The Bloggers Who “Like” Everything

Do you love it when people  comment on, and “like” your posts?

Image courtesy ihavesynth.com

I certainly do.  I think, most bloggers in their right mind do. (No, I am not talking to you Mr. or Ms. Introverted who are just happy all alone with your blog, if you like it that way, that, too, is totally fine – just, you know, don’t feel upset if I read it and occasionally say something!)  But realistically, most of us write on the net in order to get our message out to the general public and hopefully interest them in it, whatever that message may be.  It is a way to interact with the entire world (or well, the internet-connected part of it), and reach out.

So far so good.  WordPress (with whom I have no quarrel on this subject whatsoever, just so we get this clear!) provide us with a lovely (and free to use, unless we want extra perks) platform for our blogs, and among the features they have very kindly built in, is the “like” button.  When it was initially introduced, I thought it was a great idea.  In fact, I still think it is, except it is in relation to the sadly common (and growing more so) use of said “like” button that I have developed my new pet dislike (not ‘pet hate’, hate is too strong a word for something like this).

What is it that I have come to dislike enough to write a full-blown rant about?  It is, my fellow bloggers and readers, the bloggers who sweep through categories of blogs on WordPress home page, “liking” every single new thing that comes through.  I have seen them on many a site, and I have begun to take notice, and I see more and more of them as time goes by.  Sadly.  What is it that I notice?  Well, for example, for all they “like” what must be hundreds of blogs (because I don’t read a hundred blog posts every day and even I have begun to notice the same people liking things I read – be it blogs I subscribed to, or new content that I get from browsing the WP “Food” category), they never, ever comment.  Ok, that may be an exaggeration, but I haven’t, in all of my reading and noting things like that (In case you are wondering, I have a very good visual memory and an eye for patterns), seen even a single comment by those people.

Before I go any further, simply “liking” and then not commenting is fine.  That is perfectly fine.  The “like” button is there for a reason and that reason is so you can just show appreciation of something in a single click.  This is not the behavior I am describing – what I am talking about are the people who “like” things immediately, and without any apparent pattern and in all-encompassing numbers.  The ones who couldn’t possibly have read and had reason to like all of those immense numbers of blogs it took for me to notice that it is all they apparently do.

They are usually the first to silently “like” new posts (on random blogs), and when I go back to said blogs if I have left comments, there are never any by them later on, either.  I mean, it’s easy to “like” something quickly if you don’t need to read the thousand-or-more words in the post, right?  How hard is clicking a button?  First!

So they like everything, but bother to comment on none of it?  What gives?

My misantropic side is the one which has, sadly, suggested the answer which I assume (for the moment) to be correct.  I can’t stand it when my misantropic self is right, for the record.  I’d love it if it was always wrong.  Basically, these are people who have decided that the “like” button is their new free ticket for blog traffic.  No need to do lengthy things like read, comprehend, evaluate and comment on posts anymore!  That’s for suckers!  These uber-clickers have ascended to a new level and can just breeze through the blogs, clicking the little star buttons, and if they click enough of them, surely at least some gullible souls would go to their gravatar to see who this person who routinely “likes” their articles (or even liked one once) was.

It’s not, technically, a violation of any rule that I can think of.  It’s just the electronic equivalent of such full-of-carp (and I don’t mean the fish here!) social tactics as approaching someone at a large corporate event or party, handing them your business card and saying “you do great work, we have to network!”, never bothering to find out what it is they even do, in hopes of having some business come your way for no more effort than that.  It is the cheapening of the point of blogging, very much in a similar vein as the blog content guild do – by trolling the gullible.  Only the “pay” in this case is less in money for having their links inserted into your blog post, but in the traffic they hope to generate from the little avatar they leave stuck on your blog post.  To add insult to injury, I don’t think you can remove specific “likes” from your blog – and I don’t want to block the option entirely, since many people actually do use it well and the way it was intended.

Now, before people I don’t intend to attack get offended – I am not saying you shouldn’t like blog posts!  By no means!  I do it myself quite often.  But you know what?  If I read a blog post and I like it, chances are I also have a couple of words to say to the writer, about having liked the post, if nothing else.  About what I liked about it, or how I’d do things differently.  About the post itself.  Because I’ve read it first, before I clicked that star button.

A late disclaimer, but it fits into the closing comments – this post is not about telling anyone what to do.  In the blogosphere, it’s really none of my right, morally speaking.  But, I hold myself to a high standard of blog and general net etiquette – always linking to those I should give credit to, giving credit on images if they aren’t mine, asking people before reblogging something which isn’t obviously public, etc.  You know, common courtesy in the virtual world.  I don’t necessarily hold others to that standard – but those people who consider me so gullible that they think clicking the “like” button on my blog (and every other one among those I read regularly and randomly come across) will get my respect or interest, those people are sorely mistaken.

As I finish editing this post, a notice pops up that yet another one of those “frequent offenders” have liked something on my blog recently, and I no longer feel any doubt about writing or posting this rant.  Some things are just not ok with me, and I strongly believe in saying what I think.

Beware Of “Writers” Bearing Free Content

Today’s post is not at all about food.

Instead, the theme of today’s post is: “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes“.

No offense intended to Hormel Foods, owners of this image.

Or, in other words, you get what you pay for – and you definitely should look a gift horse in the mouth.  You know, especially if it’s a free horse that someone you don’t know attempts to hand to you out of the goodness of their heart.  Especially on the internet.  The question you ought to ask yourself is – so, what’s in it for them?

We all hate blog spam.  But, thankfully, for those of us using WordPress, or Blogger, comment spam is more or less a thing of the past – the built-in spam filters place it all neatly into my “spam” box which I check and occasionally empty.  I like a tidy place.  But … that’d mean spammers are out of the blog business – or, are they?

