Ultra-processed food ?

[AJB Temple]

Ultra processed was on The Food Programme Today on radio 4. Will be available on sounds. Quite a lot of focus on new strains of ecoli, unpasteurised dairy used in cheese etc.

 

[Tiresias]

Yes, I expect I meant Bangladeshi. I told you I don't know much

As it happens I do also make Mango chutney when I can get a good supply cheaply. Similar method. Usually make two kinds" a hot version that I like, and a sweet and mild version that my wife prefers.

Surprised you don't fancy visiting India Rob. I would love to see some of the palaces and forts before they fall into complete disrepair or disneyfied by hoteliers. Experience Bollywood screened locally and see if I can get my head around regional food differences. Just about all of my limited and somewhat confused knowledge of Indian cuisine comes from cookery books and Rick Stein's excellent TV series. I still keep trying to cook Indian though.

Well, no doubt if I’m wrong someone will be long to correct me, but I understand practically all Bangladeshis are Bengali, but not all Bengali’s are Bangladeshi; about a third of the area (now West Bengal) was chopped off in partition.

Funny place. Large chunks of it are under water for parts of the year. Hence all the fish.

And they use that weird knife thing that is fixed vertically to a slab of stone or wood, and the food chopped against it ie moving the food rather than the knife.

Anyway, the point I was making was that a very large proportion of Indian restaurants in the UK are run by Bangladeshis, (80% I think I have seen), and, of that, almost all of them are from Sylhet. And many were not cooks when they arrived.

You mention Stein. Amusing enough (although how anyone could get on with David Pritchard for as long as he did baffles me). One of the few I would bother to watch. But if he recites that poem of Herrick one more time I won’t be responsible for my actions. When did cookery programmes become half-bottomed travelogues. And why do the presenters have to be ‘personalities’. I won’t share the ones that particularly annoy me – bound to be someone’s favourite – but you can probably guess. Mind you I have seen TV appearances by two writers that I like (David Thompson and Simon Hopkinson) where they appeared not only uncomfortable, but also slightly sinister. You could probably add ol’ Fergus to that list as well.

 

[AndyP]

Couldn’t get any fresh mangoes in supermarket earlier so will be attempting a mango chutney with tinned mangoes to go in the coronation chicken and with the coronation quiche next week.

 

[RogerS]

Couldn’t get any fresh mangoes in supermarket earlier so will be attempting a mango chutney with tinned mangoes to go in the coronation chicken and with the coronation quiche next week.

You have just listed two of my least favourite dishes. Coronation chicken and chicken quiche...well, actually, I loathe any quiche. Now Sainsbury's jam doughnuts ..that's another story..yum.

 

[AndyP]

Not my favourites either although the coronation quiche is vegetarian . I’ve promised “english” dishes so these seem appropriate along with scones and probably a trifle.

 

[Woodbloke]

Apparently ice cream is an ultra processed product as well, but there's not a cat in Hell's chance I'm foregoing my Mini Magnums from WR, 'specially now the 'hot' weather's here - Rob

 

[Tiresias]

Not my favourites either although the coronation quiche is vegetarian . I’ve promised “english” dishes so these seem appropriate along with scones and probably a trifle.

How trad. are you going with the trifle? I have a thing about jelly in trifles. Not my choice. But very 70's. Can you still get tinned 'fruit salad'?

My favourite is cherry. A génoise sponge, cherries macerated with sugar and brandy, vanilla custard and cream. Or raspberries with framboise (the liqueur, not the beer) in place of the cherries.

And then, just to let it not be too grown up, I hand over the hundreds and thousands and silver balls to my partner for decoration. I shudder and turn away…

 

[AndyP]

How trad. are you going with the trifle? I have a thing about jelly in trifles. Not my choice. But very 70's. Can you still get tinned 'fruit salad'?

My favourite is cherry. A génoise sponge, cherries macerated with sugar and brandy, vanilla custard and cream. Or raspberries with framboise (the liqueur, not the beer) in place of the cherries.

And then, just to let it not be too grown up, I hand over the hundreds and thousands and silver balls to my partner for decoration. I shudder and turn away…

Sponge fingers, strawberry jelly (sugar free ) frozen strawberries added to mix to get it to set quicker, Birds custard, Birds Dream Topping (not allowed cream, decorated with plain chocolate Hagelsag and fresh strawberries.

