In the few hundred yards of pedestrianized Caroline Street (Stryd Caroline) in Cardiff:
(St Mary Street end on the right)
Charleston Street Bar & Grill – Kebab-King – Red Onions Fish & Chip Shop (est. 1971) – Tony’s Fish & Chip Bar – Dorothy’s Fish and Chip Bar (est. 1953) – Kebab Land and Pizza House – Morgan’s Fish Bar & Kebab House – Pipi’s Restaurant – Griller – King’s Cross (pub).
(Turn around, on the other side)
Duke of Wellington (pub) – Greggs – Capital Takeaway – Rosario’s Steak House – Edge (Thai) – Bella Italia – Mamma’s – kitty flynn’s.
Caroline Street is also know as “Chippy Lane.” If the media report a post-club fracas involving someone famous it will most likely have taken place in "Chippy Lane".
A survey conducted by Wales Online, as to what Caroline Street is really called obtained the following result: Chippy Lane 47%, Chippy Alley 19%, Neither, it’s just Caroline Street 27%.
Further reading:
http://yourcardiff.walesonline.co.uk/2011/01/13/caroline-street-chippy-lane-or-chippy-alley/
(survey accessed 24 March 2011)
The food scene in Cardiff and The Vale of Glamorgan (Wales), with an emphasis on Local Food. I also tweet @sfnottingham
Thursday, 31 March 2011
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Pork and Fennel
At the weekend we ate pork shoulder with fennel seeds, which had been cooking all day in our new slow cooker. It was great (thanks to Chris). I had forgotten just how good this combination of meat and spice can be.
The joint is smeared all over with three tablespoons of Dijon mustard. Two tablespoons of fennel seeds are crushed in a pestle and mortar with a teaspoon of sea or rock salt, and rubbed into the mustard on the meat. Around 150ml of dry cider is added around the meat. Cover and cook slowly for 8 to 9 hours. Cook the crackling separately in a hot oven, along with the roast potatoes.
Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) seeds are added to a wide range of roasted pork dishes, pork stews and casseroles, on grilled pork chops, and are a key ingredient in Italian pork sausages.
The distinctive flavour and aroma of crushed fennel seeds is due to their dominant volatile component anethole (which is the same chemical that flavours anise seeds and star anise). Harold McGee notes that most fennel seed sold commercially is from sweet fennel varieties. These have a sweet flavour (without the bitterness of wild fennel and non-sweet varieties), supplemented by citrus, fresh and pine notes.
Harold McGee, 2004. McGee on Food and Cooking, Hodder & Stoughton, page 415.
The joint is smeared all over with three tablespoons of Dijon mustard. Two tablespoons of fennel seeds are crushed in a pestle and mortar with a teaspoon of sea or rock salt, and rubbed into the mustard on the meat. Around 150ml of dry cider is added around the meat. Cover and cook slowly for 8 to 9 hours. Cook the crackling separately in a hot oven, along with the roast potatoes.
Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) seeds are added to a wide range of roasted pork dishes, pork stews and casseroles, on grilled pork chops, and are a key ingredient in Italian pork sausages.
The distinctive flavour and aroma of crushed fennel seeds is due to their dominant volatile component anethole (which is the same chemical that flavours anise seeds and star anise). Harold McGee notes that most fennel seed sold commercially is from sweet fennel varieties. These have a sweet flavour (without the bitterness of wild fennel and non-sweet varieties), supplemented by citrus, fresh and pine notes.
Harold McGee, 2004. McGee on Food and Cooking, Hodder & Stoughton, page 415.
Monday, 28 March 2011
Food on Film: eXistenZ
Here's the restaurant scene from David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ (1999). Cronenberg was well ahead of the game in depicting characters in virtual worlds so realistic that boundaries between the real and unreal become blurred.
Jude Law and Jennifer Jason Leigh find that there's more to this genetically modified reptile stew than meets/meats the eye. [warning: being Cronenberg, it’s pretty gross].
I hope you enjoy it very much….
Jude Law and Jennifer Jason Leigh find that there's more to this genetically modified reptile stew than meets/meats the eye. [warning: being Cronenberg, it’s pretty gross].
I hope you enjoy it very much….
Sunday, 27 March 2011
Roadkill
I had a lovely walk today, in the woods and country lanes between Dinas Powys, Wenvoe and Michaelston-le-Pit. Lots of spring flowers, birdsong and lambs bleating, and the sad sight of a bird of prey dead by the roadside. Not for a moment did I think about taking it home and cooking it, but Jonathan McGowan might have. In yesterday's Guardian Weekend he describes his experience of cooking roadkill. After years of experimenting (e.g., avoid badger and hedgehog), he now serves his dinner guests dishes such as two-owl bolognese, fox lasagne and frog stir-fry. Interesting:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/mar/26/i-eat-roadkill
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/mar/26/i-eat-roadkill
Saturday, 26 March 2011
Braised Red Cabbage
I have been cooking Braised Red Cabbage for as long as I have been cooking. It was one of my Mum’s recipes. She noted it was cooked in the Viennese style. It’s sweet, gets better after reheating, and half of it can be frozen for another day.
I have cut and pasted this recipe from an archived html file from February 1997, which formed part of my first website:
Braised Red Cabbage
This is a popular Nottingham family recipe.
• Ingredients: A red cabbage, 1 oz brown sugar, 3 tablespoons redcurrant jelly, 2 teaspoons salt, freshly-ground pepper, handful of dried sultanas, 2 oz butter, 1 large finely-chopped onion, 2 tablespoons cider vinegar, 2 tablespoons water, 3 bay leaves.
• Finely shred and rinse the red cabbage.
• Add the rest of the ingredients. Stir. Cover.
• Cook in moderate oven (or on hob) 45 mins to 1 hour.
• Dish improves if cooled and reheated. Freezes well.
Friday, 25 March 2011
Penarth Pier
There was an early vision of summer on Penarth Pier today: bright sunshine, kids with ice creams, shorts and sandals, waves on the beach below.
