Tag: Gluttony

Cultural Tastes

Food & Drink, Lifestyle

This is an interesting topic only insofar as it reinforces something I’ve believed for a long time:

‘Eating with your hands is scientifically proven to improve texture and the flavour of food, as well as a whole host of health benefits. It’s something more people should know about and get to grips with.

‘Many of the world’s most popular foods are eaten with the hands – think burgers, tacos, tortilla, wraps, and wings, so why can’t other foods be as well?

‘Eating with our hands helps to make us more mindful about what we are eating and heighten our dining experience, rather than just thoughtlessly using cutlery like we always do.

‘The fork gets in the way and separates you from your senses.’

Like many South African kids of my vintage, I had a Black “mommy” — technically a live-in housemaid, but in reality much, much more than that.  When I was little more than a baby, while doing the housework Mary would carry me around on her back, held there by a blanket wrapped around herself, thus:

Put a White face on that kid, and you’d have me.  (My feet still point outwards when I walk, a common trait among people carried in this fashion.)

Anyway, I remember asking Mary why Blacks didn’t use knives and forks when they ate.  Her response was interesting:  “How do White people taste their food?”

And she was right.  It really does make a difference.

Now, I’m not going to follow the thing to its illogical conclusion like the guy does in the linked article;  some foods should only be eaten with a utensil — I draw the line when it comes to eating slushy foods like pasta and soup, for instance.  (And forget eating with mouth open, as he proposes — that’s just disgusting.)

But as he points out, we do eat many solid foods with our hands:  pizza, hamburgers and assorted sandwiches are all eaten by hand — and this extends to foods best eaten by hand, such as ribs, sausages and similar delicacies.

As much as I enjoy eating with my hands, I do draw the line at doing so in a restaurant setting (unless at a BBQ or picnic, where anything goes, as it should).  But at home?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to make my normal breakfast of boerewors, a boiled egg and cheese chunks.

All to be eaten by hand.

And by the way, Charles Spence is a psychologist, not a scientist.

Fiddling With Beloved Institutions

Food & Drink

Aaaargh here we go again:  yet another of the world’s greatest institutions is under attack:

British meme account No Context Brits set off a rather fiery debate on Twitter where they proposed a rather controversial question.  Along with a snap of a plated full English, they asked: “You have to lose one item. What is it?”

All the trimmings were up for the cut, including mushrooms and black pudding.  Although what first seemed like a impossible decision, many opted to rid of the tomato sauce-covered beans.

This is what happens when people have too much spare time:  they change things that need no changing.

That said, I could lose the black pudding (top right) because I seldom eat it unless I’m starving and all the other items on the plate have been devoured.  (Frankly, though, if all the items as pictured have been eaten, there’s no need to go any further, Kim you gluttonous fat pig.)

Next thing they’ll be wanting to put an automatic gearbox in an AC Cobra.  (You saw it here first.)

Just… Wrong

Food & Drink

While wandering down an Intarwebz alley, I saw this and nearly choked on my gin:

I’m sorry, and you can call me a reactionary old fart (it has been said before), but red wine with fish and chips?  Out of a bottle with an actual label?

What the hell:  why not try that same booze with corndogs or BBQ?  Next thing, it’ll be Diet Coke with caviar, or Scotch with tacos.  Yerrrrgh.

BEER, DAMN IT.

‘Nuff said.

Not Really

Food & Drink, Marketing / Advertising

In this Amazon advertisement cunningly disguised as a newspaper “article” ., the Nespresso Vertuo Next is described as the “best capsule coffee on the market”, a statement with which I take issue.

I’m not interested in starting a Keurig vs. Nespresso war (I use a Keurig), but the plain fact of the matter is that I find all the Nespresso offers so strong as to be undrinkable.  Indeed, when I was confined to quarters in Free Market Towers lo those many years ago, I was forced to use one of those Nespresso things, and discovered that the only way I could stomach the stuff was to make it “Americano-style”:  half coffee, half hot water.

As a company, Nespresso irritates me because like Starbucks, they’ve built a marketing ethos around the alleged high quality of their product which appeals very much to the wannabe social climbers of this world.  I was even more irritated when I wanted to buy Mrs. FM a Christmas present of a large selection of Nespresso pods, only to discover that I couldn’t because I wasn’t a “registered user” (i.e. an owner of the machine).  So I got her something else.

I also prefer Keurig because rather than using expensive pods, I can use one of the little “buckets” as a substitute, and fill said bucket with my own choice of coffee (Dunkin’ Donuts, or a 50-50 mix of Peet’s Light Roast and Tim Horton’s when I need to wake up quickly).

So no;  Nespresso isn’t the “best capsule coffee on the market”, either by quality or by offering.

Your mileage may differ.

I Hate This

Food & Drink, Lifestyle, Two-Minute Hate

From City Journal:

Restaurants supply physical nourishment, but their ultimate contribution to life is spiritual. From the bonds forged with dining partners to the camaraderie shared with fellow patrons to the banter exchanged with staff, dining out is a social, aesthetic experience. But QR codes are ruining it. More than a superficial nuisance, they are a sign of cultural decline.

Whenever I go to a restaurant and am confronted with this nonsense, I ignore it and demand to get a paper menu.  Usually, I get strange looks from the staff and eventually get a plain photocopied list, with no pictures of the dishes.

Suits me fine;  I know what a burger looks like, ditto schnitzel, ditto spaghetti bolognaise, ditto pretty much everything I care to eat.

Although it hasn’t happened yet, if I’m ever told that I can only order a meal through my phone, I’ll get up and walk out.  I hate using my fucking phone at the best of times, and to sit there squinting at a list of dishes in tiny type with microscopic pictures is guaranteed to put me  in a terrible mood — not the ideal customer a restaurant wants, because then I’m going to find fault with almost everything that happens thereafter.

I’ve already griped about concrete walls/floors and loud music, so I’m not going to repeat it all here.

I know all about the cost of labor and the difficulty in finding decent waiters and waitresses nowadays, and I don’t care.  I want the personal touch when I go out to eat, and you can forget that drive-through shit, too — hell, if I ever go to a fast-food restaurant (a highly infrequent event), I park the car and walk inside to place my order.

I was never a fan of “casual dining” to begin with, other than as a family/friends event, or being out of town where I have no option.  But as this move towards impersonal- and remote service seems to be growing, the less likely I’m going to be found eating out.

A pox on all of them, and on this so-called modern life.

Strange Choices

Food & Drink

In a recent survey, Britishlanders were asked to state their favorite sandwiches, and the results were as follows:

For those Murkins unfamiliar with the term, a “ploughman’s” sandwich (cheese, ham, pickled onions or pickles, chutney, and sourdough bread) has nothing to do with ploughmen nor even farming — it was a marketing term developed in the late 1950s, and the promotion of the Ploughman’s lunch was part of a campaign to promote the sale of cheese in pubs.

As for the other choices:  Murkins will also be surprised by prawn sandwiches, but the Brits use the tiny “cocktail” or “baby” prawns, not the normal large things we eat with hot sauce Over Here.

And there has to be a special place in hell for whoever came up with putting tuna and sweetcorn on a sandwich.