Food and Food History A la Carte
February is, apparently, Great American Pies Month. It may or may not surprise you to know that it appears to have been the brainchild of Crisco brand shortening.
But ignoring the brand behind the idea, the idea of a Great American Pie got me thinking. A ‘great’ pie would be a well-made, delicious pie no matter what the cultural origins. So what makes a pie an American Pie (movie notwithstanding).
After a very disruptive hacking of our previous website, we’re working hard to get a shiny new site up and running. We even managed to save some of our favourite posts – which we are restoring this week.
But hey, we can restore that stuff and keeping talking about our favourite things. Namely, what we eat & where, how we cook it, why we cook it that way. We can still be asking questions, seeking suggestions, making declarations (both grand and silly) and exploring food history, sharing ideas and recipes all while putting things right.
So, enjoy the classic posts we’re restoring and keep up with us in real time over on Facebook or Twitter (come on, no one calls it X do they?).
It’s getting to be that time of the year, everyone. You know what I mean – no, not holiday time. I mean, it IS holiday time and that’s grand and we can talk about all the food related to that if you like. But what I meant is, it’s almost the end of the year so we are starting to see the trend lists for next year appearing!
And like clockwork, Whole Foods Market has released its top 10 anticipated food trends for 2024. And my reactions, off the top of my head: Continue reading “First Signs of Food Trends for 2024”
Aug 29th is Lemon Juice Day so it seems the perfect time to reflect on the usefulness of this sunniest of citrus. Is there anything in the kitchen as useful as lemon juice? It’s a must for cooking – adding tons of flavor to so many dishes but it’s also great for cleaning and staying healthy.
First, a few of my favorite cooks tricks featuring lemon juice: Continue reading “Jumping for Juicy Joy – Happy Lemon Juice Day!”
Back in Tips for Better Baking, I mentioned that the first thing to do when baking was read the recipe – ingredients and method – all the way through so you weren’t taken by surprise mid-bake.
Have you been doing so? Yes? Excellent. You would make Mary Berry proud. You might even make Paul Hollywood proud but he wouldn’t let on since he’s been practicing his inscrutable face in preparation for the new series of Bake Off – which, did I mention is coming VERY SOON?
What’s that? You haven’t been reading through the recipes before starting? Well, OK. Let’s not mention that to Mary or Paul and see if we can’t come up with a “save” of sorts.
At the end of Better Baking Tips, we talked about what do when you have no buttermilk and how to make your own self-raising flour from the good old plain stuff. But there are all sorts of things you might find yourself running out of so here are a few more last minute ingredient saves. Continue reading “The Old Bake and Switch (Useful Swaps)”
