Adam Balic

Have very really enjoyed wine made with this grape, it can be a very high yielding vine the wines tend to reflect this. Until recently, the only Carignan that I have enjoyed has come from Sardinian and was an interesting country wine. However, recently there has been a wave of small producers in the Languedoc producing wines made with this grape variety from low yielding old vines (70 years+) and some of them are very interesting, particularly if they contain some Syrah or Grenache. Any thoughts on this varieties potential?

Oh, agreed it is a well made wine in general (although some of the 1970's vintages were really dogs), but I just don't like that style. I grew up drinking Penfold's Koonunga Hill at BBQ's and Grange as good as it is, still reminds me of Koonunga Hill. I prefer to drink wine with some age (when I can), but I just can't see how many of these new wines will last even five years as they seem to be designed to be drank very early. Many of these wines are also designed with the US market in general, so what gives?

A lot of top end Australia Shiraz seems to be heading in the direction of big juicy fruit, high acid and oak monsters and I don't really like this style at all. But Steve, I am curious because I really don't enjoy Grange for being this high octane style, so I am curious why you have a soft spot for it as it would seem to be the mother load of all these types of wine?

I think that tomatoes and wine are a bit of a non-starter. Must be the the acid I think. I have no problem eating wine with pizza, but beer is more refreshing, even when the pizza has no tomato base (which is what I mostly choose). Had an excellent pizza in Italy recently tiny little clams placed onto a pizza base which was sauced with nothing but new olive oil and garlic. Clams were alive and closed when the pizza went into the oven, but opened up unde the heat, spilling there juice on the pizza to mingle with the oil and garlic. Drank it with a nice Chianti.

Sweet Jesus and Mary, is that pasta, in Irish stew?!! (looks v. nice BTW).

Isn't Muffin the Mule illegal?

Which reminds me of something that I experienced years ago after meeting up with a young couple on a flight to Heathrow. We proceeded to share a car into London and since it was about four in the morning, London time, we all went for a cup of coffee. I literally did a spit-take when they ordered coffee and toasted "English muffins". The Muffin Man First Verse: Oh, do you know the muffin man, The muffin man, the muffin man, Oh, do you know the muffin man, That lives on Drury Lane? Second Verse: Oh, yes, I know the muffin man, The muffin man, the muffin man, Oh, yes, I know the muffin man, That lives on Drury Lane. Obviously, in the Brave New Wilfrid World it will have to be, "Do you know the English muffin man?"

No. That was Steve Plotnicki . Food at that period did change hughely though, in response to the changes occuring in society. Many spicing of food was seen as 'Catholic', so at this point many of the recipes lost many of the medieval flavours. This had been occuring for some time though, in response to the reformation process, but became more entrenched after Cromwell. Robert May's great cooking book of this period is based on many medieval concepts of cooking and stands out as being anachronistic for the period, but he comes from a background of cooking for aristo. Catholic families.

John - far point, but it was only a suggestion. I agree that it sounds incredible that this could occur, but it has happened before. If you have food culture that is only avalible to a tiny proportion of the population then it really only takes a small change in that particular society to result in the loss of that particular aspect of the food culture. The cultural revolution may have only lasted ten years, but its influence is obviously more far reaching then that. Can you imagine Mao saying "well chaps, the ten years is up and I think that we have made a jolly good show of mucking in with the peasants, does anybody here know of some decent food staff. A chef like the old Emp' had and maybe a boy to mix the drinks, one who knows not to put ice into the bloody scotch would be a good start". This is only a educated guess. I will look into it and start a thread on the Chinese board when I have the time. Thom - you really haven't heard about David Thompson's "Thai Cooking"? . Is joke, no?

Bug Botherer? Bit of harmless fun really. Will remove post if offened. Will have to remove this post too, or confusion will set in.

Well I guess we nipped that in the bud. Thank His holey name for that, Wilfrid was dangerously close to saying the following me thinks: "No I mean types who don't really have any experience with food and are jealous of people who do. What else can explain the behavior of someone vehemently arguing about something he hasn't a diddle of experience with. That's what I mean luvy." Yep, Wilfrid is real lucky really I pointed all this out.

You will of course note the use of the word "originally" in my post. I would dare hazard that in the early dawn of time when the Yorkshire Pudding was invented it wasn't called a Yorkshire pudding, especially in Yorkshire because that would be rather presumptious for the sons of the dales. Furthermore, I have a documented recipe from Scotland for Yorkshire pudding from a book published in the 1760's, however in this instance it was not called Yorkshire pudding, but "Batter Pudding to go under meat". You show me documentation of original use of "Yorkshire Pudding" in Yorkshire, by a native Yorshire-person and maybe I will remember the Searcher of the Little hidden truths of life Wilfrid of yore, not this Wilnicki hybrid being that is stalking the pages of this thread.

Simon - could be a BSE thing (OSE?) will ask butcher. Wilfrid - feet of clay dude, feet of clay.

Dungeness type crabs (big brown pie crust type crab yeh?) are about 20-25 cm across the shell here, so I use the smaller velvert crabs which are simliar to green or shore crabs.

Best end in Australia comes on the bone. No bone in UK?

Have been experimenting with fish soups/stews from around the Med. Only issue I have is in the fish varieties as making stew from one or two types of fish tends to make the stew taste too simple for my tastes. To all the various types I have been trying I used dover sole bones as a soup stock base, add cod, john dory or monk fish and gilthead bream. I have found that adding a small quartered crab improves the flavour, but I don't serve the crab itself. Like jaybee I like potatos in the stew as a thickener or I serve steamed small potatos along side for people to add themselves.

definitely appears to be the case... from About.com's article on the subject: So, it's like American style pizza v Italian style pizza? I presume that it wasn't originally called Irish stew in Ireland, so maybe the only authentic version is a foreign version? Not with tomatoes though.

Interesting, no mention of Best end of neck, which is the cut of meat I always associate with Irish stew.

thom - better late then never. Could it be that much of the high end, refined court cooking that you speak of was effectively wiped out on the mainland during the events of the Cultural Revolution? Certainly, many of the Chinese Aristos that re-settled in Taiwan seem to have taken a more refined (if you will) style of cooking with them and it is from Taiwan that many great Chinese chefs are trained. Similar to what happend to England when the French had their revolution, except they did have the luck to make an impact on the tastes of was was the most powerful Empire on the planet at the time.

One thing that I think is important with Irish Stew is that two types of potato are used. One a starchy type which breaks down over the long cooking period and in effect thickens the sauce and stops the large amount of fats from dominating the mouth feel. The second a waxy type that holds together and offers some interest to the stew in terms of texture. When I was on the west coast of Ireland, I had a good stew based on this idea, they used some type of local starchy potato that was very yellow fleshed, which gave a stew a golden yellow colour.

I usually use whipping cream in all my cooking unless jersey cream is called for or I think double would be more appropriate. Not Bailey's then?

Gavin, anybody that has had the pleasure of meeting you knows you are far from middle-age. All middle-age quips were squarely directed and Simon only (it's my birthday pressie to him, as this must be comming up soon from his comments).

No worries Andy. BTW, is it Irish cream that you use? I feel that this would be a bit rich for lamb.

I'm sorry Adam, you've lost me there. Before I defend my position on this, is there another thread I should look at first? Sorry mate, should have linked. From the "Keeping it Simple" or what happens to the middle-aged male thread.

Hmm cream and lamb. I don't think that Gav. would approve