At the entrance to the pier is Tonys, who sells pizzas, other hot meals, and Thayer’s Ice Cream. On the pier itself are two snackbars. The first is Decks on Penarth Pier, specializing in fish and chips, bacon rolls and Joe’s Ice Cream (made in Swansea). Next door is Nicola’s Juice and Coffee Bar, run by Nicola Morgan with some help from her daughter, selling pasties, pies, sausage rolls, baguettes, cakes, and fishing bait. An impressive photo gallery of proud fishermen and the fish they have caught off the end of the pier is on display on the wall.
I had an excellent freshly-squeezed orange juice and a buttered slice of bara brith from Nicola’s Juice and Coffee Bar. She did me a good deal as it was the end of the loaf. Regulars seem to make use of the coffee/teas exchanged for gossip option.
Penarth Pier was built in 1894 and most of the pier is in good shape. Large ships embark from here; the Waverley (a steamboat) and Balmoral board from the end of the pier in the summer for cruises along the Bristol Channel. However, the Pavilion is in urgent need of renovation. The ambitious Penarth Pavilion Project has plans approved to convert the Pavilion into a multi-purpose hall, with a small cinema/lecture theatre, visitor centre, restaurant/bar, observation tower and Café. The funding is currently being raised and everyone hopes this terrific scheme can be completed in 2013.
The plans for the pavilion can be viewed in The Washington Gallery (there is also a good café) in Penarth.
To find out how you can get involved in the Penarth Pavilion Project visit:
http://penarthpavilion.co.uk/
At the entrance to the pier is Tonys, who sells pizzas, other hot meals, and Thayer’s Ice Cream. On the pier itself are two snackbars. The first is Decks on Penarth Pier, specializing in fish and chips, bacon rolls and Joe’s Ice Cream (made in Swansea). Next door is Nicola’s Juice and Coffee Bar, run by Nicola Morgan with some help from her daughter, selling pasties, pies, sausage rolls, baguettes, cakes, and fishing bait. An impressive photo gallery of proud fishermen and the fish they have caught off the end of the pier is on display on the wall.
I had an excellent freshly-squeezed orange juice and a buttered slice of bara brith from Nicola’s Juice and Coffee Bar. She did me a good deal as it was the end of the loaf. Regulars seem to make use of the coffee/teas exchanged for gossip option.
Penarth Pier was built in 1894 and most of the pier is in good shape. Large ships embark from here; the Waverley (a steamboat) and Balmoral board from the end of the pier in the summer for cruises along the Bristol Channel. However, the Pavilion is in urgent need of renovation. The ambitious Penarth Pavilion Project has plans approved to convert the Pavilion into a multi-purpose hall, with a small cinema/lecture theatre, visitor centre, restaurant/bar, observation tower and Café. The funding is currently being raised and everyone hopes this terrific scheme can be completed in 2013.
The plans for the pavilion can be viewed in The Washington Gallery (there is also a good café) in Penarth.
To find out how you can get involved in the Penarth Pavilion Project visit:
http://penarthpavilion.co.uk/
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Keef's Bangers and Mash
What a great book ‘Life’ by Keith Richards is - the definitive rock and roll autobiography.
Keith likes “basic English nosh” and cooks for himself at home. On page 525 he gives his recipe for Bangers and Mash. His top tip is that sausages should be put into a cold pan to start them cooking (less chance of them exploding).
His recipe involves finding a butcher selling fresh sausages; frying up onions and bacon and seasoning; putting spuds to boil with a dash of vinegar, chopped onion and salt (and some peas and carrot if you wish); grilling or broiling bangers, with onions and bacon if in the pan, turning every few minutes; “mash yer spuds and whatever”; gravy if desired; and HP sauce.
At a party once, someone took the spring onions he was going to chop onto his mash. There was hell to pay.
On The Rolling Stones more recent tours, Richards has had a Shepherd’s Pie delivered to his dressing room before shows. Only he is allowed to break the crust.
His home-made Shepherd’s Pie tip is to put extra chopped onions on top of the cooked meat and vegetable mix, before the mashed potato topping is spread on, just before it’s put into the oven.
In her Complete Cookery Course, the Queen of English Nosh Delia Smith only gets as far as a vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie. A complete nonsense, as I am sure Keith would agree!
Keith Richards, with James Fox, Life (2010), Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Keith likes “basic English nosh” and cooks for himself at home. On page 525 he gives his recipe for Bangers and Mash. His top tip is that sausages should be put into a cold pan to start them cooking (less chance of them exploding).
His recipe involves finding a butcher selling fresh sausages; frying up onions and bacon and seasoning; putting spuds to boil with a dash of vinegar, chopped onion and salt (and some peas and carrot if you wish); grilling or broiling bangers, with onions and bacon if in the pan, turning every few minutes; “mash yer spuds and whatever”; gravy if desired; and HP sauce.
At a party once, someone took the spring onions he was going to chop onto his mash. There was hell to pay.
On The Rolling Stones more recent tours, Richards has had a Shepherd’s Pie delivered to his dressing room before shows. Only he is allowed to break the crust.
His home-made Shepherd’s Pie tip is to put extra chopped onions on top of the cooked meat and vegetable mix, before the mashed potato topping is spread on, just before it’s put into the oven.
In her Complete Cookery Course, the Queen of English Nosh Delia Smith only gets as far as a vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie. A complete nonsense, as I am sure Keith would agree!
Keith Richards, with James Fox, Life (2010), Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Monday, 21 March 2011
Risotto: This Much I Know
I regularly make risotto. Last week was a bacon and butternut squash risotto. Here’s how I typically go about it.
1. Use a good stock. I make stock from chicken carcasses, with onion and carrot (freezing what I don’t use within a couple of days). Heat stock before adding it to rice.
2. Fry chopped onion, garlic and chunks of cooking bacon in olive oil/butter in a risotto/paella dish (or a large heavy-bottomed frying pan).
3. Use medium-grained risotto rice such as Arborio, which will retain a central chewiness, and not a grain that will turn your dish into rice pudding. The cooking method abrades starch from the rice surface which thickens the cooking liquid.
4. After the onion and bacon has been cooking for around 5 mins, add rice to the pan (and any dried herbs such as chopped thyme). I use almost a mugful for a very generously-sized family meal, and stir around (no longer than a minute) before starting to add liquid. I sometimes add a good splash of wine (if I have a glass on the go) to cook down before adding the heated stock.
