Posts by daleaway
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"The wrong sort of people are always in power because they would not be in power if they were the not the wrong sort of people."
Jon Wynne-Tyson -
I wondered who'd be first!
Not the exact words we learned, but close enough.
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When I was little, there was still food rationing, so we didn't have today's volumes of eggs and cheese to bind our tiny digestive systems.
But most of my contemporaries' homes had the magic three bottles on the bench for the semi-daily dose - Milk of Magnesia, Califig (California syrup of figs), and Maltexo (malt extract).
The Maltexo was to make us big and strong, especially when we were old enough to reach the jar ourselves and could sneak some. Tasty stuff. But the Milk of Magnesia and Califig were produced at the first sign of constipation, and very effective they were.
That and:
Prunes, prunes the Wonder Fruit,
The more you eat the more you toot
The more you toot, the better you feel
Let's all have prunes for every meal!(There's a version of this old rhyme for beans as well.)
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Microwaving works by cooking things from the inside out, conventional roasting and baking and frying from the outside in.
If you think of microwaving as a type of steaming or boiling, you'll get some idea of the recipes it works for. Basically it suits anything with an interior liquid content. Fat, it doesn't work so well on.So it's horses for courses. (Actually, I've eaten horse and it's not too bad casseroled right...)
I think microwaved jam can even taste fresher and fruitier than stove-top jam. And don't believe everything chefs tell you. They like to create some mystique around their occupation; much of it is phony.
With jam all you are doing wherever/however you cook it is heating fruit till the liquid boils and the fruit cell walls break down to slush or thereabouts. Then you are suspending that in boiled C6H12O6 syrup, which acts as a preservative. If it doesn't have sufficient natural pectin to thicken sufficiently, citric acid (lemon juice) will complete the chemical equation.
There are even recipes for jam made completely in the fridge with no cooking at all. Apologies if that damages your brain, Kyle.
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Microwave jams wherever possible. Cuts the power usage by at least 75% . You might need to experiment a bit to get the right container.
I see a lot of chefs still giving out recipes for lemon curd using a double boiler and stirring for 45 minutes. Are they demented? You can get first class lemon curd in a microwave in just 7-8 minutes. Really surprised not more people know this.
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For a good comparative discussion of absinthe I recommend Montreal journalist Taras Grescoe's book "The Devil's Picnic" (a Pan Macmillan paperback) in which he pursues various banned substances worldwide. He has a chapter on absinthe, original recipes etc. His book looks at the nature of prohibition and how what a society bans will reflect its phobias and political enmities.
One interesting claim he makes: that Coca-Cola has obtained a special loophole in the United Nations convention banning the sale of cocaine worldwide, to enable the Coca-Cola Corp to annually import 175,000kg of high quality coca to New Jersey. That's what Grescoe reckons, anyway.
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Here's one I made earlier:
EASY FEIJOA AND GINGER JAM2 cups roughly chopped feijoas (or scooped out feijoa pulp)
2-3 tbs chopped preserved ginger
1 tbs lemon juice
1 cup sugarPut feijoas, juice, ginger in a large bowl and microwave on high, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Stir in the sugar and nuke again for another five minutes.
Test for doneness - put 1/2 tsp of jam on a saucer and wait 15 seconds, then turn saucer sideways. If jam is done it will wrinkle a bit on top and run slowly or not at all. If it is too runny, nuke again in 1 minute increments, testing after each.
Put into hot jar(s) and seal when cold.
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Plant a vege garden.
Beware that cheap mozzarella, Craig. I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot cattle prod.
In January, the BBC told us that half the Italian buffalo herd used for the production of mozzarella had brucellosis and were compulsorily being culled. Now this week they tell us that the Camorra (Naples brand of Mafia), who control the main buffalo grazing land in Campania, have been using it as an illegal toxic waste dump, and that your Italian mozzarella now comes with free added dioxins. In the NZ Herald yesterday and the Independent before that.
Hopefully though you are talking about local mozzarella. New Zealand and Australian mozzarella is made from cow's milk and is not the same thing at all. With one further processing step we could use it for plastic. You can make your own, plenty of good instructions online. All you need is citric acid and rennet to add to the milk - the secret's in the kneading.
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Craig, dear, you're not right wing, you're just a very naughty boy...
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Indians were brought to Fiji as indentured labour to work in the sugar cane fields. They were not allowed to own land - that was an ethnic Fijian privilege. And that's why so many later ended up running shops, which was not racially forbidden (a bit like Jews in medieval Europe).
I recall discussing ethnic differences with a group of mixed Fijians in the mid 1960s, when the Indian population numbers there started approaching parity wih Fijian. There was unrest then, but with the UK running things, a lid was kept on it.
We were told that the ethnic Fijians had the land, the army and the police force. The minority Chinese had the business sector sewn up, and assured us that when the time came, they would go quietly. The Indians, apparently, had the cane knives.
(At which point a policeman present observed that 90 percent of Fiji's murders occurred on the Eastern side of Viti Levu, and most of them were done by cane knife.)
I have no idea whether these opinions were true or not, but they were believed at the time.
I next went back there in 1968 with a troup of Boy Scouts and leaders (it's been a rich life...), and saw that the Indians had the Scouting movement sewn up as well! We toured quite a bit and the only time we saw Fijian scout leaders was at the Vatukoula Gold Mine, which was of course a strategic asset. Coincidence, doubtless.