Save Your Fork… There’s Pie

It betrays my schedule of late to admit that I’ve had this scone photo sitting on my harddrive for weeks with the intention of writing a post about it. So these are not “fresh from the oven, I’m munching on them while I type”, kind of scones, but scones of breakfasts past.

When I was growing up, scones were fried - studded with raisins, patted into rounds, cut into eighths and fried - specifically in a rather ugly, square, non-stick electric frying pan, the thought of which provokes my continued bewilderment at the extent manufacturers went to in the 70s to sell people things they didn’t need. Specifically, electric things. Who can forget the sharp crackly electric smell that filled the room as ol’ Pop fired up the electric carving knife at Christmas dinner?

The fluffy, slightly doughy round biscuit that the rest of the world knows as a scone was, to us, a plain and simple “tea biscuit”, which you ate with butter, or perhaps jam if you were being fancy, or maybe some ham and cheese if you were manly, but seldom with clotted cream and other sweet pastries while sitting around a table with a fancy cloth and a tea set, while wearing an extravagant hat.

According to Wikipedia, the term “tea biscuit” is a wholly Canadian term, and is not to be confused with the British term “biscuit” which is what North Americans know as a “cookie”. And while we’re on the topic of weird British terminology, why are all desserts called “pudding”? Pudding is pudding; milk, eggs, some sort of flavouring, possibly in conjunction with Bill Cosby. But it is not cake, or pie or Crepes Suzette. Or perhaps it’s all some weird plot to keep those of us in the colonies from our desserts.

Right, I was talking about scones. aka, biscuits. Which are apparently the same thing, just about everywhere. So when did tea biscuits, aka biscuits, become scones?

Likely around the same time pretentious gits started drinking “high tea” in the afternoons instead of afternoon tea.

Here is Wikipedia’s very correct definition of “high tea”.

High Tea

Middle class
High Tea is a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and Ireland to describe an early evening meal, typically around 5-6 pm, eaten as a substitute for both afternoon tea and the evening meal. The term comes from the meal being eaten at the “high” (main) table, rather than the smaller table common in living rooms. It is now largely replaced the later meal tea (see below).

It would usually consist of cold meats, eggs and/or fish, cakes, and sandwiches, all served at the same time. The cakes may either be full sized and cut into slices, or smaller individual cakes, or muffins, toast or other sweet breads.

In a family, it tends to be less formal and often it is essentially either a regularised snack, usually featuring sandwiches, cookies, pastry, fruit, and the like, or else it is supper.

Working class
On farms in the United Kingdom, high tea is the traditional and very substantial meal enjoyed by the workers immediately after dark, and combines afternoon tea with the main evening meal.

Afternoon tea, on the other hand is a prettier affair which should not be confused with high tea:

“Afternoon Tea” (or Low Tea) is a light meal from Britain (but forms of it exist around the world, mostly in places formerly part of the British Empire) taken at around 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Many parts of this meal come from the fascination of wealthy Britons with China and Japan in the 18th century - the Orientalist craze.***

The term high tea is sometimes used in the United States to refer to afternoon tea or the tea party, a very formal, ritualised gathering (usually of ladies) in which tea, thin sandwiches and little cakes are served on the best china. This usage comes from misunderstanding the term “high” to mean “formal”. Most etiquette mavens advise that such usage is incorrect; (Judith Martin’s tongue-in-cheek interpretation is, “It’s high time we had something to eat.”)

Thus, in our rush to pretention, the poor neglected tea biscuit, dried and crumbling and ever so slightly stale, has been elevated to a new level. Gone are the raisins and currants, replaced with cranberries, white chocolate and bits of caramel. Once sold three or four for a dollar in small bakeries and grocery stores, scones now run upwards to two dollars each in swank cafes. They are too hoity-toity now to rub elbows with a mug of strong orange pekoe or a glass of milk: no, scones hang out with the hip crowd, the “mucho-grande double mochafrappa half-caf soy latte-chino with Madasgar cinnamon garnish” folks.

Pity.

The scones pictured above are a Scottish Oat Scone - dense with oatmeal and currants, they are baked, not fried, as were the scones from my childhood, but are made by patting the dough into rounds and scoring the top into eigths in the same way. They are hearty and filling on their own, but I made this batch with kamut flour for a rough earthy texture that seems to match the oatmeal better than plain white flour.

