Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I once was a guest to a celebration of an extended family in Minnesota. To keep the large numbers of children occupied after the meal they devised an entertainment for them. This consisted of getting the children to organise a blind tasting of 20 different vanilla ice creams. Each of the diners was presented with a chart on which to mark a score for each ice cream. One of the girls carefully covered all the pots so that no manufacturer was identifiable. The ice creams included local farm made ice creams, rice creams and a number of well-known and less-known brands. Other childrend provided us all with little paper cups with our initials on them and paper spoons.

The first ice cream to be tasted elicited a "10 out of 10” from half the children. The second ice cream was universally considered to be "better" and the children all subsequently revised their marks. This taught them, in the most extraordinary way, to discriminate between flavours. One child revised all his marks every time he tasted an ice cream - all 20!

When we had all tasted all the ice creams the children gathered up all the papers and took them off to the computer. One of them entered all the scores into an Excel spreadsheet - this was a most remarkable family - and came back announcing that the winner, in terms of flavour, was Häagen-Dazs.

What was even more extraordinary is that the children then started discussing amongst themselves which was the best "value" and asked for the prices. Because one of them observed that you paid less per unit if you bought large quantities of ice cream they introduced a correction factor depending on whether the ice cream was purchased in a pint or a quart container.

I am enjoying this blog a lot - but, like others, am disappointed by the easy option of showing unappetising images of foods. Imagine, if someone went into a really dull supermarket in a backwater somewhere and took some photographs of food and then said "This is American food"? Wouldn't you be a bit piqued?

II have a website called http://www.whatamieating.com which I hope might help you with some of the confusions of the namings of foods in our respective countried. But I see a need now to write a definition of 'pickles' in English English, which I would say should be almost any food preserved in vinegar (herrings, vegetables and so on). I will do this soon.

'Fish and chips' is mentioned - and can, it is true, be anything from cheap old coaley, with soggy greasy chips, to stonkingly fresh line-caught fish of some kind. You'd expect the same in the US, wouldn't you? A burger, a dish many foreigners think of as archetypally American, is not the only dish you produce, and can be represented by everything from a flaccid, grey disc of cheap meat to something enticing and succulent. It's the same all over the world. And all of us are trying to get better at it I think.

At the recent British Cheese Awards, to which *bus-loads* of French come, there were nearly 400 varieties of artisan cheese - and many of these cheeses are readily available across the country. Sad that we are defined by 'Cheddar'. Thanks to twcaac for talking it up! A well-made artisinale Cheddar is a complex hard cheese with a good smell of the farmyard. But all over the world people think of Cheddar as that bendy, flexible, flavourless item wrapped in plastic and sweating gently. Wouldn't we all?!

And jellied eels in France are 'aspic d'anguille' and a great delicacy. But a rose is a rose by any other name.....

I'll try to get it right!

I so agree with Tonecat that this is not 'everyday' food for anyone. If I wish to spend my bucks on trying Molecular Gastronomy once in a while, going with an open mind and curiosity and a sense of humour to eat what it is on offer, that's my choice. I would treat it as I would visiting Beijing or Kyoto and eating something I have never tried before. In those circumstances I have taken my courage in my hands and eaten things I have never even heard of. Fascinating as they were, the molecular gastronomy at the Fat Duck (three Michelin Stars in Bray in the UK) was much much more delicious - and fun! That was the thing that struck us - how it made us laugh. It was, in a true sense, delightful. How lucky we are to be able to afford it as a magical treat on rare occasions.

Many thanks 2qrs. That's *really* helpful. I will add this, if I may, to my entries for manioc flour generally, but I will keep an eye on the thread to see if you come up with anything else.

Surui Flower - There are certainly worse names, like the family who named their *daughter* after all the members of the English football team - I bet she has grown up into a balanced, family-oriented sort of person. Though this maligns her. She may really have done so!

Fabulous picture.

I am torn between whether the spotty one is Cephalophilus leopardus, light reddish-brown colour with numerous small round or oval spots, called lapu-lapu (like lots of other groupers) in the Philippines, or Epinephelus quoyanus, also reddish brown in a 'honeycomeb' pattern, called lapo-lapong liglig in the Philippines.

