the food rant thread

[Wascally Weasel]

O cashews

You are so tasty and delicious

And turn the most mundane of dishes into a nut-studded feast

Why do you have to be produced by Vietnamese slaves held in abhorrent conditions?

Oh, they're not are they?

I was going to do my cashew nut pilaff for the church party next week 

Bugger.

They are the best of nuts.  I spect that the budget salted cashews wot I buy in Asda and similar places are potentially the worst then?

[Julian]

If they are from Vietnam then yes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_abuses_in_the_Vietnamese_cashew_industry

Apparently fair trade ones are okay, but fair trade should be a counsel of perfection, not a bare minimum standard

[Cudzoziemiec]

I always thought cashews came from Brazil, mostly. They're ubiquitous in India – don't know whether Indian cashew growers are any better. Hmm, apparently 65% of world cashew exports are from India: http://www.ibef.org/exports/cashew-industry-india.aspx though of course that site might be biased!

[madcow]

If it's India then low wages and shit working conditions are a given.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Indentured labour would be my specific concern.

[contango]

On the flip side, people over here get to be so unfeasibly fat I wonder when they decide to stop eating. Seeing people who are so morbidly obese they could lose half their body weight and still be morbidly obese is a serious eye opener.

Breakfast on Saturday in  a diner in Susanville CA.  Waitress directs bloke to a booth.  Bloke looks like two Johnny Vegases in the same clothes.  Bloke somehow squeezes himself 'twixt table and bench and sits gasping like a stranded fish before waitress returns with Brown Drink.  Asks if he can sit at counter instead.

I believe it. Back in the days when I was the wrong side of 20 stone I could visit the US and feel positively sylph-like. Here the "all you can eat" buffet seems a far more common feature than in the UK and there are few if any checks to alert people they are getting bigger. Back in the day when my 42-inch trousers got a little too snug it was a real struggle to find anything suitable in a 44-inch waist. Here if you've got a 56-inch waist you can still get a pair of shorts that would be verging on indecent if worn by someone with a 26-inch waist.

And then you see the people who are practically spherical who walk around fairs eating their own body weight in popcorn and ice cream.

[rafletcher]

I've just finished readin a book that was set in Boston. A "Friendly's Fribble" was mentioned. I googled it. A milkshake with 988 calories  .

[ian]

I had an ice cream a couple of weeks back in the US. I figured a single scoop in a cone was the least dangerous thing on the menu.

You've never seen such a titanic mass of ice cream balanced atop a cone that was handed to me. That was the smallest thing they had available. It was very nice but no one really needs that much ice cream.

[contango]

I had an ice cream a couple of weeks back in the US. I figured a single scoop in a cone was the least dangerous thing on the menu.

You've never seen such a titanic mass of ice cream balanced atop a cone that was handed to me. That was the smallest thing they had available. It was very nice but no one really needs that much ice cream.

The spherical folks who wobble around country fairs would beg to differ on that.

My local outlet offers sizes from small to large and a medium is enough to make me feel like I'm seriously pigging out. Then I go to the country fair and see the kind of ice cream that looks like it probably weighs more than I do, and then see the Spherical People wobbling around eating them with a similarly sized bag of popcorn in the other hand.

I know people can become very fat through reasons other than eating too much. I get it. But when people who are practically spherical are visibly eating such gargantuan portions of junk it's probably safe to conclude that at least part of the solution is in their hands.

[ian]

If you've ever wondered what Lady Liberty is holding aloft when you enter New York harbour, it's a scale model of the ice cream I ate.

A little Googling seems to indicate the the dubious winner of this contest of calorific armageddon seems to be the Cold Stone Creamery's PB&C milkshake which packs an almighty 2,010 calories, 153 grams of sugar, and 68-bacon strips worth of saturated fat in a convenient drinkable format so you don't have to waste any calories chewing.

Before we chastise our American cousins too much, I wade through the detritus left by the daily ebb and flow of children to the local school and that's exclusively fizzy drinks, crisps, and chocolate. For breakfast. No worries though, our government stepped in a few weeks ago with its own childhood anti-obesity strategy which mostly seemed to be centred around ensuring a healthy supply of non-exec positions on food industry company boards.

[ian]

OK, now I'm angry. The sort of biting-heads-off angry that tyrannosaurs get when you ask how they get things out of the fridge with those little arms. And why am I angry?

Tacos. That's why.

I like tacos. I got them lined up for my final meal on death row (it's not clear what I'll be on death row for yet, but if it happens, I'm finishing my innings on tacos). Admittedly, it's been pointed out that I can eat tacos without having to be awaiting execution. Ordinary Monday nights are fine and a less drastic approach to taco consumption. No murdering required. Mind you, criminality has always been pretty optional for inclusion on US death row.

I'm a bit lazy too but there's always been an idea shortcut to taco-ry, and that's Discover (now Santa Maria, cos she's the patroness saint of tacos) Taco Seasoning Mix. Really, chop up some animal part, add packet, sizzle, and you've got a very good and faff-free taco filling.