The other day, I have received the following email via the “contact” box on my blog (names and such removed out of politeness):

Name: xxxx
Email: xxx@spammerguild.com
Website:
Message: I’ve been reading eatheroses.wordpress.com and have a story idea that might interest your followers:

We all know we should eat healthy, but, let’s be honest, low-cal food isn’t exactly mouth-watering. Either the flavors are off or the portions are too small. However, getting healthy doesn’t always have to be a drag. I will discuss creative tips for making healthy food more interesting as well as giving some recipe ideas that are sure to help you get healthy, without giving up your inner foodie.

Would you be interested in having me write a guest post for your blog?  Alternatively I could just supply you with some great trend information that you can use to write a post yourself.

Let me know if you’re interested – I think this topic will be of great interest to your readers.

Thanks for your time and best regards,

xxxx.

Spammer Guild
1015 Bee Caves Woods Dr, Suite 102
Austin, TX 78746
xxxx@spammerguild.com

(Please let me know if you don’t want to receive any more emails from me! Thanks!)

Notice how nice and polite he is, and how concerned he is with the well-being of my poor, neglected blog?  I mean, look at it, not updated in ages half a day at that point, and I clearly am neither on-trend nor do I know anything about healthy and delicious food.  I mean, who am I to be able to tell people about those things?  Someone with a couple of university degrees, work experience and a lifelong hobby?  Nah, I don’t know jack, and I clearly need help.  So, very interested in his generous offer (do you need a tissue to wipe the sarcasm dripping off the screen yet?), I write back to him.

Dear xxxxx,

Thank you for your email.  I am really curious to know who is paying you to do this, and in which manner.  Would you kindly provide me with this information, so that I can make an informed decision regarding any content that may be posted to my blog, and the reasons why it would be.

Many thanks and best regads,
Veronika

You know, normally a person would cotton on to something when you ask them who is paying for it, but I have found that if you are really polite (see his first letter above!), people tend to assume you bear them good will.  So, the next morning I get a prompt reply.  With an article draft, no less!

Veronika,

I’m apart of the Spammer Guild.

The Spammer Guild is a unique place for bloggers to get together and
exchange ideas and articles. They provide aspiring writers with a home for the
content they write.

Here is a draft of the article so you can see how it would read and look, and you can make your decision from that. (notice there are links in the article, this is how I benefit)

xxxxx

The article, which I won’t be posting for the obvious reason (why do the spammer guild as I’ve renamed them a favor?), is, to sum it up elegantly, so much drivel in the “eat healthy and low fat and use website x and website y’s products to keep fit” vein.  It is, essentially, a badly-written and outdated (in terms of weight loss and health) advertisement.  That they want me to put on my blog.  As content.  Yeah, right.  Also, the bit about how his guild is a place for aspiring writers and how they provide them with a home for content they write?  It looks like they want ME to provide them with a home for the content they get paid to write – so not as advertised!  (And copypasted from their homepage to boot!)

But my favorite bit here, you see, is that this ‘aspiring writer’ doesn’t appear to know grammar.  Note that he’s apart of the Spammer Guild.  No, oh no, he’s not assiciated with them – he is apart.  So, in the morning, feeling inspired, I reply with:

xxxx, good morning.

I have a couple of other issues which really need to be resolved, before I go forward with anything regarding this -

1. If you are an aspiring writer, why don’t you start your own blog?  They are available free from half a dozen blog-hosting sites such as blogger and wordpress and many more.  So, why not make your writing your own?
2. I am wondering what made you think that I need content from elsewhere or that I lack my own content to write?  Would you please share your reasoning with me?
3. Why should I, a food professional, post anything with links to websites of which I do not approve, that want their links inserted for-pay (not to me) in my blog?

Looking forward to hearing back from you,
Veronika

When the questions get this pointed, apparently even the small-brain spammer comprehends that something is not all happy happy joy joy.  Unfortunately he does not appear to have gotten really good reading comprehension scores on his tests, but no matter – he is now realising that I have no intention for earning his keep for him and using my blog to advertise his crap.  So, this evening, I get a grumpy and innocence-wronged reply which totally doesn’t address the first question regarding why he won’t start his own blog instead of wanting to post on mine:

Veronika,

We don’t charge for blog posts, I don’t know how you came to that conclusion. And as for what made me think you needed content, I didn’t think you needed content, I was just offering to add additional content. Anyways, I found someone interested in the article. Thank you for your time, and I wish you well! Take care.

xxxx

Thank YOU for your time and for alerting me to the fact that spammers have found a new way to advertise – gullible bloggers!  And no, dumb*ss, I did not say you wanted me to pay you – I referred to the fact that you get paid to put those links on my blog.  Of course I understand, it must have been sorely disappointing for him to have spent all that time writing polite emails to me when I didn’t really intend to let him take advantage of me.  How heartless of me, really!  I mean, spammers are people too, right?  Right?

I sincerely hope the comment about having found another blogger who wanted the article was just a face-saving remark and that no other bloggers actually bought into this garbage.  A polite spammer wanting to make a buck off your blog is still a spammer, and I really think it’s very underhanded to approach people (not all of whom are suspicioius sorts like myself) with “here, we want to help you” rather than the way honest advertisers (like Google Ads or various ad-partner firms) would.  Though, have to give them credit for the idea – using people’s vanity and laziness and desire for “free stuff” to place their products.

So anyway, I hope this has at least amused you.  I thought I would bring this to the collective attention of the blogosphere – or at least as much as my blog gets read – because after all, who wants to have someone else post low-quality advertisements on their blog and get paid for that – especially considering that that someone does not know English well enough to realise that “anyway” does not have a plural.

Beware Greeks bearing gifts, and all that.  You know how it ended in Troy, don’t you?

Carnivorous Plants, Omnivorous Thoughts

Day before yesterday, the boyfriend and I visited Gothenburg.  Gothenburg is a very nice city on the West coast of Sweden, and we were there to see our friends, go to the dissertation defense party, and while we were there, we also took the time to visit the Gothenburg Botanical Garden.  (Very, very recommended if you are interested in botany, conservation, or just like to walk around in a pretty park and look at flowers.)

Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia sp.) - aren't they cute?!

Among other things, the garden is famous for its collections of orchids and carnivorous plants, and while it was the orchid collection which originally drew me there, it was the carnivores which made me think.

These cute, fluffy red-patterned pitchers eat animals.  Specifically, they eat bugs – they lure them in, drown them, and digest them.  They photosynthesize too, like most other plants, but for their nutrients, they depend largely (if not solely) on killing and eating what flies or creeps their way.  They can, of course, survive without eating bugs – though not incredibly well – but they do far, far better if they can eat what is natural to them.

And, of course, I’ve never heard anyone say that it’s not ethical to feed them flies, or that it’s murder.  It’s – well, it’s natural, and that’s the end of it.

In general, I don’t care what other people eat, so long as they don’t hurt themselves and I don’t consequently have to pay for their health care via my taxes, and so long as they don’t tell me what I should and should not eat.

The former is an ongoing social problem.  People eat whatever the heck they feel like, and then think that others should pay for the problems they give themselves.  Rant for another time.  The latter is a problem with fewer people, but they are far more voiciferous.  I am talking about all those who scream that eating animals is not ethical and that I am a bad person for wanting to, and doing so.

The question I would like to ask is, why?  Why is it unethical and why is it bad, precisely?

A side note before I launch further into rant – I do my best to buy grass-fed meat, and free-range chickens (essentially more or less the only kind available in Sweden anyway), and I do not in any way condone bad conditions or treatment of livestock.  In fact, it is people like myself who pay a premium price for good-quality meat from well-treated animals who contribute to well-being of livestock in good herds.

Furthermore, while there is an argument that humans are not obligate carnivores, but rather omnivores, the latter term should not be taken to mean that humans can therefore subsist on vegetable matter only, or not easily or well.  In fact, omnivores cannot subsist by grazing at all – that would be the province of herbivores, which humans certainly are not (our digestive system is just not adapted to such diet).  Meaning, I am not about to give up eating fruit, grains, legumes or vegetables and greens – that’d be mad (not to mention constipating!), but I also do not see any ethical reason for me to stop eating animal tissue – so long as no animals live in horrible conditions because of it.  I mean, let’s face it – no sane carnivore would prefer a miserable and sick animal to eat to a fat and happily sleek one.  I am not mad either.  When I eat an animal, I want to know it was healthy and lived well – if nothing else, because it would taste better if so (nutrition aside).

As to nutrition – well yes, you can (with help of some intensive and environment-costly modern technology) survive on a purely vegetable and fungal diet.  But mind you, I can’t imagine that any manner of eating which requires serious industrial processing of said plant matter, and industrial-level extraction/synthesis of vitamins and other nutrietns, and heavy supplementation with those can be called anything like healthy or natural.  This is to say – ovo-lacto-vegetarians and pescetarians, for example, do just fine.  It’s vegans who have a real serious industry dependency.

The question which made me wonder is – why is it that some people (no names or links here, I am being nice!) feel the need to try to load me with guilt for wanting to eat what is natural to me?  (That, by the way, being, a nice selection of fruit, vegetables, grains, legumes, eggs and yes, meat.)  Is any of it more wrong for me to eat than for a carnivorous plant to get fed a few flies?  Why?  Because I am not red and fluffy and don’t live in a pot?  And what about the plants themselves – why is it that some people consider it to be perfectly fine to eat a cucumber but not a cow?  What makes plant life worse or less precious than animal life, precisely?  After all, plants are the reason why we, animls, have oxygen to breathe and something, anything to eat – they are the only form of life on this planet which converts inorganic matter into organic matter which the rest of kingdoms of life can eat.  I’d say that ought to make them more revered, not less!

So, here’s what I have to say – just like the adorable Sarracenia in the photo, and her many cohorts, I do not buy your “you shouldn’t eat animals because they are cute and have huge Disney-Bambi eyes“.  Animals are a natural part of my diet, they have proteins and nutrients I need (and yumminess I love), and I will continue to eat them untill and unless you come up with a better reason why me and my Pitcher plant buddies here should consider them off-limits.

P.S.  If you drive a car, then don’t even start on how it’s better for the environment – sell your car and take public transit or walk like I do, first.

How (not) To Glue Yourself To Kitchen Counter (adventures with rye bread)

This post is dedicated to all those well-meaning bread-baking books and blogs which I have consulted regarding baking rye bread.  They have all been full of good and helpful (no sarcasm) tips and explanations, and the result of my efforts has been lovely and very, very worthwhile.

Finnish 100% Rye Sourdough Bread

In fact, these worthy sources have even mentioned, offhandedly, that rye dough tends to be sticky but that I should not add more flour because it will not become any less sticky from it.  That’s fair enough.  There is just one thing none of them thought important enough to mention – and that is, that by “sticky”, what they actually meant is – it’s a bloody glue!

No, I am not exaggerating.  If you’ve made wheat bread, or even part-rye bread, you have no idea what this means.  Allow me to elaborate:  the dough will be sticky and it will remain sticky.  And it will stick to your bowl, utensil, stainless steel mixer dough hooks, your (floured) kitchen counter, and yes, your hands.  And gods forbid you let it set on your hands for a few minutes while kneading it, because – get this! – it will then be difficult to scrub off even with liberal use of dish soap and a nail brush under running (cold) water.  I’ve never encountered anything like this short of superglue – paint and regular wood glues are normally easier to get off hands than rye dough!  In the end, I had de-ryed my hands with just that bit of extra effort and scrubbing, however.  So, here’s your warning – by floured surface and hands, all those helpful sources mean: cover that counter with a thick layer of flour when you do the final forming of the dough, and drown that sucker in flour, else you will never be apart from your kitchen counter, bowl or utensil you happened to grab again!

