Adam Balic

How many pans you own and with 100 years of patina do you own and what scientific test have you preformed to confirm these views?

That would be Golden Fideos with Lobster? Also good with clams.

One point, don't attempt this is egg pasta, turns to mush apparently.

“Fidawsh” = “Fideos/Fideus” = “Fidelanza/Fedelini”. Every old is new again.

OK then it is basically the same technique as mentioned in the 12th C. Andalusian recipe collection. I wonder if Ducasse was aware of this or where he got the inspiration from.

Haven't seen the show, but I imagine it would be similar to the idea of fideus and related pasta. Cooking it as like risotto would give you more control over dish maybe. Think I might try this with orzo, I really like the nutty flavour that you get from browning the pasta in oil first.

York cure is a mild, unsmoked cure, so any mild cured butchers cure should substitute. I know the butcher at the Borough market makes hams, but you may have to pre-order. Two other English cures are 'Bradenham' and 'Suffolk' Both of these cures are richer, but the best baked ham I have had was made from a 'Bradenham' ham. Utterly perfect pig. I could be wrong here, but by definition ham will be cured in salt, even if there is sugar or other sweetners in the cure. To prepare the ham for baking they are pre-soaked, sometimes pre-cooked by simmering in water/stock, then baked. I guess it is possible that you can by hams that have been pre-soaked and cooked for baking, but if you are looking for a specific cure type and mention that it is for baking, I think that most producerd will assume that you want to do the soaking and pre-cooking yourself. Wiltshire cure is another mild cure to look for, although this will mostly be gammon.

You can also get it from the southern Ligurian coast, the stuff from Almalfi is better. However, I got a bottle of Cedrocello from the Cinque Terra, Cedro is Italian for Citron and this citrus fruit makes an excellent limoncello style drink.

Some Malts sampled tonight: 24 year old Longmore 14 year old Aultmore 10 year old Glenkeith 37 year old Dalwinnie plus a few others.

Quoted from me a month ago (just call me Cassandra ). I think that what is happening to these apple orchards is horrible, but not unexpected given that it has also happened to so many other sectors of British agriculture. What requires repeating is if this is happenig to apples (second most popular fruit in Britian), what is happening to other agricultural products? If one was to write a strongly worded letter, where would be the best place to send it? A PM, the department concerned or to the Newspaper that released the article?

Also sad in terms of his promotion of 'Food Heros'. Will be very interesting to see how it develops.

Gloat away. I bought a jar labelled Marmalade 2004 from a farm table just outside Port Isaac. Got home, bacon sarnie, and no! It's made with tinned Mamade oranges. Filthy cheats. Same thing happened to me at a farm store just out side of Edinburgh with a jar of strawberry jam. Wife tossed it in the bin and demanded that we stick to Bonne Maman and never buy British again.

Nessa - I think that you need to get some professional advise, this magenta/pink/weirdness is obviously spreading. Run, run for you life!

Squaw berries are sumac? Oh, that explains a lot. Here is a recipe for Sumac wine. Sumac wine

I have used the berries in cooking and they haven't resulted in any strange colours. Either it is s difference in the type of sumac or prepartion or the addition of dye in your lot, but why would you add dye?

Yes of course with all this pseudo-intellectual talk of cultural differences etc, one tends to forget that rude dickheads are found in all cultures. This is also a distinct possibility based on what you have described. I have had few poor experiences with people of germanic extraction, however, at a family dinner I did see a German guest react badly to the sight of roast pumpkin on his dinner plate. Apprently, Pumpkin = cattle food. It wasn't a big deal and I know that the hosts of the dinner would have reacted in the same manner as their German guest if they were served pig knuckle or Ox muzzle in Germany.

Strangely I would consider myself fairly open to new eating experiences, but there is a line that I would draw. Number one on my list is the fetus of a Chinese River Dolphin that I once read an account of being served as the special dish to a (horrified) European guest. Number two is any dessert containing peanut butter, but anything else I am game for.

