Adam Balic

Other plants that I saw, were these capers. These were different to the ones I have seen all over tuscany, smaller leaves with pronounced thorns, but the flowers looked the same.

Aside from the fish which seemed to be eaten locally, if not sold in the restuarants, another oddity was the range of fruit and veg that was on sale, that did not appear on menus. I could not identifly most of these greens, some looked like dandelion greens and chicory, but these are just guesses. (Even I can spot the spinach in this one)

Now unlike Scotland which has very rich fisheries, it was possible to buy fish off the day boats relatively easily in Hydra. Just follow the cats The local could fish were of a wide species range, but most what I would class as "soup fish", some good, some not so good. These are the higher status fish, Star-Gazer Uranoscopus scaber (far back, pale brown) and Scorpian fish Scorpaena porcus (occasionally I saw some Scorpaena scrofa). These fish (especially the scorpian fish) are found in fish stews/soups all over the med. In France these are known as Rascasse and are the vital ingredient in bouillabaisse. These are slightly lesser fish, the colourful ones are male Rainbow wrasse Coris julis, but there are a few other odds and sods, including red mullet. The final group seemed to be a complete mixed bag. This included small bream, wrasse, red mullet and grey mullet, salema and picarel. The other sure sign of the fish boat is the clusters of haggling housewives, very fun to observe, if a little dangerous...

One thing that I thought was very interesting was the expence of the fish. Now I know that much of the fish was imported from elsewhere, either other parts of Greece or further afield (for instance I saw Australian Snapper), but much of it was local and relatively abundant. As I went snorkerling, I know there were scorpian fish, weever, wrasse, bream and mullet about as I actually saw them. In this image there are some crayfish "Astakos" (90 Euro per kg) and Red Mullet "Barbouni" (50 Euro per kg), the latter is most likely local, the other I don't know so I ate a pair of these. Really excellent, and I eat a lot of these.

A much better choice were these garfish Belone bellone you might notice some azure spots on this fish, this is actually the bones of the fish which are bright green when raw and a duller green when cooked. The flesh is white, non-oily and very tasty. I like them very much.

And obviously octopus. This was sweet, smokey, tender and lobster like in flavour.People that claimed that they hated octopus liked this These are obviously small fish. There were numerous types and grades of these (the headless slightly larger fish in the bottom right are fresh anchovies). I think that these are small Bogue Boops boops. No the greates of fish, but fun enough.

Another cheese pie, this time flavoured with dill Baked peppers stuffed with rice Terrible photo of baked lamb shoulder and potatoes. The lamb was very tender and flavoured with cassia. Interestingly it was still quite pink, suggesting long low temperature cooking. The potatoes were excellent, some sort of fondant cooking technique was used, flavoured with wine, lemon and butter. Obviously calamari. The wine in the background was a red retsenia. I liked it quite a bit, it was excellent with the food at the time. More calamari from a different taverna. This was thinner and was quite tough, the first image shows the calamari cut into thick battons and this was sweet and tender.

For the past week I have been lucky enough to have attended a conferance on the Greek Island of Hydra. Although I am familar enough with Greek food (Melbourne is often quoted as being the second largest Greek city in the world), I have not been to Greece before, so I though I would share some impressions formed (obviously from very limited contact). Hydra is ~1.5 hours from Athens, so I was pleasantly surprised by how nice it was. Touristy, sure but not completely overrun. One advantage of the island is that there are no cars or scooters at all. Everything is transported from handcarts or donkey (actually mules). The island is quite dry so little is grown here, everything gets boated in. Fruit and veg come form the fertile mainland. The beer mule While I'm sure you can self cater, we ate out. The restaurants are basic tavernas, some better then others, however the range of food was similar. From looking about the stores, it was clear that the locals ate a different seletion of food to what was being offered at the tavernas, but this is what I ate: Cheese pie from a local bakery that was hidden on a back street Barley shaped pasta (manestra) baked with lamb shoulder, this was spices with cinnamon (actually cassia to my surprise) and allspice.