So, last night, I'm fomenting a taco salad, a unrighteous and riotous concoction of rice, sweetcorn and cheese with a passing acquaintance to salad (there's lettuce, tomato, peppers, cucumber and avocado – oh and some more cheese and did I mention sour cream, and tortilla chips) of which the centrepiece is spicy taco chicken. So I open to the packet. I'm sure the magic powder inside is a different colour, no longer paprika red but now out-of-control industrial process orange. Glance at packet. Fateful words resolve: new improved recipe. Anyone familiar with the phrase 'new improved recipe' will know that while it may be 'new' it's never 'improved'.

And it wasn't. Instead of spicy chicken, I got gloopy sweet chicken, same as you get with El Paso nasty tacos. Bah. Now I have make my own seasoning or find an alternative. The horror, the horror. I know #firstworldproblem but damn them to Hell and back.

[mrcharly-YHT]

The last 6 posts can all be explained by the addiction of the USAinian food industry to putting corn fructose syrup in everything.

[ian]

It's a combination of ubiquitous sweetness, enormous portion sizes, and the relative cheapness of processed foods. And in poorer areas, the unavailability of alternatives. I have a hard time with the sweetness of US foods though. I remember my first loaf of US bread. Seriously, it was like eating a slice of bland, stodgy cake.

I'm not convinced by the HFCS-is-uniquely-nasty hypothesis, I think it's general overabundance of sugar in products. Sucrose is pretty much hydrolysed into much the same 1:1 glucose-fructose mix in the stomach. Of course, if something contains HFCS, it's a good flag that it's going to be processed n-th degree nastiness.

I won't have anything bad said about processed cheese food products though. Mmm, tasty, tasty cheese slices.

[TheLurker]

Mince* pies in my local co-op.
In September.
Not even bloody Halloween, never mind bonfire night.


*I.e. the sweet sort traditionally associated with Xmas; you know that pagan mid-winter bash co-opted by the Christians? Yeah that one. The one that's three effing months away. Not the sort filled with minced lamb (or mutton) known in these benighted and uncultured parts as "Scotch" pies.  Just so we're clear about it. Mince pies made from lumps of chopped up sheep (of whatever age) are OK all year round.

[hellymedic]

I think you will find most supermarkets are now selling mince pies. They're certainly on Sainsbury's website.

[Mr Larrington]

Mince pies made from lumps of chopped up sheep (of whatever age) are OK all year round.

As are the other sort

[citoyen]

And it wasn't. Instead of spicy chicken, I got gloopy sweet chicken, same as you get with El Paso nasty tacos. Bah. Now I have make my own seasoning or find an alternative. The horror, the horror. I know #firstworldproblem but damn them to Hell and back.

Oh FFS. I've always liked Discovery/Santa Maria Fajitas mix. If they've turned that into the same disgusting sweet gloop you get from El Paso I'll be very pissed off indeed.

[ian]

And it wasn't. Instead of spicy chicken, I got gloopy sweet chicken, same as you get with El Paso nasty tacos. Bah. Now I have make my own seasoning or find an alternative. The horror, the horror. I know #firstworldproblem but damn them to Hell and back.

Oh FFS. I've always liked Discovery/Santa Maria Fajitas mix. If they've turned that into the same disgusting sweet gloop you get from El Paso I'll be very pissed off indeed.

It's was sad evening (and a disappointing taco salad), but the taco mix is completely reformulated and, for a bonus, they've added some sugar because that's what we all need a bit more of. I have one packet of old formulation left so I will attempt to replicate with my spice collection. It was quite unusual in the fact that it was actually just powdered spice without the usual fillers and bulking agents.

I see that the fajita mix also has the dreaded 'new improved recipe' printed on the packet. For some reason it's now made in Sweden, not exactly the centre of Tex-Mex food like, erm, Milton Keynes was.

[citoyen]

 

[ElyDave]

whereas the only manufactured elements of my dinner tonight were Thai curry paste and quorn chunks.  Very tasty it was too with various veg 

[Basil]

No.  That is not a baguette.  That is British bread, and the cheap, nasty version there of, in a baguette shape.   

File with Not a Pie.

[citoyen]

whereas the only manufactured elements of my dinner tonight were Thai curry paste and quorn chunks.  Very tasty it was too with various veg 

Unlike fajita spice mix, Thai curry paste is something I make myself. I found a really good recipe on the BBC food website that's very quick and easy to knock up - and gives you enough paste for 3-4 dinners.
 
If the Santa Maria stuff really is as bad as El Paso now, I shall have to resort to making that myself as well. Oh well, probably for the best in the long run.

[Mr Larrington]

They ran out of sausages (or rather the pale USAnian facsimiles of same) at breakfast just now.  I shall write a Stern Letter to Nice Mr Obambi before he's out on his ear.

[TheLurker]

They ran out of sausages (or rather the pale USAnian facsimiles of same) at breakfast just now.  I shall write a Stern Letter to Nice Mr Obambi before he's out on his ear.

Any man who contends that it is not an heretical act to eat Xmas mince pies at times other than in their due season (which being late December until very early January - mid Jan at a push if the dearly beloved has over-catered) deserves all the victual and gastronomic related distress that shall be his lot. Yea, verily here endeth the lesson.  Vengeance is mine saith the Lord. ect ect ect

[Mr Larrington]

Look, I had a five hour drive ahead of me followed by the double horror of O'Hare airport and airline food.  Anything to stoke up for the famine ahead