Adam Balic

Would that be Ayrshire bacon? The rolled/sliced one in the center at the bottom? ← Yep that is the one, although it sometimes just called 'Ayr' bacon, like on the front of the shop. The perfect shape for putting in a morning roll.

Hah! I was really starting to feel down about my daily routine. This is going to be great. Looking forward to this. That seafood shop . . . ← Kevin - the 6:30, tea and gym bits were all true I'm afraid. Wife never actually drinks the tea, but sometimes the idea of tea is even more important then the consumption.

I also wanted a bit of fish for my supper. Right across the street from Bower's is Armstrong's Fishmonger. One of two that I use and they are lovely people with an excellent range of local fish. They also smoke their own salmon (and other fish) as you can seen. Eh, the shop did recently burn down though . Todays selection: But I bought a cut off this handsome fellow:

I am cooking for a few friends tomorrow, as it is a friday I have pre-ordered the meat to save some time. This is my favourite butcher in Edinburgh. They have excellent produce, especially the beef and they also specialize in game. It is also great fun. An Aladdin's cave and temple dedicated to meat. They have their own farm, as well as sourcing great meat, they cure and smoke their own products and if you want something brined, just tell then what and how long for. If you are in the shop you can even pick the cut of meat. Scotland is the last stronghold of the British pudding, in this shot you can see Black and haggis puddings out on diplay in the shop window, but there are also white, red and fruit puddings, plus variations on sale normally. As I said, they specialize in game. This time of the year is not the best, but here is a small selection. You can see wild boar, roe deer, pigeon, partridge and pheasant here. Now, there is a clue in this image. What happens in Scotland on the date of the last day of this blog? And why does this mean that I bought lamb today? Historically, Scotland is not a big pork eating country. But bacon is another thing entirely. This is a selection of in shop made bacon, smoked, sweet cure and green. Now one of these bacons is specific to Scotland, can anybody identify the cure? Not shown here is gammon and smoked hough.

Different perspectives are good and I will look forward to it.

Well I must say that it is quite a strange and nervous making experience to be creating a foodblog. However, eventually one must take the plunge... A tiny bit of background information. I am an Australian Anglo-Croat living in Edinburgh, where I work at the University of Edinburgh as a Biologist. I have lived in here for five years and while it may not be the most exciting place on the planet, it has certainly taught me a few things about myself. As a word of warning, I find the restuarants in Edinburgh to be pretty dull, so this blog will mostly be about what I cook myself, good, bad and ugly. So sorry about the lack of tips to Scotland's Festival city. Ah, but for todays routine: Up at 6:30, cup of tea made for the wife and off to the gym. After the gym I have a healthy and nutritious breakfast designed to give me all the bouncy energy that I need to get through the long hours between breakfast and brunch. Actually, this is all lies. What I normally have is a coffee and sometimes a piece of fruit. For the simple reason that I don't have the time for breakfast and I don't feel like eating before 10:30 normally. If ever during this blog you find yourself thinging "I wonder what he had for breakfast?", during the week it will always be a crapy, bitter nasty, cup of coffee like this: It sets me up for the day of crappy, nasty, bitter work

Almass - I have PMed you. Behemoth - thank you very much for your posts on this thread and others, I have very much appreciated them. Bligmy, I though we Croatians were bit grumpy. Maybe I will make sandwich instead

I don't get nearly enough time to cook as much as I would like, so the guests get what I feel like cooking (with rare exceptions).

Except me. But I'm sure I'll get over it.

Hey that is great thank you. The other thing I was considering was another medieval Arabic dish called "Mahshuwwat" (plural of mahshu "stuffed"), so I reckon I can bastardize the two recipes (shoulder already ordered, otherwise I would get a leg and stick to that).

I would appreciate any recipes. At the moment I am thinking of stuffing a shoulder of lamb with walnuts, tomato, barberries and spice, then slowly cooking it until it is grey and oxidized. Not very Lebanese Racks of lamb will be fast roasted to keep them pink and juicy, basic flavours of lemon, galric, sumac and mint. Unless there are some suggestions. No pressure. Feeling guilty about playing about with the cuisine without any real understanding of it.

I have been doing a little sniffing around Lebanese cuisine recently and have seen some very interesting recipes. One thing that occurs to me is that I can't recall preparations were whole joints of meat are used, specifically in baked or roasted preparations. I am sort of cooking a Lebanese meal on Friday and want to cook lamb. Normally, I would go with the kibbe, but I already have an interesting veg version lined up for this. So I looked for ways of cooking whole joints (in this instance a shoulder and two racks) and have so far struck out. Have I missed some well know recipes or are these not really part of the lebanese kitchen?

