food

  • Food and language

    Along with water, food is one of the essentials of life.

    Another of life’s essentials is language; it’s vital for communication and communal living in a social species such as ourselves.

    One of the elements of language is the adage, generally defined as something which people often say and which expresses a general truth about some aspect of life.

    In English one well-known adage is there’s many a true word spoken in jest, a propos of which the screenshot below turned up today in my social media feed.

    Conversation reads - Is British food really that bad? If made correctly; yes.

  • Happy retirement, Lesley!

    Regular readers will recall that the lovely community café at St Mark’s Baptist Church in Easton closed at the end of August (posts passim).

    Saturday last, 30th September, saw a retirement party for Lesley at the church. This was well attended by a broad range of people from Easton and beyond, all gathered to wish Lesley a happy retirement and partake of Lesley’s excellent cakes over which she’d laboured. These included not just church members, local traders, café users, foodbank volunteers and Abdul Malik from Easton Jamia Masjid, the mosque that faces the church across the street.

    Lesley with Abdul Malik from the church's close neighbour, from the mosque over the road.
    Lesley with Abdul Malik the church’s close neighbour, Easton Jamia Masjid.
    After a question and answer session with Lesley that covered the whole history of the café from its inception up to its closure in August, various people were invited out to the front, given a microphone and said a few words about the café, Lesley and so on. Abdul paid a great tribute (from what I could see wholly unscripted. Ed.) to Lesley and the collaboration between the chapel and mosque, particularly on large community events such as the Grand Iftar at the end of Ramadan.

    One of those invited to address the assembled throng was your ‘umble scribe, who was asked to read out his above-mentioned blog post, which was composed on the café’s final day and was received with general approbation.

    Lesley did drop some very serious hints that even though the café had now closed, that did not mean the end of catering activities for the community. Your correspondent will keep his ear to the ground and relay any information that comes to light.

    In the meantime, have a happy retirement, Lesley; and don’t be afraid to use your bus pass! 😉

  • A sad day in BS5

    Friday 25th August 2023 marked the end of an era and a sad day for Easton in Bristol. After 14 years of serving the public St Mark’s Community Café based at St Mark’s Baptist Church opened for the very last time after 14 years.

    Of the local media outlets, only the BBC appears to have covered this event, but gave it a very sympathetic write-up.

    Your ‘umble scribe has been going there 2 or 3 times a week for the past few years to enjoy baked potatoes, good cooking and the undisputed best cakes in all BS5, the latter baked by the remarkable Lesley, whose baking skills put my own late mother’s to shame (and that’s saying a lot, coming from a loyal eldest son!). My own particular favourites amongst her regular baked wares were farmhouse fruit, barra brith and anything with gooseberries or ginger. Furthermore, all the food served and the ingredients used to prepare it were ethically and locally sourced wherever possible.

    However, this was a café with a difference: paying customers like your correspondent meant that the homeless could eat there for free. Below is a short video with interviews of both customers and café staff/volunteers to give an idea of what has now entered the annals of local history.

    Although I’ll miss you all terribly, here’s wishing Lesley a happy retirement and I’d like to express my thanks to you, Nettie and all the café volunteers for keeping me fed over the years and being such wonderful people.

  • Qu’ils mangent des navets

    Thérèse Coffey, the alleged Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has advised consumers to opt for turnips as tomato and cucumber supplies dwindle, owing to shortages.

    This instantly reminds your correspondent of that phrase attributed to Marie Antoinette, supposedly uttered by her during the French Revolution: “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche“, usually translated into English as “Let them eat cake“.

    However, there is no there is absolutely no historical evidence that Marie-Antoinette ever said “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” or anything like it, although folklore scholars have found similar tales in other parts of the world.

    Lookalikes - Thérèse Coffey and Marie Antoinette

    Anyway, back to Coffey, a minister devoid of humanity and compassion, but richly endowed with incompetence, callousness and that all-important can’t-do attitude.

    Coffey has stated that shortages of salad and other vegetables in UK supermarkets could last up to a month. However, critics have accused the government of bringing the problem on itself by failing to support local growers and through Brexit policies.

    Speaking in the House of Commons, Coffey told MPs British consumers should “cherish” home-grown produce, whilst castigating the latter for wanting “a year-round choice“.

    In her own words:

    “It’s important to make sure that we cherish the specialisms that we have in this country. A lot of people would be eating turnips right now rather than thinking necessarily about aspects of lettuce and tomatoes and similar.”

