Celebrity chef says lockdowns have been ‘devastating’ for industry but upside is ‘crap is gone’
The celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has said it is good that the Covid-19 pandemic wiped the slate clean of “crap” restaurants.
In an interview with the former shadow chancellor Ed Balls in Radio Times, Ramsay argues that while the past two years have been “devastating” for the restaurant industry, the upside is “the crap’s gone”.
Continue reading...No fish or shellfish in Spain’s famous national dish says survey of 400 amateur chefs
Many crimes have been committed in the name of paella but now researchers in Valencia have laid down 10 commandments of what thou shall and shall not put in their national dish.
The ten permitted ingredients are: rice, water, olive oil, salt, saffron (or food colouring), tomato, flat green beans, lima beans, chicken and rabbit. No fish or shellfish. Ever.
Continue reading...Hens have been indoors for months because of avian flu and their eggs must now be differently labelled
Consumers will no longer be able to buy free-range eggs in the UK from Monday, with birds not having been allowed outdoors since November due to fears of avian flu outbreaks.
Eggs sold in shops will have to carry a sticker or label saying they are in fact “barn eggs”, the name given to eggs produced by hens permanently housed indoors.
Continue reading...Aid agencies warn of ‘ripple effect’ as soaring wheat prices hit countries already facing inflation, food insecurity and conflict
Concerns are growing across the Middle East and north Africa that the war in Ukraine will send prices of staple foods soaring as wheat supplies are hit, potentially fuelling unrest. Russia and Ukraine supply a quarter of the world’s wheat exports, while Egypt is the world’s biggest importer of wheat.
In Tunisia, like many people queueing for bread in Tunis’s sprawling medina, or old town, Khmaes Ammani, a day labourer, said the rising cost of living was leaving him squeezed. “There’s never any money at the end of the month,” he said. “I even have to borrow some. Everything is getting more expensive.”
Continue reading...At 80, Britain’s queen of cookery has written a surprising new book about spirituality that was turned down by six publishers. She talks about meditation, MasterChef and her beloved Norwich FC
Why is it so exciting – and so nerve-racking – to be meeting Delia Smith? Down the years, I’ve interviewed a lot of famous and important people (and three prime ministers), and yet I can’t remember any of them having induced this combination of extreme eagerness and mortal fear. Is it because when I was a teenager, she was one of the very few truly successful women then in public life? I suppose it must be. It’s no exaggeration to say that she was up there with the Queen, Mrs Thatcher and Madonna – and just like them, her word was The Law. For my 21st birthday, my parents gave me a cheque and a copy of Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course, and for all that I was still in my radical feminist stage, I hardly batted an eyelid. Simone de Beauvoir was all very well, but did she have any advice on roasting times or how to make sure your yorkshire puddings rise? No, she did not.
Anyway, one result of this desperate, anxious state was that I stupidly decided to bake a cake for her – my God, even to write such words – and when I arrive at her cottage, the conservatory of which I recognise from the TV shows she once presented there, the very first thing I do is hand it over. “It’s a bit … flat,” I say, mournfully (for those who are interested, it’s Nigella’s ordinarily easy-peasy cardamon and marzipan loaf). But it seems that I’m worrying unnecessarily. Delia looks completely delighted by my foil-wrapped house brick, cradling it in her arms as if it was a newborn baby. “You used good ingredients,” she says, kindly. “It will still taste nice.” Cooking isn’t about perfection, she tells me; it’s about achievability. “I once went to a Women’s Institute thing, and I remember thinking: I’m not at all sure my jam would pass muster here.”
Continue reading...The London-based pair launch initiative to raise awareness – and funds – through shared love of traditional dishes
Alissa Timoshkina was brought up on a “beautiful diet” of Ukrainian and Russian dishes. Growing up, she remembers her great-grandmother – a Ukrainian Holocaust survivor who emigrated to Siberia following the second world war – pounding lard and frying vegetables to make a hearty beetroot borscht (Ukrainian soup).
