Take it with a grain of... something

A New York City Assemblyman wants to ban all salt from all cooking and food preparation in all New York restaurants. Not surprisingly, this has resulted in howls of anger from cooks and bakers about how the honourable member has no understanding of how food chemistry works.

This episode should be preserved for all time (in brine, preferably) as a perfect example of a nanny-state politician who knows absolutely nothing about real life, yet regards himself competent to micromanage every aspect of society because he is convinced that the people are so stupid that they'd forget to breathe if the government didn't tell them to.

Meat: Keystone of civilisation

British Beef | Viral/Other | SPIKE.com

The jist of this article: Barbecues make you smart.

Snacks of Satan

Having solved all other food-related problems, the Food Standards Agency harangues the masses about the evils of concession snacks at the cinema.

Dear Lord, who buys a giant tub of popcorn with extra butter under the impression that it's remotely healthy?

Update: Sensing that they're on a roll, the FSA also says that CCTV 'should be installed in slaughterhouses to ensure animal welfare'.

In other news, Ephemeral Isle calls for CCTV be installed in the offices of the FSA to ensure that they're not acting like a load of jumped up, self-righteous busybodies who imagine that they have a right to stick their noses into other people's business.

Hot dogs: When will they be banned?

That's it! I'm burning all my things and going off to live on an island somewhere.

Another Kitchen... of the FUTURE!

The Electrolux "Heart of the Home" kitchen of the future.

So high tech; so obviously designed by someone who never cooked a meal in his life.

Camel burgers

I once ate camel at a wedding out East and it wasn't bad. Of course, that particular dish required stuffing the camel with two sheep that were, in turn, stuffed with saffron rice and the whole thing placed in a charcoal pit to roast for two days, so the burger option might be more practical at a busy lunch time.

Quiche crackdown

Apparently, you now cannot buy a quiche in Britain without presenting identification.

This is clearly vital because the public needs protecting against... against... I have no idea.

US legalises haggis

The United States has at last rejoined the rest of the civilised world by lifting its ban on importing haggis.

An' sae oan thes Burns nicht, lit us aw clutch a volume ay th' poet's wark an' raise a glass ay single malt in silent cheers.

Mind you, the impact of all this will be considerable. The ban lifting will inevitably result in increased haggis exports, which will lead to higher prices and this will cause more haggis poaching. Not only will this endanger Scotland's stocks of wild haggis's, but also a bagpipe shortage because poachers rarely save the haggis skins from which bagpipes are made.

None of this helped by the fact that haggis's have tartan fur, which makes them dead easy to pick out on the moors where you can hear their plaintive droning and squealling.

Butter ban

They can have my butter when they
pry it from my cold, greasy fingers.

Cardiac surgeon and staunch defender of individual liberty Shyam Kolvekar of London's Heart Hospital calls for an outright ban on butter.

That's it. Time to raise the barricades.

Salami battle with Parmesan daggers

This is one of those times I suspect that the police just stood back and waited to see what happened next.

White House menu

Huston, we have arugula.

The Prime Minister of India is coming to dinner, so naturally they've laid on a curry. I bow to no one in my admiration for the fiery Vindaloo and perhaps Mr Manmohan Singh is partial himself, but I can't help thinking that this isn't a bit like a Terry Pratchett novel I read recently where a famous opera singer from the Discworld equivalent of Italy was sick to the back teeth because no matter where he went people served him pasta.

I say offer the Prime Minister a seat at a New England clam bake and watch his eyes light up.

Update: Shame about the typos.

The seventh level of Hell's drinks machine

What in all Creation could be more mind-bogglingly foul than tofurky? How about tofurky and gravy flavoured soda.

Someone must pay for this.

Curry cancer cure

Curry: Is there nothing it can't do?

Espresso eggs

Remind me the next time I go into Starbucks to order the scrambled eggs.

Tactical Bacon

The right idea, but I would have thought "strategic" was more apt.

Bronze age butter

A 3000-year old cask of butter is found in Ireland. Archaeologists are now combing the countryside for some 3000-year old scones.

Try the dining room of the Randolph Hotel, Oxford. I'm sure I saw some last time I was there.

