Charcuterie, smoking, curing, brining and all things porcine. Brought to you from deepest, darkest Cambs, England by Chris Bulow. In the smoker or in the kitchen....Salutate porcum!
Length: < 1 min I swore I wasn’t going to invoke Proust but as I was constructing a snack for lunch, I had just such a moment. A soft cottage roll, cut in half, both sides slathered with butter, then a layer of English… Read More »Mum’s chip butty
Length: 2 mins Wu geng chang wang (“Wu geng” is apparently an indication of time, 5am, in old Chinese and “chang wang” simply means intestines); the dish is usually made up of preserved mustard leaves, tofu, pork intestine slices, and congealed pork blood… Read More »Guts in the gloaming or 5am intestines 五更肠旺
Length: < 1 min Great observation; until today the reason for something that we’ve probably all noticed happening, certainly hadn’t occurred to me, even though I’ve used the juice in this way. “There’s an enzyme in pineapple that tenderizes meat, which is why it… Read More »Pineapple fights its attacker
Length: 2 mins This extract below came from a short chapter (entitled 家 jiā – Home) in Xiaolu Guo’s “A Lover’s Discourse” which I’m reading through at the moment. I’m not 100% convinced she’s correct but hey, it made me smile wryly… The… Read More »A pig in a house is a person. Or 家 jiā a home…
Length: 5 mins Well, let me confirm — and just for the absence of doubt (as the legal sharks are fond of saying) — that I’m not planning on consuming food off the actual train line, no, that’d be dangerous and dirty and… Read More »A days’ eating off the Victoria Line. Or don’t let it get your goat…
Length: < 1 min The River Ouse that is; along whose banks linger hidden skeletons of railway lines — long now gone — although the whistle of the steam engine seems to drift across a shaded inlet occasionally, a dove-cote, prowed like an old… Read More »A dove-cote and a slide in the ooze…
Length: < 1 min “Dancing to the rhythm of The Guns of Navarone Found my Mecca near Tottenham Hale Station I discovered heaven in the Seven Sisters Road…” The Leyton Buzzards; a short-lived punk-era group that — whilst not quite a one-hit wonder —… Read More »Saturday Night (Beneath the Plastic Palm Trees)…
Length: < 1 min I am more than a little pleased with how this lovely piece looks after the firing yesterday. It’s come out pretty much exactly as I envisaged it (and a huge thanks again to Val for her patient guidance and ideas,… Read More »Pottering ever onwards
Length: < 1 min Via the estimable Fuchsia Dunlop comes this detail: During the Han Dynasty, rich people in Sichuan were sometimes buried with pottery effigies of chefs like this one, to make sure they were well supplied with delicious food in the afterlife.… Read More »OK, drop it in my grave…
Length: 2 mins This one really is a joy; written in 1988 (my copy dates from 1997) by Professor of Cultural Geography, David Crouch and Colin Ward, British anarchist writer and editor. The cover is a lino-cut by a Japanese designer, Kaoru Miyake,… Read More »The Allotment
Length: < 1 min So, we are indeed, confirmed now, for a soft-opening lunch on Sunday. All dishes half-price. Which is nice…
Length: < 1 min A quote that came to me via Val Littlewood; rather apposite as I was reading a short piece on Taiwanese cook & food TV programme presenter Eddie Huang where I came across a similar feeling reply when he was asked… Read More »“You white people will do anything to be liked…”
Length: < 1 min 65 years ago, this was the address where I was born. Then, it looked like this… Earlier still, like this… …nowadays, it’s been turned into a block of — pretty fucking ugly — flats, costing, no doubt, the proverbial arm… Read More »It all started at 349 Goldhawk Road, London…
Length: < 1 min Is that what your partner whispers lovingly to you each morning? No? No, me neither. But they should. And they would if you only looked like this and tempted their taste buds in the same way. The shot is taken… Read More »Morning, pork bao
Length: 35 mins The name “El Cap” refers to a large granite structure in Yosemite National Park, USA, one that as a kid I dreamt of being able to climb. It looked grand, imposing, other-worldly, insurmountable, timeless and something that would last forever.… Read More »The return of El Cap
Length: 3 mins Many years ago — and in a different economic reality — I was paid by a large American law firm to be their European IT Manager which position (whilst based in London) also involved quite a lot of (business-class) travel… Read More »It was the best of Frankfurt times, it was the Wurst of Frankfurt times
Length: < 1 min When I found out that this, the canonical guide to German wurst dating from 1939 available from — of course — a German based bookseller, a book which was also mentioned approvingly in The Oxford Companion to Food and then… Read More »Wondering where wurst went?
Length: < 1 min I recently bought a simple, inexpensive Kiridashi craft knife for @val_littlewood direct from the Japanese supplier and we are — as we always are — charmed by the care with which it’s wrapped, firstly in a safety piece of tightly… Read More »Care in the community
Length: 2 mins Nope, sorry, it’s gone, simply a widow’s memory now… A piece of modern slang, I’m told m’lud. I don’t recall where I saw this mentioned recently, but it prompted me do a quick refresher on the humble saveloy; a main-stay… Read More »Anyone seen my Saveloy?
Length: < 1 min An archaeological dig in Santorini, Greece, found the earliest known (to date) kebap cookers delightfully called ‘fire dogs’ — with a hotbox carved into the shape of a dog — that were in use 3700 years ago. Proof, if such… Read More »Hot diggity dog!