Now the Russian chef has joined forces with her Ukrainian best friend, Olia Hercules, in a show of unity in the face of war. The London-based pair, both 37, are the force behind Cook for Ukraine, an initiative that uses food to raise awareness about the conflict and funds to support the humanitarian effort.
Continue reading...From plant-eating bodybuilders to role models like Lewis Hamilton, so-called ‘hegans’ are turning gender stereotypes on their head
It was a Sunday afternoon in the late 1980s and the house was filled with the fatty scent of roast lamb. I absentmindedly enquired about the origins of lunch and my brother pointed at the mewing sheep in the field adjacent to our house. I was a five-year-old boy, and I decided on the spot to become the first vegetarian in my family.
My parents, while broadly supportive, were understandably bemused – and concerned. It was a less enlightened time, and my lack of dietary protein was a constant worry. They assuaged this by occasionally feeding me Chicken McNuggets under the not entirely misplaced logic that they weren’t really meat. After I’d cottoned on, I would sheepishly order a cheeseburger “without the burger” whenever we went to McDonald’s.
Continue reading...Veselka, a restaurant raved about by celebrities and food critics alike, has become a meeting place and fundraising operation
In New York’s East Village neighborhood, home to a wide array of popular restaurants and bars, is a decades-old staple in the city’s famous food scene. Veselka, located in a smaller pocket of the area once known as “Little Ukraine”, now sits at the corner of food and international politics.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has displaced millions and forced ordinary citizens to take up arms, or flee across borders to safety. Those problems aren’t just affecting the people of Ukraine, but thousands of their loved ones abroad – including some at this beloved New York restaurant.
Continue reading...Researchers tap into self-regulatory methods such as setting goals and keeping a diary
Setting daily meat reduction goals and keeping an online diary of intake helped frequent meat eaters to halve their consumption in just over nine weeks, a trial has found.
The trial, by researchers at the University of Oxford’s Livestock, Environment and People (Leap) programme, also found the routine was popular with participants, who felt it supported them to change their diet.
Continue reading...The cheese, made by Michael Spycher of Mountain Dairy Fritzenhaus, comes from a small dairy that works with just 12 farmers
A Gruyère from Switzerland has been named as the top cheese for the second consecutive time at the World Championship Cheese Contest in Wisconsin.
The cheese from Bern, Switzerland, made its maker, Michael Spycher of Mountain Dairy Fritzenhaus, a three-time winner. Spycher also won in 2020 and 2008. The cheese, called Gourmino Le Gruyère AOP, earned a score of 98.423 out of 100.
Continue reading...Firms sought to weaken draft EU law banning food imports linked to deforestation eight days after vowing to accelerate action
Five of the world’s biggest agribusiness firms sought to weaken a draft EU law banning food imports linked to deforestation, eight days after pledging to accelerate their forest protection efforts at Cop26, documents seen by the Guardian show.
Forest protection hopes had been raised when the CEOs of 10 food companies with a combined revenue of nearly $500bn (£373bn) vowed to “accelerate sector-wide action” towards eliminating commodity-driven deforestation as the climate summit began on 2 November.
Continue reading...Fishermen in Mexico are using the ike jime method, which aims to reduce fish trauma, to improve the quality of catches and help sustainability
Every morning, hundreds of small white fishing boats dot the dark blue waters of Veracruz’s coastline on the Gulf of Mexico. Most of the crews, many of whose families have been fishing for generations, employ traditional methods – using nets to catch large numbers of fish, which then slowly asphyxiate once out of the water.
But a few of the fishermen are doing something different, using a technique that emerged in Japan several centuries ago. It is a method for slaughtering fish that emulates a process called ike jime, which is based on a simple scientific principle: the less trauma the fish experiences, the longer the flesh remains fresh.
