This Week's Compost

Waste free cafe to close over compost dispute

 

‘Melbourne's first zero-waste cafe will close its doors next week after a long-running stoush with the city's council over a compost bin. In a bitter end to the dispute, popular cafe Brothl was last month served with an eviction notice after it refused to pay the City of Melbourne more than $10,000 to store its composter outside.’

The idiocy of this boggles more than my mind. A Council with any vision would be looking at ways to bring in composters like this under Council’s insurance policies and spruiking this action when they did. 

 

http://bit.ly/1FZunNx

From Barbara Santich

Didn’t you have a posting about ‘Israeli’ food recently? Now they’re claiming shakshuka -

http://indaily.com.au/food-and-wine/2015/02/12/shakshuka-breakfast-eggs/

I have also recently read a terrific article in Gastronomica ‘Resistance is Fertile’ about two ventures in Palestine where food and drink are being used in overtly political ways. If I can work out how to scan it and put it somewhere on the interweb I will.

FlowHive

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_pj4cz2VJM

Custard tart fight: can the British version ever compete with Portugal’s pasties de nata

 

‘I’m in Lisbon listening to some live fado, the Portuguese folk music that expresses the sorrows and yearnings of ordinary people. Among these songs of love and loss is a hymn to the joys of Pastéis de Belém, the original version of the most traditional cake in Portugal, the pastel de nata, or custard tart. “Served with cinnamon or just as it is,” sings the lyricist Leonel Moura, “This beautiful delicacy has no equal in the world.”

 

http://bit.ly/1LduNya

 

So, natas are Portuguese, and there is apparently a British version which originated in East Anglia ‘as early as mediaeval times’. Whence then the Chinese egg tart, staple of yum cha?

 

‘ The egg tart eventually made its way to Hong Kong, where it was influenced by British custard tarts, which are a bit more glassy and smooth.’

 

http://bit.ly/1A8cZml

 

Which sounds right. Anyone got any further insights?

 

For safety’s sake make food labels say what companies already know

 

Okay, I am as much a critic of transglobal food chains as your average aussie monocultural farmer, but I dunno, this whole incident I reckon is being hijacked in xenophobic and faux protectionist ways. No amount of labelling of country of origin is going to ensure that somewhere sometime some quantity of a product is not going to have greebies that will cause some people to get sick.

 

http://bit.ly/1BCyNc8

 

Sandwich Mafia let’s alleged Subway blackmailer go free

 

‘The Supreme Court subsequently found Mr Singhal was responsible for creating and releasing the materials, ordering that he pay damages to the company. But Subway last week decided to drop its claim for compensation. Victoria Police has also confirmed that no formal complaint has been made against Mr Singhal for blackmail. A spokesman for Subway said the company was "satisfied" with the outcome of the court proceedings.’

Well I am NOT satisfied with the outcome. In the first instance, I have not been alerted to viewing any of the Youtube videos that apparently gave away the ‘secrets’ of Subways creations. In the second instance I am disappointed that the ‘Sandwich Mafia’ chose to take the matter through legal process rather than encasing the offender in a very large roll, smothering him in special sauce, and feeding him to the sharks – though maybe they knew that even the sharks might balk at dining on a Sub.

http://bit.ly/1EBaLO5

 

 

 

From Barbara Santich

 

Didn’t you have a posting about ‘Israeli’ food recently? Now they’re claiming shakshuka -

http://indaily.com.au/food-and-wine/2015/02/12/shakshuka-breakfast-eggs/

 

FlowHive

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_pj4cz2VJM

 

 

Paul van Reyk

253 Trafalgar St.

Petersham 2049

PO Box 221

Petersham 2049

Ph: 0419 435 418

Email: pvanreyk@optusnet.com.au

www.paulvanreyk.com.au

 

‘"You must never lose your beautiful sense of outraged injustice. alright? Keep it informed and challenge it, but never lose it."

 

First Dog on the Moon

 

This week's compost

Feedback: From Jacqui Newling on Juan Carlo Tomas’ article How to host the perfect Australia Day barbeque

I do love the idea of the Cape of Good Hope being the first fleet's 7-11! That'd be the fancier wine licensed one, with Batavia the nearest corner store. And Carlo's right when he said lamb was the first meat chosen to celebrate their arrival (claim) but it was Feb 7 by the time they'd got everyone unloaded, and the sheep, killed the night before for the officers dinner, was maggot infested by the time they were ready to eat it!

Fish was the first fresh food eaten by first fleeters as they arrived in Botany Bay (between Jan 18-20). And same in Port Jackson, by the scouting party at Camp Cove (Watsons Bay) on Jan 24...

 

But let's not get facts in the way of a very entertaining Oz Day piece - all good fun!

 

And I'm keen to see what the gourmet soldier makes of the Anzac biscuit in the WW1 campaign book. [Yet to order it Jacqui  - Paul]

 

Foodie Question

Some of us were talking the other day about the phrase ‘meat and three veg’ to describe typical Australian food of a certain era pejoratively.  The question was raised as to whence the term originated. We wondered if it was perhaps a marketing ploy to get consumers to buy some product that supposedly compared more favourably.

 

I found references as below to ‘meat and two veg’ in the context of British food.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/meat-and-two-veg

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/245600.html

 

But I can’t find an Australian reference  - the Macquarie was of no help.

 

Anyone out there got any ideas?

 

Fictitious Dishes: An Album of Literature's Most Memorable Meals

A nifty idea executed simply and well. The Kafka/Metamorphosis is a fave for a forager like me; the madeliene is inevitable but perfect for all that; and I would be more than happy to down Queequeg’s chowder.

 

http://bit.ly/1p0rjDm

 

Explore the science of flavour

“Freshness is a product attribute that is often linked to quality,” says Rachel, “so the fact that you can manipulate freshness by changing the sound a food makes is very interesting.”

