Adam Balic

I think that all European cusines have elements of sweetness in savoury dishes. With the historical dishes, you have to get away from the notion that people were using sugar simply because it was sweet. People are rarely simple, so prior to the big transition from sweet-sour to salt-sour one of the main reasons that people used sugar was status. Sugar was expensive and refining it took a lot of effort, so but using it in a conspicuously generous manner you were saying a lot more then "I have a sweet tooth". Getting back to modern cusines, while refined sugar may not be used much by home cooks, other forms of sweetness are very common. The prime sweetner I would guess is onions, but also carrots (putting too many carrots into a stew can make it sickly sweet) and other storage roots/bulbs, plus fruit (The people of Agen are grateful for this) and in some instances, honey. The problem with all of the above is that they have distinct flavours, so it isn't surprising that when a neutral flavoured sweetner is desired that people/chefs use sugar. Another issue is how recipes are written. There are certain dishes that I make all the time. Even though the main ingredients remain the same, I often have to season the dish differently from dish to dish. Maybe the bacon was more salty then usual, the carrots less sweet, the onions overly sweet. Who knows, but in part of the process of correcting the dish I might add a pinch of sugar, but I'm not sure that I would write this down in recipe form. I wonder how common this is?

Could you define what you mean by "gourmet" please? Do you mean North American's or everybody else? For instance I think that quite a few Italian home cooks use a pinch of sugar when needed to balance out tomato sauce.

Many flavour componants are fat soluble, Mcgee mentions that fatty acids in grass end up in in the fat and give beef a characteristic flavour. Which is why goose tastes similar to beef as they also graze on grass.

In the UK at least rendered beef fat is sold in most supermarkets and butchers as "dripping". This was literally drippings at one point, the liquid that fell from a roasting joint, so this included aqueous liquids as well. While you can still buy this at some butchers, the common form is rendered fat. It sits on the shelf next to the lard (rendered pork fat) and the sold vegetable fats. Tallow is rendered fat, but isn't a term usually associated with food consumption here.

Thank the French again I guess, they really were the drive behind a move from sweet-sour to salt-sour around the mid-1600's. Couple this with a clear seperation in savoury verses sweet courses and I guess that it is easy enough to see how what you describe developed. In the UK it took about 200 years to get this seperation of sweet and savoury, in transitional books you will have recipes for a "sweet chicken/lamb pie" and "savoury chicken/lamb pies", right at the end of this period some of the authors made comments like "many people do no like sweet pies now". Unless there was some serious evolution of English taste buds in this period, I think that sweet-sour v salt-sour preferences are largely a social function. Are you talking about refined sugar only? A large amount of refined sugar goes into savoury items (like hamburger buns for instance), so I guess there may be social reasons why middle-class gourmets don't tend to put refined sugar into savoury dishes. I tend to use sugar like salt in Western type dishes. If flavour isn't an issue then I might use a bitter honey like pine, but in other cases refined sugar. I guess it is about balance, like salt sugar balances bitter flavours, but mostly I use sugar in savoury dishes to balance out the salt.

As a fresh fish I think that cooking it in portions is maybe a better way to go, although I can understand that it more impressive to keep it together. Often it called poor mans cod, but as prefered over cod in many places (very North of England, Scotland), which have ready access to both species. For a fish that thick I really think that you are better of taking off the fillets and the flavour is dramatically improved by pre-salting. I'm pretty sure a salt crust will not work very well, the skin and scales are very fine and while pre-salting is an improvement, I think that a salt crust will make the fish over salty. If it was my fish I would fillet it and do a few different things with it. Home salting it the style of salt cod or a gravlax is possible and with the former there are lots of options like brandade etc. I know that you have said no smoking, but this is a very traditional (Arbroath Smokies or Finnan Haddies very famous) way of preparing the fish and it quite delicious. A very short smoking period in a large pot or wok will not make a mess and it means that the dish can be prepared well a head of time. Presalted and lightly smoked fish would be good in a "chowder" style dish and you could leave the salt-pork/bacon out. It also combines well with bay leaves and is suitable for a lot of asian style dishes, steamed with ginger, mushrooms and ham especially. It is an underrated fish and no doubt will get the kind of recognition that cod does now (once the fishery goes into decline a little more), so enjoy.

I don't quite agree with this. I personally fine something of interest in pretty much any cuisine that I have come across. But for various reasons some cuisines are very impoverished and some have great depth. I'm not sure that these can be compared as equals. A pulp of pounded starch as a daily staple is a cusine/kitchen in many cases and this just doesn't compare to the what is availble in many other cultures/regions foods. What criteria is used to rank them or compare them is a completely different topic.

