Adam Balic

Basically ham, cured leg meat. 'Gammon' has the same root as jambon = leg. Which is the same root as for 'ham', maybe a Britisher could explain the exact difference between ham and gammon, if there is one?

Only the cotechino came from Italy, the rest I either made myself or had the butcher do it (I am based in Scotland). Scottish style 'picked beef' is more widely known as 'salt beef', the gamon is pork that has been pickled in much the same way. I imagine that you could get US made cotechino? It is fun to do, with what ever cuts you can get. The problem with these food photos is scale. There was a hugh amount of meat. This image indicates scale better I hope.

No, Pot au feu is the French version of Bolito Misto . I should add that the meat was served with the broth, but I didn't show this in the photos.

Well last night I cooked a lot of meat for 8 people. To nibble I just put out some buristo, salami made from the cinti senese breed of pig and some very sweet pancetta. For the main even the raw ingredients were (from the left, clockwise): Cotechino, gammon, pickled beef, smoked hough, pickled stag tongues and pork cheeks. They were cooked in three seperate pots, different flavours were used etc, to keep the meats distinct in character. After cooking they looked like this: The sauces are chilli jam, horseradish cream, salsa verde. Also served was braised curly kale, rape and sprouting broccoli, white beans and choucroute de navet which is from Colmar and really delicious. Dessert was roasted strawberries with vanilla and creme fraiche. Post-dessert was a selection of Tuscan sweetmeats. And some experimental booze that I force my guests to drink. Left to right is sloe brandy, 18th century quince ratafia and seville orange wine (made by a friend).

I haven't read this thread before (title didn't grab me), but now that I have it has been one of the most interesting that I have seen for some time. Thanks for the photographs and experiments schneich. So much potential. Bags being the first person to weld an octopus to a duck.

Walk about is a British thing isn't it? Like Rolf Harris*, there is an Australian element, but it is a British phenomena. *You keep him, we don't want him back.

In Australia they are quite common and would be sold as 'custard apples', although I have noticed that the fruit of this name in the UK has a realtively smooth skin. Very sweet, delicate flavour, can be very atery if over ripe. Nice as a sorbet.

I recently got a confirmation from the owner of the referenced restaurant that they are in fact using a liberal amount of smoked paprika. I'll revisit them soon and request that they cut the smoked paprika by 75% or so and see if that makes a difference. I'll also bring my own chorizo for them to add since they won't be stocking it and I want that flavor in my pan. ← Oh good, glad that is sorted. You could as them to use the un-smoked paprika to avoid the issue altogether.

Market? Now that would be a good idea for Edinburgh.

Having come back from Italy to Scotland, I have some meat products that need to be used up. Amounghst these items was a cotechino, so I have decided to produce a bollito misto. Well, a bastard scottish version. The meats I have for 6 people are; -Cotechino -boiling ham -salt beef -brined stags tongues -smoked hough ("hock") -pigs cheeks Sauces, will be salsa verde, horseradish, chilli jelly and maybe a musturd fruit thing. First, do I have to pre-soak the cotechino, which unlike other versions I have had, is semi-dried like a normal salami. What veg to serve. I am thinking of choucroute de navet, white beans, but I think I need something green and I have a block at this point.

Showed this image to a co-worker. She said, "Oh, yeh Nutria. They make good salami". Apparently, in Eastern-Europe the familys that farm these for their pelts, also eat them. A mammal biologist tells me they are really a type of giant vole.

Also, I don't think that Mughlai is monolithic either, the cuisine of Hyderabad being quite distinct. One reason why the Moghul style cooking in the UK (an the USA?) may not resemble that in India is that in some case 'Moghul' style dishes seem to have been developed in the UK as a label for a particular style of dishes, rather then actually being based on tradional foods.

I find that the Edinburgh reviewers are not critical enough. Not nessarily lacking in negative comments, but lacking in comments about the food. While they will make comments about the decor or amounts of tables they, will pass over the food as a secondary item. Also I will have to scream if I see another article metioning the 'excellent seabass', which then turns out to be mushy, flavourless farmed seabass in a city that is right next to the North Sea, which rumour has it, has quite bit of decent fish in it.

OK that's fine, I don't pretend to understand these things, but natural curiosity prompts me to ask about these matters.

Is Bray in London? In the Guardian piece on th article there was much some mention of Bray and it's influence. Seemed a little odd that when the article was about how great the dining is in London, they looked to a restuarant in Berkshire. I think that the editors of gourmet should be forced to eat outside of London for once. For tourists, food and otherwise, London isn't the the only place in the UK they are likely to go. Also, are the editors saying that the really good restuarants in London are like the ones back home, just better? This also seems odd.

Yes, it was terrific to be in Italy. One the flight back to Scotland, I read an article on how London was now the foodie destination of choice. I have also read a lot of discusson on how Italian food just doesn't make it as top flight cuisine. Well having lived in the UK for five years, I don't think that the Italians should be too concerned that their cuisine doesn't make it into the top 2% of world restaurants, I would prefer to have the other 98% to go to as a positive experince, rather then consistantly mediocre as in the UK. Or indeed have this excellent produce to cook with routinely at home.