The gauntlet is thrown down

The Food Police World Cancer Research Fund demands that ham be banned from school lunchboxes.

My advice to the WCF is to quit now and just walk away clean. Go after tobacco, go after coconut oil, go after sugar, or go after transfat if you like, but go after the ham and you're unsealing a tin of whup-ass on yourself.

ChefStack

Good lord, it's like a heroin vending machine.

Where can I get one?

From the Ministry of Plenty

Glorious news, brothers! The Food Standards Agency wants to increase the chocoration to 50 grams!

Roboramen

Great. Now Sarah Connor can't even go out for lunch.

Meat Candy

Don't ask.

This is surprising?

Slate headline:

How McDonald's Conquered France

I'm only guessing, but maybe by doing what everyone else did since Joan of Arc.

Show up.

Port-Pizza Oven

If this pizza oven designed to be used in your car strikes you as just the ticket, then you need to step back and reassess you life.

Future dining table

The table... of the FUTURE! Complete with mini-frdge, mini-drawers, mini coffee-maker, mini-microwave, mini-dishwasher, and mini-toaster for making mini meals. And, apparently, you can't remove the chairs because that would be too bourgeois.

But, for some bizarre reason, it connects to the Internet, so that's all right then.

Flying Fish Follies

Having run out of windmills, PETA is tilting at the hideous, immoral practice of throwing (dead) fish at Seattle's Pike Place Market.

Because even a gutted salmon on its way to the oven has "rights".

Beanzawave

A USB-powered microwave intended to heat up baked beans.

This is the ultimate goal that all of civilisation has been striving for. I MUST have it!

A curry a day...

Curry: Is there nothing it can't do?

Tinned Meat

Having passed a lot of my misspent life travelling the world in odd places, I've come across and eaten most of these tinned delicacies (When you're aboard ship or out in the jungle you don't get much choice) and most aren't half bad with a bit of HP sauce.

I notice that they also include this, which is definitely not canned. Jellied eels. The one thing I do miss living in the States is having the seafood man coming 'round the pub at ten o'clock flogging eels, whelks, and such like at just the point where the beer starts to give you an appetite.

Magic.

The Bombay Brasserie's £2000 Curry

It's the Samundari Khazana, or Seafood Treasure, and it's a mix of caviare, abalone, quail's eggs, a whole lobster, white truffles, edible gold, and bits of the Maltese Falcon. Two thousand quid a go and poppadoms are extra.

Never mind the gold leaf slapped on the inedible bits. I swear I can see ravioli in there.

Update: Not everyone is impressed.

Lamb Gas

From The Times:

Give up lamb roasts and save the planet. Government advisers are developing menus to combat climate change by cutting out “high carbon” food such as meat from sheep, whose burping poses a serious threat to the environment.

I love the "combat climate change" drivel. I always thought "global warming" was ridiculous as a phrase, but "combat climate change" is such a weasel term that it conjours up delightful pictures of King Canute trying to order back the tides. Perhaps next winter the snow will need a permit to fall like in Camelot.

As for the burping sheep, not only do I intend to triple my lamb consumption, but I also intend to keep my own herd and feed them on a diet heavy in beans, curry, radishes, and sour cream washed down with enough beer until they sound like the re-enactment of a classic Mel Brooks scene.

The Tuna of Wrath

A schoolgirl, who apparently has never had a proper job, decides to put Sinclair Lewis to shame and heads off to a tuna cannery in Indonesia where she discovers that it's, like, really hard work, man, and it's, you know, hot in there and it smells and everything and they even make you clip your nails. What's with that, yah?

And working in a rice paddy? That's, like, just no fun at all. All that standing in water and bending over? Yuk!

Naturally, this is all justified by some extremely public and easy hand-wringing about the low wages the workers are paid (the workers get £3 a day, which is pretty close to, if not above the country's per capita income), though no context as to what the alternative for them is or what impact this work has on their prosperity one way or the other . That's, surprise, too much like hard work.

As a man who spent most of his youth swinging a pick in the desert sun when he wasn't freezing on deck in the North Sea for sub-minimum wages and has spent enough time in the Third World to know the difference between exploitation and a hand up, all I can say is, Poor diddums and let's hope your fashion studies aren't too arduous.

