in Extra Matter

Tasty Morsels 004 Gleanings

25 May 2015

  1. The cost of ingredients has never been that big a factor in the price we pay for food. Latest evidence: in the US the price of bacon plummets – fattening restaurant margins. And waistlines? I actually think the hypocrite burger – a veggie burger with a couple of strips of bacon – is a great idea, a dish for the thoughtful consumer.
  2. I tried to ask Willy Staley, who wrote the eye-opening A Conspiracy of Hogs: The McRib as Arbitrage from 2011, for a comment on the bacon thing, or even a prediction as to when the McRib might reappear, but he’s a hard man to find. Can you help?
  3. Enough of the US-centric stuff: here’s Paul Levy’s fine piece from last October, on The exotic history of British fish and chips.
  4. And where do chips come from? Some people would have you believe only from a potato called Russet Burbank. Not Morrice and Ann Innes. Their exhibit of 140 different potato varieties has just won gold at the Chelsea Flower Show. Mature tubers in May; that takes some doing.
  5. Something to wash your fish and chips down with? The University of Vermont seems to be making an awfully big deal about the rise in hard cider, or what I, a Somersetian at heart, prefer to call cider. Or zider. I suggest that the Vermonters pay God’s own county a visit.

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