Programme : Great British Waste Menu

'Great British Waste Menu' was a program on BBC One over the summer. It follows four of the nation’s top chefs – Angela Hartnett, Richard Corrigan, Matt Tebbutt and Simon Rimmer – as they journey deep into the heart of Britain’s food waste problem, exploring how and why we throw away and reject huge quantities of perfectly edible food. This 90’ food event will follow the chefs as they source shocking amounts of unwanted food from every corner of the food chain – from supermarkets to ordinary homes, markets to farms – and then transform it into mouth-watering dishes.

The scale of the food waste problem is eye-popping. Every year, British homes throw away enough food and drink to fill 4,700 Olympic sized swimming pools. Retailers throw away 400,000 tonnes of food every year. And it’s estimated that every day we bin around 4 million apples, 5.3 million potatoes, 2 million tomatoes a day, 2.3 million ham slices, 1.8 million yoghurts, 1.4 m sausages and 7 million slices of bread. Shocked by the scale of the problem our four chefs have agreed to take on a challenge that will test their culinary skills to the limit.

The chefs will face a unique and near-impossible task: can they create a fabulous banquet for over 60 VIPs using the food that the rest of us don’t want? Can they create restaurant-standard food using ingredients that have been discarded, rejected or deemed unsuitable for sale? Will they be able to change the way we all think about the food we waste? The dishes the chefs create will be judged by four of the nation’s toughest food critics – Matthew Fort, Prue Leith, Oliver Peyton and Jay Rayner – who will decide which dishes should go onto the menu for a lavish banquet designed to prove that we should all be saving our scraps. The challenge for the chefs is to create dishes good enough to grace any menu in any restaurant in the world, using the food that the rest of us don’t want.

With millions of people starving around the world, it’s a scandal that so much delicious food ends up as animal feed, is composted, or gets dumped simply because consumers and retailers have become picky and squeamish about ingredients. Just because ingredients are misshapen, blemished, the wrong size or unfashionable, it doesn’t mean they can’t be turned into great food. Our chefs’ mission is to prove that all this unwanted food can be great food, by sourcing it for themselves and then turning it into mouth-watering dishes. As well as raiding the bins and sourcing discarded, unwanted and unsellable food from shops and homes, our chefs will travel further up the food chain and explore how food gets wasted at source. They’ll discover how farmers and food producers are struggling to provide for a society that has ceased to treat food as a precious resource and begun to treat it like a disposable commodity.

The show begins with Simon Rimmer and Matt Tebbutt competing to make a starter and Richard Corrigan and Angela Hartnett competing to make a main course. The chefs raid supermarket bins, visit shops, markets, homes and source scraps from restaurants and restaurant suppliers before returning to the Great British Menu kitchen to cook their dishes for the judges. Because the food is perishable, they have only 24 hours to source all the food they need – it’s an entertaining race against time that will reveal the amazing truth about the food we waste. The losing chef from the starter and the losing chef from the main then compete to make dessert for the banquet. Once the judges have chosen the menu for the final banquet, the chefs hit the road again to supersize their dishes. The chefs need enough food to serve over 60 VIP diners, and that means travelling further up the food chain. They visit farms, suppliers, producers and abattoirs to find out how and why perfectly edible food never makes it onto our plates. It’s an eye-opening journey and the chefs are shocked by the huge amounts of perfectly good food that we as a society are rejecting and wasting.

I found this show really inspiring in the way that it brings to light the amount of food wasted as well as demonstrating the possibilities of what can be done with the waste.

Article from : Eat ME magazine > Cereal Dieter

This is an article from Eat Me magazine about cereal diets and whether they work or no. I particularly like the images used to illustrate the article.

The thing I love most about Eat Me magazine is the illustrations and photography.