Clearly it is easy to project all sorts of meaning onto an isolated quote. If you read it as "Greek food at it's best, isn't regarded as highly as some other European cusines", is that such a bad comment or untrue? This is a quote from a thread from a from a few years ago, does "Given that most gourmets would cite Italy as one of the top food destinations on Earth -- there are even many who prefer dining in Italy to dining in France -- why is it that Italy hardly seems relevant to the world of modern gastronomy?". Does this mean that fatguy is having a jab at Italian food? Is he saying it is irrelevant? I don't think so, and I still read the Grimes article in a similar way - although I admit that I don't know anything about Astoria or the district mentioned in the article, so maybe I don't make the 'Greek food in Astoria = Greek food' connection, if such a link exists obviously.

Interestingly, this egullet thread has opinions that are similar to Grimes'. Also, it would seem that Grimes' has no specific prejudice against Greek restuarants or even Greek restuarants in Astoria, based on this older review.

Even with a direct statement like "Greek cuisine does not, even at its best, ascend to great heights", I still think that the article is directed towards restaurants in Queens rather then the foods of Greece specifically. As you say a quick look through Diane Kochilas' "The Glorious Foods of Greece" should be enought to demonstrate that the cooking from the region is very interesting and diverse. Also, I don't think that it is the job of domestic regional cusines "ascend to great heights" (although this doesn't exclude the possiblity either), that is the job of restaurants and chefs. Is every dish in every region of France (and now Spain I guess) an inspiration? No, and you would be considered ignorant or at least foolish to suggest so. So I'm not quite sure why so many domestic regional cuisines get canned for not being something that they really aren't ment to be. On the otherhand in regards to the restaurants in Queens, if they really are that poor then they deserve to have to boot put in. Honestly, a chef with imagination, training and a copy of "The Glorious Foods of Greece" should be able to put together a pretty interesting menu - if the that is what the punters want obviously. Maybe all they want and aspire to when they think of "Greek cooking" is steam-table moussaka, rubbery fried calamari and greasy lamb shanks"?

The is a chance that they are what was called in Scotland "sids", these are the inner husk and germ left over from milling oatmeal (after it was sieved). In Scotlaand these were soaked in water for a week or so to encourage fermentation, the liquid was then removed (the "swats"), the loose sediment at the bottom was then pressed through a cloth to produce "sowans". Sowans are the important product, the formed a part of the daily diet of rural labourers and they formed a festival dish in some regions (although in Scotland this occurs around Christmas). So if there is a linquistic link between sids and sidnes, it could indicate that the latter was a specific product of milling, rather then a baked product. Certainly, the idea of a coarse grade of oatmeal fits into the theme of lenten foods.

Hamburger steaks have been around for quite a while, early 19th century OED described it as a type of salted beef ground up and made into a patty, Barry Popik has found a recipe in an 1885 edition of Caterer and Household Magazine. In terms of American history, I guess the important bit is when it was put into a bun (does anybody really consider a hambuger sandwich a "burger"?). I'm sure that there is no single point source as the idea has most likely occured to many people, but when who made it popular is proberly more important then when the first mention of hamburger sandwich etc.

Can't say that I have read much of that particular column, but I was confused a few years ago when advice was given not to eat marmite (yeast extract) due to yeast growth in the gut. The bit that confused me is that first the yeast is dead and brewers yeast is about as closely related to Candida albicans as a chicken and a giraffe.

I guess another angle on the question of why the UK has such a restricted range of food mags, is it because people are happy with what they have? There are plenty of restaurant reviews, some recipe sections (especially exclusive peeps into new cookbooks, which is nice), some very nice informative articles and lots and lots of popular culture. Maybe that is all that is required?

Absolutely not. My intention in posting was to point out that despite all its merits, PPC is not the ideal alternative to OFM from both the reader and the writer's point of view. ← I'm not sure that anybody suggested that it would be an alternative. How could the two possibly be compared? Personally, I would rather look through the writings of unpaid enthusiatic amateurs and check the facts later, then read OFM. Which is mostly what online sources provide isn't it? Anyway, the point is not if one is better or could replace the other, it is why there is such a narrow range of publications in the UK? Given it is the gastronomic centre of the Universe and all.

There is, of course, PPC. But between editions I'm still starved. ← PPC only survives by not paying its contributors - not something I'd be thrilled to see repeated elsewhere. ← And also reflects the quality of the contents. Not stuffed full of fluff for restaurant hobbists for instance.

