Labelling liars: how
Australia food is hot property
‘These counterfeit products are found in the supply chain of
many companies and not only on the streets, as we assume."
One who learned the hard way was wagyu beef farmer David
Blackmore, whose beef takes pride of place on the menu of Neil Perry's Rockpool
restaurants and other high-end eateries across the globe.’
...and who is facing closure because of complaints that his
farm is a ‘feedlot’ which has led Neil Perry to start a campaign in his defence.
https://www.change.org/p/tell-our-mps-support-david-blackmore-s-right-to-farm?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=362004&alert_id=PqEthRgzzI_NbAUNKc4K%2FAOGNSOhqqnfG5XzwbYLdNpy%2F1cp3gYhlRGk%2FrGBG3CRyHnnETpvlyi
Most Australians now
Contestants on a Cooking Show
‘Social researcher Gabby Henderson said the way we cook at home had
changed as a result. “Most people now describe out loud how they are cooking
something, while they are cooking it, which is a great new development”.
...as two more of them are about to hit our screens L
Micreogravity veg
New Scientist 18 July 2015 reports:
‘On July 8, astronauts on the International Space Station began growing
their own romaine lettuce. If all goes well, by next month they’ll get to eat
some.’
...yeah, unless the lettuce eats them first! Haven’t these people ever
seen Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!!!
Rice’s gas problem
gets muted
More news from New Scientist, this time from 25 July:
‘It’s food for climate conscious consumers. A strain of rice has been
genetically modified to produce less methane. Rice agriculture is responsible
for between 7 and 17 per cent of human-induced mehtane emissons. Sugars
produced during photsynthesis leak into the soil via the roots, where they are
used up by methane-producing soil microrganisms. Chuanxin Sun from the Swedish
University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala and his colleagues have now
engineered rice that stores more sugar in its grains and stems. In a three-year
long trial, the rice grew well and led to drops in paddy field methane
emissions’
And here I thought the stench in the rice fields behind our house when I
was young was the windy farmers.
A Renaissance painting reveals how breeding changed watermelons
Thanks to Jacqui Newling for these two delightful and
informative links. No I did not pursue the link at the bottom of the painting
page to discover...well, you may like to do it and you can report to me what
the answer is.
On MSG and Chinese
Restaurant Syndrome
‘But the important thing to know is that, hundreds and hundreds of studies
later, there is no evidence that MSG causes the symptoms of Chinese Restaurant
Syndrome. This was an unfortunate episode that should teach us a lot about
carefully reading proposals of cause and effect between something we eat and
some effect that it might have.’
A timely article by Harold McGee and a fascinating story of the origins of
a food myth.
Frequent spicy meals
linked to human longevity
As the study, published in the BMJ on Tuesday, was observational, conclusions
could not be drawn about cause and effect but the team of international
authors, led by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences,
suggested that more research could lead to dietary advice being updated. Experts
warned that the study did not provide evidence to “prompt a change in diet”.
I somehow think this is a diet fad that won’t take off. That being said,
nice to know that my return to chili flakes on pasta and upping the ante on
chili ion my curries generally can now be passed of as a health intervention.
And look, I know I am in a losing battle, but can we please stop equating
‘spicy’ with chili-ed.
The day I ordered
pizza that ‘doesn’t exist’
‘As we eat them upstairs in my flat, I'm still unable to come to terms
with Emanuela's reaction. "I've ordered it a few times in various
pizzerias, and nobody's ever batted an eyelid!" I say defensively. I'm now
wondering if the waiters were simply being polite. Chicca - who's Sicilian -
says she can see my point, but thinks it would be wise if in future I ordered
margherita with garlic to avoid, I quote, "emotionally destabilising the
pizza-maker"
I can undestand the reaction of the pizzaiola in this article. My sister
in law, of Sicilian parentage, was ‘emotionally destabilised’ when someone at
the dinnner table put parmesan on her marinara pasta. I get emotionally
destabilised when someone puts yoghurt in a Sri Lankan goat curry I have
made. It’s not rational; it’s visceral;
I cannot but feel a little disregarded when it happens.
Russians despair at
food destruction as Moscow says it is having its desire effect
‘Tonnes of pork tossed into incinerators, truckloads of cheese bulldozed
into the ground, and an orchard’s worth of apples buried in a shallow grave.
The visuals ofRussia’s stepped-up fight against sanctioned foodstuffs have been dramatic, and left many Russians
wondering why so much is being destroyed in a country where millions of people
live below the poverty line.’
I can only hope that the undesired effect of this criminality is violent
revolution.
How colour coding
your fridge can stop your greens going to waste
‘To help households waste less food, first we need to understand exactly
why it happens. My research has identified three major contributing
factors: food location knowledge (where are items stored?), food supply
knowledge (what items are available?), and food literacy (how are items used
and how do we judge if they are still edible?).’
And you need to colour code your fridge to resolve this?!! Can you just
teach people to use their senses intelligently – LOOK where things are in the
fridge; SEE what you have and don’t buy
more; SMELL & TOUCH to test for freshness. Sheesh! But I suppose it’s
better than having fridgecam for chrissakes!
Brew do you think
you are? Why tea needs to copy coffee in order to survive
‘With its steely levers, clanking and hissing, the coffee machine hides
its secrets in a puff of magic steam. But any fool can make a tea.’
Fie! Making a good cup of tea is every bit as expert as making a skinny
flat soy latte with extra froth. I’ve drunk some perfectly awful tea in my
time. And then there was the marvellous chai strained through the filthiest
cloth imaginable outside a Ganesh temple somewhere in Rajasthan.
The secret life of
cheese
‘This peculiar cheese—known as caligù or su
callu, depending on whom you talk to—is one of Sardinia’s lesser-known but
more ubiquitous specialties. It’s also one of the most primal dairy products
you’ll encounter in the modern world. Upon killing a kid, a farmer simply takes
its milk-filled stomach, ties it off in a tight knot or sews it shut, perhaps
covers it in mesh to keep the flies off, then hangs it from the ceiling of a
cool, dark room. He then waits for a few months until the natural rennet within
curdles and hardens the milk into a thick, creamy cheese and desiccation
tightens the gut into a pungent, leathery rind.’
Wow, su callu AND casu marzu. I really really have to go to Sardinia.
Warning: this article has one perhaps very confronting image among its stunning
pics. And it’s a damn good read, too.
This article is one of three food stories in the latest ebulletins from
the Roads and Kingdom site, each well written and with fantastic pics. The other
two are:
Keep on bierockin in the free world, about what sounds like a triffic pastry
of the Volga Germans http://roadsandkingdoms.com/2015/keep-on-bierockin-in-the-free-world/?utm_source=R%26K+Insider&utm_campaign=ae2c43afd6-Newsletter_Aug_6_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fb0486b9d0-ae2c43afd6-93433477
Iranian comfort food which describes in dizzying detail the dish...dizi
(an obvious pun I could not pass by) http://roadsandkingdoms.com/2015/the-iranian-comfort-food/?utm_source=R%26K+Insider&utm_campaign=ae2c43afd6-Newsletter_Aug_6_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fb0486b9d0-ae2c43afd6-93433477
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