Now, if this has not made you run away screaming discouraged you, I will, by all means, share my other insights (other than the “don’t try this at home unless you do own a nail brush”) into making a 100% rye bread.  All in all, glueing self to items aside, it is both, doable and rather worth the while.

The bread is absolutely fantastic – it fills the entire apartment with a wonderful fresh rye bread scent while it bakes.  It is aromatically sour (both from the sourdough which I fermented for approximately 20 hours, and from the rye and caraway), dense and, to abuse a buzz phrase, literally packed full of flavor.  A friend of mine, after having tasted it, said that most of all it reminded him of Finn Crisp, only in softer bread form (they actually have a caraway version which really does taste similar!).  The texture and density allows it to be sliced into very thin slices with a sharp serrated bread knife without breaking.  We’ve eaten it lightly buttered with Serrano ham, heavily buttered on both sides and toasted for breakfast, and simply sliced with dinner.  If you like sour rye and strong flavors, this is the bread for you, and I can’t recommend it enough!

... goes amazingly with thinly sliced salami, garlic, dill and robust-flavored chanterelle mushrooms, too!

This recipe for Finnish Sourdough Rye is adapted from Jan Hedh’s “Bröd” (“Bread”) book, which I can happily suggest to anyone who wants to bake bread and can read Swedish, or, failing that, Danish or Norwegian.  Sadly, the book is not translated into English (that I know of), but this is what I am here for (tonight, anyway)!

Before I list the recipe, a few notes regarding 100% rye bread in order not to confuse expectations:

1. Rye has a low gluten content, and therefore cannot develop the typical elastic dough texture the way wheat flour does.  The dough will remain dense and somewhat chunky, with a slight wet-sand texture even when it has risen.
2. Pure rye will never rise as high as wheat or wheat-blend dough does.  The loaf will not be a “brick”, but it will be fairly dense, with close crumb and small pores.  It will be heavy for its size compared to wheat bread.  This is a recipe of Finnish origin – those of you who know what traditional Russian breads are like, this will be similar to those.
3. This recipe requires a 12+ hour fermentation period, so it is best to prepare it over the course of two days, unless you want to be baking in the middle of the night at the end of day 1.

Yield:  2 breads

Ingredients:  Day 1

• 250ml water, finger-warm
• 125g active rye-fed sourdough starter (wheat starter will do if it rises properly after a feeding of rye flour)
• 400g fine wholemeal rye flour

Ingredients: Day 2

• All the dough made on day 1
• 30g fresh yeast
• 180ml water, finger-warm
• 500ml sourmilk or buttermilk
• 675g fine wholemeal rye flour
• 30g sea salt
• 1 heaping tablespoon caraway seeds (entirely optional but I like)

Instructions: Day 1

• Place flour into a large mixing bowl and mix in starter and water.  I use a handheld mixer with dough hooks on low speed, but I am sure a larger mixer or a spoon and putting one’s back into it will work.
• The dough will be pretty thick – add more water by a spoonful if the mixture is too obviously dry.
• Cover with cling film and allow to ferment for 12+ hours (from midday to morning the next day in my case) in a warm non-drafty place.

Instructions: Day 2

• Mix cake yeast into water and allow to stand 10 minutes.
• Add all other ingredients except salt to dough from Day 1, and mix on low speed for 10 minutes.  (You can mix with a spoon or knead with a hand in bowl, but in case of wholemeal rye, a mixer really does wonders.)
• Add salt and mix another 5 minutes.
• Place in a slightly oiled bowl, cover with clingfilm and allow to rise for an hour in a warm place.
• Prepare 2 baking sheets lined with parchment.  I use aluminium mesh sheets so that they can be placed directly in a hot oven, but you can preheat your pizza stone if you have one and place breads onto that when done proofing instead.
• Take dough out onto well-floured surface and cut in half.  Form two round breads and place on baking parchment.
• Allow to rise at room temperature for 60-90 minutes until roughly doubled in bulk and the dough surface has begun to visibly crack.
• Preheat oven to 250°C.
• Place your bread sheet (I did this one after another, not two together in the oven) inside, or use a board or peel to transfer your bread onto your pizza stone if using, and toss a few ice cubes into the bottom of oven.
• Shut the door quickly and watch the oven for the first 10 minutes, adding ice cubes as each previous batch evaporates in order to maintain steam pressure.  Make sure to keep face out of the way when opening oven with steam – this will be very hot!
• Reduce temperature to 190°C and bake another 50-55 minutes until bread is dark brown and sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.
• Cool on a rack for at least an hour before eating.

Note: After removing the first loaf, I reheated the oven back to 250°C and repeated the process with the second loaf – an extra hour of proofing harmed it not at all.  Also, your bread should come out even more floured than mine in the picture if you want it not to glue you to the aforementioned counter.  Trust me, I’ve learned the hard way!

The bread keeps for up to a week without any sign of mold wrapped in a plastic bag at room temperature.  I’ve frozen one half of one loaf, as the book suggests it will freeze well, but have not defrosted it yet, so the judgement on that is still out.  However, considering how well it kept without it and how fast we ate it, I am not sure I needed to freeze it at all.

Of Ruined Fondue And Unnecessary Disappointment

The following post is half a rant and half the instructions for those wishing to avoid the aforementioned disappointment.  And I will try to go gently on the rant bit, as I try to avoid those without a good cause.  Sadly, this is a good cause.

I make no secret of the fact that if I have to pick my one favorite celebrity chef for cookbook-buying (I don’t normally watch TV so I have no idea of how entertaining or useful their shows are, so I go by the reading and cooking quality of recipes myself), it’d be Nigella Lawson.  (If I had to pick two, the other would be Nigel Slater, and if I could have three, Emeril Lagasse deserves an honorable mention.  Just so you know.)  Now, as she herself says, her qualifications regarding food are not those of a chef, but rather of an eater – and, incidentally, also a cook.  Which is also fine by me.  I tend to find her recipes easy, good to eat, and generally have nothing but positive things to say of her.