The original recipe is from Muffins and More, part of the Company’s Coming series by Jean Pare, a well-known name in most Canadian households where her extensive series of books (some of which include frightening and dubious dishes that might be better suited to the Gallery of Regrettable Food) are regularly used. It should be noted that Ms. Pare, being the good Canadian that she is, included recipes for both scones and tea biscuits.

Scottish Oat Scones

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups rolled oats
1/4 cup granulated sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup currants

1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted
1/3 cup milk

Mix first six ingredients in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre.

In another bowl, beat the egg until frothy. Mix in melted butter and milk. Pour into well in dry ingredients. Stir to make a soft dough. Pat into two 6 to 7 inch (15 to 18 cm) circles. Transfer to a greased baking sheet. Score each top into 8 pie-shaped wedges. Sprinkle with sugar.

Bake in 425′F (220′C) oven for 15 minutes until risen and brown. Split and butter.

It’s completely possible that we went overboard on the cheese buying at St. Lawrence Market this past weekend. I got a little jiggy with the French stuff - Mimolette, Morbier and Brie de Meaux (because I am a snob, don’tcha know), and then we hit the farmer’s section of the market and found a bunch of local cheeses; a raw milk cheddar, some Beemster, some crazy super-aged cheddar and a goat cheese that impressed me less once we got it home. Nine different types all together, on top of what we already had in the fridge.

Perhaps this overcoming my dairy allergy thing (but not the lactose intolerance - I discovered that ice cream and I still can’t be friends) isn’t such a great discovery after all. It’s getting a bit expensive.

A few days ago, someone over on a LiveJournal community posted about a server they knew who got stiffed on a tip during Summerlicious.

Summerlicious, for those of you not familiar with it, is a two-week long event where participating Toronto restaurants offer a three-course prix-fixe menu at a significantly reduced price. It’s typically a loss-leader, where the restaurant makes money off of beverages, and hopes that their food is so good it will encourage the cheap-ass Summerlicious diners to come back at full price.

Now because Summerlicious diners have a reputation for being cheap-asses, they tend to get poor to bad service, especially when the restaurant is still offering their regular full menu. And as many people pointed out to the poster on the Toronto community… a lot of Summerlicious diners leave crappy tips not because they’re cheap, but because the server anticipated they would be cheap and gave them crappy service.

Greg and I are not normally cheap-ass diners. Nor are we poor tippers. Today, however, we left an 81 cent tip on a $41 bill, because we suffered through one of the crappiest meals we have ever experienced.

I’m not going to give a play-by-play, but rather some basic commonsense tips for both restaurants and diners.

1. If the customer orders soup, bring them bread. Automatically, no questions asked. Don’t make them beg for bread, and don’t forget to bring them bread until after they’ve finished their soup. Soup – bread. Think of them as conjoined twins.

2. Even if it’s not your fault, if your customers place their order and then sit and watch while tables who ordered after them get their food, you need to apologize and tell them why, especially if the wait is more than 15 or 20 minutes.

3. During an event like Summerlicious where you’re losing money on the meal, it’s a good idea to upsell items that make a profit, such as booze, coffee, beverages in general. This is a good idea all the time, but especially when you’re offering the food at a discount. This being the HOSPITALITY industry, you don’t even have to feel dirty about upselling. “Can I get you another beer?” rolls off the tongue easily, and no customer is foolish enough to believe that the second one is free. Yes, it’s lovely that you brought us water, and that should be a rule that all restaurants adhere to (more on this below), but what you really want is for me to order things that I’ll pay for.

4. When depositing dessert on the table, you’ll find another opportunity to not only upsell, but to improve your tip. “Can I offer you coffee or tea?” See? Easy. Plunking down the chocolate mousse and then stomping away means no coffee for me, and no money for you. Coffee has a huge profit margin – you want me to buy coffee, you really do.

5. When you’ve cleared the plates and the meal is done, now is the time to offer the bill or offer to get the customer something else. Leaving the customer sitting for half an hour waiting for their bill, particularly at lunchtime, with no explanation as to why, gets you a big far donut of a tip.

6. Flipflops are not appropriate footwear for anyone in the city, ever. They’re for the beach or the pool. On a server in a restaurant they are ugly, noisy and dangerous.

And now for the customers:

1. If you happen to get decent service during Summerlicious, it is appropriate that you tip on what the full cost of the meal would have been, not the discounted price that you paid. Stop giving the rest of us a bad reputation.

