lueid813

It might be worth keeping in mind that in many cases professional photos of food (used in magazine advertising, for example) are usually not actually photos of real food dishes. Food photographers substitute or combine lots of other items (food or non-food) to create what can only be called "artist's conceptions of what food should/could look like". One obviouse example: the "Got Milk?" ads featuring celebrities with milk moustaches over their lip. That's not milk (milk wouldn't show up in a photo that well), it's heavy cream or something else. http://saucecafe.com/feature_printable/feature30.html

Excerpts from "Recipes: African Cooking (Foods of the World)" by Laurens van der Post, including a recipe for Bobotie (South Africa), are online here: www.congocookbook.com/c0179.html

What's interesting about this product is that it is pasteurized with pressure, not heat. This works real well for guacamole because it is supposed to be mashed. www.avoclassic.com/avofresh.html The same high-pressure sterilization also works for oysters, and the process also causes their shells to open! Ultra-High Pressure Revolutionizes Seafood Processing New Processor Could Help Keep Oysters Longer

I also noticed peas in the guacamole at Fresh Fields (which was merged into Whole Foods) four or five years ago. I don't think the label said anything about "low fat". I assumed they included mashed peas because peas are green and cheaper than avocados.

Re: Tangia? I am curious that no one has mentioned a fact about the tangia which I took for granted, but now that I have thought about it I realize that, as far as I know, this particular fact comes from a single source, so I don't know if it's something that is widely true about tangia cooking or something that occurs rarely . . . namely: Tangia are prepared in the morning and then taken to cook at the hammam (the public bathhouse) where they are left all day and collected in the afternoon. My source for this is this article from the Guardian Unlimited website, First, preheat your sauna . . ., which relates taking a cooking class in Marrakesh: Using the fire of the public bathhouse for cooking brings to mind the communal village ovens that were once common all over the Mediterranean. The practice certainly saves fuel. So I wonder, is this method of cooking a tangia still common today?