Adam_Balic

That's very kind of you Steve, I will get onto that book at once. Sounds like just the thing that I am interested in at the moment. Weirdly, at least some of my interest in this subject was due to the topic-that-dare-no-speak-its-name (I was trying to determine which facts were true and which were not), so some good came out of it. :confused:

I feel like a freak, there is nothing I wont eat (except on ethical grounds). Did have broad beans, brussel sprouts and broccoli, but then I tasted them after somebody other then my mother cooked them. Honey? Condensed bee vomit sure, but nice condensed bee vomit isn't it?

I have read that you are not adverse to the odd piggy bit or two, so hopefully you can answer this! Offal often shows up in restaurant menus, but doesn't seem to be popular for home cooking, or at least is rarely promoted, especially by TV cooks (eg. no Pukka calves liver, luvly jubly). Do you think that this will ever change? What is it about offal that results in people spending 20 quid on some calf liver and onions at a restaurant, but won't spend two quid to cook the same thing at home?

My wife and I have rented a flat in Florence of three weeks in July, I am interested in eating some of the more tradional foods and ultimately cooking it myself. I have family that live in Chianti and will be in Siena quite a bit also, so I have the oppertunity to taste food from all over the region. I already have the local tripe stall and blood-pudding supplier sorted (unfortunately it isn't pig killing time so no blood desert) but are there any other local food of interest in the region which you would consider a must have? Oh, has anybdy cooked cardoons? The last time I came back from Florence I bought two kilos of cardoons with me, but after cooking them I found that they were to old and bitter to eat.

Yes, that's the very book.

The Moro cookbook? No I don't own it, I can only hope to dream to find Moorish recipes of such authenticity. Actually, my interest stems from a trip to Andalusia were I went to number of restaurants serving authentic Moorish food. Subsequently, I found out that most of the food was about as authentic as the Ossianic poems and much of the rest was based on one book of anonymous 13th.C recipes. So from that point I have had an interest in the food of that region/time. I have never heard of any Jewish recipes from that period though and given the large amounts of the present Jewish population that had ancestors from that region I thought it sounded very interesting. So if it isn't any bother to you, yes I would be interested.

I have made a clafoutis with coconut cream custurd flavoured with pandanus (also known as screwpine, which turns it green) and lychee and mango as the fruit. Served it after a Thai red curry with duck, was v. nice.

Steve that last cookbook sounds wonderful, I am interested in pre-reconquest food from Spain, to date I have really only tracked down Moorish recipes, not Jewish. I don't surpose that it would be possible for you to post some of the recipe titles?

Snigger.

Oh, look at the dates, this is from way back when everybody loved each other. Hence the kisses. XOXOXOXO

Divinity, nope, Philosophy.

Yes, and did you know that red peppers (and hence paprika) reached Hungary from South America via the Ottoman empire?

No worries mate. Yes you wine should last 10-15 years (actually, maybe longer), but it will change a great deal in this time, so maybe you should keep tasing notes, so that you can see how wine changes over time (and how you change as well!). Ask as many questions as you like, my personal knowledge is limited, but there are plenty of other people here who can help you out.

Oh, Evelen Waugh is my mis-spelling. Evelyn Waugh was an English writer, who's reminds me of Chartreuse for some reason (maybe because some of his writing is set in the 1920-30's when drinking the stuff was in vogue). Anyway, his writing is rather good and there are worse ways of spending an evening then drinking Chartreuse and reading Evelyn Waugh. More information is avalible at" http://www.hertford.ox.ac.uk/alumni/waugh.htm

That's Dr. Balic dude.

Catchy name for a cookbook.

Green Chartreuse is best drunk whilst reading Evelen Waugh, otherwise some of the more subtle nuances are lost.

