Category: Food

I was standing in the aisle at Miller’s last Tuesday, watching a young man spend ten minutes debating the “ethical provenance” of a jar of honey, when I realised we’ve made a right mess of things. There is a growing myth that knowing how to shop at a farm shop requires a degree in agricultural […]

I was clearing out the back of the pantry last Tuesday—the same cupboard we had installed back in ’94, which, if I recall, was a bit of a rush job by the previous owners—and I found a bag of carrots so limp they looked like they’d been left out in a summer drought. It’s a […]

You don’t need a collection of exotic spices or a degree in culinary arts to master a proper midweek meal; in fact, I’ve found that most recipes online make things far more complicated than they need to be. People spend far too much time worrying about reducing expensive red wines or sourcing organic shallots when […]

People will tell you that you need a laboratory setup or some expensive, imported spice kit to master the art of preserving, but that’s a load of rubbish. I spent forty years inspecting foundations and structural integrity; I know when something is built on a shaky premise, and the idea that you need more than […]

You don’t need a dozen exotic spices or a degree in culinary arts to figure out how to make sausage rolls that actually taste like something. I’ve spent years sitting in drafty village halls during parish meetings, picking at those supermarket trays that are more air and cheap rusk than actual meat, and frankly, it’s […]

You don’t need a fancy electric mixer or a degree in culinary arts to master this; in fact, most of those complicated recipes you see online are just making things harder than they need to be. I remember my wife, Margaret, used to insist that if you didn’t have the exact right temperature for the […]

I saw a television programme last Tuesday suggesting that you need a digital thermometer, a sous-vide machine, and three different types of artisanal sea salt just to figure out how to make a sunday roast. It’s absolute nonsense. If you ask me, most of these modern “gourmet” guides are just a way to make a […]

I was standing in the aisle of the supermarket last Tuesday, staring at a pile of pale, watery tomatoes that looked like they’d been harvested in a different hemisphere entirely, and I couldn’t help but huff. It’s a bit of a joke, isn’t it? We’re told we can have anything, anytime, but most of what […]

I was sitting in the kitchen last Tuesday, looking at a packet of those expensive, store-bought liquid stocks, and I couldn’t help but scoff. They’ve got more salt and stabilizers in them than a coastal road in mid-winter, and they certainly don’t taste of anything real. People seem to think that learning how to make […]

I was clearing out the bottom drawer of the chest freezer in the old cottage last Tuesday—the one built in 1890, which, mind you, has a much better seal than any of these modern plastic rubbish bins—when I found a bag of peas that had turned into a solid, frost-covered brick of nothingness. It’s a […]