liuzhou

The only Driscoll's product I have seen in China is those pathetic raspberries and the locals ain't biting that I can see. The home strawberry industry is far too ingrained for them to break in, I suspect. People know what strawberries should taste like - it seems Driscoll's doesn't. Redriscollous!

Oh really? I've spent a lot of time in Ireland over the last 50+ years and often seen and eaten corned beef, but never Finnan haddie. A quick, but unscientific poll among Irish friends suggests that they all know corned beef (as three said, "of course") but only one in ten has heard of Finnan haddie because she once had it when holidaying in Scotland. Not strictly Irish? Not Irish at all.

I haven't cooked for days, or at least very little and nothing worth reporting. A combination of the weather, being busy with earning a living and rampant laziness. Plus one critical factor. Like most people in Chinese cities, my cooking is mainly done on a gas powered hob. But the gas is bottled and so, I have to call the gas man when I need more. This I did, but he was out of town so I was gasless for 36 hours. Fortunately, I do have an oven, a nuclear box and an electric induction thing, so I didn't starve. I ignored the oven, nuclear box and an electric induction thing and went out for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Mr Gas returned today, dropped by with a new gas bottle and apologised profusely for enjoying himself instead of being at my beck and call. So, I'm back in full cooking land. To celebrate I came up with Pan fried (1-10-10) a brined chicken breast. Stir fried some peanut shoots with soy sauce. Rice cookered some rice with turmeric. Topped with a butter, olive oil mix infused with garlic, chilli and capers. Put it into mouth and smiled.

Yes. Same here. That's what I was trying to imply when I said overripe. Do you mean yours are also from China?

Then I hit the gua section. Or one of them. 瓜 - guā is one of those multi-purpose words of which Chinese has so many. It means "melon" but also "gourd". It covers everything from water melons through pumpkins to cucumbers etc. So for example, "bitter melon" isn't what we would normally call a melon, but a gourd treated as a vegetable. So, there are two gua sections: one for what we usually consider to be fruits and another for those we consider to be vegetables. Yesterday's haul of gua could have been any of these: 白玉瓜 bái yù guā - "White Jade Melon" - a type of muskmelon 木瓜 mù guā - "Papaya" 珍珠瓜 jiā jiā zhēn zhū guā - "Pearl Melon" 麒麟瓜 qí lín guā - "Unicorn Melon" - a prized strain of water melon. 西瓜 xī guā - regular "watermelon" Rather alarmingly, these are described as 黑美人西瓜 hēi měi rén xī guā or "Black American (person) Watermelon". Racial stereotyping? Probably. The Chinese aren't noted for their lack of racism.

The weather here has been horrible for days now, so I haven't been out and about much. But yesterday, the rain stopped briefly and I dashed out to the nearest supermarket to pick up a few essentials. The entrance I use most often (they have two) is right by the fruit section so, of course, I took a look. Apart from what I have shown already, which they still have, they had: Raspberries I grew up in the soft fruit belt of Scotland where they grow what are simply, unarguably the best raspberries, so I'm hard to please. These specimens come from Yunnan province and are overripe and almost tasteless. 0/10. Note: raspberries are all but unknown here in China and I first saw these only last month. As I was taking the picture I could hear other shoppers asking each other what they were. In Chinese, they are 树莓 - shù méi which literally means "tree berries", I guess to differentiate them from strawberries. Blueberries I hate blueberries. But the locals love them and stick them into everything. Horrible. I still haven't recovered from the time a Chinese friend informed me in all seriousness that she had found a shop selling "blue cheese". This was back in the days when any cheese was almost impossible to find. So, off we trotted to the shop in question where she proudly presented me with this. No doubt, intended to be washed down by this: Yuck!

Yes, haddock is "haddie". The origins are well covered by the usual Mr Wiki and his friend Mr. Google has many suggested uses, including Cullen Skink, one of my favourites, but we are a long way off topic. Finnan Haddies are not bangers by any stretch of the imagination.

Wow! I haven't thought about (or eaten) that for decades. My father was of vague Irish descent and had an ancient aunt (you know, the type who are born ancient) who gave my mother a recipe. We would eat it about once a week. Mondays, if I recall correctly. For St Patrick's day? Why? Finnan haddie is neither Irish (it's Scottish) nor banger related (it's a smoked fish).

I have a slice of my parents' wedding cake. It is 66 years-old and still looks edible, if a little dry.

Capellini with capers, garlic, chilli flakes, black pepper, olive oil and a few prawns. Simple, but did the trick.

Turkey sausage. Almost as bad an idea as turkey.

Exactly the same as me. Although I've never seen a print issue, there have been a number of interesting articles.

Full article.

I love the traditional Scottish dish, herrings with oatmeal. Haven't had it in years, but I'm sitting here drooling at the memory.

The strapline to this article reminded me of your post - a typical British use of the word "banger" referring to a sausage.

I'd happily eat that. Had to look up Cholula though. What I know about Mexican food could be written on a perforation of a postage stamp.

Thanks for posting. A fascinating glimpse into a part of the world I knew nothing about.

Pretty much all sashimi meats, including fish are frozen first to kill visitors. In many places it is a legal requirement.

Pork sashimi.

Seems to me we haven't had one of these for a while.

These took a long time, but it was worth it, I think. Beef ribs marinaded in Shaoxing wine and soy sauce with garlic, ginger, Sichuan peppercorns, fennel seeds, star anise, chilli, salt for 12 hours overnight. Popped into the slow cooker early in the morning at the high setting for an hour then at the low setting of another 8 hours while l I went to pretend to work. Ribs and cooking liquid separated and fridged again. Today, removed the congealed fat from the top of the cooking liquid now a lovely gelatinous jelly (yeah, I know that is tautological). Recombined with the ribs. Reheated with some chopped scallion on top. I planned to serve this with rice, but at the last moment decided on simple boiled potatoes, fork mashed on the plate. There was some Shanghai bok choy somewhere in the picture, too, The rib meat wasn't so much falling off the bone, but had already decidedly parted company somewhere earlier. I'll be doing this again.

Yes But his copyright has long since expired.

Well, that's a culture difference. Serving shepherd's pie with beef would be illegal in the UK. Trades Description Act and all that. Anyway, I doubt there is a single Starbucks franchise manager in China who would know the difference between a Trade Description Act and a Drag Act. They struggle to understand what coffee is.

I was thinking more of a Nobel prize. Or prizes.

Europe just went through something similar with most of Spain's harvest of pretty much everything being lost. This particularly ruffled English feather's as they couldn't get courgettes/zucchini leading to near riots in supermarkets. Because there are no other vegetables grown locally. Of course, nothing to do with global warming because that doesn't exist.