Daniel - I afraid I just can't agree that Italy has a distinctive cuisine and India and the Middle East don't (I would personally lean towards an Italian kitchen, based on above discussion). I don't thing that there is any real evidence of a continuation of Roman food culture throughout Italy (after all a great deal of the population in Italy arrived after the Romans), in fact there is very little evidience on what the Romans ate anyway. But, it has been a very interesting discussion and it has given me much to think on. I may even change my mind (which would be a first so I thank you). Also thank you very much for starting this post and linking to the conferance which I have found facinating. Almass and Nadia, Hi…. I'll have to stand with my argument that there is no true Indian cuisine, the various kitchens of the country being so diverse in character as to be sometimes almost unrecognizable in other parts. In fact, because each of the hundreds of sects and religions in India has a unique set of food regulations and taboos, there is probably no nation with as many diverse culinary styles. As Madhur Jaffrey so well points out, Hindus do not eat beef, Moslems do not eat pork and some Indians, in respect for the reverence-for-life principle not only abstain from all meat and fish but also eschew eggs because they represent potential lives. Kashmiri Hindus cook with the spice known as asafetida and frown on the use of garlic. Moslems from the same area rely heavily on garlic in their cookery and avoid asafedita. Even some of the vegetarians in the nation have a problem. The Jains from the area of Gujerat, for example, will not eat beets or tomatoes because their color reminds them of blood. Some Jains are so orthodox that they will not eat root vegetables because in pulling them out of the earth an innocent insect might die in the process. Going even a step further and still using Madhur Jaffrey as my source, at least several conquerors left very heavy imprints on regional Indian cookery. Goa, on the West Coast was ruled by the Portugese for 400 years and it was even those Europeans who introduced to the chili pepper to India. The Moghuls, who came to India via Persia in the 16th century, introduced the nation to the concept of cooking meat with yoghurt and fried onions. In truth, the only people who occupied India and failed to leave a mark on the dining habits of the people were the British. If there is a single common denominator to all of the foods of India it is the heavy and imaginative utilization of spices, those including asafetida, coriander, turmeric, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, black pepper, nutmeg, ginger, saffron and cayenne pepper. But, as couscous, baked beans or humous cannot define a national or regional cuisine, neither can the use of spices. ←

Interesting arguement. I guess the same principle could be applied to the Middle East and North Africa, substituting the Persians for the Romans. After all this region quite possible the greatest number of surviving historic culinary texts of any region, which show direct evidence of continuity.

Interesting discussion. What do you think defines Italian cuisine? To me Italian food is regionality and diversity, so I have difficulty seen the wood for the trees.

Nah, that would never happen .

Dude it was dry self-depreciating humour, sorry.

Oh good, I was starting to feel guilty about remembering my Baka's cooking with pleasure. Most of us are very lucky to be alive right now. Especially if you are a women. Damn, we seem to agree. Thankfully I will be cooking a Lebanese meal on Friday, so we can fight about that.

Be careful what you wish for....... I think that this was touched upon in the 'Artisan cheese' thread in the French board. Farming is hard work, many of great products/food preparations involve a hugh amount of hard graft. I think that female emancipation is a good thing, but surely it is possible to recognise this and feel some nostalgia for some of the postive aspects that come with the bad old days?

Excellent, porchetta then. And that rabbit thing where it is all covered in mushed up pancetta and stuff then baked. And Tegamaccio. And..

Thanks for the information, very good to know. So it has become exactly what it needs to be really. I guess the major issue is space and isn't it 'undergoing' expansion?

Don't let anybody from the Aeolian islands hear you say that The food looks great Kevin, I have really enjoyed the Sicilian installment. When are you coming to Edinburgh?

From my experience in the Dauphine recently, there are some young people that have made the decision to make a life out of traditional cheesemaking. This is not easy to do and involves considerable personal sacrifice, but there is some goverment support also. One thing that they said was that the locals were very pleased when they bought the land and developed the property, as there were very few young people choosing to stay in the area. I guess regulations etc are part of it, but it is a very demanding lifestyle without much obvious finacial insentive, so the could be next generation of small producers is choosing to more to the city and get more conventional jobs. I also noticed that out of the two markets in Mens, the organic market had both the greatest range of artisan products and young people as producers.

Good points. I think that the bottom line is that it is the consumers that ultimately control animal welfare, hygiene and food standards and I didn't think that this point was well made. I have had numerous disscussions after the first show with non-foodie Brits and by and large the are revolted by the conditions they saw at various chicken farms and specifically there was no way to telling a 'good' farm from a 'bad' one at the basic level. But they were also not willing to pay £8 for a chicken. As Jack said, British people have more choice availble then ever before. But they have other things to think about other then the welfare conditions of the source protein in their chicken tikka marsala.

I have only seen the Borough in the last five years or so, but I was never under the impression that it was a wholesale market or for that matter that it was a market where the local community does its daily shopping? Aside from the crowds I really like the market, but surely it is more of a place to buy a few prime ingredients from a select group of shops, rather then been a more traditional type market? Maybe more experienced posters could tell me when it was such a market?