    Finally, so that Coffey can indulge in ‘cherished‘ home-grown produce, your ‘umble scribe will perform a public duty by providing a link – should the alleged Secretary of State happen to be reading this post, to a recipe for cream of potato and turnip soup.

    Enjoy! 😉

    Update 25/02/23. One consequence of Ms Coffey’s advocacy of “cherishing” this humble root vegetable is that supermarkets are reported as running of turnips. Your correspondent could find none at his local Lidl yesterday, although swedes (the Swedish turnip) are plentiful.

    As a final postscript, your ‘umble scribe notes from The Guardian today that its political sketch writer John Crace has written:

    Four years ago I tweeted, “Let them eat turnips”. It was meant to be a joke about Brexit. Now it’s government policy. Satire comes at you fast these days.
  • Campbells responds to bigot

    One disadvantage of social media is it allows hard-of-thinking bigots a platform to express their prejudices.

    However, this might not always work to the advantage of the prejudiced, as the exchange below between a Tennessee redneck and Customer Service for the Campbell Soup Company re homophobia illustrates.

    Original post comments Your new commercial with the 2 dads makes me sick, whilst Campbells Customer Service replies Hi Kim! If you're feeling sick, we suggest a enjoying a delicious can of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup. Make sure to enjoy it hot, so that it can help warm up your cold, dead heart.

    According to Wikipedia, chicken soup – with or without noodles – ‘has long been touted as a form of folk medicine to treat symptoms of the common cold and related conditions. In 2000, scientists at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha studied the effect of chicken soup on the inflammatory response in vitro. They found that some components of the chicken soup inhibit neutrophil migration, which may have an anti-inflammatory effect that could hypothetically lead to temporary ease from symptoms of illness’.

    No research has yet been conducted into the curative properties of chicken soup on prejudice and homophobia.

    However, Campbells could be onto something. In the words of the French chef and culinary writer Auguste Escoffier:

    Soup puts the heart at ease, calms down the violence of hunger, eliminates the tension of the day, and awakens and refines the appetite.

    Bon appétit, bigot! 😀

  • Digital soup

    On a trip to town in recent days, your ‘umble scribe was intrigued by the digital soup spotted in a shop display window,

    Digital soup maker on display in shop window

    My initial thought was “What is digital soup?

    Is it made of fingers? Or are ones and zeroes involved? Is the digital a defiant gesture to all soup makers marketed before?

    As it turns out, ones and zeroes are indeed involved and the digital part of the apparatus refers to the device’s digital control panel, as depicted below.

    Soup maker digital control panel
  • Twins?

    A couple of days ago, your ‘umble scribe escaped his normal stomping ground to visit the local castle in Caldicot (Cil-y-Coed) in Monmouthshire, South Wales, which has existed in some form since about 1100.

    Caldicot Castle entrance

    The tour of the castle and environs was followed by a splendid breakfast at the Aroma Café in the centre of Caldicot.

    Travelling back to Severn Tunnel Junction on the outskirts of Rogiet for the return train entailed joining the Wales Coast Path just past Caldicot railway station, where your correspondent observed the station sign was looking somewhat the worse for wear.

    Caldicot station sign

    Note the heavy peppering by air pistol or shotgun pellets.

    Your ‘umble scribe could not help but be reminded on what seems to be a tradition on Crete of taking potshots at road signs.

    Cretan road sign with ammunition holes
    Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

    On Crete there is a tradition of firing off weapons at such celebrations as marriages and the island is also reputed to have the highest level of gun ownership in the entire EU. According to Greek news site Ekathiremini, there are estimated to be between 600,000 and one million illegal firearms on Crete, which has a population (2021 figure) of 617,360.

    Are Cretans carrying on a tradition of their homeland in South Wales or is this local traditional vandalism? Have your say in the comments.

  • BS5 bees

    Bees are found on every continent except Antarctica; and they’re crucial to life on this planet since they pollinate nearly 75% of the world’s plants, which in turn produce 90% of the food consumed by humanity. Without the aid of bees plant pollination would not occur so easily, plants would die and humans and many other species of life would die out.

    Generally one only notices bees in the inner city in ones and twos. However, bees establish new colonies by swarms consisting of a queen and legions of workers (her daughters). On Monday your ‘umble scribe spotted this swarm in Chaplin Road in Bristol’s inner city.