My initial reaction was that the co-workers were very rude, however, on futher consideration I think that this attitude is just as parochial as not eating the brownies. Potentially, these people were acting well within what would be considered as polite behaviour for them. So it is difficult not to apply your own standards in these situations. The only time I have time I had an issue with people not eating something I had made, they were good friends from the same background, country, class and race. They just didn't like the idea of eating a boiled pigs foot, that I had so lovingly made. So I don't think that it is an America v the rest of the world, just a misunderstanding of cultures. After all these are the same people that have embraced David Hasselhoff as one of there own.

Any views on Morellino de Scansano (sp?). About five years ago it was very cheap and being served in carafes, nice wild cherry flavors etc, last year I noticed that it is similar in price to the Chianti. Seems like very rapid development.

Well there are several 16th-17th century sources for very similar dishes, sometimes called a 'Chickin Pye', sometimes ' bake [ed] chickens in cawdle', all have in common the baking of chicken in a closed container with spices and sour fruit, fresh or dried, the broth/juices being mixed with egg yolks and verjuice to form a sauce (caudle). The exact method varies slightly, some of the earlier versions are sweetened slightly. The version I mostly use is from: 16th century recipes Which was originally owned by the wife of the archbishop of Canterbury. Essentially I brown the chicken pieces with some leeks, add them to a pot with the leeks, barberries, ginger (powdered and candied in syrup), salt pepper and mace. Cooked for an hour, juice removed, turned into the sauce, chicken plate up (on serving platter) covered in sauce, with decorations of puff pastry lozengers (to keep the pie theme). Sauce is a ivory colour, looks bice with the ruby barberries and a garnish of parsely.

It was so good that I went around to a friends place and made it again. Since I don't often repeat recipes, this is unusual. The sauce was very good (juice form cooked chicken, verjuice and egg yolks whipped over heat until they thicken to the consistancy of cream), one wonders how it was ever replaced by flour thicken sauces, less stable maybe and more expensive to make? So now my friends use verjuice and barberries in their cooking, due to my forcing of historical food on them. Maybe it is different in the states, but in the UK 16th century chickens can be bought from any high street 16th century chicken store.

Not dim sum, dim sim. Very different beasts.

Excellent job Moby. Photography reminds me of Robert Fresons French food book (is compliment). What stuffed pasta don't you like making? Are there some real tricky types out there?

No, no - didn't mean to suggest any such heresy - and yet it's hard for me to stomach the possibility that there's no connection at all. BTW it's quite possible that I am misremembering the origins of dighe - must hie me back to that there OED and retrace my steps. One lovely thing about it, though, I do unequivocally remember: it was the root not only of "dough" but also of the second syllable in "lady"; the making of bread being, apparently, the special province of the lady of the house. Ah, this was a feeble joke. Welsh is thought to be A-S/OE for 'stranger/foreigner', apparently. "Lady" is 'kneader of the dough' and "Lord" is 'distributor of bread'? Been while so I can't remember exactly. Have you made a castle pie as well as a Sea Pie and what are your sources for the sea pie, Amelia Simmon's? Also, do you bother with the question of the quality of 16th, 17th, 18th, even 19th century flours compared to modern flours for making these pie/terrines? I imagine that the flour wouldn't be sieved that carefully for a pie crust (especially if it wasn't to be eaten) on the otherhand whole wheat flour doesn't store well and is a bitch to work with.

Authority? But of course. I am just a modest plodder. One thing about pie crust v earthenware etc. Obviously the realtive economics of the two depends on the exact site in question etc. However, I would guess that in some cases a pie crust had better presevation properties or traveled better. Many of the recipes that specified 'storage' or 'travel' suggested the use of Rye flour. Not sure if this is because Rye was cheaper then wheat or if it had specific stuctural properties or if it had anti-microbiol properties. Certainly they would be less likely to fall apart during travel then crappy earthenware pots. OE isn't Gaelic, although apprarently 'Welsh' is.