Which makes last night’s occurrence all the more sad and disappointing.  The story is simple – I had some decent smooth-melting-type cheeses in the fridge which needed to be used, leftovers of a box of white wine, and a freshly-baked loaf of sourdough bread and I thought I’d make a lazy dinner of fondue.  Now, I’d not made fondue before, but being a decently good cook, I did not feel it should be too difficult if I got a good recipe and followed the instructions.  And because I like and trust Nigella’s cookbooks, I did not turn to my usual internet-scouring for tips, but opened up my Nigella Express book and found the fondue recipe I’d seen it on previous read-throughs.

Note, that I am not saying the book is bad in general – in fact, I’ve cooked out of it, and done so successfully, and the food was gorgeous as always.  But not this recipe.  I have followed it to the letter.  Unfortunately, the instructions were, simply put, wrong, and my cheese clumped despite my best efforts.  Again, I had at first thought the fault was mine, but a bit of research on the net (something I should have and would have done before ruining the cheese had I not trusted said cookbook so well) showed that there are several steps and an ingredient omitted in the recipe as it is written which actually have to do with cheese clumping prevention.

So, here are the steps you’d need to take in addition to the aforementioned recipe to make it workable:

1. Add 1-2 teaspoons of lemon juice to the white wine.  Most traditional fondue recipes have this, and one or two helpfully explain that it helps break the cheese down.  Why it is omitted from generally lemon-in-fridge-assuming Nigella book, I do not know.
2. Preheat the wine.  Nigella’s recipe says to add wine and cheese to the pot and heat it.  No, no and no!  Preheat wine with the lemon juice, specifically until hot but not quite boiling to help melt the cheese as you later add it.
3. Add cheese to hot wine in little batches and stir in figure-8 to avoid clumping.  Add cheese as previous batch more or less melts.
4. Use low heat once the wine is hot and while you add the cheese.  The recipe simply does not mention the heat setting and sadly, it really should have.
5. There is also the additional bit where the cheese should ideally be at room temperature and not straight from the fridge, but I suspect if the previous 4 items are followed, this step could theoretically be skipped as cheese does not have a very high heat capacity (unlike meat).

So there you have it.  A recipe that would have been fantastic had it been actually complete.  That is to say, it still tasted good, it just was clumped and not pretty enough that I’d have served it to any visitors.  T and I ate it, and were happy, but it was a bit labor-intensive with the long cheese-gone-stringy bits in what should have been smoothly melted sauce.

Better luck next time, and I will make it with the addition of lemon juice and the above instructions and feel confident that it will work just fine.  And taste fine again, which is why I will be reworking it.

I am by no means disappointed in the food writer herself, nor in the book as a whole, but I think – shame on you, Nigella, you really could have easily done better.  And, in my opinion, should have.

Supermarket Offer Email Outrage

Normally, I have a reasonably good attitude and relationship with my local supermarket.  Yes, I dislike it for edging out my favourite tiny greengrocer on Bold Street which I loved, and with the general dislike of a food professional towards the multiple retailers, but on the other hand, it is a decent supermarket most of the time, the fresh produce is fresh, they often have things I like on offer (nice tomatoes, fruit, nuts, butter, cheese, etc.), and it is close and has good opening hours.  So, it sort of balances out.  I have one of those advantage cards for it, and I have signed up for their weekly emails with offers with the thought that it never hurts to see what they put up on sale… or does it?

I have received one such email last night, and being on a tighter budget this month, trustingly and curiously went to click through it.  “Stock your cupboard for half price!”  Great, that sounds fantastic – and I click the link to be taken to a page which details which products are actually included in this great pantry-stocking offer.  I scroll through the page, and as I do so, a sense of dread slowly overtakes me: all the products on this “cupboard-stocking” offer are, in fact, cookies, biscuits and cheap chocolates in large packs!

What the hell?!  Leaving aside the obesity and diabetes epidemic sweeping the Western world, and the governments’ attempts to do something about it (ineffectual as they are, knocking on the wrong food groups), since when it is the practice to stock one’s pantry with chuffing sweets?!

What is worse, is the insidiousness of this:  what it does, is teach people (because let’s face it, even when we do not mean to, we do tend to internalise what we read, hear or see in the media – that is what most advertising is based on, after all) that “storecupboard favourites” should, in fact, be boxes and bags of chips (what the locals call “crisps”), cookies, chocolate biscuits and candies.  And it is doing it in the times when what we really ought to try to teach the general public is that these things do not, DO NOT! belong in your everyday food consumption, and should be only purchased occasionally and in small quantity as a treat.  (Unless you are striving for obesity and related diseases, of course.  Then by all means, do stock your storecupboard with all this, and eat it daily.  It’s your funeral!)  This goes against any attempts (including the token “diet club” run by the same supermarket!) of teaching people better and healthier lifestyle in terms of food quality and consumption.

After said email, my supermarket has, again, made it to the list of my less-favourite people.  And I hate feeling disappointed in businesses I had, against all odds, actually learned to respect and like.

So, in short, after resisting a strong urge to throw the nearest shoe into the nearest wall, I resort to this:  the electronic equivalent of public screaming and shoe-throwing – in the hopes that perhaps writing this and making people aware of the insidious dangers of the supermarket and advertisement jungle, I might undo at least a little bit of the harm emails like the one I’ve received (sent out to millions of consumers, I am sure!) are doing day in and day out.

You have got to be kidding me!

My first exposure to the new fad of fruit and vegetable allergies came, surprisingly enough, not through the food industry publications I normally read, but having stumbled across “Peas” listed in the food intolerance section on a specification for a product that I was writing.