Yep, "brontosaurus" it is. Blame the flintstones. Divina showed us these, they are pork ribs with the meat between the ribs cut and folded back around to make a pseudo-rack of loin. Looks just like the description.

Kevin - Adam is lucky enough to be a market whore for ten days or so. When the produce is so excellent, most pictures look good. Your food looks really great. Strangely enough you Venato meals are similar to some I was cooking about a year ago (another trip) and yours have turned out a hell of a lot better. You are right about the lack of produce thing. Scotland produces some of the best seafood on the planet, yet it is surprisingly difficult to find good quality fish there.

One last lunch in Florence. Crostini Arista Wild boar with wild mushrooms and polenta Excellent fritters. Straight from the medieval period. To end, coffee, grappa and a digestive. As I am going back to Scotland tomorrow, these are the last images from this trip. Thank you for the kind comments.

Last night we had dinner in a local restaurant, unfortunately due to the lighting conditions there are no photographs. But, dinner was great, we have mixed crostini (including lardo with chestnut honey, yum) and bistecca. A couple of bottles of brunello, hurrah. This morning I went back to mercarto centrale to met the lovely and generous Divina and the talented Ore (as anybody who has seen his amazing threads can see). In a space of an hour I had tasted more excellent things then I new existed due to the Divina's energy and the stall holders generousity. Slightly before this meeting I took some more snaps of the market. With produce this good, any random point and shoot shot tends to look good. Fresh anchovies Soup fish Tiny squid Pink toes A face off... Just resting. Numerous ideas for stuffing a rabbit. UK health and saftey would not approve of this. Curse their oily hides. Florences most famous veg.

And they were making sausages called Mortadelle back in 14th c. Tuscany, made with finely chopped liver, and eggs and fresh herbs. I love the continuity of certain dishes over long periods of time, it gives you a sense of assurance that good things (like that beautiful Panforte ) will endure... ← Yes, very true. Unfortunately in the case of mortadella, the 600 year old continuity also leads to the processed sliced crap that looks like monkey or clown faces, that seems only to be fed to the young of our species for some reason that escapes me.

In Siena today. The food reflects the city, loads of preserved medieval and early modern foodstuffs. Most people have heard of the panforte of Siena. There are several different types an variations pop up now and then. I am a great fan of this dolce and it is always special for me as we had 10 kilos of it brought from Siena to use as our wedding cake. However, before I get too dewy-eyed, on of the main reasons I shopped in Siena today was for the local meat product. Not as romantic, but still good. Here we have buristo which is a blood sausage, it is an old type of sausage and some versions are medieval enought to contain spices and candied fruits. This version is nice, but has nothing to distinguish it from many other such products. The pancetta is just that, I needed some, thats it. The salmi is made with fennel seeds and uses the pork of a very old local breed. Pictures of this belted pig appear in medieval frescos (however, the ones I have seen look to have some chinese blood in them). For lunch we went to 'Hostaria il Carroccio', which cooks local and Tuscan specialties. On of the interesting things offereed (which we didn't have) was 'medieval antipasti', sounds cool, but I had spleen crostini, the others had mixed meats and cheeses. Wimps. Due to the low light levels the food looks a little more dull and brown then it was. The farro with porcini was especially good. farro with porcini risotto with cavalo nero and sausage I had gnocchi with chestnut and walnut sauce and this was fab. But the thing that Siena is very, very good at is lovely, lovely medieval type biscuits/cakes/dolce These are ricciarelli which are the best almond cakes in creation. The best. We also got cavallucci, these are mildly anise falvoured, with nuts and candied peel. Utterly delicious. These images do not do justice to the food at all.

Ore - Mortadella type sausages from Bologna have been famous throughout Europe for a long time. I have 17th century English recipes for making these sausages locally. Sometimes rather then bolonie, they are called polonie. Also at the same period open tarts were called 'florentines' and high pies with carved lids of puff pastry were lumber (=lombardy) pies.

Dinner tonight was a medley of Tuscan veg. (cardoon, cauliflower and agretti with olive oil and lemon juice. Wild boar in an agrodolce sauce with pasta. A very medieval type recipe with spices and dried fruit, although the chocolate and tomatos are obviously later additions Plus the desserts mentioned before. Sadly, (eh, fo me. I prefer cooking with excellent ingredients to dining out) as we are leaving on sunday this is the last meal I will cook in Tuscany this trip. The next few days will be restuarant meals.

Ah thanks for the name of the greens. This is exactly how I was going to serve them infact. I guessed that the boar a had been frozen as it is really the wrong time of the year to hunt them in Chianti. As for illegal... I'm wasn't this concept existed in certain parts of Tuscan. Certainly, I have been given local boar that has, ah, accidentlly been hit by a car. As roast porcupine seems to be locally popular in Chianti, although I have never tasted it as the brother-in-law says it is disgusting as it looks exactly like a roasted human baby once skinned.