Unusually shaped and giant vegetables

Today I’m going to talk about two peculiar cases in which a vegetable can grow: I’m referring to unusually shaped vegetables and giant vegetables. To begin with, an unusually shaped vegetable is a vegetable or fruit that has grown into an unusual shape not in line with its common form. Whereas some of them present a very straightforward alteration, others are admired for their amusing appearance, often representing a body part such as the nose, for example. A giant vegetable, instead, is one that has grown to an unusually large size, usually by design and by using artificial methods. Most of these maintain the proportions of the vegetable but are just larger in size; they don’t present any change in shape.

• What are the causes of this?

The main factors that cause mutations in vegetables are, on the one hand, the environmental conditions, and also de human factor, who, unintentionally, can damage vegetables during their growth, which alters their ultimate shape. In addition, when a root vegetable is growing and the tip is damaged, it can form multiple roots attached at the same point.
Giant vegetables, on the other hand, have a very different origin: they are intentionally cultivated to be of an enormous size, applying artificial selection to create large vegetables. There are five steps which you have to follow in order to cultivate a giant vegetable:

1. Choose the right seed.

You can start your own giant plantation by selecting a promising variety, like Atlantic Giant Pumpkin or Old Colossus Heirloom Tomato and then saving the seeds from your largest fruits for planting next year.

2. Give them a healthy start.

This step is referred to preparing the soil for the vegetables that are going to be cultivated, and you also have to feed the plants, because giant vegetables need lots of food. Finally, you have to choose a fertilizer that fits the kind of vegetable you’ll cultivate.

3. Water.

Water is essential to any vegetable, but giant vegetables need even more: You have to provide regular deep waterings or your fruits will either languish or split.

4. The fewer, the better.

With this step, you have to bear in mind that the more fruits in your plants, the smaller they will be. If there are too many fruits, the’ll share nutrients and they will never become giant, so think about letting two or three fruits only.

5. Keep close watch for problems.

This is the most difficult task of your farming. This step deals with checking your plants daily and correct any problems immediately: problems such as pests or diseases which can affect your plants. You also have to be patient, because they need a lot of time to finish their growth.

In addition, it is common in some countries to celebrate the diversity of vegetable shapes, with particularly unusual items being entered into competitions. Many of these are judged by the ugliness of the vegetable. In countries like UK, farmers and organisations develop competitions based on giant vegetables such as pumpkins. Here I show you an explanatory video dealing with giant pumpkins:

¨No Fear¨ for the Winter

          Now that Winter has finally arrived, its time for some of us to catch the flu, a sore thoat, get a runny nose...

          This reminded me of a legendary cocktail that I learned to prepare during a Winter at the Irish Pub I worked for 2 years: The Hot Irish.

          This cocktail is one of the very few cocktails that are served hot and its healing capacities are incredible, similar to our traditional ¨carajillo¨. It consists of Jameson, cloves, hot water, lemon and brown sugar, all mixed up an served very hot.

          But the most interesting thing is the story behind it. This drink goes back to even before the 16th century, to later be rescued by John Jameson, the founder of Jameson Whiskey. Around the 1500´s, his ancestors dedicated their lives to fight piracy in the Irish coasts. In order to warm the spirit and handle the low temperatures of the open sea, they drank this beverage religiously. So you could say that this cocktail played an important role in the war against the pirates. After piracy was erradicated, the Queen awarded the Jameson´s family crest with the title ¨Sine Metu¨(no fear) for their heroic efforts to preserve the Irish shores. This motto is printed in the label of the Jameson Whiskey bottle.

          This cocktail has been passed on through generations and is practically the national cocktail- Its little by little becoming very popular worldwide nowadays.

           I would like to add a curious quote of John Jameson, who having already founded the company, wanted to join the Navy with no success:

          ¨I was turned down by the Navy. They said I could better serve Ireland if I kept making whiskey.¨

          Jameson sales about 30 million bottles a year, making it by far the best selling Irish whiskey.

