Simply reading the recipe this week made my mouth water. I’ll be buying king oysters on my next market visit. The story is very interesting. I love the history of food.
I'm so pleased to hear it! I'm a real convert to these mushrooms. They take very well to the flavours you elect to add to them. I went off shiitake after the initial fashion peak they enjoyed because their flavour is so assertive in anything you cook with them.
This looks great - and whilst I can't locate it off the top of my head I'm sure I have the original Ottolenghi recipe bookmarked to try as it sounds familiar!
With nature over nurture, there is a lot to be said I think to food exposure, but also breaking out of it. If something is tricky to film at home or I need a pretty garden as a backdrop I go to my parents house, but I usually don't bring much by way of store-cupboard ingredients as my mother and I tend to buy the same brands of everything as is what I grew up with. But also, my favourite roast to make is pork with good cracking and apple sauce, which, first time I did it, I called my mother-in-law for advice because obviously at home we'd never cooked a joint of pork! My Jewish mother only knew how to cook bacon (which she uses as seasoning as she's not kosher) or casseroled pork chops in calvados, sliced onions and sliced apples - something she pulled from a magazine in the 80's and is a favourite of my Dad's she doesn't eat! And why even though she's not kosher she only learned two things? Because obviously my actually kosher grandmother never cooked pork so she only learned what her husband liked!
The story of your mother is so interesting - I didn't even think about the influence religion as well as culture has over what we eat and our reaction to certain foods. I should have done. My mother, too, used all the ingredients I do, so clearly my tastes and cooking are very influenced by her. She grew up in a boarding school, so her own tastes were bland and uneducated until, on getting married, she taught herself to cook from an Elizabeth David cookbook. Overnight she became an instinctive and fine home cook, on the strength of the introduction to ingredients she had never before come across that were key to David's food. Her recipe clippings torn out of magazines range from Chinese to Irish with every nation between the two.
Hallo Julia,
Simply reading the recipe this week made my mouth water. I’ll be buying king oysters on my next market visit. The story is very interesting. I love the history of food.
I'm so pleased to hear it! I'm a real convert to these mushrooms. They take very well to the flavours you elect to add to them. I went off shiitake after the initial fashion peak they enjoyed because their flavour is so assertive in anything you cook with them.
This looks great - and whilst I can't locate it off the top of my head I'm sure I have the original Ottolenghi recipe bookmarked to try as it sounds familiar!
With nature over nurture, there is a lot to be said I think to food exposure, but also breaking out of it. If something is tricky to film at home or I need a pretty garden as a backdrop I go to my parents house, but I usually don't bring much by way of store-cupboard ingredients as my mother and I tend to buy the same brands of everything as is what I grew up with. But also, my favourite roast to make is pork with good cracking and apple sauce, which, first time I did it, I called my mother-in-law for advice because obviously at home we'd never cooked a joint of pork! My Jewish mother only knew how to cook bacon (which she uses as seasoning as she's not kosher) or casseroled pork chops in calvados, sliced onions and sliced apples - something she pulled from a magazine in the 80's and is a favourite of my Dad's she doesn't eat! And why even though she's not kosher she only learned two things? Because obviously my actually kosher grandmother never cooked pork so she only learned what her husband liked!
The story of your mother is so interesting - I didn't even think about the influence religion as well as culture has over what we eat and our reaction to certain foods. I should have done. My mother, too, used all the ingredients I do, so clearly my tastes and cooking are very influenced by her. She grew up in a boarding school, so her own tastes were bland and uneducated until, on getting married, she taught herself to cook from an Elizabeth David cookbook. Overnight she became an instinctive and fine home cook, on the strength of the introduction to ingredients she had never before come across that were key to David's food. Her recipe clippings torn out of magazines range from Chinese to Irish with every nation between the two.
I’m a mushroom lover from way back. Not truffles - generally over-used - but most others. I mean, morelles, porcini, etc., etc.
Morelles are particularly wonderful - with cream and tarragon...Weird spongey texture but with bite.