2. Order a beverage other than water. This applies all the time, not just during discount events, and while I do think all restaurants should offer tap water automatically, order a beverage that you actually pay for. Even if it’s bottled water or a soda that you nurse throughout the meal. Restaurants depend on beverage sales, especially during discount events. Ordering a plain glass of tap water pegs you as a cheap-ass, and you’ll get service reflective of that.

3. Make an effort and dress nicely. No flip-flops, no ball caps, no shorts unless it’s a bazillion degrees outside and they’re pleated like a razor down the front. I’ll even go on a limb and say no t-shirts unless it’s totally suave and you’ve wearing it under a nice jacket. Take you hat off indoors, put your napkin on your lap.

4. Please and thank you. Try it, it’s easy – please and thank you. Acknowledge your server when they bring you something. You don’t have to stop your conversation, but show your server that you appreciate their efforts. This will encourage them to not spit in your food.

5. If you feel the service was sub-par and you choose to lower the tip or not tip at all, find your server and tell them. They might tell you off, they might flip the bird at the back of your departing head, but at least they’ll know why you were unhappy with the meal and have an opportunity to improve. And never, ever stiff on a tip because of the quality of the food, particularly if you didn’t enjoy the food but were a polite Canadian and ate it anyway. Extra-especially if, when the server came to check on you, you smiled and nodded and said it was great, even though you hated it. If your server didn’t come to check on you, at minimum during the main, you are permitted to deduct from the tip for this oversight.

Now go out into the world and dine well, and be sure to demand good service!

crossposted to

Gordon Ramsay cannot be my boyfriend anymore.

I suffered through last year’s F-Word series when he slaughtered all those poor turkeys he had been keeping in his backyard (well, he didn’t actually have the bollocks to slaughter them himself), even though I hoped his children would revolt and cry and pull tantrums to save Jamie, Anthony, Nigella and the lot.

But now he’s gone too far!
Pigs! The man is raising a pair of pigs in his yard, destined for slaughter! Not just any pigs, but rare breeds of pigs known for their intelligence and friendly demeanor. All for the sake of bacon. It’s been proven time and again that pigs are easily as smart as dogs, that the premise of the movie Babe is actually quite realistic. And the man has brought them into his yard, where his children will treat them as pets, and then he’s going to make fucking sandwiches out of them. And given how easily they let the turkeys go to their sad fate, I can’t even count on the children to lobby for the pigs’ safe release.

I don’t know if I can bear to watch.

I wanted cupcakes, but something different. Something with pizzazz. I was also craving the lime-ginger truffles I make at Christmas. These are probably stupid fattening because of the coconut milk, but everyone should have some pizzazz in their cupcakes now and then. The cake is based on a one-layer cake recipe from that cooking bible, Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook. The pizzazz is mine.

Lime Ginger Cupcakes with Coconut

1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
grated zest of one lime
juice of one lime, plus coconut milk to make 3/4 cup
1/4 cup shortening
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1/2 cup chopped candied ginger

Preheat oven to 350′F.

Cream shortening and sugar together. Add egg and vanilla, mixing well. Add lime juice and coconut milk.

In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and lime zest. Add to wet ingredients a bit at a time, mixing well. Beat well until fluffy, add candied ginger.

Divide into 12 paper-lined cupcake tins. Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cupcakes comes out clean.

Remove from cupcake pan and cool completely.

Buttercream Frosting

2 Tbsp butter, room temperature
1/4 cup coconut milk
grated zest of one lime
juice of one lime
1-1/2 to 2 cups icing sugar

Blend all ingredients together with a mixer until light and fluffy. Add enough icing sugar to make the frosting stiff. Pipe onto cooled cupcakes and garnish with slices of candied ginger and shredded coconut.

For most people in North America, when we think of spring food, we think of the first crisp stalks of asparagus. In the far Northeastern US and Atlantic Canada, however, spring is defined by another green food – the tightly coiled tips of the fiddlehead fern.

Available from late April to late June, the uncoiled tips of the ostrich fern must be harvested shortly after they emerge from the ground and unfurl, as once the leaf opens it is no longer edible. Now harvested commercially in many areas, many folks in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick still consider a trek through the woods in late May in search of fiddleheads to be one of the markers of spring.

Fiddleheads are comparable in taste to asparagus, with a more earthy, sometimes mushroomy undertone. They are a good source of potassium and also contain vitamin C, niacin and iron.