Sweetpea - a "Super Tuscan" is the name given to a new (last 15-20 years?) style ofwine in Tuscany, which fall outside the legal definitions of the tradional appellations, but are very good. For example to get the appellation "Chianti Classico", the wine must be made in the Chianti Classico zone and must contain over 70% Sangiovese (grape variety) and meet several other definitions. If I make a wine that has 69% Sangiovese it can't be called Chianti Classico and gets "down" regulated to table wine "Vino Tabola". VTs would tradionaly be fairly low quality wine, obviously you can still make a great wine which falls outside the more tradional appellations, so to distinguish these new good wines from all the bulk table wines they became known as "Super Tuscans". They often contain Cab. Sav. or Cab. franc to give "backbone" to the Sangiovese grape variety and maybe make the wine taste more like what people are use to in French wines, but that is just being cynical. Your wine comes from a good year, which is often over looked due to the great '97 vintage that followed it. If you intend to drink it yourself I would pick a nice meal and open up a bottle so that you can determine how long you would wish to keep the others.

Anne Willan's French regional cooking books, they are great.

Wilfrid - I bought a cooking book published in Edinburgh (1773) on the weekend, it has a recipe for chicken with peas and lettuce, much as you described for the duck recipe, so I can push back that origin of the recipe until at least the 18th C. Some of the other recipes in the book are rather medieval in flavour, so it may go back further, but I guess the origin of this recipe depends on when "modern-type" peas and lettuce came into being, I will look into it. The book has some other interesting recipes; "Goose cooked in the French manner" which is Goose Confit, what a pity that didn't take off in Britain and "Tame duck to taste like wild duck" - take a stick, beat duck to death, the blood will migrate to the flesh, so you won't be able to tell the difference between tame or wild duck. Nice eh. Oh yes, dinner. Roasted red mullet (liver and roe eaten as well), spiced mashed potatos, salad. Cheap white wine with expensive Cassis.

I'm not sure that this helps, but I have a large Spanish store next to my flat in Edinburgh which sells the item in question. I bought some last night out of curiosity, after reading this thread. Nice! I tasted some and used some to rub into a chicken I was roasting. It has some great cooking properties as it turns into a dryish paste, rather then turning into a solid "disc" and it doesn't burn when heated. The fat which drains out was excellent on the roasted potatos, turned them a nice scarlet colour. Sells for fifteen quid per kilo.

I wonderful post Suvir, just wonderful. Writing like this gives me the perspective to see how little I know of so Indian culture and how much more I would like to know.

I dunno Simon, you know more about this them me (or most others), but it would seem to be that the question is too general to be applied to Indian cooking as a whole. From what you and Suvir have said on the subject, almost every family has its own recipes for a particular regional dish, and dishes between regions varies even more. So difficult to say what is geographic variation and what is temporal development. Is there a history of restaurant type dining in India, such as developed in France? So, as not to be a pain in the arse, I would suggest that Moghul cooking is an obvious chioce of an Indian cuisine that has a "history" and has changed to suit the requirements of the people that took up this form of cooking (ie. Has developed and changed from the original Persian recipes). Do you know of any examples of European cooking techniques that have been transfered into the Indian repertoire, like say the Janpanese development of tempura occured due to contact with the Portuguese?

Do you use Apricot kernals to get a bitter Almond favour? I had made frangipane with Almonds, but it never tasted quite right. Whilst in Morocco I was eating a bag of Almonds, which were great, but one in every couple of dozen or so was a bitter Almond. Have since learn that Bitter Almonds are no longer present in most Euorpean (US?) Almonds you can buy (due to fears of cyanide?), so I add an Apricot kernal to get the correct flavour. I could use Almond extract or Amaretti Biscuits, but using a Apricot is a nice twist.

Don't worry Suvir, you won't get into trouble for buying Hibiscus cannabinus in the US, friend Damian is thinking of a different, naughty, plant (Ganja'yi).Hibiscus cannabinus Hibiscus cannabinus is grown in the US, (under the name of "Kenaf") for textile fibre and animal food. You might be able to get it for human consumption, but I would guess that due to its resemblance to the naughty weed, it most likely isn't that widely avalible.