A random thread for food things that don't really warrant a thread of their own

[Cudzoziemiec]

Food Technology is what they call it nowadays.

[ian]

...

Cooking decent food from scratch is harder if you are poor, don't have access to good shops, low on time, low on energy etc. Home Economics (or we could call it food prep like it should be) at school could be SO much better at teaching people basic useful skills rather than wanky nonsense which doesn't apply to the real world.

This is often said but I think only really becomes true in the repetition. Yes, it applies to a minority, but the majority of people who have poor diets and make poor meal choices, do have access to fully stocked supermarkets and time (as a society we have more leisure time than any previous generation). To be quite honest, they could cook a perfectly nutritious meal, they simply aren't doing so, for other reasons.

I think a lot is down to education, cooking isn't a skill that seems to be taught. It should be difficult to chop up some veg, put something in the oven, or heat a pan of water. And that's all it is. Also, I suppose motivation. We don't seem to value food. You can see it in supermarket offers – BOGOF on something cheap and nasty, but hey, there's more of it. It becomes something to be shovelled inside, an interruption to watching Celebrity Embarrassing Rash or updating Facebook.

And then a media that makes cooking some ineffably complex and middle-class task. Recipes that demand organic, locally sourced sumac and eight hours of your time. Then advertising, advertising, advertising, of course. Which is all junk. Ironically, it's not even cheap.

The thing it's never about, strangely enough as it is we came in, is calories.

[barakta]

I can certainly agree with attitudes towards food and cheap crappy over-caloried food is cheaper and more prominently advertised than healthier food.

Leisure time is hard to measure cos traditionally women were expected not to work but to keep house and that included cooking food whereas now people are commuting longer journeys/times than ever and most households don't have a person who is home "all day" doing housework and cooking cos they're working/commuting too. Those who can work from home have a minority still.

I like a lot of Jack Monroe's work cos they both recognise the challenges for people around poverty, access to cooking materials, impairment and have good, helpful, non-judgey ideas for overcoming them to make interesting food and that it's something you can learn to get better at, bodge where necessary and enjoy. I would like to see more of Jack's work.

[ElyDave]

I agree entirely, education is at the root of it, but there is also the preponderance of the meat culture. People would rather eat cheap meat than less but better quality, or replace it with veg protein.

I ate lots of beans and lentils as a student, and still snack on nuts.

[ian]

I don't watch TV advertising, but I feel sure from what I see advertised elsewhere that they don't advertise much fruit and veg. That's a problem (not that I expect them to advertise turnips, but they only advertise junk). Also that we've let the supermarkets win and deplete the high street – so rather than a greengrocer we have yet another kebab shop. The food industry has a huge lobby, of course, and they're not in it to help consumers.

I'm not convinced time is really an issue. Making a bowl of pasta is a 10-minute affair. The women in my family have always worked – admittedly they were terrible cooks, but that's a reflection on British culinary tradition. I didn't even see pasta or try pizza until I went to university. Olive oil was for cleaning the ears of truculent children (my mother still makes a 'eugh' noise when she sees it added to food).

People really don't seem to know what to do with food, don't have the confidence to make a meal, seem to think it has to a be complicated thing with hundreds of ingredients and expensive equipment. Anyway, my roundabout point is that making food even weirder and more complicated by focusing on calories or the fad-of-the-moment feeds into this. If we were eating properly we wouldn't have to count calories (fairly pointless anyway, calories are by no means equal).

[citoyen]

And then a media that makes cooking some ineffably complex and middle-class task.

One of the contestants on Masterchef the other day made hot raspberry soufflé with cream cheese ice cream INSIDE THE FLIPPING SOUFFLÉ!

You’d have to be pretty damn cynical not to be impressed by that.

[Butterfly]

I'm not convinced time is really an issue. Making a bowl of pasta is a 10-minute affair. The women in my family have always worked – admittedly they were terrible cooks, but that's a reflection on British culinary tradition. I didn't even see pasta or try pizza until I went to university.

Pasta is only 10 minutes if you don't prepare any veg with it and serve it with sauce from a jar, which are generally high in salt and/or fat and fat. Admittedly, you can make enough in one go to make it quicker next time, IF you have a freezer, can afford the ingredients in one go AND have the time.

My mum made pizza, pasta and risotto in the 70s when no one else had heard of them. That's where the education and time together come in. She worked, but as a supply teacher, then part time so was generally home at 3.30.

