liuzhou

Another multiple name mushroom, found wild in Yunnan is Cantharellus cibarius*, the Chanterelle or Girolle. Usually known as 鸡油菌 (jī yóu jūn, literally ‘chicken oil mushroom’) but sometimes 黄菇 (huáng gū, ‘yellow mushroom’) or 酒杯蘑菇 (jiǔ bēi mó gu, ‘wine glass mushroom’, presumably for its shape). These are not particularly common though and relatively expensive, coming to me at ¥421.22 / $59 USD per 500g, although that does include air delivery from Yunnan to my door. Well, the plane doesn’t come to the door but close enough! * Cantharellus cibarius is actually a species group. Precisely which member of the group these are, I haven’t yet been able to determine.

My beaker is 350ml, but I've never used it with one of those presses. But it should be about right, I guess.

I mentioned dried maitake mushrooms back in 2019 but today I took delivery of some fresh from Yunnan province. Grifola frondosa is known by many names such as maitake (舞茸 or マイタケ, "dancing mushroom in Japanese, hen-of-the-woods, ram's head or sheep's head in English and 舞菇 (wǔ gū), 贝叶多孔菌 (bèi yè duō kǒng jūn), 云蕈 (yún xùn ), 栗子蘑 (lì zǐ mó), 栗蘑 (lì mó ), 千佛菌 (qiān fú jūn), 莲花菌 (lián huā jùn), 甜瓜板 (tián guā bǎn), 奇果菌 (qí guǒ jūn), or 叶奇果菌 (yè qí guǒ jūn) in Chinese. It is native to the northern hemisphere from North America, across Europe and to Asia, including China and Japan, where it is particularly valued for dinner. Most in China seems to go mainly to TCM with all the usual unproven medical waffle that entails. Friends here are surprised to see it being eaten. Me likes.

Quite common. I have a stainless steel beaker.

It is a lemon squeezer. Quite common here. Click

I was about to say the same. But no worries! Jamie Oliver is on the case. (Gromitless.) Jamie Oliver asks cheese lovers to help catch thieves behind £300,000 cheddar scam | Jamie Oliver | The Guardian

and here's the background to Neal's Yard Dairy and the eccentric genius who created it and much more.

Here are the cheeses in question. Hafod Cheddar Hafod Cheddar Westcombe Cheddar Westcombe Cheddar Pitchfork Cheddar Pitchfork Cheddar All images from relevant websites.

It has been reported that the iconic and revered Neal's Yard Dairy, distributers and retailers of British Cheeses have been scammed out of 22 tonnes (₤300,000 / $388, 830 USD) worth of prime, prize winning cheddar cheese by fraudsters posing as distributors for French retailers. Neal's Yard have honoured their obligations to the three British cheesemakers concerned, but it remains a huge blow to this legendary British institution, based in London. The cheeses involved are Hafod Welsh organic cheddar, Westcombe cheddar, and Pitchfork cheddar. Police in London and France are investigating.

It’s international sausage day! Says who? Well, me. It might not be international internationally but it is here in my apartment. As you know. China has sausages which you probably know as lap cheong, but few people in China do. They are 腊肠 (là cháng) to 96% of Chinese people. That literally means ‘preserved intestines’ and applies to all sausages no matter what type they are or which passport they carry. Now, I don’t really like 96% of the Chinese variety, but they are all I can usually get – usually too fatty and horribly sweet. In fact the only ones I regularly buy are blood sausages, which I DO like. So, I was delighted a few days ago to discover an outfit offering me this selection of “international sausages”. Well, they actually offered me what they described as German sausages, but they lied. What they offered me was: Debrecener 280g of 德布勒森肠 (dé bù lè sēn cháng) which means Debrecener sausage which originates in the city of the same name in eastern Hungary but popular around the former Austro-Hungarian Empire; then Mexican 240g of 墨西哥肠 (mò xī gē cháng), Mexican sausage which I’m going to guess is popular around Mexico; followed by Piquillo sausage 330g of 皮丘乐辣肠 (pí qiū lè là cháng), Piquillo sausage which are named after the piquillo chilli, a Spanish cultivar popular around Spain; and finally, Bierbiser 240g of 风干啤酒肠 (fēng gān pí jiǔ cháng) meaning Air-Dried Beer sausages but labelled as Bierbiser, the German for Beer Drinker. They may be German but could be from anywhere that has air and beer. All delivered to my door for ¥177.33 which is equal to $24.93 USD. Of course, I ordered them. They arrived today. On closer examination, it turns out that they are all made by a company using the suitably German brand name Bahnhof, meaning Railway Station, whose factory is in Guangdong, southern China. Very international. I’ll have fun playing with them over the next few days or weeks.

According to this article in the Guardian, British independent brewers are abandoning the the term "craft beer" as it has been misappropriated by the world's largest brewing conglomerates. Formerly independent breweries and brands which have been taken over by multinationals such as Heineken, Anheuser-Busch InBev and Asahi still claim those beers they now make are "craft". I suspect that the same is happening with other food and drinks, too. And not only in the UK. Caveat Emptor.

Yes I get that. The question for me is why is cinnamon so popular. I happily admit I know very little about Mexican cuisine. How is all that cinnamon used?

The only things I dry myself are mushrooms, chilli peppers, cherry tomatoes and tangerine peel. That said I use a lot of dried ingredients, but store or market bought. Some rarer mushrooms I can't get fresh, seaweeds, various fish, shrimp, squid, scallops, longgan and more. Chinese stores carry vast selections of dried foods for cooking or as snacks (especially fruits). I extremely rarely use dried herbs, though.

It depends. If I want to remove the shell then I find the scissor type more useful. However, I often cook shrimp shell-on, so I use the small knife style one to devein them.

I'd send you a set of these if you weren't on the other side of the world. I have about ten of each. A couple of years ago I was in the habit of buying live, wild caught shrimp online from the nearby seaport city. Every delivery, they included another set.