WebMink
Simon Phipps's personal commentary

Omnivore's 100 - Is Webmink An Omnivore?

This post relates to Very Good Taste » blog » The Omnivore’s Hundred. The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred list for me (with things I have eaten in bold and things I'd not eat crossed out):

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Labels: Food

posted at 9:28 PM (UK) | Comment? (1 so far) | links to this post | |

Fig Flambe

Turkish figs are back at the local supermarket and I've been cooking Fig Flambe again this weekend after a long break, I've been improving the recipe somewhat; here's what I'm doing now:

Webmink's Flambéed Figs

Ingredients:

• One fig per person (plus one extra per 4 people if they aren't huge figs)
• One rounded tablespoon of butter per person
• One heaped teaspoon of fragrant honey per person
  
• One teaspoon of balsamic vinegar per person
• One shot of spirits per person. I use 50/50 rum and brandy

Method:

1. Slice the figs into 2mm-ish slices. You can tell if they are fresh enough because you'll find they just squish to a mush if they are over-ripe.
2. In a large frying pan, melt the butter, stirring constantly. I keep the pan as hot as I can without it smoking.
   
3. Add the honey and stir until it melts and blends with the clarified butter
4. Add the balsamic vinegar.
5. Heat and stir until you have a hot, golden foam that is starting to thicken and darken at the pan edges.
6. Add the sliced figs and coat them all with the foaming syrup. Stir and coat for a minute or so.
   
7. Add the spirits in a single, fast pour to the centre of the pan so it hits the bottom of the pan and boils. If you now tilt the pan slightly, the alcohol vapour should ignite.
8. Serve at once with greek yogurt. We sweeten ours with a little honey and a dash of vanilla essence.

We've had this twice over the weekend and it's been very popular, and I have enjoyed the musky fragrance of honey and balsamic vinegar filling the air in the kitchen. Do let me know of improvements to the recipe.

Labels: Food

posted at 12:04 AM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Eat Less Meat, Save The Earth

I posted a link to this TED talk last week but I keep showing it to people here so I thought I'd actually post the video. Mark Bittman gives a short, inspiring talk on the imperative of changing our eating habits as a driver for both health and climate change. At home we're changing the way we shop and eat (largely as a result of Michael Pollan's books Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food) and this sums up the rationale and method nicely.

(If you see two grey bars above, click one of them to select a video player since your browser is able to offer both). The talk is also on the TED site.

Labels: Environment, Food

posted at 11:59 AM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

You are what you eat

I've been meaning to mention that I finished reading The Omnivore's Dilemma [UK] during December and really loved it. It had been jumping into view each time I went to a bookshop and I finally gave in during October.

It was a deliciously smooth read - even with my usual ADD I found it compelling. Michael Pollen digs into the American food system and finds that the mass-market food system has been ridiculously skewed by a policy decision made under the Nixon administration. Attempting to prevent the recurrence of a catastrophic price slump in the food system, the agriculture minister of the time created a price intervention system which controlled price without controlling supply. The result was the creation of eternally cheap corn, which has driven all American food production (and more) to artificially obsess on the stuff.

Pollen goes further though. He finds that the organic production sector has caught the same obsession and is mass-producing organic food in a manner increasingly resonant of the mass-market. Just as proprietary software companies want to steal the term "open source" because of its market power, so the food industry has already gamed the term "organic" and made sure they can use the term without adopting the lifestyle. I find Whole Foods Market a great place to shop, but this book was a real eye-opener to the consumer manipulation at work there.

Overall I'd say this was my book-of-the-year for 2007 and a must-read book. It has a strong US focus and speaks of a food system that doesn't yet exist in Europe (where EU intervention controls supply as well as price and has avoided the destructive corn system that's ruining American health). But it still explores the motivations and dynamics of our food and gives an important perspective as we sail into the future. It's already changed my health, not by being prescriptive but by helping me think.

Labels: Books, Food

posted at 11:57 PM (UK) | Comment? (1 so far) | links to this post | |