5. Stir the rice as often as you can, to abrade the grain's surface, adding hot stock a little at a time (not all at once) so that more liquid evaporates and flavours concentrate.
6. Meanwhile, small cubes of buttercup squash are roasting with some butter (about 30 mins in a moderate oven), in a roasting dish covered by foil. Mix squash and any juices into risotto as rice is nearly finished cooking (I make mushroom risotto in a similar way – adding oven-cooked mushrooms and their juices).
7. Finally, stir in some butter toward the end of cooking. It enhances the risotto’s silky-creamy texture. Salt and pepper to your taste.
8. Have freshly-grated parmesan to hand. Some can be stirred into the risotto just before serving and more can be grated over the dish at the table.
9. A crisp salad and some crusty bread usually goes well.
10. That’s about as much as I know about risotto.
1. Use a good stock. I make stock from chicken carcasses, with onion and carrot (freezing what I don’t use within a couple of days). Heat stock before adding it to rice.
2. Fry chopped onion, garlic and chunks of cooking bacon in olive oil/butter in a risotto/paella dish (or a large heavy-bottomed frying pan).
3. Use medium-grained risotto rice such as Arborio, which will retain a central chewiness, and not a grain that will turn your dish into rice pudding. The cooking method abrades starch from the rice surface which thickens the cooking liquid.
4. After the onion and bacon has been cooking for around 5 mins, add rice to the pan (and any dried herbs such as chopped thyme). I use almost a mugful for a very generously-sized family meal, and stir around (no longer than a minute) before starting to add liquid. I sometimes add a good splash of wine (if I have a glass on the go) to cook down before adding the heated stock.
5. Stir the rice as often as you can, to abrade the grain's surface, adding hot stock a little at a time (not all at once) so that more liquid evaporates and flavours concentrate.
6. Meanwhile, small cubes of buttercup squash are roasting with some butter (about 30 mins in a moderate oven), in a roasting dish covered by foil. Mix squash and any juices into risotto as rice is nearly finished cooking (I make mushroom risotto in a similar way – adding oven-cooked mushrooms and their juices).
7. Finally, stir in some butter toward the end of cooking. It enhances the risotto’s silky-creamy texture. Salt and pepper to your taste.
8. Have freshly-grated parmesan to hand. Some can be stirred into the risotto just before serving and more can be grated over the dish at the table.
9. A crisp salad and some crusty bread usually goes well.
10. That’s about as much as I know about risotto.
Sunday, 20 March 2011
Apples
I thought the news about apples last week was a little sad. It was announced that sales of Gala apples had overtaken Cox apples for the first time. Gala was proclaimed “Britain’s favourite apple”.
The Gala apple cultivar is a hybrid (Kidd's Orange Red × Golden Delicious) that originated in New Zealand. It was first grown commercially in the UK in the 1980s and is now widely cultivated. It is firm and crisp, with a mild and sweet-flavour.
The Cox’s Orange Pippin, which it has supplanted in popularity, was first grown in 1825 in Buckinghamshire by the retired brewer and horticulturists Richard Cox. It has long been an iconic English fruit. It is a sweet crisp dessert apple, but less sweet and less bland in flavour than Gala. I prefer the Cox, as you might have guessed.
Most people now buy their apples in supermarkets. There will be a choice, if you are lucky, of four or five different cultivars. These may largely be imported; having been flown from, for example, Spain, the USA and New Zealand.
Brogdale Farm, near Faversham in Kent, is home to the National Fruit Collections. It is owned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and maintained by the University of Reading. The Collection contains around 1,800 varieties (2,222 individual accessions) of apple, along with hundreds of varieties of pear, plums, cherries and bush fruits.
The genetic resources conserved at Brogdale can be used to help breed new apple varieties for the UK market, to keep up with changing public tastes and to meet the challenges posed by climate change. Over recent decades English orchards have declined in area, but the decline may be over. Consumers can influence the outcome, by buying local produce.
Michael Leapman in the Daily Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/food/8382907/Pipped-to-the-post.html
BBC report:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/kent/hi/front_page/newsid_9429000/9429300.stm
The names of the 2,222 apple accessions in the National Fruits Collection:
http://www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/search(a-z).php
(A-Z: All. Search: Apples)
The Gala apple cultivar is a hybrid (Kidd's Orange Red × Golden Delicious) that originated in New Zealand. It was first grown commercially in the UK in the 1980s and is now widely cultivated. It is firm and crisp, with a mild and sweet-flavour.
The Cox’s Orange Pippin, which it has supplanted in popularity, was first grown in 1825 in Buckinghamshire by the retired brewer and horticulturists Richard Cox. It has long been an iconic English fruit. It is a sweet crisp dessert apple, but less sweet and less bland in flavour than Gala. I prefer the Cox, as you might have guessed.
Most people now buy their apples in supermarkets. There will be a choice, if you are lucky, of four or five different cultivars. These may largely be imported; having been flown from, for example, Spain, the USA and New Zealand.
Brogdale Farm, near Faversham in Kent, is home to the National Fruit Collections. It is owned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and maintained by the University of Reading. The Collection contains around 1,800 varieties (2,222 individual accessions) of apple, along with hundreds of varieties of pear, plums, cherries and bush fruits.
The genetic resources conserved at Brogdale can be used to help breed new apple varieties for the UK market, to keep up with changing public tastes and to meet the challenges posed by climate change. Over recent decades English orchards have declined in area, but the decline may be over. Consumers can influence the outcome, by buying local produce.
Michael Leapman in the Daily Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/food/8382907/Pipped-to-the-post.html
BBC report:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/kent/hi/front_page/newsid_9429000/9429300.stm
The names of the 2,222 apple accessions in the National Fruits Collection:
http://www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/search(a-z).php
(A-Z: All. Search: Apples)
Saturday, 19 March 2011
In the Days of the Comet
In London, where I have been at the Hayward Gallery to see British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet. The star of this show, for me, is Christian Marclay. His latest work The Clock is a 24-hour long montage of many thousands of film fragments that show clocks, watches or have characters reacting to a particular time of day. It works as a timepiece, being synchronised to local time. It is brilliantly edited, both visually and as a soundscape, and is really addictive - the hours fly by. The film ebbs and flows with climaxes around each hour as ticking clock plot devices come to a head. The midday section is particularly tense (and it's not just High Noon).