          Writing this blog reminded me of working at the bar filled with cigarrete smoke while having a cold, sipping on my Hot Irish every time I could, to later go back in the bar, not to fight pirates, but to deal with drunk Irishmen, which is quite the adventure as well. The amount of interesting stuff you learn working the night...

Good food on board of an aircraft???

A quite unique restaurant

One of the particularity of the small airport of Coventry in England (100km of London), is to be both an airport and an aircraft museum. Indeed, about thirty transatlantic planes from another era are exhibited on a piece of land so that visitors can admire these “iron birds” that they ancestors might have used to cross the Atlantic.

But there is one plane in particular that visitors enjoy the most...

Indeed, one of those planes has been turned into a restaurant! A plane from the 50’s that was still used not so long ago; a Douglas DC-6 was transformed into the DC6 Diner. It was inaugurated last April, after a 12 month development program. By transforming this plane into a unique restaurant, the man who came up with this idea: Chef Tony Caunce, also turns the passengers of the plane into guests for the time of a meal.

Besides, the menu of this aircraft promises much more than the standard chicken or fish that you would usually get. To top up the mood, Tony Caunce baptized the dishes in honor old English military planes and suggests dishes such as the Bomber T-bone steak, the Vampire gammon, the 8 oz Rapid steak or the Meteor marinade fillet.

To take an aperitif, the captain, also known as the Chef, might invite you into the pilot’s cockpit or to sit at the bar, at the end of the plane to sip delicious cocktails.

What is the more original in all this? To summon the waiter, the client has to push the same call-button above the seat that was originally used to call the stewardess.

Aside from its natural elegance and style, this aircraft is the only one of its kind and is very likely to reconcile you with the usual meal-tray served in planes!

Spanish Tapas

Everybody who has come to Spain enjoys the gastronomy of the mediterranean diet. They learn words like gazpacho, tortilla de patatas and, of course, tapas. But why they call them with that
name?

Well, the name Tapa (we can translate it as a “cover”) born in the old taberns and inns, the reason is because there was a lot of flies and another bucks flying around of wine glass, and the inner “covered” the cups with a piece of bread or a slice of sausage. That is why they call it Tapas.

Depending of the place, this name changes by others like “pincho”(Extremadura),” alifara”(Aragón) or “poteo”(País Vasco). But the universal name is Tapas.

Nowadays it exists a lot of types of tapas, made of almost any type of food.

WINE POETRY

Wine is one of the most important elements in gastronomy of the whole world. The oldest remains ever found are from 6.000 B.C. in Armenia, spreading fast around the western world with the Greek and Roman empires, to later be used as one of the main symbols in Christianity.

I must stress that, throughout history, wine has always been held in high regard in the western aristocracy, being a firm witness of many important events, and many historic treaties have been signed around it.

In order to taste a wine you must follow easy but essential steps:

- First of all, we must examine the cork, and see if it hasn’t rotten and contaminated the wine.

- Secondly you have to SEE the wine, so we will pour wine in a glass and hold it against a light and over a table with a white cloth, and we describe its color, transparency, bubble formation, rests of sediments...

- Afterwards we will proceed to smell it. for that we will shake the glass and bring our nose near the glass to perceive the aroma of the wine

- The last step is the tasting, where we will touch the wine with our lips and tip of the tongue first to search the sweetness, followed by drinking a small amount and rinsing the mouth with it to sense the acids and the volume of alcohol. Finally, the wine is swallowed and the aftertaste remains.

Now the linguistics comes at play, where adjectives fly connected with each other to make almost poetry, trying to express the beauty of the wine captured by all of your senses. A description of a rosé would be like this:

Pink color
with strawberry nuance,

Shiny and vibrant;

Strong aroma,

with hints of raspberry

and rose petals;

Light, fresh fruity taste and round,

easy to drink;

Overall voluptuous.

Wine tasting is more of an art than a science, and it must be perceived with all of your senses.