I agree with you completely CookiePie. I was talking to a chef the other day who said "There is no such thing as a disaster in the kitchen!" and I have spent many an hilarious hour watching the wonderful Julia Child tossing a saucepan onto the floor when she suddenly can't find a space for it, or laughingly grabbing a towel to strain a liquid through if she can't find a proper culinary instrument! What a woman.

I think I was just lucky - My mum was a wonderful, adventurous cook with an extensive vegetable garden, our own chickens and ducks, and all the stuff we shot for the pot during rationing after the war in the UK, not to mention fresh fish from the local river.

She taught me everything from gutting a pheasant and skinning a rabbit to what to do with salsify and artichokes. She grew mushrooms and herbs and was certainly the first person in our village to use spices. She made cheese and cider from our apples and all those wonderful preserves and green tomato chutneys needed before everyone had fridges. We ate fresh foods, home-made bread, our own eggs and a chicken at Easter. We stewed apples and plums, gooseberries and rhubarb from the garden and sat on the verandah topping and tailing strawberries during Wimbledon each year. My childhood was an idyll, which ended with her early death - but all my cooking comes from her: knowing that leaving a spoon in the milk will stop it boiling over; that a fresh egg is best for frying while a slightly older one is better for boiling; that a banana in the fruit bowl will bring the other fruit to ripeness more quickly; that meat left to settle after it has been roasted will yield up its juices and become succulent. She imparted all this simply by her great joy in the provision of everything in the kitchen - and we had great boisterous meals around a long table full of laughter and conversation.

We were an ordinary English family with nothing exotic in our history, but I think we had amazing luck to live this life. The privations of post-war England actually made the dependence on our own produce more profound. And I am so grateful now to have this background and understanding of the provenance of what we eat.

I think I have learned better knife skills from watching television programmes and there was something recently, what was it? – oh yes. If brown sugar goes hard, but it in a mixing bowl and cover it with a damp cloth overnight. That works!

I *always* leave my favourite things to the last mouthful - so I will leave a lovely crisp piece of something gorgeous, the youngest and greenest of the broad beans, a crunchy roast potato, all to wipe up the last taste of wonderful gravy and then M(esteemed and adored)OH sweeps in and swipes it. He's eaten all his favourite morsels first, of course, and then eats at 100 miles per hour and is ready to finish off my plate just as I get to the most scrumptious bits!

@Butrflygirly, As you see, I mix foods happily - but PumpkinBear I will stand in the kitchen looking out into the garden to eat just about anything that is within reach. It feels very peaceful, splitting a few almonds with my teeth as I look at the burgeoning abundant green outside my window and the thrushes beating the living daylights out of a snail or two!

I am so sorry Perky. What a terrible shock. And I agree with Chiff, you are so right. It doesn't matter when, Embolini, but just do say to your friend how you love him.

I missed a friend's recently, but she had also missed mine earlier in the year. I got in a muddle because I hoped she didn't think it was 'revenge'. But I managed to overlook the most important thing - that we are *friends* and she forgave me as quickly as I forgave her! The only person who doesn't forgive me for missing her, her husband's, her daughter's, her daughter's husband's and, finally, her grand-daughter's birthdays is my sister! I like very much the various suggestions given for presents. What about some wonderful cheese that your friend might be missing in California?

Aw. Shucks :)

There is a story I like about William Golding (who seems to be famous for writing Lord of the Flies, whilst actually also having written a range of quite extraordinary books, including Pincher Martin, The Spire, The Inheritors, Rites of Passage etc).

He had a life-long interest in ships and life under sail. As a child he was taken by his father who went as a special guest to visit, I *think*, HMS Victory. They were taken around the empty ship by a Naval officer. This man recognised in William Golding the sense of magic with which the child was enveloped the moment he set foot on board. Reaching up he chipped a tiny bit of wood from a beam with his thumb nail, leaned down and handed it out towards the child. William Golding took it and, knowing that it was one of the most precious things he would ever hold in his hand, sought about for somewhere safe to keep and then popped it into his mouth. By this means the ship, its history, its men, its challenges on the ocean somehow all became absorbed into his own small person.

I once went into the local chemist with a cut and asked if he had any small condoms that I could fit over my finger. We then laughed as I said that I guessed there wasn't much of a market for them. Can you image, a guy walking into a chemist and asking for a box of small condoms?!!!