When purchasing fresh fiddleheads, look for a tight coil, a bright green colour, and a firm, crisp stem. Do not be alarmed by bits of papery brown chaff – this can be removed when rinsing – but avoid darkened, mushy heads that have begun to uncoil. Fresh fiddleheads can be stored in the refrigerator for up to three days, wrapped in plastic.

Stages of growth - avoid buying fiddleheads that are open more than stage 2.

If your only access to this delicacy is via the freezer case of your (probably upscale) supermarket, don’t be put off the fact that the product is frozen. Fiddleheads freeze well and should be almost as tasty as fresh.

To prepare fresh fiddleheads, rinse thoroughly to remove the brown chaff and any dirt. Trim the ends, and then quickly boil or steam until they can easily be pierced with the tip of a knife, about 8 minutes. The cooking water will be a greenish brown colour – do not be alarmed by this, but do not use this water for stock, as it is very bitter. Note that if you are using the fiddleheads in a dish where they will be grilled or stir-fried, it is best to blanche them first, as they must be cooked completely. Do not serve fiddleheads raw.

My favourite way to eat fiddlehead ferns is to steam them and then toss them with butter, garlic, lemon and salt and pepper. Many chefs like to add them to pasta, but the intense earthy flavour is often best on its own.

To go with this traditional east coast delicacy, I often pair another seasonal item – rainbow trout. Again, simple preparations are best, and I do nothing more than brush the trout filet with maple syrup and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Fry in a bit of butter, presentation side down, turning once the maple syrup begins to caramelize. (Note – butter really does work best in terms of creating proper caramelization. You don’t need a lot, but it makes a huge difference over margarine or spray oil.) Allow to finish in the oven until the trout is cooked through. Serve the trout and the fiddleheads over a bed of hot quinoa, which isn’t traditional Nova Scotian fare, but it sure does taste good!

Maple-glazed Trout with Garlic Fiddleheads and Quinoa

This post originally appeared on FitFare, part of the WellFed Network

There is a theory when it comes to treating allergies that if you give the patient tiny little bits of the item they are allergic to over a period of time, they will eventually be able to tolerate those allergens. This works mostly with treatable allergens such as dust and mold. The sad thing about food allergies is that no serum has yet been created (they’re close with peanuts). Your only option is one the allergist glibly refers to as “avoidance”.

I’m pretty good about avoidance, for the most part. I eat the plasticy soy cheese, drink soy milk, soy sour cream, etc. I can be satisfied with soy alternatives for some foods, and I’m more than happy to not be supporting the mainstream dairy industry. But there is no soy-based replacement for really beautiful artisanal cheese.

Thus, there are times when you just have to look Death in the face and say, “Fuck you, Death! I am eating this brie!”, and be willing to live (or not) with the consequences.

Fortunately, while my cheese-related allergies are two-fold (both the milk protein casein, and mold), I am usually able to manage cheese early in the day. Just as you get more stuffed up with a cold towards the evening, my allergies affect me the same way. And as a bit of cheese won’t actually make me swell up and fall down, I figure it’s my own little version of the immunotherapy I’d get with injections - eventually, if I eat enough cheese, the allergy will be eradicated.

Thus, the luncheon cheese plate.

Greg, being the beer and cheese guy that he is, is always happy to try new cheeses. His tastes lean towards cheddars and stiltons, though, where mine are thoroughly French. I believe this comes from the years that I lived in Kensington Market, and often ate a cheese sandwich for lunch. The cheesemonger would slice up a bagel, top it with huge chunks of brie and for a buck-fifty, I’d have the best lunch ever. Of course, for a buck-fifty, I was getting bland, pasteurized, mostly tastless Canadian brie, but it was definitely the catalyst that set me on course.

Recently, after reading Gina Mallet’s Last Chance to Eat, I was jonesing for some really good brie. Raw milk brie, untainted by men in white lab coats and their need to pasteurize everything. The closest existing cheese to real old-tyme unpasteurized brie is Brie de Meaux. Lo and behold, without even having to work too hard in my quest, I came upon some at the cheese counter at WholeFoods. We grabbed a couple of others at the same time, some of which were astounding and one, well, we’re not quite sure how to dispose of that one, as it’s akin to toxic waste.

In any case, the cheese plate, from the top:

Extra-old Mimolette - my favourite cheese ever. Fruity, salty, and just about perfect. You know how people are always asked what they’d do if they won the lottery and they always say, “oh, I’d pay off debts, put the kids through college, buy a car…”? Me, if I won the lottery, I’d buy myself a whole $250 ball of Mimolette - and wouldn’t share it with anyone!

