The English Breakfast

If England has some kind of representative dish that is very good, its filling and especially helpful in a morning hangover, that plate would be the English Breakfast.


An English breakfast is a cooked hot meal which, for many English speakers around the world, represents the best breakfast in the world. There are many variations on the English breakfast, most of them are named for the regions they borrow from; a Scottish Breakfast, for example, carries traditional Scottish foods besides the original components of the English breakfast.
English breakfast can also be called a fry up, because almost everything is fried: tomatoes, onions, sausages...Two classic components of the English breakfast are bacon and eggs, but the food doesn't stop there.


A fry up may also include: hash browns, toast, sausage, black pudding, beans, grilled tomatoes, sauteed mushrooms, porridge, and kippers. It is also common to see an assortment of condiments, like jams and ketchup, and in some places, fresh fruit can be offered as well, for those who find the traditional components of the English breakfast too heavy.

Classically, a fry up is accompanied with many cups of strong black tea or coffee, and orange juice is also not uncommon, especially among more health-conscious consumers, who may try to temper the massive artery-clogging impact of the traditional English breakfast.


The invention of the English breakfast appears to be very recent. It seems to have emerged in the mid-1800s, and it was especially popular among the wealthy aristocracy, although farmers may have eaten similar meals before this point. In rich homes, the components of breakfast were often spread out on a buffet and people served themselves whatever they wanted, and the English breakfast was a display of wealth as much as it was an array of food, given the expense of meat.
Many English speaking nations offer some version of the English breakfast, with a focus on regional specialties. You may also hear the English breakfast called an “all day” breakfast, referring to the fact that it could fuel someone´s batteries for a day, and to the fact that many people like to eat an English breakfast over a period of several hours, rather than trying to eating it all in at once.


This plate, along with the Hot Irish, has been a good companion during my time serving at the Irish Pub I worked at, serving sometimes as energy reconstituent, sometimes as painkiller for hangovers. It was the one and only English dish I liked, besides the Chicken Curry, but I guess that is just a Hindu dish that the English have embraced as theirs to fill up the lack of variety and quality of their gastronomy. And I am not the only one who thinks this...

“To eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)

French language in Spanish gastronomy

A Gallicism can be:
a mode of speech peculiar to the French;
a French idiom;
in general, a French mode or custom.
loanwords, words or phrases borrowed from French.

Lexical borrowing between languages is normal and necessary. However, there is a field in the Spanish language where Gallicisms abound: the gastronomic vocabulary. Indeed, terms relating to ingredients, dishes, culinary techniques, verbs or professions reveal a quite intriguing French invasion. How did this happen and why??

First of all, Spain had to introduce in this part of its lexical French terms when they designated something that did not exist in Spanish gastronomy.
The 18th century represents the beginning of the french influence, with the reign of Felipe V, establishing the Bourbon dynasty which had repercussion on almost everything, including gastronomy. The French model quickly extended to Castilla and Cataluna due to the prestige of French cuisine which was often seen at the time as a sign of modernity. The new Bourbon dynasty imposes French cooks in the Court and little by little the borrowings and Gallicisms were anchored in the Spanish language.

Creativity, elegance and distinction are often said to be the main assets of the French cuisine. In this way, the use of Gallicisms in the Spanish culinary language adds without doubt something quite snob and posh to the names of the recipes or on the menus of renowned restaurants.

Those borrowings are not always written in the French way; they are often translated or adapted to the Spanish language.

Here are a few example that you could find:
Béarnaise/bearnesa
A la bordelaise/ a la bordelasa
A la bourguignonne/ a la borgonona
A la parisienne/ a la parisién
A la provençale/ a la provenzal

Another field crammed with borrowings is the one concerning hostelry staff and the mise en place.
You can hear for example:
Chef
Commis/comis
Marmiton
Maître, segundo maître
Rotisseur
Sommelier/sumiller
Buffet/buffet, bufé

Cheeses and alcohol field:

Armagnac: armanac
Champagne: champan
Cognac: conac
Brie
Camembert
Cantal
Roquefort
Emmental
Fondue

Meat and Fish field :
Blanquette : blanqueta
Brochette: brocheta
Bouillabaisse: bullabesa
Cassoulet: casolet
Entrecôte: entrecot
Fruits de mer: frutos de mar
Médaillon: medallon
Papillote
paté

Sick of Fast-food? try Slow-food!

Do you know about Slow Food?

Everybody know about fast food restaurants, these places where you go to eat quickly. You just need to enter, order and go sit to eat your hamburger and your french fries. If you do not have to wait in the queue, eating will only take you 10 minutes! This is good for people who are in a hurry. But the main disadvantages about these kind of places are that what you eat there is not very healthy and you do not take time to eat calmly.

In reaction with the frenetic Fast food concept that standardize tastes, the Slow food movement was created. The Slow Food movement started twenty years ago in Italy. It promotes a different approach of gastronomy, in order to restore the cultural and ecologic values.

This new concept is an “ecogastronomic" movement, a new way to eat and as you will soon read, it has non-negligible positive effects on the body and mind.

Indeed, research has established the importance of sitting down and taking the time to eat a proper meal with other people, as opposed to guzzling down drive-through coffee or gulp down fast food at traffic lights, all alone.

In order to find again all the benefits provided by a good meal, it is necessary to reconsider our way of eating, hence the creation of this movement called the Slow Food, that reminds us that eating slowly and healthy is beneficial for our health.

The main focus of this movement lies in sustainability and sourcing of local food. The movement also organizes "taste education" as well as other educational programs in schools and colleges to help people rediscover the joys of eating and understanding the importance of caring about where their food comes from, who makes it, and how it's made.

To reach these objectives, the creators of the Slow Food movement think that we need to slacken up the pace: take time to choose correctly our food, to know it, to cook it properly and to savour it in good company.

The tenants of this movement want to make sure that there will always be a place for home-made food. They consider that the alimentary heritage of the humanity and the environment are endangered by the food industry that offers all the products to quickly satisfy our appetite.

Today this movement is international. There are more than 82 000 members in more than 50 countries, but Italy, with its 35 000 members is still the epicenter of the phenomena.

Most importantly, Slow Food is fun and easy. It doesn't require confrontational forms of protest against Fast Food, it just involves eating local, organically grown foods prepared well, served with consideration, and enjoyed by all. So in a word, take time to eat, and to eat well.

¨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...

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.