Adam Balic

Depends on marinade. If you use ginger or pawpaw you get "tenderised" meat. They is full of proteinases. Actually a really good way of ruining meat, add fresh ginger and leave it for a few hours - mushy. The best way to really ruin meat is to add the ginger to ground/minced meat and leave for a few hours- extra mushy. No sure about this little penetration after extremely long soaking, I mean the salt in brine solution penetrates does it not? Is osmosis an active process whereas acid penetration of meat not? I guess you wouldn't marinate for as long as you brine mostly, but what about if you combine brineing with marination? For a work function we once marinated/brined a whole pig for about three days, that meat was very tendere, but was it due to the brine, the cooking process (spit-roast) or the marinade (contained ginger)?

Clove taste v. subtle. What cut of meat did you use? I used a topside roast (it was in the freezer) and it went a bit mushy for my taste after two hours! I prefer brisket, but many people don't like the fattiness of the cut. Silverside? Chinese celery sounds good (had to look it up), sounds like European celery when it was a herb, not a veggie.

Teeheheh. . No silly (you is thinking of Russian slavs) it is red wine, red wine vinegar, celeriac, carrot, leek, molto garlic cloves, bay leaves all-spice and cloves. Don't think you would like it (although the spice is subtle). Looks quite and old recipe from the ingredients, although exant in much of the Balkans still apparently.

Beef pot roasted in the Style of the Balkans.

Balkan pot-roasted beef. Steamed fingerling potatos Vichy carrots petit pois

Oh, just interested in the use of spices in cooking and if it is common to most cultures at some point or if it is specific to a given culture. What dat? Grapefruit? Bleack! Oh I see, no I wasn't having a go at you for not liking "spice".

Jinmyo (or whoever else may know) - is there much spice used in Japanese cooking, either historically or in extant cooking?

No really it cured the hangover. It's magic I tell's ya. Had no food in the house really, that the Devil and the fact I have been reading medieval recipes all day made me do it. The only other thing I had in the house and didn't use was a sachet of cuttlefish ink. Should have just eaten that instead.

Hehehehe . Made worst meal ever last night. Felt very ill yesterday (well hungover anyhow), so lost all sense of what is right in the world. Made following sauce for pasta: Fried off onions in EVOO + Pancetta, anchovies and fennel seeds. Added pinch of cloves, chillie and cinnamon. Added blood orange juice and fresh tomatos. Reduced and added pasta and cubed buffalo Mozarella. Guess how it tasted . Cured hangove though.

Lyle - OK, I have spoken to my people about cooking Elk/Red deer. First make sure that all the silvery sinew (my friend calls it "Knicker elastic" is removed from the meat surface, this will contract in cooking and spoil the look of the meat and cooking of the meat. As FG said rareish medium rare is best, unless you like eating rubber! A really good sauce is the following from Francatelli (Queen Victoria's Chef). 2 Tablespoons of port wine 200 gm redcurrant jelly small stick of cinnamon, broken but not too small unless you like grit. Use cinnamon, not cassia Thiny pared rind of a lemon or orange (no pith!!) Mix, heat, simmer for five minutes. Strain. Enjoy. This is a great base sauce. You can add cream or meat juices or orange juice or cherries or juniper berries etc. If cooking large joints buy a good meat thermometre - saves many tears. Thinly sliced rare roasted venison is rather nice in Thai salad or in Nori rolls.

Not so much sampling, as a celebration thing. My brother-in-law puts oil on the bread until later in the year when he concludes that it isn't goo enough for the bread any more. Dukkah is fun, but New oil is even better.

I like Ziti pasticchio too! Especially, the Sicillian sardine and fennel version, Yum!

I didn't know this was an American thing. When the New olive oil arrives/is produced in Chianti the Italians I know sit around a shallow bowl of the oil dip their bread in and sprinkle salt on top. They also pour the oil over a lot of other thinks, like steak, bean/chickpeas or fish, so I can't see them having in problem with bread. Obviously, Italy is a diverse country so who knows? Will extra special oil - just bread and salt or pasta. Second grade stuff gets used on almost every food item in our home.

English mustard.