Undeniably true. So I suppose what I'm saying is that it's a rotten shame the UK doesn't deserve a publication that's the foodie equivalent of the New Statesman - small circulation special interest Maybe there aren't enough of us to make it worthwhile. But, in the meantime, the Spectator and Private Eye seem to have dropped their food columns altogether and increasingly, I can't find anything to read. ← Waitrose mag or read blogs on-line I guess.

Do you really think that's what I said? I was responding to Adam. He said it's in Science magazine, therefore the science is good. I disagreed, and pointed out that at least one scientist thinks the science is not only not good but also "mind-boggling stupid." My point is that the fact that it's in Science magazine doesn't make it right. ← No, I didn't say that. I simply highlighted that a uncritical dismissal of the article, with no counter evidence was flawed thinking and showed a lack of understanding of the nature of scientific debate. A hundred scientific opinions against this article doesn't mean that it isn't worthy of consideration and in part I imagine that this is what editors of the journal intended.

hmmm, are you saying that if there isn't agreement on a statement, the statement is false? sounds a little like the anti-evolution crowd to me. for the most part, contrary to what seems to be the accepted opinion, much of science is not so much a set of facts that everyone agrees on, but a method for conducting an informed discussion ... sometimes argument. informed disagreement is encouraged. once you get past the fundamental level, i suspect there are few things you'll ever see all scientists agree on. therefore, i don't think scientific disagreement is a valid argument for falsity. ← And also very similar to the tactics used by anti-climate change lobbists. Hopefully, this is due to a layman lack of understanding of the scientific process. Like Russ mentions, you will rarely see complete scientific concensus on a significant study. The fact that this study appeared in a significant journal, means that it was peer reviewed and considered valid enough by the editors to be published. This doesn't mean that it is going to be considered "correct" by all people in the field, now or in the future, and it may not be correct in reality. This doesn't mean that it isn't worthy of consideration and dicussion and I find the un-critical and off-hand dismissal of the article quite depressing actually. Another issue is that there seems to be an "all or nothing" attitude here. I actually, find the idea of a loss of commercial fisheries anywhere between 0-100% in the next 50 years quite alarming. An improverished world where elite diners are the only people with ready access to high grade fish is not an attractive prospect to me. And of course there has already been a reduction in global fish stocks. The has been a huge decline in large fish in the last twenty years and cod stocks are an obvious example. In the last month Scottish the scottish fishing industry has been advised to implace a total ban on cod fisheries or face imminent collapse. Irrespective of what actually happens it highlights a current critical issue, not just something that other people will have to concern themselves with in 50 years.

And to some extent, many aquaculture species still require/are given input of fish derived proteins. This doesn't help wild stocks either.

Regarding the flawed science comment, I haven't had time to read the article that spawned the press interest, but as it has been published in "Science" journal (which is a very high ranking journal indeed) and represents an international collaboration, I should think that the science is fine. The chance that the most dire predictions come true is a seperate issue, science isn't about absolutes after all. Regarding high end consumers being self regulatory, I don't think that this is true and the recent information on Southern Blue fin tuna stocks demonstrate this. Basically, there was/is such a demand for this fish in Japan that they have been very heavily havested. Only recently when it was demonstrated that the Japanese were consuming much more of this species then they have claimed to have landed was the issue addressed. Much of this species is landed in Australian territorial waters, with the Japanese gov. putting on political pressure for large landings. Maybe, this goes back to your original 'irrational' desire comments.

Not sure. I would have thought that it would have been post-wild boar extinction in the UK (~17th century), but the OED has this : J. MANWOOD Lawes Forest v. (1615) 49 Amongst the common sort of people, nothing is accompted Venison, but the flesh of Red and Fallow Deere. By this stage I imagine that what wild boar existed were very restricted in numbers and not seen often by the "common" sort of people. Refering to other game meat as vension lingered on for quite a while longer in the not so common sort of folk. Maybe a hangover from the Norman v A-S, Mutton v sheep, Pork v swine, beef v cattle thing. It seems that this distiction between the amimal and its flesh was abandoned or never picked up but the common sort in reference to small game. So essentially, the only large prestige game left would be deer and their meat - venison.

Hey, nice Jackalope pie.

They are confit I would guess, just in a poor translation maybe. Confit is a word related to all sorts of sugary things, so if you pot "confit" into babelfish for instance what you get as the translation is "crystallized".

One of these?