From a food angle, lunch starts on screen at 12.20pm. Mostly lunch is finished by 2pm, with a few acceptions (e.g., De Niro throwing his steak across the room in Raging Bull at around 2.30pm). Drinks become an issue around 2pm (i.e., are you going to drink all afternoon or are you going to do something about this?). Food is rarely show in movies at times outside of regular meal times.
Here's a BBC news item featuring The Clock:
Incidentally, the Hayward is crammed so full of art (around 40 artists are featured) that the coffee/snackbar that is sometimes situated inside the gallery is not open for this show. Fuel up before you go in!
British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet, Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London (until 17 April 2011):
http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/hayward-gallery-and-visual-arts/tickets/british-art-show-7-in-the-days-of-the-comet-55512?booktickets=1
From a food angle, lunch starts on screen at 12.20pm. Mostly lunch is finished by 2pm, with a few acceptions (e.g., De Niro throwing his steak across the room in Raging Bull at around 2.30pm). Drinks become an issue around 2pm (i.e., are you going to drink all afternoon or are you going to do something about this?). Food is rarely show in movies at times outside of regular meal times.
Here's a BBC news item featuring The Clock:
Incidentally, the Hayward is crammed so full of art (around 40 artists are featured) that the coffee/snackbar that is sometimes situated inside the gallery is not open for this show. Fuel up before you go in!
British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet, Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London (until 17 April 2011):
http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/hayward-gallery-and-visual-arts/tickets/british-art-show-7-in-the-days-of-the-comet-55512?booktickets=1
Thursday, 17 March 2011
Food on Film: I Am Love
I have just caught up with the wonderful I Am Love (io Sono l'Amore; 2009) on DVD. It was directed and written by Luca Guadagnino, and produced by Tilda Swinton. Swinton plays Emma, a Russian woman who marries into an aristocratic Italian family. She excels at playing her role, in a palatial villa in Milan, as wife to the Patriarch (Pipo Delbono) and mother to Eduardo (Gabriele Fezetti) and Alegra (Marisa Berenson).
However, Emma has an awakening when she eats food prepared by the talented young chef Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini), who has become friends with her son after a rowing race. The son is helping Antonio to finance a restaurant in the countryside, and so the chef is asked to prepare a meal at the villa. While making arrangements for this meal, Emma is taken to the idyllic setting where Antonio grows his vegetables - a Garden of Eden - and they start a passionate affair.
The renowned chef Carlo Cracco and his sous-chef were advisers on set and prepared all the food seen on screen. In a restaurant scene, Antonio prepares Leghorn style-cod, a traditional Italian dish of cod and tomatoes. He deconstructs it, in the style of modern "molecular gastronomy" with a tomato foam. Elsewhere, he experiments with a dish of aubergine and elderflowers. In the “awakening scene” (below), Emma is eating "Prawns with ratatouille, and sweet and sour sauce".
In the villa kitchen cooking scene (second below), Antonio shows Emma how to make a Russian salad with a blowtorch. This is actually one of the signature dishes of Carlo Cracco, in which the salad is enclosed in a sugar parcel. Franco in this scene is in reality a chef in Cracco's restaurant (Ristorante Cracco in Milan), where Edoardo Gabbriellini worked for two months learning to handle food like a chef before filming began.
The climactic dinner scene revolves around a special mixed-fish Russian soup called oucha (ukha), which Emma has described to Antonio.
Guadagnino channels classic Italian cinema of the 1950s and 1960s, but viewed with a modern sensibility, to give the film a distinctive and stylized feel. Cinematographer Yorick Le Saux makes scenes glow with ephereal painterly light. The music is by US composer John Adams (the first time his music has been used on a soundtrack), which greatly enhances the film’s operatic and fairytale qualities.
However, Emma has an awakening when she eats food prepared by the talented young chef Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini), who has become friends with her son after a rowing race. The son is helping Antonio to finance a restaurant in the countryside, and so the chef is asked to prepare a meal at the villa. While making arrangements for this meal, Emma is taken to the idyllic setting where Antonio grows his vegetables - a Garden of Eden - and they start a passionate affair.
The renowned chef Carlo Cracco and his sous-chef were advisers on set and prepared all the food seen on screen. In a restaurant scene, Antonio prepares Leghorn style-cod, a traditional Italian dish of cod and tomatoes. He deconstructs it, in the style of modern "molecular gastronomy" with a tomato foam. Elsewhere, he experiments with a dish of aubergine and elderflowers. In the “awakening scene” (below), Emma is eating "Prawns with ratatouille, and sweet and sour sauce".
In the villa kitchen cooking scene (second below), Antonio shows Emma how to make a Russian salad with a blowtorch. This is actually one of the signature dishes of Carlo Cracco, in which the salad is enclosed in a sugar parcel. Franco in this scene is in reality a chef in Cracco's restaurant (Ristorante Cracco in Milan), where Edoardo Gabbriellini worked for two months learning to handle food like a chef before filming began.
The climactic dinner scene revolves around a special mixed-fish Russian soup called oucha (ukha), which Emma has described to Antonio.
Guadagnino channels classic Italian cinema of the 1950s and 1960s, but viewed with a modern sensibility, to give the film a distinctive and stylized feel. Cinematographer Yorick Le Saux makes scenes glow with ephereal painterly light. The music is by US composer John Adams (the first time his music has been used on a soundtrack), which greatly enhances the film’s operatic and fairytale qualities.
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
Barcode Wales: Science at the National Botanic Garden of Wales
Dr Natasha de Vere, Head of Conservation and Research at the National Botanic Garden of Wales, talked about the Garden’s science projects at last night’s meeting of the Cardiff Naturalists’ Society.