Sorry. I have been away for a few days. I think that Moby and Sam covered it well. The tackiness can be due to several things, but id you describe what propotions you use then, it might be easier to help out. To add to Sam's comments, Butternut squash lacks the intensity of flavour of th Italian pumpkins I have used. These are almost red coloured in flesh and intense in flavour, but even then they are mostly used as a stuffing or as a base for gnocchi. I think that butternut squash* is still and issue, one suggestion is to use half squash, half orange fleshed sweet potato, which has a better colour and flavour. A recipe from gnocchi would be: 250 gm butternut or other flavourful squash 250 gm orange fleshed sweet potato 100 gm 00 or AP flour 1 tsp baking powder 1 large egg 2 tsp grated parmesan or aged pecorino pinch of nutmeg** bake the squash and sweet potato at 180C until soft. Puree flesh, incoprate dry ingredients and mix in egg. Bring a large pot of well salted water to boil, pipe in gnocchi mixture into water, snipping off 2-3 cm lengths. Cook for 2-3 minutes and then drain well, these can be stored and reheated in the oven. Great with a sage butter sage. This recipe was addapted from Anna del Conte's "Gastronomy of Italy". * Based on my experience, there are different strains of this veg, some better then others ** nutmeg can be replaced with a couple of finely ground amaretti biscuits.

Lovely foodblog, thank you. I have never been to your neck of the woods, but I feel a little like I have now.

The UK cuttlefish fisheries are confined to the English Channel and no, you Brits don't really bother to eat them (like all your fisheries), so they mostly go to Spain/Portugual. Dinner parties?

Hey, what a good site, thank you. Definately a "quaffer" (and I'm not even sure of the as due to the intense flavour violets it tastes a little too much of "Essence of grannys"), but very unusual for all that and so worth trying. It would be interesting to use it as part of a Shiraz blend (maybe at <5% levels).

I'm quite ignornat about these sort of things, so I was just wondering where this volume of orgaic goods will come from, in particular the meat? It seems from comments here that in some respects WFs is quite well regared, in terms of quality of produce. It would be my observation that the organic meat (OK chicken) from the major UK supermarkets is flavourless guilt fodder. If WFs is going to provide better produce in volume (OK chickens), where will the magic them up from and will it benefit UK producers?

"London is greatest foodie destination on the planet"; ah, I see how this thing works.

Life is about balancing bullshit v knowledge. Maybe an expert is somebody that recognises the former but strives for that latter. But well crafted bullshit is way more entertaining then dull facts.

An Expert worthy of the title makes me want to know more about a subjet.

A Georgin side dish tonight, pink pancakes. Not my favourite era in English cooking, but an intersting one. Many commentators see this period as a Golden Age of English cooking, but I think that it is were the rot set in for all the deliciousness of individual recipes. Be that as it may, Mrs Raffald's "Pink Pancakes" (1769) are pretty good in a modern setting. They are made from beetroot, cream, brandy, eggs, flour and nutmeg. Here they are served with dill cured salmon from The Summer Isles Smokehouse near Ullapool and sour cream with wanuts, lemon and horseraddish.

You are joking, right? I mean, ALL of them? Even kulfi??? Or a delicate rice pudding, nicely chillled, and perfumed gently with rose water?? Come to Berlin, and I will feed you Indian desserts which will change your mind. I don't like rose water. and the Kulfi I got served was just some boring ice cream. Not very bad, but definitley not the best. And then there's those sticky deep fried cookies that are really hot and is so sticky they get stuck in your mouth and burn your tounge. Not fan of those "milk balls" either. But I have probably been unlucky in chosing what places I ate those things. There's probably some people and some dishes that are better! ← Whereas Adam and I would argue that haggis is universally excellent. ← Good God no! Canned Haggis is a crime against humanity!

Excellent. Lovely photograph too. Is the liquid in the pot wine or stock based or is it simply the liquid that comes out of the octopus upon cooking?

Cool, I like the pasta idea. I can see that certain individuals of my acquaintance would make complaint along the lines "Nice pasta, pity about the buggery seeds stuck in my teeth". Do you think that it would be permissible to remove most of the seeds and rely on the flavour of the oil?

You had better not be talking about the delicious sambal sotong that I made you.

Just as "There is more than one way to skin a rabbit", there is more than one way to strangle a priest. An amusing topic for thought. ....................................................... And I must agree with you about Indian desserts. Those nine-out-of-ten Scotsmen obviously must be Heathens. Or perhaps their faculties have been affected by the whiskey(?) ← That would be "Whisky", you Irish imperialist.

I believe that this should be moved to the "food scents" thread...

Hey haggis is way better then lots of stuff. Like Indian desserts for instance. On topic. Sicily seems to be particularly good at naming dishes after body functions, parts or waste products. shitty lasagne, angels pricks etc. From Liguria you have "gnocchi like dog turds" (ricotta and chard or spinach). Lots of desserts are named after nuns bits or bits of nuns.

I would be interested in knowing exactly how many native vine types there are in Italy, every time I go to a new region there is nearly always some odd little wine poking its head up. The last one of these was "Lacrima di Morro d`Alba". Still not sure if I like it, but it was very very unusual.