My first reaction, after typing “No” in the “Contains” column on autopilot was – “You’ve got to be kidding me!  Peas, what’s next!?”, and the next reaction was a mild outrage as the implications of this hit me.  Truly, what does that mean for the future – and in my mind’s eye I saw looming panicked consumer demands for legislation to label and segregate all or most the fruit and vegetables.  In my horrified thoughts, I saw the mainstay of our health and diet treated as dangerous contaminants and unwanted on many food producers’ sites, excluded from ready meals as potentially harmful to health, and, as a result, leading to the consumption of less variety and quantity of fruit and vegetables overall.  But, as it was a single incident with just one specification, I dismissed it as a strange quirk of that particular company, and figured that it was added to their document as a result of some consumer inquiring whether whatever they make had peas in it or not – and thought no more of it for a few days until I ran across no less than two articles regarding the issue.

“The charity Allergy UK told FoodNavigator.com that they are seeing more cases of oral allergy syndrome (OAS), which is an allergic reaction to food limited to the lips, mouth and throat.
Fresh fruit, vegetables and nuts are common causes and foods that are more likely to trigger it include celery, carrots, tomatoes, apples, peaches, pears and hazelnuts…” (Source http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Fruit-and-veg-allergies-could-outstrip-peanuts)

The article went on to state that these “Oral Allergy Syndrome” diagnoses are becoming more common than the already (too) commonly diagnosed, and that the numbers were climbing epidemically.  Great, just fantastic.  What the recession-hit economy and industry need most is another dose of barely-founded scare – and from what I can tell, founded mostly on kids’ refusal to eat fresh produce and demand for sweets instead.  No, I am not dismissing all the diagnoses nor the validity of immune testing, by any means.  What I am questioning is whether something this minor should be influencing the “safety” regulations and due diligence reviews in the food industry.  After all, if we list every single food that someone cannot tolerate (or just can’t stand, like I can’t abide hard-boiled eggs), and then try to accommodate everyone, the food industry will end up having to process every single grain, vegetable, and any other type of edible matter separately because of the media fads which have, over the past century, told us many valuable well-researched health ‘truths’ such as: “hydrogenated shortening is cleaner and better for you than lard”, “eggs are good”, “dairy is bad”, “eggs are bad and full of cholesterol”, “dairy is good for your bones”, “fat makes you fat”, “red meat gives you cancer”, and I could go on and on.  The point is that human beings have been eating all sorts of [unprocessed] foods like meat, dairy, eggs, nuts, fish and fresh produce for hundreds of thousands of years.  And while our technology has now advanced to being able to detect even the slightest immune response to an unfamiliar antigen (most likely due to under-exposure during early years, caused by parents frightened into thinking that those most traditional and commonplace of foods can and will have deadly consequences), does that mean such food should be excluded from one’s diet and regarded as something to be excluded from food manufacturing sites as well?

If you read the list of major allergens, it includes: eggs, dairy, gluten (wheat, barley, etc.), fish, molluscs, crustacea… I could go on.  So if you avoid all those (and avoid feeding your child those along with all those terrible greens which may cause the Oral Allergy Syndrome, gods forbid!), what do you have left to eat?  Bland potatoes fried in refined vegetable oil?  Yeah, that is a healthy foundation for one’s diet, to be sure!

Perhaps we should all simply swap to eating yeast slurry.  It’s not been proven to be “bad” for us in any way, and could be chemically supplemented to provide proper micronutrients.  Maybe we could get it in IV packs so we’d not have to actually eat the gross stuff—of course, if we did, then there’d be no issue with Oral Allergy Syndrome, now, would there?

The salt regulation – “So quit eating junk”

This post has started as a reaction to a random question on the net regarding further reduction of salt in processed foods on top of the reductions which has already been made by the industry, and whether it is good, bad, and whether it is fair. Leaving aside the fairness question (it is not one I wish to tackle for the industry, I leave that to the finance people), and before I go any further, I would like to state that what I am about to say is in no way the opinion of the industry, but my personal views. Whatever they may coincide with professionally has no bearing on anything other than the fact that perhaps someone somewhere could agree with me, or alternatively twist my words into something they like, but I may not. So, this much for the disclaimer.

I agree, to a degree at least, that the average Westerner consumes too much salt, when measured in total over the average daily intakes of populations. Some countries do better than average than others, but the trend is there to see across the board. However call your attention to the words “average”. As the old saying goes, “there are lies, there are damned lies, and then there are statistics”, and in my view, normalising a population’s salt intake does not, and should not start with trying to push the processed food industry into salt reductions to and past all limits. Not because I disagree with the idea that processed food should have less salt—I do, actually, but not at all because of the aforementioned “average” salt intake.

The reasons why I agree that salt limits should be imposed are mostly a foodie’s concern for quality: high salt levels in food (similar to high sugar levels, as it happens) tend to mask/compensate for lack of flavour due to inferior quality of the raw ingredients. Therefore, as the industry is forced to drop the salt levels, oftentimes the quality of the products has to go up simply to compensate for the inevitable loss of flavour. Do I applaud that? You bet. I might not indulge in processed foods to the degree this mysterious “average” person does, but I do, too, like the idea that I can buy a good high-quality ready-made chilled pizza for example, once in a while on a Friday night after a long and tiring week – and know that the lovely flavour of fresh mozzarella or whatever is on the product in question is just the raw materials, not something faked and boosted by things I’d rather not ingest.

But I digress, as usual. What I was trying to say is that while the salt level regulation in food, difficult for the industry as it is, is a good thing, it does not necessarily mean that it will have any sort of great impact on the average European’s salt intake. The reason for that is simple – let’s face it: people eat garbage, street food, junk, whatever you want to call it. Again, in some countries they do so less than in others (it really depends on the national food culture and the actual locality), but they do. French Fries (or as the Brits call them out of dislike for the idea of French, “chips”) are a high-selling street food all over the place, and I will not bother to go into details of pitfalls of eating junk here (it’s a separate and different discussion altogether). The point is, consumers do buy it and consumers do eat it. And no amount of regulations to the industry will change the fact that any consumer can pick up a jar of salt off the table and sprinkle his or her food liberally with it. Unless the preposterous measure of trying to regulate what people put on their food voluntarily is passed, it is the average consumer’s choice how much salt to consume.