The garden opened in May 2000, near Carmarthen. It gained a molecular biology laboratory last year. Its flagship science project is called Barcode Wales. Dr Vere told the meeting that the aim of the project was to DNA barcode all the native flowering plants in Wales (1,143 species). The project is due to be completed by the summer and will make Wales the first nation to achieve this biodiversity goal.
The DNA for most species is extracted from herbarium specimens, supplemented by field collection. Two genes (rbcL and MatK) act as a unique species barcode. Once the data has been published, it will be made available for numerous applications, including forensics and the identification of plants used in food and herbal mixtures. A current project is identifying what flowers bees visit, by identifying the pollen collected. As part of the funding for this project, the public can select a Welsh plant and sponsor its barcoding.
The Welsh Rare Plants Project at the Garden provides the scientific research needed to conserve the most threatened native plant species in Wales. Current projects involve wild cotoneaster, endemic whitebeams, spreading bellflower and wild thistle.
A National Nature Reserve (Waun Las) is situated adjacent to the gardens. Grassland management and restoration is a key goal. A species-rich area of grassland, for example, was successfully transplanted from a school playing field that was being redeveloped into the reserve. This National Nature Reserve is of particular importance, according to Dr Vere, because it is also a working organic farm. The reserve is therefore a model of how agriculture and biodiversity can co-exist. The farm has Welsh black cattle and two breeds of sheep. Meat from the animals is used in the Garden’s restaurant and is sold to the public.
The Garden also grows its own food in a series of trial allotments. These also contribute to the Garden’s extensive education programme (schools and adult lifelong learning). One horticultural project involves looking at the medicinal properties of tea plants, in particular identifying the bioactive component that suppresses Clostridium difficile (a bacterium that causes infections within hospitals).
The centre-piece of the Garden is the largest single-span glasshouse in the world, holding an important collection of Mediterranean flora. Over 12,500 plant accessions can be found in the Garden. A new arboretum will focus on temperate woodland trees (e.g., from South America); while a library, archives and herbarium have recently been established. The Garden is also forging many international links. Dr. Vere noted valuable exchanges with South Korea, where the new national botanic gardens has been modeled in part on the Garden (and will include three domed greenhouses like the one in Wales).
The National Botanic Garden of Wales has therefore come a long way in a decade. In its fourth year there was a financial crisis that came close to shutting the place down, but since then the Garden has gone from strength to strength. A third of its funding comes from the Welsh Assembly, a third from visitor income and a third from other sources such as fundraising and corporate hire. Dr Vere stressed the important contribution made by students and volunteers.
This was the last in a series of talks, held annually over the winter months at UWIC, organized by the Cardiff Naturalists’ Society (founded 1867). The summer is devoted to outdoor field meetings, which include a day on the Gower (26th March), a birdwatching and spring flower walk around Cardiff Bay (16th April), a trip to the limestone pavement habitat of Penwyllt (15th May), and a walk on Coryton roundabout (M4 Junction 32) to survey the orchids (6th June).
For more information on the Cardiff Naturalists’ Society (CNS) and details of how to join:
http://www.cardiffnaturalists.org.uk/
For further information on the National Botanic Garden of Wales:
http://www.gardenofwales.org.uk/
The garden opened in May 2000, near Carmarthen. It gained a molecular biology laboratory last year. Its flagship science project is called Barcode Wales. Dr Vere told the meeting that the aim of the project was to DNA barcode all the native flowering plants in Wales (1,143 species). The project is due to be completed by the summer and will make Wales the first nation to achieve this biodiversity goal.
The DNA for most species is extracted from herbarium specimens, supplemented by field collection. Two genes (rbcL and MatK) act as a unique species barcode. Once the data has been published, it will be made available for numerous applications, including forensics and the identification of plants used in food and herbal mixtures. A current project is identifying what flowers bees visit, by identifying the pollen collected. As part of the funding for this project, the public can select a Welsh plant and sponsor its barcoding.
The Welsh Rare Plants Project at the Garden provides the scientific research needed to conserve the most threatened native plant species in Wales. Current projects involve wild cotoneaster, endemic whitebeams, spreading bellflower and wild thistle.
A National Nature Reserve (Waun Las) is situated adjacent to the gardens. Grassland management and restoration is a key goal. A species-rich area of grassland, for example, was successfully transplanted from a school playing field that was being redeveloped into the reserve. This National Nature Reserve is of particular importance, according to Dr Vere, because it is also a working organic farm. The reserve is therefore a model of how agriculture and biodiversity can co-exist. The farm has Welsh black cattle and two breeds of sheep. Meat from the animals is used in the Garden’s restaurant and is sold to the public.
The Garden also grows its own food in a series of trial allotments. These also contribute to the Garden’s extensive education programme (schools and adult lifelong learning). One horticultural project involves looking at the medicinal properties of tea plants, in particular identifying the bioactive component that suppresses Clostridium difficile (a bacterium that causes infections within hospitals).
The centre-piece of the Garden is the largest single-span glasshouse in the world, holding an important collection of Mediterranean flora. Over 12,500 plant accessions can be found in the Garden. A new arboretum will focus on temperate woodland trees (e.g., from South America); while a library, archives and herbarium have recently been established. The Garden is also forging many international links. Dr. Vere noted valuable exchanges with South Korea, where the new national botanic gardens has been modeled in part on the Garden (and will include three domed greenhouses like the one in Wales).
The National Botanic Garden of Wales has therefore come a long way in a decade. In its fourth year there was a financial crisis that came close to shutting the place down, but since then the Garden has gone from strength to strength. A third of its funding comes from the Welsh Assembly, a third from visitor income and a third from other sources such as fundraising and corporate hire. Dr Vere stressed the important contribution made by students and volunteers.
This was the last in a series of talks, held annually over the winter months at UWIC, organized by the Cardiff Naturalists’ Society (founded 1867). The summer is devoted to outdoor field meetings, which include a day on the Gower (26th March), a birdwatching and spring flower walk around Cardiff Bay (16th April), a trip to the limestone pavement habitat of Penwyllt (15th May), and a walk on Coryton roundabout (M4 Junction 32) to survey the orchids (6th June).