 

[AJB Temple]

Some cool ideas here. I like trifle a lot. Basically baby food. I even like the rubbish versions the supermarkets sell. Obvs really bad. The Germans do a stiff version which to my mind is basically what black forest gateau is. When I was a kid you could buy jelly in a packet of cubes that get melted in hot water.

Scones drive me mad. We visit National Trust places quite a bit. They must sell truck loads of scones. They are made in a factory and trucked around, but they pretend they are made by scone artisans. Anyway, they are made with margarine, not butter. The NT recipe book is fake and they have butter in the there, but the real ones they sell are rubbish with margarine. It's so that even vegans can eat them. Had to make scones on a James Martin cookery course. Excellent. He of course uses butter plentifully. I use his method now.

Are you serving cucumber sandwiches in thin white bread with the crusts cut off Andy. Quintessentially English. I could eat one now.

 

[Tiresias]

Sponge fingers, strawberry jelly (sugar free ) frozen strawberries added to mix to get it to set quicker, Birds custard, Birds Dream Topping (not allowed cream, decorated with plain chocolate Hagelsag and fresh strawberries.

Gosh, do they even still sell Dream Topping? Or do you have a contraband store of it, laid aside from 40 years ago. That has to be an ultra-processed food.

I mentioned it to my partner, who countered with Angel Delight. Again, do they still sell that?

It has now become obvious to me that I only look at the things in supermarkets that I want. I did quite a lot of shopping for elderly neighbours in lock down. I didn’t even know you could buy tinned prunes. Still, as Rumpole says of Pomeroy’s (very) ordinary claret, it might keep you astonishingly regular.

 

[AndyP]

Are you serving cucumber sandwiches in thin white bread with the crusts cut off Andy. Quintessentially English. I could eat one now.

With a twist. We make cucumber sandwiches with Marmite, a family favourite. best eaten after they have sweated for a few hours in a rucksack so the juice from cucumber mixes with the marmite and soaks into the bread.

 

[AndyP]

Gosh, do they even still sell Dream Topping? Or do you have a contraband store of it, laid aside from 40 years ago. That has to be an ultra-processed food.

certainly do. We stock up each time we are in the UK.
if you, or anyone else, can convince the food police here that full fat fresh whipped cream is less harmful than Dream Topping than I will be eternally grateful.
Jelly BTW we also stock up in the UK. Hartley's do a sugar free powdered version available in Sainsbury's as is the BDT.

 

[AJB Temple]

I used to be given angel delight when I got home from school.

I don't really understand why ice cream is called ultra processed. I sometimes make ice cream and all it has in it is double cream (maybe plus some full fat milk), and a hell of a lot of sugar. Tiny bit of salt and probably the inside of a vanilla pod. I realise that granulated sugar is refined, but still not sure what is ultra about simple ice cream. The problem with making ice cream is you realise how desperately unhealthy it is with all that sugar. If we want other flavours then it tends to be garden fruits for Mrs AJB T who has more strawberries and raspberries than a shop, and rum and raisin or pistachio for me.

Tiresias - agree re Simon Hopkinson. His book on Vegetables is great. We met him several times in his Bibendum days as punters. Unusual bloke . Fergus H I believe still goes into St John's most days despite the shakes. He woke a lot of people up that man with his approach to nose to tail. Ahead of his time. Never met David Pritchard. Wasn't he also the producer for Floyd? I quite liked Floyd, and bumped into him quite a bit when he had the pub down by the coast. He was always newty.

 

[Woodbloke]

I don't really understand why ice cream is called ultra processed.

As is commercially made supermarket bread, but maybe not the posh stuff from WR and others. I seem to recollect that one of the telly food/health gurus, perhaps the late MM mentioned it in one of their recent programs on the box - Rob

 

[MattS]

Not ultra processed if made at home, but look at the list on a normal tub of Cornish ice cream from Sainsbury’s

“INGREDIENTS: British Skimmed Cows' Milk, Sugar, Dried Glucose Syrup, Butteroil (Cows' Milk), Skimmed Cows' Milk Powder, British Clotted Cream (Cows' Milk) (3.0%), Emulsifier: Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids; Vanilla Extract, Stabilisers: Locust Bean Gum, Guar Gum; Colour: Carotenes.”

