Jamie Oliver has criticised the UK for its poor cuisine

BBC reports on an interview with Jamie Oliver where Jamie criticises the way in which people in the UK don’t like eating well, but prefer to drink too much…

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has criticised the UK for its alcohol culture and poor cuisine.

In an interview with Paris Match magazine, Oliver suggested people in the UK cared more about getting drunk than they did about eating well.

There is a significant minority in the UK who do eat well, like good food, go out of their way to purchase organic and local produce. Though I agree with Jamie there is a substantial majority who are quite happy cooking from frozen bags of prepared food. This same majority rarely eat together and are more likely to eat in front of the television then around the table.

So is Jamie Oliver correct in his view, or are me and him wrong?

Oops, not quite what I meant!

So there you are, a famous chef, Antony Worrall Thompson, writing in a magazine distributed all over the UK. You are talking about salads and you recommend the weed henbane, to be “great in salads”.

All well and good you might think.

Okay let’s just check the definition of henbane.

A coarse and poisonous plant of the nightshade family, with sticky hair leaves and an unpleasant smell.

Sorry.

Poisonous?

Nightshade (as in deadly nightshare)?

Unpleasant smell?

Methinks that Antony Worrall Thompson may have made a mistake!

From the BBC

In a magazine interview about watercress and other wild foods, Mr Worrall Thompson said the weed henbane was “great in salads”.

Healthy & Organic Living magazine’s website has now issued an urgent warning that “henbane is a very toxic plant and should never be eaten”.

The chef had meant to recommend fat hen, which is a wild herb. 

Mexico rustles up giant baguette

BBC reports on the world’s biggest sandwich.

Mexican caterers have made what they say is the longest sandwich in Latin America, throwing together a 44-metre (48-yard) “torta” in five minutes.

Dozens of people from sandwich outlets in Mexico City came together to produce the monster baguette at the start of a three-day torta fair in the capital.

Each section of the 600kg (1,320lb) sandwich had a different flavour and 30 ingredients went into the mix.

Throwing out the unopened yogurts, over a million a day

According to a recent survey, we as a nation in the UK throw away 1.3m unopened yogurts every day.

Throwing out the unopened yogurts, over a million a day

The BBC reports on the survey:

More than a million unopened pots of yogurt and yogurt drinks are thrown away in the UK every day – that’s 484 million a year, according to recent research.

And it’s not just yoghurt!

4.4 million whole apples and 1.2 million sausages are thrown away each day.

What a waste!

What are you throwing away?

Photo source.

Pringles are “not crisps”

Pringles are “not crisps”

BBC reports on a court ruling which says that Pringles are not crisps.

Pringles, the popular snack food in a tube, are not potato crisps, a High Court judge has ruled.

Their packaging, “unnatural shape” and the fact that the potato content is less than 50% helped Mr Justice Warren make his crunch decision.

This is all a tax avoidance issue and nothing really to do with crisps and non-crisps.

Photo source.

Happy First Birthday

Well Time to eat… is one today. It was a year ago that I started this food and coffee blog.

Since then I have made 201 posts.

There have been 5,858 visits.

Here’s to another year.

No more “pick your own”

A farmer is going to stop “pick your own” as people are eating all the fruit they pick in the fields and pay for hardly any.

No more “pick your own”

The BBC reports.

A fruit farm has stopped doing “pick your own” strawberries because customers are eating too much of the fruit without paying.

This line made me smile for the sheer cheek.

We don’t mind people going picking and trying some strawberries, but we once had a family come with a bowl of cream.

Photo source.

What’s in your cereal bowl?

What’s in your cereal bowl?

The Guardian has published a really informative and interesting article on breakfast cereals.

Britain is one of the world’s largest consumers of puffed, flaked and sugared breakfast cereals. How did that happen when many were said to contain less nutrition than the boxes they come in?

Personally I avoid most breakfast cereals, as most have way too much sugar in them, or they have huge amounts of salt in them.

Corn Flakes for example are more salty than some good quality sausages!

It should be noted that bread (for toast) is also very salty in comparison.

So what’s in your cereal bowl?

Photo source.