For more information on the Cardiff Naturalists’ Society (CNS) and details of how to join:
http://www.cardiffnaturalists.org.uk/
For further information on the National Botanic Garden of Wales:
http://www.gardenofwales.org.uk/
Sunday, 13 March 2011
A Mess of Pottage
A delicatessen of gourmands ate a hill of beans...
I have a fondness for collective nouns. This profuse vocabulary for groups of things has its roots in a rural past of hawking (hunting with birds), huntsmen, gamekeepers, fishermen and poachers. Here are some of my favourite food-related terms (NB. some of these are no longer commonly eaten!):
A shoal of bass (or fish generally)
A catch of fish (deceased)
A singular of boars
A drove of cattle
A sheaf of corn
A clutch of eggs
A sclerosis of fast food
A trip of goats
A husk of hare
An army of herring
A drift of hogs
An ostentation of peacocks
A nye of pheasants
A quantity of smelt
A wedge of swans
A sounder of swine
A spring of teal
A hover of trout
A fall of woodcock
Source and further reading:
James Lipton. An Exaltation of Larks: The Ultimate Edition (1993). Penguin Books.
I have a fondness for collective nouns. This profuse vocabulary for groups of things has its roots in a rural past of hawking (hunting with birds), huntsmen, gamekeepers, fishermen and poachers. Here are some of my favourite food-related terms (NB. some of these are no longer commonly eaten!):
A shoal of bass (or fish generally)
A catch of fish (deceased)
A singular of boars
A drove of cattle
A sheaf of corn
A clutch of eggs
A sclerosis of fast food
A trip of goats
A husk of hare
An army of herring
A drift of hogs
An ostentation of peacocks
A nye of pheasants
A quantity of smelt
A wedge of swans
A sounder of swine
A spring of teal
A hover of trout
A fall of woodcock
Source and further reading:
James Lipton. An Exaltation of Larks: The Ultimate Edition (1993). Penguin Books.
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
Top 10 Indie Lunches in Cardiff (Guardian Guest blog)
My food blog has decamped to The Guardian for the day (below without photos):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cardiff/2011/mar/08/cardiff-top-lunch-snack-spots
====
[We've had guest blogger Stephen Nottingham on the go around Cardiff for the last few weeks on the hunt for the perfect sandwich. Here he reviews his top ten city centre independent snack shops and lunch stops].
Cardiff city centre is a great place to lunch. In addition to the too-numerous-to-mention UK-wide chains, there are many independent sandwich bars, cafes and restaurants that offer distinctive food that can be enjoyed on a budget. These one-off outlets contribute greatly to the character of the city. Here are ten of the best.
1. The New York Deli
Established by New Yorker Harriett Davies in 1990 and situated in the High Street Arcade, The New York Deli offers a wide range of baguettes, bagels and hoagies. You'll find a very friendly welcome 9am to 5pm Monday to Saturday – and now also on Sundays. Eat in or take away. Be warned, some of the hoagies are "for the very hungry".
2. Crumbs
Situated in the attractive Morgan Arcade, Crumbs was opened by Judi Ashley in December 1970. It is Cardiff's oldest vegetarian restaurant. The solid pine tables and many of the menu items have been consistent for four decades. Large bowls of salad a speciality. Eat in and take away lunches.
3. Servini's Snack Bar
This traditional family-run cafe opened in its present Wyndham Arcade location on St David's Day 1996, after around 15 years in a nearby location. Famed for all-day breakfasts and hot baguettes, it also serves fresh pasta meals, burgers, salads and jacket potatoes. Eat in and take away, and fully licensed.
4. Café Minuet
Music lover, chef and former owner Marcello Genesi recently retired after running this Italian restaurant in the Castle Arcade for 24 years. New owner Nadine Lodwick has worked there 20 years, knows the much-loved recipes, and will continue the tradition. Good value, considering the high quality of the food.
5. Fresh: The Baguette Bar
Fresh in the Royal Arcade is the place to go if you're busy and want an interesting take-away sandwich. With so many baguettes and panini filling options (including plenty for vegetarians), you'll want to return.
6. Dizzy Llama
The Dizzy Llama in Churchill Way is a good place for a quiet lunch for two. Owned by Rhys and Tammy, it opened in December 2009 and bills itself as an independent Welsh International restaurant. It offers an interesting range of dishes and is included for its good-value 2-for-1 lunchtime deals.
7. 10 Feet Tall
10 Feet Tall (bistro café bar) is celebrating its third year on Church Street. It offers a distinct, quirky, kid-friendly environment, and quality food. Look out for lunchtime meal deals.
8. WOW
WOW Bar's daytime menu includes breakfasts and thick-cut sandwiches. WOW Deli is a couple of doors along Churchill Way – look for the bread stacked in the window - and does take-away lunches.
9. Pillars
This Cardiff institution on Queen Street has been a favourite lunch stop for shoppers on Queen Street for over 30 years. Good-value meals are served in a large basement, from cold and hot buffet counters. Expect to queue.
10. Hayes Island Snack Bar
The snack bar in The Hayes has been serving tea and bacon rolls for the past sixty years. Currently operated by local caterers First Cafes, it's an unmistakable Cardiff landmark.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cardiff/2011/mar/08/cardiff-top-lunch-snack-spots
====
[We've had guest blogger Stephen Nottingham on the go around Cardiff for the last few weeks on the hunt for the perfect sandwich. Here he reviews his top ten city centre independent snack shops and lunch stops].
Cardiff city centre is a great place to lunch. In addition to the too-numerous-to-mention UK-wide chains, there are many independent sandwich bars, cafes and restaurants that offer distinctive food that can be enjoyed on a budget. These one-off outlets contribute greatly to the character of the city. Here are ten of the best.
1. The New York Deli
Established by New Yorker Harriett Davies in 1990 and situated in the High Street Arcade, The New York Deli offers a wide range of baguettes, bagels and hoagies. You'll find a very friendly welcome 9am to 5pm Monday to Saturday – and now also on Sundays. Eat in or take away. Be warned, some of the hoagies are "for the very hungry".
2. Crumbs
Situated in the attractive Morgan Arcade, Crumbs was opened by Judi Ashley in December 1970. It is Cardiff's oldest vegetarian restaurant. The solid pine tables and many of the menu items have been consistent for four decades. Large bowls of salad a speciality. Eat in and take away lunches.