    Bee swarm on railings in Chaplin Road, Bristol
    Somewhere in the seething mass is the queen

    A neighbour informed me that a beekeeper was supposed to have turned up the previous evening to deal with them. S/he had evidently paid a visit by beer o’clock when your correspondent ventured forth for a pint.

    Note the two hive frames inside the box taped to the railings
    Note the two hive frames inside the box taped to the railings

    The bees have entered the box with the hive frames, presumably after the queen was first located and transferred to the box by the beekeeper.

    Bees have long been renowned for their industry. In Old English (aka Anglo-Saxon Ed.) the eponymous hero of Beowulf has beo (i.e. bee) as the first syllable of his name; when coupled with wulf (i.e wolf, predator), this implies Beowulf was a very busy and ultimately successful hunter. In medieval times, bees themselves were regarded as a potent symbol of chastity in Christianity, whilst in Islam, honey was believed to have spiritual and physical healing powers. These religious and cultural beliefs encouraged beekeeping on a vast scale among landowners and peasants alike.

    Coming up to the 18th century, the English poet, painter and printmaker William Blake wrote the following of bees in his “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell“:
    The busy bee has no time for sorrow.

    And finally on busy bees, from the 18th to the 20th century and the late Arthur Askey.

  • Christmas cancelled?

    It’s that time of year again, when the rumour circulates that Christmas has been cancelled to avoid upsetting members of other faiths.

    This is of course pure nonsense whipped up by fearful and over-sensitive right-wing commentators in the media and has been debunked every time it’s been mentioned.

    Who’s to say that adherents of other religions don’t enjoy the Christmas celebrations as much as followers of Christ? Jesus was after all born Jewish and under the name of Isa, is regarded as one of the twenty-five prophets of Islam

    As proof that this year’s Christmas has not been cancelled by the anonymous PC Brigade, here’s a shot taken of the window of my nearest butcher in Roman Road, Easton. Please supply your own stuffing and cranberry sauce. 😀

    Poster reads place your fresh halal turkey order now

    Cancelling Christmas has a long history in this country, stretching back to the mid-17th century when, following the English Civil War, the the Commonwealth of England was governed by a parliament dominated by Puritans, who objected to certain practices they viewed as unbiblical, including the long-established feast of Christmas. In 1647, the English Parliament banned the celebration of Christmas, replacing it with a day of fasting and considering it “a popish festival with no biblical justification“, as well as a time of wasteful and immoral behaviour. Protests followed: pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities and for weeks Canterbury was controlled by rioters, who decorated doorways with holly and indulged in other practices bound to annoy the killjoys who have been with us ever since.

    All of which brings us to the infamous Winterval. Frequently cited as the ultimate Cancel Christmas event, Winterval was nothing of the sort, but a mere two events held in successive winters in November and December 1997 and 1998 to encourage people to return to the newly rejuvenated city centre. These featured secular and religious events marking religious and other occasions, including Christmas, during those two months. Winterval has since become popular shorthand for misrepresented events to “rebrand” Christmas so as not to exclude non-Christians.

  • Bristol Post exclusive: Journalist eats catering establishment

    Today’s Bristol Post website features another of modern journalism’s highlights – the hidden exclusive (posts passim), although this particular style of hackery is not itself peculiar to publications in the Reach plc stable.

    Yesterday’s Bristol Post hidden exclusive features Mark Taylor, allegedly the title’s food, drink and restaurant critic, who seems to have eschewed protein, carbohydrates and fat for a more substantial diet, in this case the shipping container housing the soon-to-open Choux Box Patisserie down by the city docks. At Wapping Wharf shipping containers replace the construction materials of more traditional eateries.

    Headline reads: Delicious new patisserie to open in Bristol

    There’s only one place I know of where eating buildings is not unusual and that’s the tale of Hansel and Gretel, first published in 1812 by the Brothers Grimm.

    Hansel, Gretel, the witch and the gingerbread house
    Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

    For some reasons known only the the residents of the Temple Way Ministry of Truth, Mr Taylor’s piece is strangely quiet about the quality of the ingredients used for the shipping container. 😉

    Finally, your ‘umble scribe must remark that given his constitution, Mr Taylor may like to start training for food challenges of the Man v. Food reality show variety, of which there are plenty to punish his palette in Bristol.

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