Tag Archives: food

Memorable Meals To Eat In Your Lifetime (The Less BS version)

So, some website has conjured up forty meals to eat in a lifetime. A worthy list to have perhaps,  too bad it contains mostly bland looking and horrible food. See for yourself:

Memorable Meals To Eat In Your Lifetime – Business Insider.

Instead I propose an alternate list (mostly veg and I realize somewhat tilted towards subcontinental food…)  from my own meager experience (in no particular order except for my recollection):

  1. Bhetki Paturi in Kolkata
  2. Chao Mian (from hand pulled noodles of course) at a street side stall anywhere in wheat-eating parts of China
  3. Poulet aux prune tagine with cous-cous in Morocco (for me at a homestay in Moulay Idriss)
  4. Tapas (with Jerez) at a local bar in Seville
  5. Pickled aubegine. börek and other tasty snacks and meze in Istanbul
  6. Mr Falafel in Bruxelles, Belgium (Tel Aviv,pff)
  7. Heavy creamy daal makhani with paratha in Shahjahanabad
  8. Spicy laksa in Kuala Lumpur
  9. Appam and avial in Kerala
  10. Fried Momo with tangy,spicy tomato chutney in Kathmandu
  11. Gelato in Italy (ok, BI we can agree to agree on this)
  12. Arroz e feijão in Brazil, so simple yet so tasty
  13. Phuchka (preferred), golgappa or pani puri on any street around India (but ideally in Kolkata (preferred), Mumbai or Delhi)
  14. Rye bread (Swedish-style) with a slice of good cheese (manchego say, or something a bit stronger) and maybe a few strands of bell pepper
  15. Hongshao qiezi (because aubegine is about the best thing ever)
  16. Afghani bourani baingan with huge slightly leavened naan (because yes, aubegine is still the best thing ever)
  17. A full British fry up – because fat, stodge and dubious meat is what made the world go round for centuries (you can have it once, your heart will survive)
  18. Kashmiri rajma with a click ghee and rice
  19. Rice, mustard oil and gongura pickle in Andhra, India
  20. A selection of good cheese (from some local cheese shop) and wine in France
  21. Any spiced up version of a shashlik kebab from a street food corner from anywhere between Morocco and China (basically anywhere there is a sizeable muslim population with access to good spices)
  22. Tapas and wine at Garum 2.1 in Cordoba

Upon reading this I realize the list really needs to be added on to as far as African (south of Sahara) and South Amercian food goes…

Oh, and Eastern Europe, I’ve visited you, but nothing you threw at me makes the list. Sorry about that.

My container farm – phase 1

So, there’s this guy named Dr Doshi in Mumbai. Apparently he grows a ton of things on his terrace, and he’s written a couple of passionate books on the topic. When I got interested in how you could produce food, and especially how you could recycle your food waste and use it as a basis for growing your own food, I found his instruction manuals and figured I’d want to try his method out. This weekend and last, I finally got around to collecting all materials and get started. Basically all you need is – bags or other containers, some biomass, compost, soil, water and of course seeds. In this first phase I prepared the bags so that I can sow next week. Here’s the recipe :

 

1. Get your sacks

 

I used cement bags. Rice bags, fertilizer bags, buckets or anything like that which is easily and cheaply (or even freely) available would do. Open up the closed end, so that it becomes a tube so that it will drain water properly.

 

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2. Fill the bottom 50% with biomass

 

I used straw which I could get from the local fruit vendors (they use it to pack their containers). Leaves, twigs, sugarcane from juice vendors or anything of that sort should also work. Whatever is available. This layer is for good drainage while still holding the compost and soil in its place

 

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3. Add compost, 25% of what’s left

 

I started with the compost that i produced from my own food waste. Since I mix my food waste with leaves, and since there’s a lot of heavy-duty biomass (like mango pips) I put this in the bottom layer with the other biomass. In this way it’s given even more time to decompose as well as serve as a useful biomass layer. After that I filled up with gobar or cowdung compost which I’d got cheaply from local nurseries.

 

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My compost

 

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4. Add soil for the rest 25%

 

I filled up with soil and then finally mixed it with

 

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5. Water and let drain a couple of time so that the soil sets in the container

Food Science: Ethylene

Ethylene is a natural plant hormone released in the form of a gas. It triggers cells to degrade, fruit to turn softer and sweeter, leaves to droop, and seeds or buds to sprout. While some fruits and vegetables are high ethylene producers, others are more sensitive to it.

You can use this knowledge to extend the life of your produce by keeping certain items separate in the fruit bowl or refrigerator drawer. Ethylene is the reason you shouldn’t store onions and potatoes together, for example.

Ethylene may also be used when you want to accelerate ripening. This is the principle behind placing unripe fruit inside a paper bag or other closed container, which concentrates the ethylene. Adding another high ethylene fruit, such as a ripe apple or banana, may also speed up the process.

Here’s a list you might want to keep handy:

Ethylene producing foods
apples, apricots, avocados, bananas (ripe), blueberries, cantaloupe, cherimoyas, cranberries, figs, green onions, guavas, grapes, honeydew, kiwifruit, mangoes, mangosteen, nectarines, papayas, passion fruit, peaches, pears, persimmons, plums, potatoes, prunes, quince, tomatoes

Ethylene sensitive foods
asparagus, bananas (unripe), blackberries, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, chard, cucumbers, eggplant, endive, garlic, green beans, kale, leafy greens, leeks, lettuce, okra, onions, parsley, peas, peppers, raspberries, spinach, squash, strawberries, sweet potatoes, watercress, watermelon

via thekitchn.com