3. Servini's Snack Bar
This traditional family-run cafe opened in its present Wyndham Arcade location on St David's Day 1996, after around 15 years in a nearby location. Famed for all-day breakfasts and hot baguettes, it also serves fresh pasta meals, burgers, salads and jacket potatoes. Eat in and take away, and fully licensed.
4. Café Minuet
Music lover, chef and former owner Marcello Genesi recently retired after running this Italian restaurant in the Castle Arcade for 24 years. New owner Nadine Lodwick has worked there 20 years, knows the much-loved recipes, and will continue the tradition. Good value, considering the high quality of the food.
5. Fresh: The Baguette Bar
Fresh in the Royal Arcade is the place to go if you're busy and want an interesting take-away sandwich. With so many baguettes and panini filling options (including plenty for vegetarians), you'll want to return.
6. Dizzy Llama
The Dizzy Llama in Churchill Way is a good place for a quiet lunch for two. Owned by Rhys and Tammy, it opened in December 2009 and bills itself as an independent Welsh International restaurant. It offers an interesting range of dishes and is included for its good-value 2-for-1 lunchtime deals.
7. 10 Feet Tall
10 Feet Tall (bistro café bar) is celebrating its third year on Church Street. It offers a distinct, quirky, kid-friendly environment, and quality food. Look out for lunchtime meal deals.
8. WOW
WOW Bar's daytime menu includes breakfasts and thick-cut sandwiches. WOW Deli is a couple of doors along Churchill Way – look for the bread stacked in the window - and does take-away lunches.
9. Pillars
This Cardiff institution on Queen Street has been a favourite lunch stop for shoppers on Queen Street for over 30 years. Good-value meals are served in a large basement, from cold and hot buffet counters. Expect to queue.
10. Hayes Island Snack Bar
The snack bar in The Hayes has been serving tea and bacon rolls for the past sixty years. Currently operated by local caterers First Cafes, it's an unmistakable Cardiff landmark.
Monday, 7 March 2011
British Pie Week
It may have escaped your notice, but this week is British Pie Week (“one of civilisation’s greatest culinary inventions”). Every week seems to be devoted to some foodstuff these days, sponsored by a major manufacturer of said foodstuff (Jus Rol, General Mills Berwick Limited, in this case). It’s all good P.R.
So, what’s on offer during British Pie Week. Well, there’s the announcement of the British Pub Pie Awards (winner: The Queen’s Head Inn, Cumbria). Each day, there is a pie of the day; today’s being Blue Cow Pie (with pastry horns), something which will be lost on anyone who didn’t read Desperate Dan in The Beano when they were a child (yes, British Pie Week is one of the more bloke-orientated food promotion weeks). Then there’s plenty of delicious pie recipes (just remember to use Jus Rol flaky pastry instead of making your own) and handy tips on making pies at home.
I approve of British Pie Week, and will endeavor to make my own by the end of the week (watch this space!). In the meantime, here’s Heston Blumenthal’s take on the traditional pie.
Stephen Nottingham added on 10 March:
Here's my contribution to British Pie week: a family-sized home-made Chicken and Mushroom Pie (made with Jus Rol pastry!)
British Pie Week 2011
http://www.britishpieweek.co.uk/
So, what’s on offer during British Pie Week. Well, there’s the announcement of the British Pub Pie Awards (winner: The Queen’s Head Inn, Cumbria). Each day, there is a pie of the day; today’s being Blue Cow Pie (with pastry horns), something which will be lost on anyone who didn’t read Desperate Dan in The Beano when they were a child (yes, British Pie Week is one of the more bloke-orientated food promotion weeks). Then there’s plenty of delicious pie recipes (just remember to use Jus Rol flaky pastry instead of making your own) and handy tips on making pies at home.
I approve of British Pie Week, and will endeavor to make my own by the end of the week (watch this space!). In the meantime, here’s Heston Blumenthal’s take on the traditional pie.
Stephen Nottingham added on 10 March:
Here's my contribution to British Pie week: a family-sized home-made Chicken and Mushroom Pie (made with Jus Rol pastry!)
British Pie Week 2011
http://www.britishpieweek.co.uk/
Sunday, 6 March 2011
Roast lamb with ginger, honey, cider and rosemary
I did the weekly roast dinner today and cooked a shoulder of Welsh lamb. I cooked it in the manner suggested by Gilli Davies in Celtic Cuisine (Graffeg, 2008; page 102). The meal turned out well and was enjoyed by all. However, I won’t be using the recipe again. It’s always instructive trying new recipes, especially when elements of it don’t work for you.
The recipe:
Peel an inch-long piece of fresh ginger and cut it into slivers. Make cuts in the lamb and insert ginger and fresh rosemary. Mix 1 oz melted butter and 2 tablespoons of clear honey and pour over the lamb [the ingredients listed include salt and pepper, which are never bought into play in the recipe – add them here]. Put the lamb in a roasting tin and pour over half of a measured 9 fl oz dry cider. Loosely cover in foil and roast in a moderate oven (190°C/375°F); allowing 25 minutes per pound. At ¾ stage remove foil and continue cooking, basting frequently with juices (add more cider if necessary). Remove joint from pan. Discard fat on top of juices [most of it in this case – kept for next week’s roast potatoes]. Pour in rest of cider and deglaze.
I served this with roast vegetables – a tray of roast potatoes (goose fat) and a tray of roast baby carrots and fennel (olive oil), some cabbage, and some freshly-made mint sauce; we opened a nice Rioja.
My conclusions:
1. Ginger does not really work in this context. I will stick with my usual method of inserting slivers of garlic, plus rosemary, into the meat.
2. Cider does not really match lamb. I will stick with red wine.
3. Mixing butter with honey adds too much fat (lamb being a particularly fatty meat). Just drizzle honey straight over surface of lamb, possibly with a little olive oil.
4. Honey can be difficult in deglazing situations, as it easily burns. I scooped out some pan juices and made gravy with more cider in another pan.
