Interesting BBC News item on mispriced special offers.
Turn Back Time – The High Street
Really clever trailer from the BBC, very Back to the Future.
I have enjoyed the first two episodes about historical high streets, shows how “lucky” we are today in some respects and how much we have lost too. True no food adulteration these days (well some probably), but we have lost a lot of the personal touch we had in the past.
Series still available on BBC iPlayer until December 14th 2010.
Has the calorie had its day?
From BBC News
Counting calories is an addictive pastime for many a dedicated slimmer. Croissant or toast? Curry or pizza? Sandwich or salad?
Food labels help millions of people decide what to buy and what to eat. So it’s important that they are accurate but, according to some experts, the system on which they are based is flawed and misleading.
Why does airline food taste bland?
BBC News reports on the theory that the blandness of airline food is down to noise.
The level of background noise affects both the intensity of flavour and the perceived crunchiness of foods, researchers have found.
It may go some way to explaining why airline food is notoriously bland – a phenomenon that drives airline catering companies to heavily season their foods.
See the full research report.
£110 for a cheese sandwich…
Nope, not a typo…
A cheese show in Somerset is hoping to set the record for the world’s most expensive cheese sandwich.
The Frome Cheese Show claims to be the oldest in the country. And organisers hope its cheese sandwich, costing £110.59, is the world’s most expensive.
It was created by Bath-based chef Martin Blunos and is made with cheddar blended with white truffles and sprinkled with gold dust.
‘World’s oldest champagne’ found on Baltic seabed
Divers have found 30 bottles of champagne thought to pre-date the French Revolution on the Baltic seabed.
“It had a very sweet taste, you could taste oak and it had a very strong tobacco smell. And there were very small bubbles.”
Read more.
It’s not just burgers…
Enjoyed reading this article from the BBC News Magazine on American food.
Forget greasy burgers, a growing enthusiasm for good local food in the US is getting the nation salivating, says Simon Schama.
Interesting read.
Mumbai’s amazing culture of outdoor eating
Interesting video from BBC News on Mumbai’s amazing culture of outdoor eating.
Why do we flock to all-you-can-eat restaurants?
BBC News Magazine reports on the all-you-can-eat restaurant chain Taybarns
With a “34-metre long food counter” Taybarns is all about quantity. It offers an array of food. Choose from a chip shop, carvery, pizza, pasta, even what appears to be a new hybrid-cuisine, Texican.
Its menu boasts: “Enjoy as much as you like, as many times as you like. All for one fixed price!”
Why do we flock to all-you-can-eat restaurants?
A good question.
Personally I do go to them, but often not through choice, but because others take me there…
Having said that the all you can eat buffet at the Hilton Hotels I have stayed in have been pretty good. But there you pay £27 rather than the £7.99 at Taybarns.
I agree though with the final comment.
“The American model bothers me. We want big portions, rubbish food. What we actually need is higher quality and people eating less.”
Photo source.
The secrets behind our processed food
Fascnating series from the BBC on how they make processed food, demonstrated by Jimmy Doherty doing it at home without the factory.
The organic, home-made food trend may have grown rapidly in the past decade, but in the recession many have returned to cheaper, processed produce. Yet few of us know how such everyday foods are made.
As household budgets have been cut, shoppers have been seeking out bargains in preference to pricey alternatives. For example, sales of organic vegetables slumped 19% in the past year.
But if the British palate has been readjusting to cheaper, often processed foods, few shoppers know much about how such produce is created. Suffolk-based farmer Jimmy Doherty has been working to overcome this consumer blind spot, finding out for a new BBC TV series how science and ingenuity combine to produce good quality food on such a mass scale.
So, what are the processes some of the most common convenience foods go through before they reach our supermarket trolleys?
Read more.