Guilty culinary secrets
Just an idea for a post. As some of you will know, I'm a bit of a food addict. That's in the sense of gastronomy rather that 'eat to live'. And I have an inordinate number of cookery books for one so young, male and not in the comestible industry.
This hasn't always been the case. When I were knee-high to a very large grasshopper, I was particularly fussy and ate such a small number of things, it's a wonder I didnt have rickets. But survive I did, and long enough to experience something of a Damascene conversion by means of reading Time-Life books. The family had inherited a (not quite) complete set of 'Foods of the World', which sits in the lounge. And one late evening, for some reason, I pulled out the one about Japanese cuisine and started reading. I was instantly hooked to this series, and perhaps not least because of the most disgusting thing I read in this japanese cookbook, something called the odori. Basically, it's the eating of still-live prawns, which are gutted and deveined in a matter of seconds by a highly trained chef - and so dance about in rigor mortis on your plate as you grab them and nibble on them. Extreme sashimi, you might say. Suitably vile to entrance a male teenager (not that I wanted to try it - in fact it made me retch rather successfully). And so I devoured (ha ha) the rest of that book, and progressively the rest of the series in the course of two months, being more than a little amused by the 1960s worldviews and the descriptions of British cuisine, oh so out-of-date.
This is by way of being a long ramble to introduce the theme of my post, which was to try and list all of my own hideous crimes in the name of food. These are things I make and eat, which I'd never dare to offer anyone else for mere shame, and destruction of my foodie credentials. But they do taste quite nice.......
1) I had this today. 'Pizza' made using tomato ketchup as the sauce. Actually works really well, and in my defence I always bother to make the base myself!
2) Random bacon/onion/cheese pasta thing. Totally unrelated to anything italian, and would probably in fact give heart attacks to real italian, but I like it; fried onions and bacon poured over pasta with a large amount of cheddar grated over the top, which then melts. Incredibly fatty.
3) My patented soy-chicken. This has undergone so many variations and fiddles over the years that I've lost count. It's incredibly bad for you. If you think of chicken, stir-fried and then allowed to braise in a load of rich soy sauce until all the water from the soy sauce has evaporated and you get quite a syrupy coating to the chicken. I've taken to putting sugar in with it these days, or using the indonesian soy sauce which they put sugar and/or caramel in, which cant be good. After you've obtained your brown chicken (soooo salty!), add lots of cold boiled rice and stir it about until it's well coated. Add sesame oil. I can feel my arteries hardening from here.
4) The 'whoops it's not a tortilla' potatoes thing. Potatoes fried in butter or lard until crispy, and then bacon and onions till they are nice and done, followed by beaten eggs which are scrambled over the top. I've even thrown pieces of cheese into it before now, and let it melt.....yum. Again, not for the hard of artery of the queasy!
And that's enough for now. More kitchen confessions later.....
This hasn't always been the case. When I were knee-high to a very large grasshopper, I was particularly fussy and ate such a small number of things, it's a wonder I didnt have rickets. But survive I did, and long enough to experience something of a Damascene conversion by means of reading Time-Life books. The family had inherited a (not quite) complete set of 'Foods of the World', which sits in the lounge. And one late evening, for some reason, I pulled out the one about Japanese cuisine and started reading. I was instantly hooked to this series, and perhaps not least because of the most disgusting thing I read in this japanese cookbook, something called the odori. Basically, it's the eating of still-live prawns, which are gutted and deveined in a matter of seconds by a highly trained chef - and so dance about in rigor mortis on your plate as you grab them and nibble on them. Extreme sashimi, you might say. Suitably vile to entrance a male teenager (not that I wanted to try it - in fact it made me retch rather successfully). And so I devoured (ha ha) the rest of that book, and progressively the rest of the series in the course of two months, being more than a little amused by the 1960s worldviews and the descriptions of British cuisine, oh so out-of-date.
This is by way of being a long ramble to introduce the theme of my post, which was to try and list all of my own hideous crimes in the name of food. These are things I make and eat, which I'd never dare to offer anyone else for mere shame, and destruction of my foodie credentials. But they do taste quite nice.......
1) I had this today. 'Pizza' made using tomato ketchup as the sauce. Actually works really well, and in my defence I always bother to make the base myself!
2) Random bacon/onion/cheese pasta thing. Totally unrelated to anything italian, and would probably in fact give heart attacks to real italian, but I like it; fried onions and bacon poured over pasta with a large amount of cheddar grated over the top, which then melts. Incredibly fatty.
3) My patented soy-chicken. This has undergone so many variations and fiddles over the years that I've lost count. It's incredibly bad for you. If you think of chicken, stir-fried and then allowed to braise in a load of rich soy sauce until all the water from the soy sauce has evaporated and you get quite a syrupy coating to the chicken. I've taken to putting sugar in with it these days, or using the indonesian soy sauce which they put sugar and/or caramel in, which cant be good. After you've obtained your brown chicken (soooo salty!), add lots of cold boiled rice and stir it about until it's well coated. Add sesame oil. I can feel my arteries hardening from here.
4) The 'whoops it's not a tortilla' potatoes thing. Potatoes fried in butter or lard until crispy, and then bacon and onions till they are nice and done, followed by beaten eggs which are scrambled over the top. I've even thrown pieces of cheese into it before now, and let it melt.....yum. Again, not for the hard of artery of the queasy!
And that's enough for now. More kitchen confessions later.....
posted by J at 11:03 PM
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