The lamb was moist and tasty, but the combination of ingredients that looks good on the page did not give enough added value for this cook.
The recipe:
Peel an inch-long piece of fresh ginger and cut it into slivers. Make cuts in the lamb and insert ginger and fresh rosemary. Mix 1 oz melted butter and 2 tablespoons of clear honey and pour over the lamb [the ingredients listed include salt and pepper, which are never bought into play in the recipe – add them here]. Put the lamb in a roasting tin and pour over half of a measured 9 fl oz dry cider. Loosely cover in foil and roast in a moderate oven (190°C/375°F); allowing 25 minutes per pound. At ¾ stage remove foil and continue cooking, basting frequently with juices (add more cider if necessary). Remove joint from pan. Discard fat on top of juices [most of it in this case – kept for next week’s roast potatoes]. Pour in rest of cider and deglaze.
I served this with roast vegetables – a tray of roast potatoes (goose fat) and a tray of roast baby carrots and fennel (olive oil), some cabbage, and some freshly-made mint sauce; we opened a nice Rioja.
My conclusions:
1. Ginger does not really work in this context. I will stick with my usual method of inserting slivers of garlic, plus rosemary, into the meat.
2. Cider does not really match lamb. I will stick with red wine.
3. Mixing butter with honey adds too much fat (lamb being a particularly fatty meat). Just drizzle honey straight over surface of lamb, possibly with a little olive oil.
4. Honey can be difficult in deglazing situations, as it easily burns. I scooped out some pan juices and made gravy with more cider in another pan.
The lamb was moist and tasty, but the combination of ingredients that looks good on the page did not give enough added value for this cook.
Friday, 4 March 2011
I am an omnivore
I am omnivorous. I’ll eat anything, me. Others are pickier about their food. They say you are what you eat, so here are some terms that define one by diet.
Best to say these words out loud, slowly rolling them around your mouth, to fully savour them.
Baccivorous (feeding on berries)
Canivorous (dogs)
Carnivorous (meat, flesh)
Equivorous (horse flesh)
Frondivorous (leaves)
Fructivorous (fruit)
Gallinivorous (poultry)
Granivorous (seeds, grain)
Herbivorous (plants)
Hominivorous (humans)
Lactivorous (milk)
Larvivorous (larvae)
Leguminivorous (beans and peas)
Lichenivorous (lichen)
Lignivorous (wood)
Mellivorous (honey)
Merdivorous (shit)
Nectarivorous (nectar)
Nucivorous (nuts)
Offivorous (offal)
Ornithivorous (birds)
Oryzivorous (rice)
Ossivorous (bones)
Panivorous (bread)
Pinivorous (pine kernel)
Piscivorous (fish)
Pomivorous (apples)
Ranivorous (frogs)
Sanguivorous (blood)
Source: Schott’s Food & Drink Miscellany, Ben Schott, Bloomsbury, 2003.
Best to say these words out loud, slowly rolling them around your mouth, to fully savour them.
Baccivorous (feeding on berries)
Canivorous (dogs)
Carnivorous (meat, flesh)
Equivorous (horse flesh)
Frondivorous (leaves)
Fructivorous (fruit)
Gallinivorous (poultry)
Granivorous (seeds, grain)
Herbivorous (plants)
Hominivorous (humans)
Lactivorous (milk)
Larvivorous (larvae)
Leguminivorous (beans and peas)
Lichenivorous (lichen)
Lignivorous (wood)
Mellivorous (honey)
Merdivorous (shit)
Nectarivorous (nectar)
Nucivorous (nuts)
Offivorous (offal)
Ornithivorous (birds)
Oryzivorous (rice)
Ossivorous (bones)
Panivorous (bread)
Pinivorous (pine kernel)
Piscivorous (fish)
Pomivorous (apples)
Ranivorous (frogs)
Sanguivorous (blood)
Source: Schott’s Food & Drink Miscellany, Ben Schott, Bloomsbury, 2003.
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Welsh Referendum
Today we are voting in Wales. The 3 March 2011 Referendum concerns the law-making powers of the National Assembly for Wales. The Welsh Assembly can pass legislation in 20 devolved areas or fields, which include Health and Education (but not defence, tax or welfare benefits). Field 1 concerns legislation on Agriculture, Fisheries, Forestry and Rural Development; while Field 8 concerns Food.
A NO (NAC YDW) vote will maintain the status quo, under which the Welsh Assembly must apply to the UK Parliament in Westminister, London, for agreement on any legislation it passes in the 20 devolved areas.
A YES (YDW) vote would mean that the Welsh Assembly would not need to go through the costly and time-consuming process of getting Westminster's agreement for each piece of legislation. It would streamline Welsh politics and give the Welsh Assembly a degree more autonomy.
All the major political parties in Wales support a YES vote. A range of fringe groups hope that voter apathy will discredit the referendum.
I've voted YES, and this morning the turnout at the Community Hall where I am the coordinator has looked very respectable.
Stephen Nottingham added on 4 March 2011:
The YES vote was 63.5% (517,132 voters) and the NO vote 36.5% (297,380 voters). 21 of the 22 counties in Wales voted YES (and the result in the other was very close). The turnout was 35% overall. Here in the Vale of Glamorgan the turnout was just over 40%.
A NO (NAC YDW) vote will maintain the status quo, under which the Welsh Assembly must apply to the UK Parliament in Westminister, London, for agreement on any legislation it passes in the 20 devolved areas.
A YES (YDW) vote would mean that the Welsh Assembly would not need to go through the costly and time-consuming process of getting Westminster's agreement for each piece of legislation. It would streamline Welsh politics and give the Welsh Assembly a degree more autonomy.
All the major political parties in Wales support a YES vote. A range of fringe groups hope that voter apathy will discredit the referendum.
I've voted YES, and this morning the turnout at the Community Hall where I am the coordinator has looked very respectable.
Stephen Nottingham added on 4 March 2011:
The YES vote was 63.5% (517,132 voters) and the NO vote 36.5% (297,380 voters). 21 of the 22 counties in Wales voted YES (and the result in the other was very close). The turnout was 35% overall. Here in the Vale of Glamorgan the turnout was just over 40%.
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