[rafletcher]

I think the freezer is key. My wife doesn’t work, but nor does she cook. I work full time and do all the cooking. Some meals are simple grilled protein with veg. For pasta, I made a ton of tomato base - basically onion and garlic softened, then chopped toms piled into the saucepan and left to simmer for some hours then left to cool overnight. Blitzed, sieved and frozen the next day. It’ll also make soups, diluted 1:1 with stock - made from chicken bones and some veg in the pressure cooker.

I’ll make a “meat base”. Mince, onion, celery, carrot, grated courgette, peppers, tomatoes, etc. then us3 it for cottage pie, lasagne, chilli etc.

Food, as Ian says, has become complicated. I remember some of my childhood foods; steamed bacon and cabbage suet roll. Plate pie of mince with eggs and macaroni in it. Cauliflower cheese, macaroni cheese - the latter now a fashionable “side”. Stews, casseroles. And the Sunday roast stretched over 3 days. These are still practical if unfashionable things to make. Food as fuel.

[ian]

I'm not convinced time is really an issue. Making a bowl of pasta is a 10-minute affair. The women in my family have always worked – admittedly they were terrible cooks, but that's a reflection on British culinary tradition. I didn't even see pasta or try pizza until I went to university.

Pasta is only 10 minutes if you don't prepare any veg with it and serve it with sauce from a jar, which are generally high in salt and/or fat and fat. Admittedly, you can make enough in one go to make it quicker next time, IF you have a freezer, can afford the ingredients in one go AND have the time.

My mum made pizza, pasta and risotto in the 70s when no one else had heard of them. That's where the education and time together come in. She worked, but as a supply teacher, then part time so was generally home at 3.30.

There's an investment and time and effort if you want to cook. I rarely spend more than thirty minutes preparing and cooking of an evening (and I generally prepare one evening's meal at a time, I'm not that organized). It's time, in my view, well spent. There's no crime in cheating sometimes with pre-prepared stuff, just read the ingredients. I don't, for instance, buy anything with sugar in it unless it's something to which I'd add sugar if I were making it myself.

I made pasta with sautéed broccoli and pesto the other day. Under ten minutes and didn't even require a knife. Fill pan with cold salted water, bring to the boil, pull apart broccoli into smallish florets while a sauté pan heats. Add olive oil and once hot, the broccoli and a good pinch of salt. Add pasta to boiling water. Seven or so minutes later, take it off the heat, add the broccoli to the pasta, add a couple of tablespoons pesto from a jar and a ladle of pasta water, stir through and serve with grated parmesan on top. It's simple stuff, generally inexpensive, and really just takes a bit of time and confidence.

My mum made burnt fish fingers and a meat and potato pie that always seemed to be meat-free. If you were lucky you got a chunk of undissolved Bisto.

[Legs]

I made the gunk for tonight's conchiglie in the time it took for the pasta to cook; a little bacon and some diced chicken fried off; then a knob of butter, flour and milk to make a tasty white sauce.  A tiny bit of Cheddar at the end and there you have Andrew's favourite meal! 

[ElyDave]

Stir fried veg (peppers, shallots, courgettes, carrots, sprout greens) with ginger and chopped up Cauldron sausages (ran out of quorn chunks), for me and my son, with rice for him as well.  About 25 minutes start to finish.

Healthy, tasty, quick and easy.  Time spent being taught by parents, and being bothered to read cookbooks and play around rather than simply reach for a jar of sugar and salt with a few tomatoes thrown in.   

[ian]

I do wonder if a lot is down to basic confidence. People don't seem to know how long it takes things to cook, how to combine ingredients, etc. and generally aren't willing to take a chance. I never learned how to cook and I don't really follow recipes (I may read them for ideas, but I'm not a RTFM kinda guy). Sure, occasionally things don't entirely work out, stuff gets burned or overcooked, but it's rarely inedible. You pick up things along the way – I learned the other week that you can't replace the pancetta/bacon smokiness in bolognese sauce with smoked paprika (the result was edible, but I won't do that again, make a Spanish stew Mr idiot). I had to use Serbian moonshine in my beef stroganoff on Friday (the brandy having gone AWOL and I really should arrange my ingredients before I start cooking). Gave it a nice Slavic punch (tasting it neat is a literal punch, apparently it's either plum brandy or hydrazine). I fear the gin wouldn't have worked out quite the same so I drank that. Chef's prerogative.

[rafletcher]

I think you're right. And the more people don't learn to cook for themselves, the fewer there will be to teach in the future. And yet there are a multitude of simple recipes out there - I did one last night, from the BBC Good Food website. A "pilaf" using salmon and bulgur wheat, with added broccoli florets and peas. Adapted by me to add chopped parsley (which we manage to grow like a weed in the garden) and coriander leaf, because I like it. 30 minutes max. BUT it meant handling wet fish - and many shy away from that.