Linguine with ricotta/leek/pancetta and peas Spagetti with Good olive oil and salt Rigatoni with Good ragu (pork/beef) Papadelle with game (wild boar/duck/hare) sauce Penne etc with tomato, Italian sausage and fennel seeds. Linguine with cockles, chorizo and broad beans

Lyle - will look at some recipes for you tonight and post tomorow. It is wild game not farmed? This makes a diffrence. If it is wild the quality of the meat varies widely from beast to beast, sometimes it doesn't work out so well. For example that fat content of the meat can vary depending on sex of time of the year. I try not to eat venison from males in rut, as it smells/tastes quite strong. One tip though, that fat in deer congeals very quickly so you must serve it quite hot. This isn't a problem with most cuts, which are pretty lean, but if you are serving a haunch etc you have to look out for it. The flavour is great, gamey, but not overly so, quite a sweet meat so if goes well with a number of diffrent styles of cooking. Ground venison makes great burgers if you put in a sauce like thai sweet chillie sauce and something sharp to balance that. One thing that is nice to do is to thread cubes of meat onto a small skewer and put them into a jar of olive oil for two or three days. Then take them out and cook (gently fry) them for breakfast. Roast Venison: (The Cook and Housewife's Manual, Mrs Magaret Dods. 1826) "Season haunch by rubbing in well with mixed spices. Soak it for six hours in claret and a quarter-pint of the best vinegar or the fresh juice of three lemons; turn it frequently and baste with the liquor. Strain the liquor in which the venison was soaked; add to it fresh butter melted, and with this baste the haunch during the whole time of roasting. Fifteen minutes before the roast is drawn, baste with butter, and dredge lightly with flour to froth and brown it. For sauce.- Take contents of dripping pan, which will be very rich and highly flavoured, add half-pint of clear brown gravy, drawn from venison or full aged healthy mutton. Boil them together, skim, add teaspoon of walnut catsup and pour around the roast. Instead of catsup lemon juice or any of the flavoured vinegars congenial to venison, and to the taste of the gastronome, may advantageously be substituted."

Lyle - Where are you geographically? I assume that you are in North America? I ask because in Europe Elk (or Els) = US "Moose", while I think that in the US Elk = UK Red Deer. If we are talking about Red Deer/Elk then I can help you out (I am in Scotland and the damn things are in plague proportions). Can't help with Moose though.

Does it have to be a pasta sauce. You could make a panzanella with older bread or farro if you have it.

The major rise in allergies (gastrointestinal and respitory)of developed nations is a known fact. Plenty of hard data on this. Currently the Estonians are the favoured study group. They are a similar racial group to the Swedes, yet very low allergies compared to the Swedes. As Estonia has become more developed the incidence of allergies has risen. A popular theory is that it is linked to diet. Eat more femented foods. Having said that, some people confuse "Allergy" with " I hate that". An anaphalatic reaction is an allergic reaction.

Oh, I forgot, you can also have "Milk allergy", which is different to lactose intolerence. Tommy - remember the mouth is the one you talk out of - mostly.

No. It's mostly somewhere between your mouth and your ass.

Just some info of Lactose intolerence. Lactase is an enzyme in the small intestinal luminal (facing the food) membrane which breaks lactose (milk sugar) into monosaccharides for absorption. Lactase deficiency (fairly common) can cause some lactose to pass through small intestine unabsorbed, holding water in lumen (causing diarrhea) and feeding intestinal bacteria, most concentrated in large intestine (causing excess gas). And generally an upset tummy. As the lactase enzyme is on the small intestine gut cells, if you have an episode of tummy trouble, the enzyme gets shed along with the gut cells. While new gut cell appear very quickly, it can take some time to get back to normal levels of lactase, so in this period you will be lactose intolerent. As much are the symptoms are due to lactose being passing onto gut bacteria, I would think that one of the reasons why Europeans don't suffer as regularly as Americans is because the former eat (or did) more femented products (which contain bugs that break down lactose) and most likely have a very different gut flora, better able to cope with a diet high in lactose.

Oh, sorry. How about this. I went to a wine tasting in a winery in Western Australia, it was a bit of a bun-fight so glasses were being passed by people at the bar back to their parteners further back in the crowd. On very drunk Australian women would pass the wine back and shout out the name of the wine. She was so enthusiastic that her arms were pumping like pistons. As there was a limited amount of booze she was very keen to get every cut of the joint owed to her (she thought). Which is why she passed back a glass of water (from the staffs washing up) back to here loved one. "What's this luvvy? It's Bonza!" He said, "Thats the "Shabbliss" (Chablis) darl', it says 'ere that it is very dry and flinty? Giv'us a go", she replied. "Yeh, that's the best one all day! CAn we get a case?". Idiots. It was very funny though.

Why do you think I was asked to leave the priesthood? Well, there was that thing about offering Holy Communion with the eucharist on your outstretched tongue. That would have to be one big wafer. Or as my father in-law (Anglican priest) says "Big God" sized.

Thank His holy name, there is still hope for Simon yet! Anglican eh? Bells and Smells or Over-head projectors and guitars?