Veggie Belgie

According to the BBC, Ghent, Belgium "is about to become the first in the world to go vegetarian at least once a week".

Actually, it's only elected officials and public employees who will be foregoing the sweet, succulent flesh carefully aged and lovingly marinated before being grilled to perfection and served with the juices seeping into the trencher in a symphony of flavours that delight the palate and feed the soul. Even then, it has to be voluntary because I can't see any way they could enforce it. Very likely it doesn't include their families either. And private citizens and tourists are exempt. The report implies, though, that only schoolchildren will be forced to give up God's own bounty, but then, they always did suffer first at the hands of trendy totalitarians.

Not that we at Chez Szondy are unsympathetic to the vegetarian cause. I myself plan one day to open a vegan restaurant, though we will serving mayonaisse as well as milk and cream for those who like it in their coffee or tea and there will be meat alternatives for all the dishes since I feel that if regular restaurants have to cater to vegetarian tastes, then it's only fair that we do so for omnivores. Also, there will be cheese platter because we aren't fanatics.

Celebrate diversity, that's our motto.

Bye, Bye Bully Beef

The BBC looks at the new British Army ration packs.

Shfud

Get the Shfud kit and you will create new motions in the kitchen that will inspire new ways of preparing food and a new generation of chefs.

Or you can just cut out the pretentious double talk and buy yourself a decent chef's knife like any competent cook.

Official Star Trek Spork

Gentlemen, we have reached rock bottom.

Bacon Lance

Behold the power of bacon.

Sub Standard

One of the lucky breaks of my career is that I had the opportunity of visiting any number of United States, Royal Navy, NATO forces and other allied submarines, which meant that I've sampled some of the best food among the best company in the armed services–Not to mention coming across the biggest wok I've ever seen aboard a Japanese boat.

Here's a glimpse of the Royal Navy variety.

Let's Pizza

The pizza-making vending machine: Another way for your boss to tell you that you'll never go home again.

Don't Go Into The Kitchen!

Headline from The Times:

Butchers urged to sell meat from rare British sheep

Lamb Amirstan, anyone?

How The Other Half Lives

A sushi bar from the sushi's point of view.

It's hell in there.

Failure of Communication

When cake decorating goes horribly wrong.

Caution: Contains Eggs

Oh, dear God in Heaven. I think I just heard civilisation crash.

Snail Caviare

Next up: rat cheese.

Hollywood Conquest

The newest culinary sensation in Hollywood? The full English breakfast complete with black pudding and fried bread.

Civilisation is not yet dead.

Salt Declared Doubleplus Ungood

First they came for the cigarettes and I said nothing, then they came for the fat and I said nothing...

Treehouse Restaurant

I'll have the acorns, followed by acorns with a side of acorns, and acorns for after.

Camel Chocolate

I think I'll pass, thank you.

Doing Porridge

Ian Bishop of Carrbridge, Strathspey has won the World Porridge-Making Championship.

In other news, there seems to be a bit of bother down the Stock Exchange.

Inamo

ROOSTA:
It’d better be a good disco.

ZAPHOD:
Listen, if it was a good disco they wouldn’t have to give away body debit cards.

A London restaurant boasts tables with touch-sensitive surfaces that allow patrons to order meals, change the table pattern, look up "neighbourhood services" (whatever those are), and "preview" their food.

Something tells me that the preview tastes better than the real thing.

Wallace, Call Your Service

Andy and Sandy Rose have swept the British Cheese Awards.

In other news, there are British Cheese Awards.

Bacon Thieves in Lancashire

They put this down to heroin addicts, but I'd think that bacon addicts is more likely.

Mmm... Bacon.

Eat More Red Meat

This message courtesy of the chickens down the road.

All of Them Almost, But Not Quite Unlike Tea

The Coca-Cola people are working on a soda machine that dispenses 100 different flavours.

As if I didn't have enough aggravation as it is.

Hot Pockets

Headline from The Consumerist:

Pepperoni Hot Pockets Recalled For Containing Plastic

How could they tell the difference?

Bacon Mistaken for Bomb

At least it's better than a bomb mistaken for bacon.

Mmm... Bacon.