Furthermore, on the subject of consumer choices vs. regulation of industry, while I personally believe that ultimately the choices of food fall on the consumer, professionally I know that many consumers are not educated enough to really tell what is good and not good for them, nor do many bother to read labels or care. I am not going to assign blame for this here and now, but it is so. Therefore, in addition to food quality improvements, I believe some degree of regulation of what goes into industrially produced food is a good thing in terms of setting some sort of standard and not selling anything which is outright deleterious to one’s health, especially when the products are targeted at children. (I shall also not digress into the soapbox issue of parental responsibility and feeding their young properly.)

However, any such regulation is a two-edged sword. Many food products are meant and are designed to be used in moderation, or even minimally – such as seasoning blends, cake icings, chocolate and a variety of treats and snacks. And in case of those, it is really up to the consumers themselves to realise (or for the governmental institutions to educate the society about the fact) that eating cake daily is not normal, that one should not eat “snacks” on a regular basis. You cannot make a boiled sugar candy less sugary, and you cannot make bagged salt and sugar (when sold as such) less salt or sugar than it is – and again, it is ultimately up to the consumers to know how much of each they are using when they cook and add those to their drinks at home.

To sum it up, that said, I do believe there is and will be a market for the premium, reduced salt, fat and sugar products – I merely do not believe in forcing all the products to be over-regulated (Salt-free brined products? Sugar-free meringue, anyone?), simply because even the health-conscious consumers may want to buy luxury, treat products for taste and texture (achieved best through addition of salt and sugar, the boogiemen of food industry) at times. I also think (at least in the UK) that so long as the chip shops and other fast food places make a good business selling unlabeled junk food to the public, stringently enforcing regulations about how much salt can go into something one would buy in a supermarket is, statistically, a bit of a moot point in terms of the health and salt consumption of that “average” person when they go out and eat something somewhat resembling food out of a Styrofoam box on a street corner.

So quit eating junk.

For The Love of Food

Food is a wonderful thing.

It is life-giving, nourishing and comforting. It is a welcome and a homecoming. It is a source of health, and, no less importantly, it is a source of pleasure — in both, preparation of it (well, for some of us, anyway), and — simply put, in the eating (for most rather than some, this). In all its forms, from simple satisfaction of hunger, to comfort food on a cold winter night, or an exquisitely prepared gastronomic delight of your choice, food is a central theme of social interaction and one’s day structure.

Or, it should be.

But, again, for many (entirely too many for my taste) of us, it isn’t. It is, instead, something which many a modern consumer approaches with dread, fearing it in ways too numerous to count — and feeling guilty about wanting/having/eating it in many more on top of that. The things which drive the guilt and fear campaign are many – fear of gaining weight (sadly more prevalent than fear of malnutrition), fear of poisons or contaminants in food (something which is a reality – but in reality happens far less than it does in people’s minds, no thanks to the food scaremongering media), and so on and so forth ad nauseum.

Yesterday it was the [very well off] Jamie Oliver graphically describing to us the hellish horrors of battery chicken life and implying we are awful human beings if we do not *cough* advocating buying organic and free range. Today it is the evils that the azo colours in combination with sorbate in soft drinks will do to our children. Tomorrow it is to be yet another issue, which horrifies millions and makes tabloids rub their hands gleefully. And all this against the backdrop of never ending stream of guilt being poured on the heads of anyone who does not resemble a chop stick in profile about feeling hungry or looking forward to a meal, or *gasp* liking to eat (imagine the horror of it!) meat of all things. Fat free dairy, soy milk (don’t even get me started on that today), meat so lean it squeaks when you touch it — all combined with beauty magazines featuring models which look like they never had a square meal in their lives – conspire to tell us that when we come into a supermarket, we should feel guilty about ourselves if we have purchased anything more indulgent than a bottle of sparkling mineral water, a bag of rocket, and a packet of tiger prawns.

As an aside, I actually really do like sparkling mineral water, prawns and various overpriced-but-yummy crispy and peppery baby greens, so all of the above often features in my eclectic choices lined up on the supermarket checkout belt. Neither do I hate beauty magazines as such – for all their blatant commercialism, they do often have good advice about skincare, and are useful, if nothing else, as a showcase of the new offerings on the “today I spoil myself and buy…” market.

But, when I go shopping for food, I do not look at the beauty magazines, nor do I consider their advice of eating half a rye crispbread slice with a dollop of fat-free cottage cheese as breakfast. When I go to select what I will eat, it is not the media and fashion industry that go shopping, but myself and my judgement (I suppose I have some advantage over the average consumer here, being that I work with food and the industrial production thereof), my large, comfy grocery bag (the Waitrose one that has nice long handles so I can use it over the shoulder if it’s heavy – I tend to walk to the shop), and a list of things I want to eat (what I want to eat and why I want to eat those things varies, but I will leave that for another day). But, I digress. In my favourite direction, but still.

Now, before you get your unmentionables in a bunch about it, I wholeheartedly agree that children should not drink sugary coloured soft drinks, that dyes migrating through food contact packaging into it are an awful industrial oversight (which should be corrected by the relevant industry with all haste), and that battery chickens’ life is pretty sad — and I can and do buy free range whenever I can. Not because Jamie Oliver told me so, but because chickens that spent their lives outdoors pecking at green things just taste better, and because my butcher will truss or chop the bird for me any way I like. But, I do get annoyed that the tone of these messages to the public at large are geared to make all those who perhaps cannot afford the higher-priced free range chicken and eggs feel guilty about buying and eating chicken. Or, for example, worried about feeding their children anything and everything (and driving people into the free-from food fads — not to be confused with people who eat so for legitimate medical reasons), or thinking that the food industry is the very devil in disguise. And this brings me to my pet peeve about food in modern society – guilt.

