During this Coronavirus lockdown I have been trying to keep myself entertained so I thought I would put together a short Kindle book on the history of beans. In which you will discover the decidedly odd history of the humble bean . Discover why Pythagarus would not eat beans, why …
Food always reflects the culture it was born in. There’s no dish for which this is truer than kedgeree. Delicately spiced rice, hard-boiled eggs, smoky fish and butter– this is a culinary fight to the death between Indian flavours and Victorian nursery food. It’s no wonder, then, that it was …
Classic French onion soup is said to have been created by the dethroned King Stanislaw I of Poland, father-in-law of Louis XV, who had time on his hands during his necessarily prolonged sojourn at his daughter’s court. (Stanislaw is also noted for traveling across Europe disguised as a coachman and …
Even though most asparagus found in shops are green, it is also available in white. White asparagus is simply green asparagus, buried. Popular in some less interesting parts of Europe for its smooth buttery taste, white asparagus is created by mounding sandy soil over the beds to shield the growing …
It seems that we should blame a priapistic French merchant for this. This naughty little Frenchman misinterpreted the Moorish word for tomato, Pomi di Moro as Pomme d`armour,the love apple. What with the tomatoes saucy reputation as an aphrodisiac, the name stuck. There is another theory that the “love apple” …
This morning, as I incinerated my breakfast, I was reminded of the etymology of the word rasher, as in a rasher of bacon. There are two theories on the subject. The first rather tedious one is that it’s cognate with razor and therefore means a thin strip that has been …
Modern pizza is basically no more than a circle of dough spread with sauce and sprinkled with cheese. It’s probably these simple elements that have made pizza a worldwide staple; most cuisines include some kind of flatbread that can be topped with oils, vegetables, and meats. The ancient Greeks made …
“At 6.00 he took a shower. He boiled some potatoes and had open sandwiches of pickled herring in mustard sauce with chives and egg on a rickety table outside the cottage, facing the bridge. He poured himself a shot of aquavit and drank a toast to himself. After that …
As England became more prosperous in the 16th century there was a renewed focus on etiquette and manners. As befitting the influence of the renaissance this was also a time which saw a renewed interest in ‘household ordinances and serving manuals’- namely a series of Anglo-Latin courtesy poems which gave …
Britain in the seventeenth century was quite an unsettling place to live, what with Puritanism and superstition being the norm. Women in particular were still being persecuted for witchcraft as depicted in the 1968 film The Witchfinder General starring a wonderfully snarling Vincent Price. It seems that a certain …
