Gragnano, pasta town, Italy Have a good look at packs of pasta next time you go food shopping. You’ll see that many of the best brands are made in Gragnano, a hilltop town south of Naples. Last year I visited Gragnano, specifically the factory Pastificio Dei Campi, which, according to Italian food experts that I know, is…
Travel
Food in Madhya Pradesh
Here are a couple of recipes that I learnt while travelling in Madhya Pradesh plus some general thoughts on Indian food. Everything is Indian in India. That’s part of what is so great about travelling here. Unlike most of the world where high streets are identical, India is just so bloody Indian. Especially the food….
Aberdeen and the Shire
I’m falling in love with Scotland. Over the last year I’ve visited Glasgow, Oban, and the World Porridge Championships in the Highlands. This summer I discovered Aberdeen and the surrounding area. In the past this town has had a mixed reputation (the writer Paul Theroux described it as ‘a cold, stony-faced city, over-cautious, unwelcoming and smug’)….
British Army catering, visiting 167 Catering corps in Grantham
“An army marches on its stomach” Napoleon The military is responsible for many advances in food technology: it was Napoleon that put out the call to invent a method of canning. French chef Alexis Soyer created the Soyer oven for British troops during the Victorian era, which lasted from the Crimean war until the Falklands…
Sicilian wines en primeur
“Sicily isn’t just an island, it’s a continent.” Leoluca Orlando, mayor of Palermo Despite the fact that grapevines thrive best in poor soil, vineyards are situated in some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. In Sicily, I saw fields where windswept vines are shaped like bushes, (often held down by stones); I saw…
Festival food through the decades and the Latitude festival food roundup
I have a theory that hippies make the best cooks. Ecology, natural fibres, concern with pollution, recycling, growing your own, vegetarianism and veganism, the beans, the yoghurt, the wholemeal flour, the nuts and seeds, the vegetables, all those things that used to be laughable, well, hippies did them first. Pretty much everything we think and…
Football and food, on the Norfolk broads
Norfolk is where the North folk live, in the flatlands under the big sky. “It’s just like Holland” said Jim, my mate, who had come with me to Herbert Woods boatyard, to rent a boat. Windmills broke up the windswept horizon. We had arrived two hours late. Whatever Google maps says, double the time. So many…
Papas arrugadas with Mojo Rojo recipe
Every home in the Canary Islands has their own tweak for this dish. I’ve added red pepper to brighten the colour and add flavour. But I give you the standard recipe as well. The best kind of potatoes to use are the ‘bonita’ cultivar, which stems from the original South American tubers, some of which…
Paddleboarding for beginners
Just to let you know that I’m changing this food and travel blog into a sports blog. Just kidding. But, despite my widening girth (not helped by years of close-contact immersive food reportage), I do like to be active and adventurous, especially anything to do with water sports (no sniggering). So while I wasn’t quite…
A day with Eric Lanlard on P and O cruise ship Britannia
I was very impressed by patissier and TV presenter Eric Lanlard on the P and O cruise. He went out of his way to spend time with passengers and guests of his masterclasses and dinners. He was funny, charming, humble and knowledgeable. This was part of the culinary cruise series run by P and O….