 

[AJB Temple]

Ah. See what you mean. What is Cornish about it I wonder? These gums are over used nowadays. Cheap way of adding mouth feel. Locust bean gum is carob and on it's own tastes horrible in my view. Vegan friendly. Guar gum is flogged as a dietary aid and has a hell of a lot of processing. Affects stools that are not of the woodwork variety.

Skimmed milk is pointless.

 

[RogerS]

As is commercially made supermarket bread, but maybe not the posh stuff from WR and others. I seem to recollect that one of the telly food/health gurus, perhaps the late MM mentioned it in one of their recent programs on the box - Rob

Posh bakery stuff from WR I find the most indigestible. Not so sourdough bread from Sainsbury's, for example.

 

[Lons]

We've just come back from a week in the North Yorkshire dales, fresh out of the oven sourdough in several varieties from an independant baker in Ingleton. Absolutely superb but not great for the waistline.

 

[Tiresias]

Tiresias - agree re Simon Hopkinson. His book on Vegetables is great. We met him several times in his Bibendum days as punters. Unusual bloke . Fergus H I believe still goes into St John's most days despite the shakes. He woke a lot of people up that man with his approach to nose to tail. Ahead of his time. Never met David Pritchard. Wasn't he also the producer for Floyd? I quite liked Floyd, and bumped into him quite a bit when he had the pub down by the coast. He was always newty.

Yes, he was. They fell out big time. Two massive egos fuelled by red wine. What possibly could go wrong? Floyd was a bit early for me – I think he effectively went bust with 3 restaurants in Brizzle in ’84 or ’85.

I did spend a summer in Avonmouth once, pretending to work. The second paragraph of Cpt Ryder’s sacred and profane memories applies: ‘here love had died between me and the army’. Swap army for engineering. Mind you I kept on taking the scholarship, sponsorship and prize money. I’m not stupid.

Anyway, the restaurants I remember there are the Carved Angel, and the Horn of Plenty. One of them run by Sonia something.

The last time we were down that way we went to Gidleigh Park for a meal. Very good, but obviously aimed at Americans. I can date it because we went in the MG, and all the luggage (much to my partner’s annoyance) had to go in one hard shell suitcase on a rack at the back. The important luggage space was taken up by a television, so we could watch the finals of the 50 over world cup. We were staying at a Landmark Trust Place, the Library IIRC, and they don’t have tellys. Now, of course you’d just access it via mobile.

But I digress…

 

[AJB Temple]

The Carved Angel!!! I worked a whole week there for free (except being fed) as Joyce Molyneux was just amazing. Tiny kitchen and she was totally sweet. Died only recently. John Burton race shifted it down the road by the mid town Ferry and it was not at all the same.

Never liked Gidleigh Park. Michael Caines used to be in the kitchens but the place at that time reminded me of a retirement home for wealthy tourists. Chintzy. And the food was old fashioned. I take your point re the Americans. Still not sure about Mr Caines but have not been to his newish hotel and pubescent vineyard.

 

[Tiresias]

The Carved Angel!!! I worked a whole week there for free (except being fed) as Joyce Molyneux was just amazing. Tiny kitchen and she was totally sweet. Died only recently. John Burton race shifted it down the road by the mid town Ferry and it was not at all the same.

Never liked Gidleigh Park. Michael Caines used to be in the kitchens but the place at that time reminded me of a retirement home for wealthy tourists. Chintzy. And the food was old fashioned. I take your point re the Americans. Still not sure about Mr Caines but have not been to his newish hotel and pubescent vineyard.

Yip, I think it would have been Caines in ’99. One of the things I do remember is driving along those weird English roads that are effectively a tunnel between massive grassy banks. And signs saying, ‘keep going for Gidleigh Park, you’re nearly there’. Sunny day, top down (the car, not me).

Chintzy, sure. Old-fashioned. Hmm, I don’t mind that. But then I wasn’t brought up in the UK. So what do I know? It always causes my friends a massive amount of amusement when it turns out that I have no idea about some popular culture references that are common to them.

Sonia Stevenson was the one I was trying to remember.

 

[AJB Temple]

Ah yes, I have heard of Sonia but never been to the Horn or read her book. If you liked the original Carved Angel you should perhaps seek out a used copy of Joyce's book. On Abe perhaps. Cheap now. They will soon be rare.