 

But will anything make flaccid iceberg lettuce taste crisp?

 

http://bit.ly/1zYO5Wi

 

Tasty treat: How we showed fat to be the sixth taste.

‘Various researchers have since identified fatty acid receptors on taste cells as well as identifying the most likely cellular candidates. Even further evidence for a fat taste was the discovery of fat-sensitive neurons in the taste-processing region of the brain.’

 

Homer Simpson will be un-surprised....’Mmmmm...fat J ‘. Neato description on how to determine whether something can be considered a ‘taste’ along with the used-to-be-four-now-five tastes.  Interesting also the relationship between being able to taste fat and BMI.

 

http://bit.ly/1At4Zwt

 

The Katering Show

Wet rice never was as much fun to prepare.  J

 

http://bit.ly/1zSDKLl

 

 

Paul van Reyk

253 Trafalgar St.

Petersham 2049

PO Box 221

Petersham 2049

Ph: 0419 435 418

Email: pvanreyk@optusnet.com.au

www.paulvanreyk.com.au

 

‘"You must never lose your beautiful sense of outraged injustice. alright? Keep it informed and challenge it, but never lose it."

 

First Dog on the Moon

 

 

21 nations where people eat their national symbol

Ah yes, nothing like the smell of an urban myth grilling away on our spurious national day...

 

http://asiancorrespondent.com/17590/a-good-yarn-spoiled/

 

This posting is occasioned by our own Juan Carlo Tomas’ article How to host the perfect Australia day barbecue.

 

Food and battlefields

Alison Vincent sent to me the link below.

http://mobile.cookwithlove.com.au/wwi-cook-book.shtml

 

My first response was that it was gratuitously exploitative, cashing on the hundredth anniversary of WW1 and in particular on the fiasco of Gallipoli and that the male half of the authors is a serving officer in the Australian Army who has been on My Kitchen Rules. I went to the site and it all got a bit weirder. The couple who have written the book also are running Culinary Battlefield Tours about which they write:

‘An idea was hatched on a family trip to the Somme in 2010 to one day develop tours that would encompass both interests.  It was noticed that many couples travelling have differing interests, sometimes the men could spend hours looking at bullet holes and trenches and their partners would be just as happy enjoying the local cuisine.’ They have run one so far in Vietnam and report that ‘The guests loved it and we found the roles had sometimes reversed - with the men being the more interested in learning some cooking tips!’ Yes, yes, red rag to a anti-sexist bull.

 

Then Alison also sent me this link:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/making-scents-from-gallipoli-discovery-20111004-1v555.html

 

My first response to this one was gee, that’s interesting, and wow I wonder if it’s really true that the Indian continent eat chapattis. But then I thought, is this any less exploitative in its own way? It’s hardly a surprise to find a field kitchen on a battlefield is it? It’s pretty clear the release of the info is timed to coincide with the Anzac commemoration this year.  Does the jovial tone get excused because it’s a report of academic research? We are still talking about a bloody (and I use the term descriptively) horrific battle and here we are speculating on whether the soldiers about to be slaughtered could smell...what...kebabs?

 

Then Charmaine Obrien said that she knows someone doing a PhD using soldiers diaries to look at what influence being in other countries had on soldiers and their foodways – I think that’s right, Charmaine? My first response to this was gee that’s a piece of research I would really like to see, and that remains my response. I don’t have any feelings of antipathy to it. It raises no questions for me about exploitation. But then I have to wonder, is my response to it because again it is within an academic framework and that it’s not time linked to capitalise on the upcoming commemorations?

 

I am fascinated by my different degrees of comfort with these three approaches to food and battlefields. I have decided that I really ought to at least have a look at the cookbook before I judge too harshly.

 

I welcome others’ thoughts. When do cookbooks/culinary tours cross the line? Does anyone know of similar ventures in other countries? What makes one use of subject matter exploitative and another use of similar subject matter not exploitative/

 

The Language of Food. A linguist reads the menu

Phew! After that little venture into moral morasses, it’s lovely to be able to report that I found much pleasure in The Language of Food, Dan Jurafsky’s tracing of the evolution of specific food items and foodways through linguistic borrowings, generalisations and other more arcane philological pathways. There’s lovely stuff here for example in the chapter From Sikbaj via ceviche to fish and chips, yes, truly; or the travels of ketchup; and a chapter on Why Ice Cream and Crackers Have Different Names that had me trying out the placement of vowels in my mouth. Along the way there is also some gentle prodding for greater tolerance...and that’s not a bad thing either.

 

Its published by W. W. Norton & Company Inc, 2014.

 

Scientists have discovered a way to ‘unboil’ eggs – and it may be a life saver

“There are lots of cases of gummy proteins that you spend way too much time scraping off your test tubes, and you want some means of recovering that material,” says Gregory Weiss, professor of chemistry and molecular biology and biochemistry at the University of California Irvin.

 

Sounds like some of my jam efforts. Please please please do NOT tell the Heston Blumenthal’s of the world about this. I really do not want to have a deconstructed boiled egg as the new fad.

 

http://bit.ly/1EOJK86

 

Spam Art

 

How could I resist posting this. It’s Spam. It’s from Durango!! J

 

http://www.durangoherald.com/article/20150131/NEWS01/150139907/Making-Spam-art-

 

Paul van Reyk

253 Trafalgar St.

Petersham 2049

PO Box 221

Petersham 2049

Ph: 0419 435 418

Email: pvanreyk@optusnet.com.au

www.paulvanreyk.com.au

 

‘"You must never lose your beautiful sense of outraged injustice. alright? Keep it informed and challenge it, but never lose it."

 

First Dog on the Moon