We are made to feel guilty about our weight, about buying things which are not the politically correct ones — be it their unfashionable above-zero fat content, their lack of flashy “functional food” tags, or their frugality and less than perfectly ethical source. As a result, people often feel unhappy about food, or regard it as a necessary evil rather than the joyful thing it is supposed to be – whether you are eating for health, for emotional comfort, for entertaining or for any combination of the above.

With all that anti-food propaganda screaming at us from every corner, I am surprised any food gets eaten at all — though, I suppose, nature has a way of persuading a person to do what it wants him or her to do. At some point you get hungry and stop thinking about those politically correct issues, and just eat (or get an eating disorder).

Life happens. Food happens. What happens to food after it’s eaten, happens as well. And I suppose I touched on too many things in this post to expand on them all here. I will have to do that on other days in the near future. In the meantime, I simply wish that people would forget/pay less heed to the mostly (not entirely, there are exceptions to that as well) pointless media food hype, and try to remember that food is not the soul-and-body destroying enemy that lurks in the supermarket jungle ready to afflict us with obesity, cancer, ADHD and two dozen other horrible things.

Food is something to love and enjoy. Not least for the sake of your own (mental and otherwise) health.

“Cannot guarantee nut free”

So there I was after having gotten home this evening, munching a dish of pork and rice (cannot really call it a biryani, as it wasn’t traditionally made or anything of the sort), and staring sleepily at the jar of dried chili pepper flakes on my table.  The back of the jar had the usual regulatory nonsense (well, important labelling information, rather, but it is really mostly nonsense in case of dried chili flakes), as well as a large and prominently displayed allergen info section.

The said section, broken into several sentences, informed the concerned consumer (or well, me in this case) that there were no nuts in the chili flakes, nor were nuts handled in the factory where the said chili flakes were processed, however — and here’s the kicker — the manufacturer/retailer could not guarantee that the said jar of dried chili flakes was “nut free” regardless of all of the above.

Now, as a food professional who frequently works on the specification/documentation side of things, I, of course, understand precisely how and why the manufacturer and retailer have arrived at this resulting display of self-explanatory madness.  I have filled out countless specifications and allergen assessment and risk assessment forms, and know the criteria for any of the half-dozen commonly used statements in regards not to what the product contains or does not, but to what might have possibly, unbeknownst to the very diligent manufacturer, touched or sneezed at the product at some point of its life — starting from its humble origins as a seed germinating into an agricultural crop or the same seed being consumed as lifestock animal feed, and ending with it being sealed at the final manufacturing/packaging facility.

Seeing these statements on the otherwise innocuous jar of very decent chili flakes has frankly pissed me off.

Yes.  I know that nut allergy (and a few other food allergies) is a deadly condition affecting a [very small] proportion of the world’s population.   Yes, I know that the said allergies can be fatal, and that those affected by them should be given any support they need to avoid accidentally eating the foods that would be dangerous to them.  I can also agree that some sort of allergy labeling is very necessary on many foods, especially compound ones with not all ingredients clearly evident (like muesli, for example).

What I certainly do not agree with (personally, not professionally), is the fact that the lawsuit-for-damages culture has penetrated so far into the society and has put the food industry in such a position where the labeling of allergens (and anything else that may possibly cause an adverse reaction) is taken far beyond the necessary and diligent, and into the realm of the ridiculous CYA-at-any-cost.

From where I sit, were I a food allergy sufferer (I am not, thank the parents in more than one way!), I would not WANT that sort of labeling.  What I would have liked to know would have been, depending on the severity of my allergy, is whether there was something IN the product, and then if more severe, whether there was something handled in same factory/on same line as the product.  Meaning, whether there is a realistic risk of me getting sick from eating this particular thing.  But the whole wording of “cannot guarantee nut free” smacks not of trying to serve the nut allergy sufferers who should on the pain of death stay away from the chili flakes (which are neither nuts, nor handled in same facility as nuts), but of a manufacturer/retailer’s attempt to cover their behind in case of a lawsuit resulting from someone eating a chili flake and having a violent allergic reaction.  No, I do not blame the industry for trying to cover themselves.  It is a survival method — allergy sufferers are few enough that most people do not read these labels.  What I do blame, are the people who cause such labeling to become necessary.  I doubt they believe they are doing good for the allergy sufferers.  I doubt they care much for that at all, since the result is not that of better clarity, but in the end, labels which allergy sufferers will have to either ignore, or not buy or eat anything unless it is “guaranteed free from” ever again.

In the end, it does not cost the industry much (other than the annoyance of packaging redesign and the cost for printing new labels) to stick stupid warnings of this sort on everything and anything they produce.  But since no one can truly ever guarantee that the said chili flakes weren’t grown in a field where a stray peanut plant did not shed a few molecules on the peppers as they ripened, or that some flour dust from a bakery some miles off did not blow over those chilies as they dried in the hot sun, or that the fertilizer did not contain any still-recognizable fish or shellfish parts in it… you get the idea.  Most food is not and cannot be “guaranteed” free from anything.  Yes, I suppose tuna does not normally contain milk, nor does soy generally contain eggs, but the question which must be asked — where does one stop?  At what level of detection (or ridiculousness)?

And where, pray tell, is the personal responsibility of the people who need the “guaranteed free from” labeling?  Can they not trust the fact that a bottle of milk (containing milk, of course) does not have fish if there is no fish in the milk, nor in the milk farm or processing plant?  Do they need the guarantee for their peace of mind after all?  Or is it simply that they would use the fact that they were “misled” by the absence of “cannot guarantee fish free” label on milk for a lawsuit against the milk retailer or manufacturer just because they can?

I say this not to the average allergy sufferer (who is not at fault here at all), nor to the manufacturers (who need the protection), but to those who have taken and still take advantage of any loophole to exploit the food industry on this matter — grow the hell up.  Really.