There is no need to be a professional in order to taste wine, but an untrained taster won’t be able to isolate the aromas and flavors that wine delight us with and an extended and specific vocabulary is needed to be able to describe it. It just takes practice.

ENGLICIOUS

Cooking is an unique activity to humans, and some scientists believe that it plays an important role in human evolution. Most anthropologists believe that some important facts as agriculture and commerce in some areas could be conditioned by the gastronomy itself, and some new inventions as pottery could be developed in order to satisfy some culinary needs.

So, cooking is surely a reflection of culture and, because of that it is so important. But lately, a huge problem has appeared, obesity. The problem of childhood obesity has grown considerably in recent years. So, because of that, the UK government seeks to introduce compulsory cooking lessons for teenagers at schools. And this could be a great idea. Furthermore, it is a solution to the main problem in Spain, English.

Some experts believe that cooking is the perfect method to learn a foreign language and it could be a way to educate children to improve their eating habits. Cooking is a good way to learn English because:

1. Recipes follow pretty much the same format and the instructions are short, logical and sequential, so it is easy to understand and memorize for a child.

2. Children will be using all five senses: touch, sight, taste, smell and hearing. This enhances the experience and they will remember it better. Instead of studying words in a language students are creating an experience in the language.

3. They become familiar with some verbs normally used in cooking fields (such as roasting, baking, boiling, frying…) and they can learn how the metric system works.

Otherwise, cooking in a foreign language is especially helpful in fostering self-esteem, because to be succeeding in a cooking experience could help a child to be more self-confident.

But that’s not all, part of learning a language is experiencing another culture, and food is a big part of any culture. Students need to learn the tastes, smells and names of native foods. It will improve their social abilities. So they will have fun too.

Cooking at school would be a perfect opportunity to teach children a new language in a new better way, besides they could learn how to eat healthy food and they could discover a tasty new world, full of flavors.

England and... tea!

In England tea is not only hot water and leaves. A popular English song says that “Everything stops for tea” and this is not a lie. Indeed tea is unquestionably the most popular drink of this country, contrary to other European countries who favor coffee.

• Where does tea come from?

Tea, coming from China, was brought to Europe at the beginning of the XVII century thanks to the Deutsch and Portuguese business. This product was very rapidly adopted by the nobless who liked its tonifying and medicinal virtues. It was even dubbed “The elixir of a long life”. It is in 1645 that the first case of tea arrived in London, but this tea was very strong and bitter because of the 6 months trip so in order to soften it a little bit they decided to add milk or cream, and this how this custom was born.

• What are the English drinking habits?

The English tradition is composed of several teas. Each one is to be drank at a precise moment of the day (Morning tea, Brunch tea, Five O’Clock tea…) and each one has a very precise reason for existing; it could be for its virtues or for the person it is dedicated to (Royal Morning tea: Queen Victoria.) During the day, every visit or event is a good reason for “a nice cup of tea”, in order to take the time to sit down and enjoy the luxury of being able to relax a little bit.

England being a country full of traditions, each drinking gave way to a precise “ceremony”. Indeed, the tea that one drinks in the morning has to be delicate in order to accompany the generous English breakfast (eggs, bacon, cereals, sausages, toasts, baked beans…) The afternoon tea is to be drank at a special table, reserved for drinking tea, along with little cakes and biscuits, especially invented for tea such as buns and scones, and of course milk.

Pouring tea into a cup is also a ceremony, though it is not as rigorous as the Japonese tea ceremony. Indeed, the cold milk as to be poured first, then the boiling tea and then the sugar.

As you can see, it is indisputable that tea is part of English values and culture. Even the Queen, soon after she was crowned demanded the newspaper The Times and a cup of tea! This common habit of drinking tea so regularly sets the English as the 4^th consumers of tea in the world (with more than 2000 cups per year and per person!) after Ireland, Iraq and Qatar.

