Trends (33)
...my control freakery about coffee is well known. I went to the restaurant show one year and decided to ask the experts there what my kind of coffee is called - an espresso with the same amount of hot milk - and a barista said 'a bloody awkward'. I don't like froth, it has to be hot milk, I hate too much milk, I want it strong... I thought I had it when the Flat White arrived but they are still just too big and milky in most places. I had it in Cuba in a Cafe con leche - you don't have to ask for hot milk there.
Coffee has a long history - longer, perhaps, than most of us originally realised. Rumour has it that the first person to understand the effects of the coffee bean was a goat herder in Ethiopia in the ninth century. Apparently he noticed the effect of coffee beans on the goats in his care which consumed them. However, others argue that the real beginning of coffee drinking began in the middle of the 1400s in the Yemen by monks in a Sufi monastery. These monks are said to have recognised the properties of caffeine which they found useful to keep themselves awake during nocturnal devotions.
The consumption of the drink spread to the northern African countries and by the 1500s, the practice of drinking coffee had spread throughout the Middle East and also travelled to Turkey and Persia. The first coffee house was said to have opened in Istanbul in 1554. At first, there was some suspicion about the effects of caffeine but the popularity of the bean eventually overcame these objections. From here, it was not long before the beverage was consumed in Italy. This was probably because of the strong trade at the time between Venice in Italy and the North African countries. As in the Arabic world, there was initially some concern about the stimulating effects of the drink within the Catholic church, but also as with the Arabic world, these objections were overcome.From Italy, coffee spread across Europe. One of the first coffee houses opened in Venice in the mid-seventeenth century. Franco Anglo, an Italian farmer, is said to be responsible for discovering many coffee beans in far flung countries. Thanks to the British East India Company and also the Dutch East India Company, England was introduced to the drink around the 1500s and the first English coffee house was said to be opened in the Cornhill. The word `coffee` probably comes from the Dutch word `koffie` which came from the Turkish `kahve` which comes from an Arabic phrase which translates as `wine of the bean`. Certainly it was said to be the Dutch who were responsible for taking the coffee drink out of Europe and across to America and the East Indies.
Of course, the modern day coffee industry is huge. There are many many varieties of coffee, blend of coffee and ways to serve the drink. Many countries in the world are being seduced by the caffeine elixir and markets are growing quickly in countries such as India and China (both traditionally associated with tea). There is also a celebration in the art of coffee preparation. Many nations now take part in the World Barista Championships and many competitions have already been held to try to find the national representatives for this years` global competition to find the world champion. Each barista will have to do his or her best to impress the judges about their skills in transforming humble coffee beans into a delicious and creative drink that is worthy of the title.
Thrifty nose to tail eating – well those of us who are from the farming community have been at it for years, but now everyone is doing it. More of us will be eating offal and the bony cuts of meat in pearl barley stuffed casseroles in 2012. Look out for lamb belly, hearts, tails, tongues and gizzards. Last year Waitrose announced that it was to expand its range to offer lamb heart, lamb and veal sweetbreads and veal tail, and pigs’ ears and ox cheeks are already appearing in restaurants everywhere. Now I have moved one of my local restaurants is called Brawn (there are lots of local restaurants - it's London - even the cinema is a recommended place to eat) and currently has braised lamb belly with bitter leaves, trotters and beans, and home-made pork scratching on the menu.
Eastern European food – shops are already appearing all over East Anglia and we have one in Bury. I’ve tried the flavoured beers and bought a very nice piece of smoked bacon. Look out for Polish, Hungarian and Russian dishes. We will be making more preserves and pickles just like they do and we already have sourdough bread.
Barbecue-ing – Jamie Oliver has had a mixed response to Barbecoa – the menu has burgers, ribs and a very heavy barbecue sauce that isn’t as nice as my own home-made one. If you don’t know how to make barbecue sauce you need to learn it fast. Freshly made burgers in good bread stuffed with loads of salad and home-made pickles are IN whatever time of the year it is.