Brie de Meaux - soft, oozy, fruity-smelling. The flavour was mushrooms, and grass and too-ripe berries. I swooned, and then I ate some more. Totally worth the fight French cheese producers are putting up to keep their product from becoming industrialized.

Le Fetard (on top) - a hardish, slightly salty raw milk cheese from Quebec, made with Maudite beer. Greg found this a bit too salty, but paired with the lovely Forelle pears we were also eating, it was delicious. Sort of similar to good parmesan.

Tomme de Gross-Ile - We bought this along with the other Tomme (tomme means “cheese”) for a taste comparision. There was none - comparison, that is. This Quebec cheese smelled and tasted highly of ammonia and reminded me mostly of cleaning the cat box. The dogs will enjoy the rest of this one.

Tomme de Savoie - the original, made in the Alps, and significantly better than its Canadian counterpart. Another of the original French artisanal cheeses, this was firm to the bite, sharply flavoured, but mellow when paired with fruit or bread.

And the best part - I made it through without a snork or a sniffle. No stuffed-up nose, no swelly throat. Just me and the happy, happy cheese.

If you’re one of the 1 – 2% of the population with life-threatening food allergies, or know someone with food allergies, you know what a hazardous world we live in. Although it may seem trivial to others, people with food allergies are rarely able to eat out at restaurants or at a friend’s house, and they must read every label of every product they purchase with an even greater scrutiny than those looking for hidden trans-fats, carbs or calories. One mislabeled product can mean the difference between an enjoyable meal or a trip to the emergency room – or worse.

Currently in Canada, manufacturers of pre-packaged foods may choose to voluntarily declare that their product may contain allergens, but it is not required. It is the consumer’s responsibility to read the list of ingredients and try to determine if the food they are allergic to might be included. Many companies mark their packaging with such warnings as “may contain peanuts”, or “packaged in a facility the processes nuts”, but most consumers, including the allergic ones, have a tendency to ignore those warnings if the product itself is not supposed to contain the food allergen.

Recently, the Canadian food industry has teamed up with Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to create the Certified Allergen Control Programme (CAC). This programme will allow manufacturers to label their foods with a specific logo from the CAC to show that their product is free of peanuts, almonds, eggs and/or dairy.

Participating companies undergo annual audits as well as strict product control measures to ensure as much as possible that their foods are allergen-free and thus, safe for people with food allergies to consume.

The CAC doesn’t offer an absolute guarantee as to the safety of the products bearing their label, however, and clearly states in their FAQ:

Moreover, the advisory committee that participated in the development of the CAC Program feels that current scientific knowledge cannot guarantee the total absence of allergens in processed foods. Even with the most advanced detection tests, there is still a degree of uncertainty, a margin for error. ZERO RISK DOES NOT EXIST! Therefore, it is impossible to declare a product peanut-“free” or egg-“free”!

However, a fair guarantee to ensure no food allergens are included in specific products is to manufacture them in a completely allergen-free facility. In 2001, Nestlé Canada announced that they would no longer be able to guarantee the chocolate bars manufactured in their Toronto plant would be nut-free. Huge protests and email campaigns ensued, forcing Nestlé to reverse its decision and keep their factory nut-free. Despite the millions of dollars it would cost them to do so, they realized the money they would lose from the half-million nut-allergic consumers in Canada would put a significant dent into their overall profit.

Currently the CAC has only two manufacturers participating, both located in Quebec where the programme was developed. As to whether other Canadian companies will come on board remains to be seen. If the cost to certify factories and join the CAC is detrimental, few manufacturers will take part. Moving or separating facilities to ensure certain areas are allergen-free is not always a viable option for many food-processing plants. Even the cost of creating new packaging can be a financial hurdle for many companies in a country where all packaging must be bi-lingual.

As a Canadian with a potentially life-threatening food allergy myself, I look forward to the expansion of the CAC Programme. Widespread participation will definitely save lives, even if the CAC cannot fully guarantee the products are 100% safe. That CAC logo will make it easier for shoppers, especially children (who are the ones most affected by food allergies), or those purchasing food for children, to choose products free of their targeted allergens without requiring them to decipher an ingredients list.

Until there is more compliance with the regulations, however, those of us with food allergies must continue to carefully read labels, ask questions and never, ever assume that our food is safe.

This post originally appeared on FitFare, part of the Well Fed Network.