Greasy Spoons

Greasy spoon is slang used in Britain, Ireland and North America for small, especially cheap, working class restaurants or diners. The name "greasy spoon" is used to imply a less-than-rigorous approach to hygiene and dishwashing and appears in use in the early 20th century. In the UK, greasy spoons are generally called cafes, which in the South is often colloquially referred to as a "caff". The typical greasy spoon serves mainly fried or grilled food, such as fried eggs, bacon, black pudding, bubble and squeak, burgers, sausages, mushrooms and chips. These are often accompanied by baked beans, cooked tomatoes and fried bread. Hot and cold sandwiches are also often available, the bacon or sausage butty being particularly popular. The main drink in British greasy spoons is usually tea, especially Builders tea (a nickname for a mug of strong English/Irish breakfast tea or Yorkshire tea, usually served with milk and sugar and is typically robust and flavourful with a brisk character and a dark red colour). Often the only coffee available will be instant, though this has slowly changed with the proliferation of coffee drinking in the culture. British greasy spoons will sometimes also offer bread and butter pudding, apple crumble and rhubarb crumble.The greasy spoon was also the mainstay of British truck drivers who travelled the major trunk roads such as the A1 and the A6 prior to the opening of the motorways. These cafes were not only stops where the driver could eat, but also made convenient meeting places where the trade unions could talk to their members.In the United Kingdom, the traditional greasy spoon has been in decline due to the rise of fast food chains. However, they remain numerous all over the UK, especially in certain parts of London, Manchester, and many seaside towns.

Other than Britain and America, greasy spoons also exist in Hong Kong, although they are called a 'cha chaan teng', (literal translation: "tea restaurant").

Brunch?

Brunch is a combination of breakfast and lunch. The term is a combination of the words breakfast and lunch. It is supposed to be a heavy meal meant to take the place of both breakfast and lunch. It is common in the United States and Canada, however according to 'Punch' magazine the term was thought to be introduced in Britain around 1896 by 'Hunter's Weekly', then becoming student slang. Other sources claim that the term was invented by New York Morning Sun reporter Frank Ward O'Malley based on the typical mid-day eating habits of a newspaper reporter. A meal cannot be considered brunch if it is started before 10 am, such meals would still be considered breakfast. Typically brunch is had at around 11 am, close to lunch time but still before. Some colleges and hostels serve brunch, especially on Sundays and holidays. These are often serve-yourself buffet but menu-ordered meals may be available instead of, or with, the buffet. The meal usually involves standard breakfast foods such as eggs, sausages, bacon, ham, fruits, pastries, pancakes etc. However, it can include almost any other type of food served throughout the day. Buffets may have quiche, large roasts of meat or poultry, cold seafood like shrimp and smoked fish, salads, soups, vegetable dishes, many types of breadstuffs and desserts of all sorts. Mimosas, Ramos gin fizzes, brandy milk punches and bloody marys are popular brunch cocktails.

The dim sum brunch is a popular meal in Chinese restaurants worldwide. It consists of a wide variety of stuffed bao (buns), dumplings, and other savory or sweet food items which have been steamed, deep-fried, or baked. Customers select small portions from passing carts, as the kitchen continuously produces and sends out more freshly-prepared dishes. Dim sum is usually eaten as a mid-morning, midday, or mid-afternoon tea.

Breakfast vocabulary around the world : 'Crumpet'

A crumpet is a savoury/sweet bread snack made from flour and yeast. It is eaten mainly in the UK and other nations of the Commonwealth. Crumpets are generally eaten hot with butter with or without a second (sweet or savoury) topping. Popular second toppings are cheese (melted on top), honey, poached egg, jam, Marmite, salt, marmalade, peanut butter, chese spread, goldern syrup, hummus, lemon curd, maple syrup and Vegemite. The butter may be omitted - but a phrase very commonly associated with crumpets is "dripping with butter".

Breakfast vocabulary around the world : 'Goetta'

Goetta is a peasant food of German origin that is popular in the greater Cincinnati area. It is primarily composed of ground meat and oats.The dish originated with German settlers from the northwestern regions of Oldenburg, Hannover and Westphalia who emigrated to the Cincinnati area in the 19th century. The word "Goetta" comes from the Low German word götte.

Goetta was originally a peasant dish, meant to stretch out servings of meat over several meals to conserve money.

The modern popularity of goetta in Cincinnati has led to it being called "Cincinnati Caviar". Glier's Goetta, the largest commercial producer of goetta, produces more than 1,000,000lb annually, around 99% of which is consumed locally in greater Cincinnati.