mwnch

With my liking of the two fat ladies and all-things-medieval I’m looking forward to Clarissa Dickson Wright’s TV programme ‘Clarissa and the King’s Cookbook‘. In this documentary, Clarissa cooks from The Forme of Cury, a 700-year-old scroll that was written during the reign of King Richard II by the chefs of his household.

If you fancy cooking some original medieval recipes, like Roo Broth or Ryse of Flesh, you can view images of The Forme of Cury on pbm.com or the text is available on Project Gutenburg.

Watch the programme tomorrow on BBC Four Wednesday 7 May 2008 at 9pm.

Over the past few months I’ve become aware of a potential health threat that I may be suffering from. I may even have discovered a new disease for the 21st century….

I think I could be suffering from curry addiction…

Friday night is curry night which placates the urge, the urge that builds in my subconscious over the weekend, until it becomes a pang usually around the time I’m driving to work on a Monday morning. This pang grows over the course of the week in intensity to leave me day-dreaming of jalfrezi and keema nan by Thursday lunchtime … then at long last comes Friday night and my weekly fix…

Can you become addicted to curry?

Should I consider going cold turkey? (Turkey curry … yumm!)

My word, how TV cooks have changed.

The heritage of Fanny and the Galloping Gourmet has somehow led to Gordon Ramsay frying scallops and steaks with an incompetent DJ and a liberal sprinkling of F words (not the TV show this time). Add the whole confused chicken hypocrisy of Jamie O (who spoke out against his Sainsbury’s paymasters only to apologise like a scalded prefect threatened with loss of his fag) and throw in Hugh F-W’s (who frankly I expected better from) involvement with the gang of three and I find myself shaking my head in dismay and confusion. I just can’t join together the jokey TV trailers, Ramsay’s novelty cock-a-long (sic) and the plight of factory farmed chickens – and I think Channel 4 expect me to.

This whole factory chicken issue isn’t one that should be handled with prime-time TV and one assumes prime-time TV pay-packets for the participants. Perhaps free-range chicken sales will increase in-light of the series of shows, but as soon as T*sco or As*a run a 50 for 50p on chicken nuggets I’m sure things will go back to where they were. This is an issue for politicians and legislators … if Gordon, Jamie and Hugh could elbow their way past Beckham and get through the door of 10 Downing Street then perhaps some real progress could be made in the name of animal welfare.

Better get this straight from the beginning, when I say ‘my‘ recipe, I really mean a recipe that I stole originally from Nigel Slater and adapted a bit. Now the rubbery faced one has gone and stolen it (albeit in a further adapted form) from me and Nige (admittedly more likely from Nigel than from mwnch) and (I’m guessing at this bit) sold it to Sainsbury’s where it now features on a Christmas commercial!

Outraged? - That’s not the half of it!

There is obviously a serious side to this and that is to do with the copyright on recipes.
(Just for the record…I’m not really that angry with Jamie, actually, I feel kind of sorry for him, following his early TV series that saw all his surfer type chums using him to do all the cooking at parties and now having to be Tony Blair’s pal.)

There has already been a fair amount of discussion of this on the web; to me this example demonstrates the potential minefield of such copyrighting. Whilst seemingly impossible, if this monster is allowed to rear its head, the big-boys with the big lawyers will end up owning every subtle, exciting and tasty combination of ingredients. Leaving us little guys with the few recipes that remain in the public domain (bread and jam anyone?) or are gut wrenchingly unattractive to the copyrighter (pilchard and marshmallow supreme?).

I’m pretty sure who’ll loose this one if it comes to a stand-up fight between me, Nigel and Jamie…

So, the recipe in question is my cider brandy camembert, reproduced below in all its glory, while I can still publish it…

As much as I rattle on about fresh, organic, seasonal, local…. there are times when washing, peeling and chopping is just a bore.

For those times, I’ve found a great way to save time, without cutting too many corners is to use ‘very lazy’ chillies and garlic (there are others available that I haven’t tried yet). The content of the jars are preprepared and finely chopped, just add to your cooking straight from the jar and avoid the wash/peel/chop yawn.

They are preserved in white wine vinegar and so last a long time, just be careful that the vinegar doesn’t add a tang to your dish - I wouldn’t use on uncooked dishes.

Available in all good supermarkets (probably!)

On Hugh F-W’s TV program tonight, (the one where he takes everyday people and tries to convert them to organic seasonal cooks) one of the participants commented that every meal should be a treat…that we should appreciate and respect just what goes into our food…

She could have a point…

On the car radio on the way home tonight there was a discussion of food related tall-tales that people had been fed when they were children.

• Scampo is the singular of Scampi (the breaded shellfish common as a pub meal).
• Treacle is made from melted down lions (Lyle’s Golden Syrup the famous British treacle brand has a lion on its label).
• [added 26th November 2006] One for penny pinching parents…the ice-cream van only plays a tune when it has run out of ice-cream.

[…I found them amusing…]

What brought me here (I mean to the internet) is apples (bloody apples are to blame for a lot). Let me explain…

Back in 2002 I planted the beginnings of an orchard. The orchard is in a remote location on the side of the Tywi valley between Carmarthen and Llandeilo in the West of Wales.

My intention, driven by a desire to diversify away from the city life I somehow find myself entangled in, was to begin a small business based upon a more rural way of life. The core of this business was to be generating profit by adding value to produce. Initally through converting apples to juice, cider and chutney and then diversifying into new areas.

The orchard was to be the source of this produce and my sales channels were to be both farmers markets and the internet. Whilst the apples were growing I started my business: Bochgoch Limited ~ a Welsh word that roughly translates as apple-cheeked. This was to be in preparation for use of the ‘net to sell all that lovely apple based produce.

Since then, the apples have not grown too well (or in fact at all) but the internet side of the business has developed at a pace. And so, here I am on my latest site, typing away, while I wait for the apples to grow.

You can read more about all this on the bochgoch website.