Continue reading...Limited outside space needn‘t stop you growing an impressive display of flowers and edibles, installing water features or even having a stab at keeping bees
Continue reading...Tasty, cheap, but often difficult to catch in the wild, this source of protein is increasingly being seen as a possible answer to food insecurity
The boarding of Uganda Airlines flight 446 from Entebbe to Dubai was momentarily disrupted at the end of last year when two of the passengers started hawking bush crickets in the aisles.
Their fellow travellers couldn’t believe their luck: nsenene are a prized delicacy in Uganda, but despite November usually being peak season for the insects, there had been hardly any around.
Continue reading...Miso spaghetti and chorizo sausage rolls, Colombian brunch and a little restaurant in Venice, oysters from Somerset and filo pastries on Instagram: presenting Observer Food Monthly’s food favourites for 2022
Continue reading...Senator Angus King urges US trade representative to press Beijing to live up to promise to increase spending on tasty crustaceans
China has failed to live up to its promise to buy more Maine lobster under a deal that opened the door to an easing of a trade war under Donald Trump, Maine’s congressional leaders say.
Maine’s lobster industry was hurt by retaliatory Chinese tariffs in 2018 but failed to see substantial export gains after China committed to buying an additional $200bn in US goods, the delegation contends.
Continue reading...With more stars than any other county, the land of gravy and chips is now held up as a rival to Paris and San Sebastián
When Simon Rogan and his family moved to Cumbria in 2002, the Lake District was famed for many reasons but food was not top of the menu. Visitors came in droves for the hills, rather than the haute cuisine.
Twenty years later their feted village restaurant, L’Enclume, is at the centre of a “mind-blowing” culinary renaissance that has led some diners to compare Cumbria to international foodie havens such as Paris, San Sebastián and Copenhagen.
Continue reading...This month, we dives into a European salad that went global after the Americans added mayo. But why is cheese a no-no? And should you be punished for popping in pineapple?
It won’t prevent cancer, rejuvenate ageing skin or arrest global warming but coleslaw is nonetheless a “miracle food”. Crunchy and wet, creamy and fresh, sweet and savoury, the subject of this month’s How to eat – the series identifying how best to enjoy Britain’s favourite foods – delivers rare complexity in every mouthful. It is also one of the few salads that works with hot dishes, the mayonnaise greasing the wheels of that gastronomic interaction.
Little wonder that Dutch koolsla, originally a way of dressing raw cabbage to make it palatable, not only survived its 18th-century journey to the US but with adjustments (swapping vinaigrette for mayonnaise), was re-exported to global acclaim.
Continue reading...Yes, we need to do something about obesity. But this new legislation seems unlikely to help
Everything I am, I owe to calories, as Sophia Loren never quite said. I have built myself, one edible unit of energy at a time. In truth I have more than built myself. I am over-engineered, in the way Mussolini’s Milan railway station is over-engineered, or Jason Momoa is over-engineered. See how deftly I compare myself to Momoa? We are exactly the same, him and me. Save that every calorie he consumes turns into a plank of rippling muscle, while mine turn into the greatest muffin top this side of the Greggs cake counter. But it’s all flesh, right?
Ah, calories. Mostly I try to ignore them; to regard them as I do the isobars on a meteorologist’s map which in no way describe the experience of standing outside in a howling gale. I know that not all calories are equal; that calories from carbs impact the body differently to those obtained from protein, for example. I also know that we all process foods differently. I have a metabolism that suggests I may at some point have been gene-spliced with a sloth, and hence spend hours in the gym brutalising myself. I also like my dinner very much. I regard the diet book industry as a massive scam. If a single diet book worked there would be no need to publish another one ever again. But still they come.
Continue reading...Envoys at Brest summit sign up to measures to tackle fight against illegal fishing and cut pollution
Representatives from more than 100 countries have committed to measures aimed at preserving the ocean from human harm, including stepping up the fight against illegal fishing, cutting plastic pollution and better protecting international waters.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, hosting the high-level session of the One Ocean summit on Friday, said 2022 was “a decisive year, and we should take here, in Brest, clear and firm commitments.”
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