangerous quackery."
 
Duck, Pete!

http://bit.ly/1XbMoOK
 
Foodhacking
 I read a pretty tiresome article about his in the latest ish of Gastronomica. The article describes it as:
‘Food hacker projects use open soource and participatory – but also artistic and performative- methods of research, prototyping, and work, which are close to the emergent field of interactive food design studies. [Hah! I bet you didn’t know THAT existed either!]...The results vary from very practical low-cost DIY remote irrigation systems for urban gardens, incubators for fermentation, food printers and other automatization and standardization solutions, to highly idiosyncratic projects around molecular gastronomy, experimental food items such as oylent, experimental dinners and various food hackathons exploring the sepculative futures of food and other niche iterests.’ Food Hackers: Political and Metphysical Gastronomes in the Hackerspaces. Deinsa Kera, Zack Denfield, and Catherine Kramer, Gastronomica, 15:2 Summer 2015.
 
The article describes a particular hack that left me unimpressed with its insularity and its need to have volumes of theory to authenticate it.
 
Here however are two things that I suppose are food hacks that I came soon after reading the article.
 
Lure Cafe
“The project does not criticise, foodies per se, but simply highlights food as one platform on which millenials have chosen to fulfil their needs for social belonging and validation”
 
Gulty as charged J Ta Colin Sherringham for the link.
 
http://luraprovidence.com/
 
Help Tony the Tiger
‘Last week, someone uploaded a YouTube commercial purporting to be a the first in a series of ten new Frosted Flakes ads to the account Tony Is Back! As their story goes, Tony The Tiger is trying to help the now-grown up kids who starred in his commercials 30 years ago. In the first video, Tony shows up to help an aging sex worker named Candy. It’s dark as hell.’
 
Warning, the content of the videos is confronting and may well strike you as either in bad taste or irresponsible or indeed reprehensible.
 
http://tonyisback.com/
 
Writing a Bad Review on TripAdvisor, Urban Spoon Could Land You  in Court
‘Law graduate Julian Tully was told last week by an Adelaide pizzeria owner he would face legal action if a review of his business which compared it to the plague, and provided “the worst service and experience”, was not removed from TripAdvisor by the end of the month..’
 
Who knew a pizzeria would bother worrying about what TripAdvisor would have to say.
  
http://bit.ly/1M6n5pf

Compost

Hi all, back post a successful food tour with a small group willing to investigate some of the more obscure areas of Sri Lankan foodways, like fresh coconut toddy straight out of the tappers pot or gal siambala, aka velvet tamarind, and braving the Negombo beach side fish market at squid gutting time. 

The pic this week is of saravita, a treat recalled from childhood; you put candied and coloured shreds of coconut together with all those spices and wrap them in a cone made from a betel leaf and chomp down on a burst of complex, peppery, sweet flavour. It's still sold on the street by men who carry the makings in a tray around their neck - like ushers used to with sweets and ice creams at the Saturday arvo flicks - alerting customers they are one their way by shaking a bangle of bells, You can add tobacco, but this seller wasn't into it and neither was I.

Hoping the February food and gardens tour comes off too. If you know anyone interested, they can check it out here http://www.rosstours.com/srilanka/

Meanwhile, back to scouring my inboxes for your degustation.

Five companies using waste products in surprising ways
‘Coffee shops offer used grounds as fertiliser to their customers, and coffee pulp from farms can be ground down to produce coffee flour, a new product which is high in anti-oxidants. In addition to this, a British design company has developed a way to create stunning furniture comprising 60% recycled coffee grounds, sold in many cases to the same offices and shops that they were sourced from. ‘
 
And you won’t believe what they are doing with tomatoes!
 
http://bit.ly/1KRPxRk
 
When ‘hand-crafted’ is really just crafty marketing
‘Artisan-posturing by industrial producers isn’t just a matter of regulatory transgressions. Industrial food giants who “craft-wash”, or use idioms of craft while trashing its essential values, are actively obscuring a set of political issues. Ethical consumers are often well-heeled, for sure, but their deep pockets attend to a deeper commitment to small enterprise, localism, fair trade, ethical supply chains, seasonal produce, farm animal welfare, workers’ freedoms and low environmental impact.’
 
Home-made, just like mum’s, made to a recipe not just a price, farm fresh...it was ever thus and ever will be as long as there is a buck to be made by gulling people.
 
http://bit.ly/1WeE9AY
 
Fish fingers turn 60: how Britain fell for not-very-fishy-sticks- of frozen protein
‘Why bother feeding your guilty habit by stealing fish fingers from your own kids’ plates when you can enjoy far superior examples everywhere, from Yorkshire’s award-winning Star at Harome, where they come with pea, lettuce and mint vinaigrette, to Glasgow’s Gandolfi Fish, which fries them in beef dripping before squidging them into a soft morning roll, or one of Mark Hix’s growing empire of restaurants, where they are apparently a bestseller, despite a distinctly adult-sized price tag (£17.95, mushy peas and chips thrown in).’
 
What was that I said above about (sea)gulling. Mind you, I wouldn't pass by a crisp fried fish finger with tartare sauce and an iceberg salad.
 
http://bit.ly/1FbWDhp
 
Feeding the troops: the emotional meaning of food in wartime
‘Food is central to ideas of national and cultural belonging, something that can be used to bolster wartime patriotism, but it also gives a pungent flavour to cultural difference. Food therefore also provides powerful imagery for propaganda, such as in a 1915 Australian newspaper report that equates German food with hatred and bloodlust: Blood sausage. Brain Sausage. Decaying cabbage pickled in vinegar … only a few of the cheery dishes in which the German rejoices, the delicacies upon which he feeds his hatred.”

It’s  no wonder the Barrossa Coookbook was not reprinted in the post WW1 years. And check out the triffic exhortation to saving bread to Stop the UBoats.

http://bit.ly/1KQ4fCc
 
£255 to eat in The Fat Duck? That’s indefensible
‘Football fans and music lovers have had to learn to tolerate the (emotionally contentious) corporate sponsorship of hallowed grounds and music venues, but restaurants have yet to exploit the naming rights and sponsorship deals that, for globally famous brands such as the Fat Duck, would surely be a productive revenue stream.’
 
Tina Turner pumping out Simply the Best? But of course the fat ducks of finance and industry will continue to eat there, that’s the point of this end of dining after all, to be immorally extravagant of other people’s money.
 
http://bit.ly/1ReVOWA
 
SBS will dish up its fourth free-to-air channel, dedicated to the food genre, later this year.
'The 24/7 channel will combine original SBS content with programs from around the world, sampling a wide-variety of tastes and cultures, in a bid to attract key demographics like women to the network.'
 
Because of course women will be hanging around the house 24/7 just wondering what to cook.
 
http://bit.ly/1LjeFkp