Sharing tapas style portions – goodbye three course meal, we are ordering five things and sharing them. This way, restaurants can make their portions a bit smaller, we don’t get so full and can still have a starter, main course and dessert – but between us. We used to just order two starters but now it’s official – it’s ok to share.
Casual dining – white cloths are going, counters are coming. We still want good service but without the formal dining. We don’t mind sitting at a large table with someone we don’t know and a great salt-beef sandwich from a van is fine.
Salted caramel, and churros with hot chocolate sauce – if you haven’t tasted either of these yet you should find or make some now. The recipe for the caramel sauce (and printed labels so you can give it to all your friends) is here. Yes, she's a mom not a mum but I love the pictures - if you like Nigella she's got a food-porn version.
Today in the car I listened to a progamme telling us we would soon be eating insects. It has been predicted that by 2050 the world’s population will have increased to nine billion, and the demand for food will grow with it. One of the things we will be worrying about in the future is food security, and we won't care what we eat, as long as we eat something. Much has been done behind the scenes to develop this idea. It's not just a notion - it has legs. In an article in the New Yorker Dana Goodyear quotes the man who first explored the idea of so much protein being freely available. " DeFoliart envisioned a place for edible insects as a luxury item. The larvae of the wax moth (Galleria mellonella) seemed to him to be poised to become the next escargot, which in the late eighties represented a three-hundred-million-dollar-a-year business in the United States. Given a choice, New York diners looking for adventure and willing to pay $22 for half a roasted free-range chicken accompanied by a large pile of shoestring potatoes might well prefer a smaller pile of Galleria at the same price." You see, it's all in the name; call it something nice and we'll all try it.
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It's only in Europe that we cringe at the idea, although in Sardinia there is the cheese riddled with maggots pictured here, called Casa Marzu. Bugs are a traditional food in many cultures across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and over 1,000 insects are known to be eaten in 80% of the world's nations. They include 235 species of butterflies and moths, 344 species of beetles and 313 species of ants, bees and wasps, as well as 239 species of grasshoppers, crickets and cockroaches, amongst others. Other commonly eaten insects are termites, cicadas and dragonflies. And we do eat them already, we just don't know about it - there are permissible levels in tinned sweetcorn, some shredded bits in fruit juice and the odd bug in frozen broccoli. Of course in the old days we would have had much less choice, John the Baptist is said to have survived on locusts and honey when he lived in the desert, and we would all eat a spider if it was life or death or I'm a Celebrity. But most of us have a long way to go. It needs to look right...we're not good at wings and eyes and legs, so we need it to be presentable, on lettuce and in breadcrumbs. But some people do have the recipes - cabbage, peas n'crickets anyone? It's just that the website they're on - girlmeetsbug.com, looks a bit like the old suffolkfoodie blog...
So now anyone can do it and it's going to be big - in August there was an International Food Bloggers Conference in Seattle, featuring food sponsors, talks on blogging ethics, special diets and five course menus for breakfast lunch and dinner. I might call my blogging mates in this area and see if they want to come with me next year; because we are going to change the way you think about food.
There has been a revolution in food, and it isn't just about eating. If you have been in a restaurant and seen someone taking a picture of their starter you can be pretty sure they are doing it to show someone who cares, but can't be there to taste it themselves. They might even be going to write about it later. Food blogging has taken over the culinary world and the food critics of our national newspapers are upset – until now they were the only ones allowed to have an opinion. Those of us who love food and write as well were always envious of their job – being paid to eat? We dream about work like that and the critics who have publicly moaned that too many people are getting in on the act have been inundated by indignant food bloggers. But when do they ever come out of London? Of course London has some of the best restaurants in the country but here in East Anglia we have some of the best produce, some great chefs (including Jamie and Delia...) a lot of dedicated cooks and foodies, and those of us who know where to find them want to tell everybody else.