Molecular Gastronomy

A GASTRONOMIC REVOLUTION: MOLECULAR COOKERY

Do you know about the molecular cookery?

The gastronomy is a creative art from the elaboration of recipes until the tasting of the dish after the selection of products and components. It is an art which does not cease to be innovated since the dawn of time. But the term of “innovation” is not quite strong in describing the present-day revolution in the gastronomic world with the birth of the molecular cookery.

Nicholas Kurti and Hervé This

The term was invented in 1988, by Nicholas Kurti, a physicist of Oxford, and Hervé This, a chemist. The molecular cookery mixes up science and food, uses new ingredients in order to prepare food with gelling agents and liquid nitrogen…which give birth to new recipes like translucent strawberry cannelloni or the English cream without egg. 

THE MAGIC OF THE MOLECULAR GASTRONOMY:

Faux Caviar

Molecular gastronomy experiments have resulted in new innovative dishes like hot gelatins, airs, faux caviar, spherical ravioli, crab ice cream and olive oil spiral. The dishes that molecular cookery suggests to us are real works of art.

Smoke of Nitrogen

They are usually accompanied with quite mind-blowing shows during the presentation: have you ever seen a white cold smoke of nitrogen which, after the gelling of a liquid, transforms it to little spheres? It seems incredible but it is magical to see it live! 

MOLECULAR GASTRONOMY PROCESS:

Actually there are two main processes in this cookery: 

• The gelation: 

A process in which food is deconstructed by extracting its liquid part and presenting this very part in the form of bar of gel, in cube or in cylinder…amazing! 

• The spherification: 

A process in which very small gelled beads are formed by freezing: thus you can get small orange beads with flavor of carrot! 

CAN I EAT THIS? IS THIS SAFE? WHY DON'T YOU TRY IT FIRST?

When people hear molecular gastronomy for the first time they often mistakenly view it as unhealthy, synthetic, chemical, dehumanizing and unnatural. This is not surprising given that molecular gastronomy often relies on fuming flasks of liquid nitrogen, led-blinking water baths, syringes, tabletop distilleries, PH meters and shelves of food chemicals with names like carrageenan, maltodextrin and xanthan. 

Molecular gastronomy attracts by its artistic and incredible preparation. However, critics think that molecular dishes don’t have the flavor expected after such an amazing show of chemistry… I guess it would be up to us to decide once we try it.

The origins of gin and tonic

(Left image: a Juniper. 
Right image: Flower of the Cinchona Pubescens)

We all know that, nowadays, gin and tonic is a typical mixed drink at the UK and at some other countries, but what many people don’t know is: which are the origins of, on the one hand, tonic, and on the other hand, gin?

Well, nowadays, the tonic is a normal drink, like, for example, beer or Coca-Cola, but before this, in the 19th century, it was used as a medicine (it was called quinine) to combat malaria at some tropical areas.

Quinine (from the Quechua word: kina) is a kind of curative substance which is taken from a tree called Cinchona pubescens, and its substance, quinine, was used for the purposes said before. This tree has its origins in southern America: for example in Colombia or in Bolivia, and, as an important fact, the tree is considered one of the most invader species in its environment.

On the other hand, we have the gin, the other kind of drink which forms this cocktail. This word, gin, comes from the French word “genièvre”, which means “juniper”. This word, juniper, refers to a kind of tree or bush which is grown throughout the northern hemisphere. These trees provide a fruit called “juniper berry”, which is best known for being the primary flavoring in gin (and responsible for gin's name, which is a shortening of the Dutch word for juniper, genever).

In addition, Juniper berries were recognized from ancient times as possessing medicinal properties. By the 11th century, Italian monks were flavoring distilled spirits with juniper berries. During the Black Plague, this drink was used as a remedy, but it didn’t serve.

We also have to say which is the basic composition of gin and tonic: it consists of a mixture made with gin and tonic water poured over ice. This cocktail was introduced by the army of the British East India Company in India.