[ian]

TBH, my wife doesn't cook (never has, of course she doesn't need to – but if I'm not around, the microwave gets a workout). It'd a bit weird, because her mother is proper middle-class and cooks proper middle-class things and you'd have expected her to learn or at least pick up the sort of skills I didn't. My ninja cooking skills stretched to burning fish fingers and making instant mash. There's nothing my parents won't burn over overcook to the consistency of leather. They're terrified of anything being potentially undercooked. They're also terrified of any kind of seasoning that isn't salt, white pepper, or vinegar. My mother won't walk down the curry sauce aisle in the supermarket just in case, you know, there's an explosion. My father will happily eat factory-prepared food, but he won't eat food prepared in restaurants or anywhere else. Honestly, he won't even have a pub lunch because he thinks they might 'put garlic in it.' He doesn't actually know what garlic is.

This evening I'm going to make a hash. Boil some potatoes, while that's happening, fry some onion and pancetta and half some brussel sprouts. Decant the potatoes and let them dry, then add them to the pan, mush them up and add the sprouts. Cook through and occasionally stir until it's getting crispy and browned in places (a bit burnt doesn't matter). Then make a few holes in the hash and add some eggs and let them fry till cooked. Et voilà. Nothing sophisticated and again about 30 minutes. But again, there's some confidence involved in knowing when everything is cooked (ironically, it really can't go that wrong, overcooked potatoes are fine, and sprouts taste good with a bit of char).

[rafletcher]

Completed our annual cake bake last night, and adapted version of Delia's Rich Fruit Cake (we swap out currants for more mixed peel and glace cherries) which we use as Christmas cake. I'll start injecting it with Brandy this evening 

[Jakob W]

Referring to somewhere upthread, I came across 'registered nutritionist' again today and looked it up. As noted, nutritionist isn't a protected term (unlike dietician), but the 'registered' bit is that you're on the voluntary register of the association for nutrition, and they do require suitable qualifications (degree-level study of nutrition &c.). So hopefully less likely to be woo-merchants of the Gillian McKeith ilk...

[ElyDave]

tannin overload this evening, green tea and a glass of homebrew apple wine.

[hellymedic]

I'm getting various 'festive' menus emailed to me.

Somehow, burger and chips, however tarted up, do not strike me as itms I would welcome if I were dining out with a Big Gathering.

Turkey (or any other) roast + veg & trimmings seem a rarity nowadays.

I must be getting old(-fashioned)!

[hellymedic]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46369736

Shame it's only a week and seems aimed at family groups...

[Wowbagger]

I just told my dear wife that I'm killing Agrippa for my lunch.

[rafletcher]

I work for a Japanese company, and visitors from Tokyo often bring little treats, for instance what look like a 10cm long cylindrical Quaver in a variety of flavours.  Today's is a bag of seasoned pumpkin (I think) or possibly giant (as in 15mm long) sunflower seeds. Question is, does one eat the whole thing, husk and all (tasty but tough) or split the case and eat just the kernel (time consuming for not much result)?

[andyoxon]

Tis the season for work Xmas lunches. 20+ people, some not drinking, some drinking a lot at restaurant prices, some deliberately having main only etc.  Then comes the the single bill with murmurs of not dividing total by the number of people, accompanied by the inevitable and protracted dissection of who had what...

[hellymedic]

Brent Cyclists had its seasonal meal last night. One diner decided to pay what he had eaten. To be fair, he was the only one who had no starter.

The rest just decided to pay a suitable fraction of the remaining sum.

Thankfully.

12 diners and Big Bill gets messy!

Really could have done without big screen TV showing ManU vs Arsenal throughout.

I don't believe screens and dining mix!

[Kim]

Messy maths beats your entire socialisation budget being blown on a single meal by people who happen to be well-off enough not to care, thobut.   

The suitability of screens and eating depends very much what's on the screen and what you're eating.  I'm sure a ManU vs Arsenal match goes very well with a several of pints of Carling, for example...

[hellymedic]

Everyone else had one starter, one drink¹ and one main course. Prices were mostly similar though veggie options were cheaper than omnivorous.

Somebody might have had a second pint of Cobra...

... but we were dining, not footie gawping, you know, cloth napkins etc.

They only had a sweet mango Lassi, not the salty, which is a bit disappointing for a Asian cuisine place.