+++SCOFF! - The free email newsletter on good food and drink. - ISSUE SEVENTEEN, DECEMBER 2006. For a printable colour version of this newsletter, see: http://www.gastronomail.com/archive.htm . Please forward to all your friends and colleagues so they can register to receive their own copy by visiting: http://www.gastronomail.com . ++Issue Seventeen Contents: 01: Editorial: - A new direction. 02: An A-Z of Scoff: the alphabet of food wisdom - ‘Q’ is for ‘Quality Marks’: A marketing ploy? 03: Special News Report: Shall we eat here? It’s in the stars. - A new wave of restaurant hygiene rating schemes, by Dan Jellinek. 04: Recipe: Salmon and mozzarella roulade by Régis Crépy 05: Dreaming of a Green Christmas: - Top tips on an environmentally friendly festive season. 06: The drink spot: Apples of my eye. - Manek Dubash reports on a pilgrimage that began with a sip of smooth, honeyed Calvados and ended up witnessing at first-hand in France the workings of the extraordinary ancient contraption that makes this nectar. 07: The food spot: The food spot: Winter warmer finds its perfect match - Cassoulet is the ultimate winter dish: warming, soothing, unctuous and delicious. Peter Grogan tastes the best, and its best accompaniment: the robust wines of the Languedoc. 08: How to: Make delicious chicken (or turkey) soup - by Hattie Ellis. 09: Friends of Scoff! - A Select Directory of Our Friends and Helpers. 10: Ray’s Ramblings: - Tips on where to find the best value Champagne this Christmas. [Contents ends]. +01: Editorial: A new direction. Welcome to this festive edition, a special issue with a new, expanded format to help sustain you through the long nights and the traditional assault course of overindulgence. Yes, we’ve added an extra page to your free newsletter, and two new columns, while keeping our rather attractive price of no pounds and no pence: welcome in itself at this time of year. The new slots are a directory listing details of our friends, partners and supporters — organisations that have helped us out with reader offers or competition prizes; and a regular wine- related end-piece from the Daily Telegraph and Scoff!’s wine editor Jonathan Ray, ‘Ray’s Ramblings’. So Happy Christmas, and enjoy your food and drink, whatever you’re having. Thank you all for being so supportive of Scoff! and do keep spreading the word! +02: An A-Z of Scoff: the alphabet of food wisdom - ‘Q’ is for ‘Quality Marks’. There are a range of food quality mark schemes in current use, mainly for meat and dairy products, since these are foodstuffs about which consumers are most in need of reassurance. But are they simply marketing ploys dressed up as health or animal welfare information? One of the best-known is the Lion quality mark stamped on 85% of British eggs (www.britegg.co.uk). The mark is designed to guarantee that eggs have been laid by hens vaccinated against Salmonella, and are produced in Britain on farms which are audited to our legal welfare standards. The element of traceability in the code is useful, although pure adherence to animal welfare laws includes battery chickens. Slightly better is the British Turkey Quality Mark (www.britishturkey.co.uk), which sets out rules on animal welfare as well as food safety and traceability. Many of these rules, including those covering bird stocking densities and travel from farm to slaughter, exceed the minimum legal requirements. Then there is the famous ‘red tractor’ logo dished out by the Assured Food Standards scheme run by farmers’ organisations (http://www.redtractor.org.uk). The scheme has branches covering meat, dairy products and crops and again sets and certifies its own standards. Oddly enough however, the use of a scheme’s logo on a food product does not necessarily mean that the food is British. Under European competition rules, quality marks cannot be restricted for use only on British produce, and must be allowed on products from other countries if they meet appropriate standards. Unlike organic standards, all quality schemes are voluntary, but they serve a useful purpose in the food production chain and consumers should read their details on the web and contact their managers with any complaints. +03: Special News Report - Shall we eat here? It’s in the stars. - by Dan Jellinek. From Halton to Hackney and Gainsborough to Glasgow, British cities are joining the ‘Scores on the Doors’ revolution. Ever since the enactment in 2000 of the UK’s Freedom of Information Act, the public have had a right to access restaurant hygiene inspection reports, albeit only within 20 working days of a request being filed with the relevant local authority. This right has gradually led to the compilation of online databases of reports in some areas, and from there to schemes experimenting with restaurants displaying certificates, grades or stars so diners can take hygiene inspection information into account when picking a place to eat. The concept is already well-established in several other countries such as the US, Canada and New Zealand. Now the Food Standards Agency is moving to add impetus to the schemes by launching three major regional schemes, across all 33 London boroughs; in six Midlands council areas; and in five Scottish authority areas. In London, reports compiled by local hygiene inspectors will appear online from next April and there will be a five-star award system, with certificates to be displayed on the restaurant wall. Ratings will be based on factors like food hygiene and handling practices, and the quality of management. Set to run for two years, the certificate display aspect of the schemes will be voluntary, but if restaurateurs choose not to display a rating, diners will be able to draw their own conclusions. Some councils are already using private sector schemes such as TransparencyData (www.scoresonthedoors.org.uk) or HygieneWatch (www.hygienewatch.co.uk). Others are adding an element of humour: Leicester City Council places inspection reports on the web accompanied by a smiley or not-so-smiley face, under its ‘SmileSafe’ scheme (http://fastlink.headstar.com/scores1) and Halton Borough Council in Cheshire runs a three-star certificate display and web hygiene rating scheme — which it intends to expand to food shops as well as restaurants — dubbed ‘Meal or No Meal?’ +04: Recipe: Salmon and mozzarella roulade by Régis Crépy A special recipe that I have found very popular with my customers. Serves 4: - 4 thin slices of salmon (125g each) - 4 thin slices of mozzarella (45g each) - 8 tomatoes - Olive oil - Salt and pepper - Clingfilm. Cut the tomatoes in half and deseed. Put the halved tomatoes in the oven at 100C, with a little olive oil on top. Cook for about an hour until tender. Put in cling film a thin slice of salmon and top it up with a slice of Mozzarella. Repeat four times. Roll the salmon with the mozzarella in the cling film and put them in a steamer for seven minutes. To finish: Put on a plate the four halved tomatoes with a little olive oil and top them up with a roulade of salmon cut in half. Bon appetit! Régis Crépy owns three restaurants in Suffolk including The Great House. To make a reservation telephone 01787 247431 or visit: http://www.greathouse.co.uk +05: A Green Christmas - Top tips on keeping it green this festive season. - Buy a rooted Christmas tree which will last for many years. - Send an electronic Christmas card and donate the money you save to charity. - Make decorations out of natural or recycled materials. - Avoid buying gifts that are excessively packaged and shop with reusable bags. - Make your own wrapping paper using recycled paper. -Buy organic food and drink. - Compost your left over sprouts and other kitchen waste, and recycle your wine bottles. - Recycle your Christmas cards – or adapt them for reuse next year. - And finally — give any unwanted presents to your local charity shop! Source: Fetzer Vineyards. Watch out for our Fetzer reader prize draw – coming soon to your inbox. +06: The Drink Spot: Apples of my eye by Manek Dubash Smooth, creamy, almost but not quite sweet and a texture that rolls off the back of your tongue like honey off a spoon — my first impression of Lemorton Calvados, picked almost at random from the expensive end of the menu at Brighton’s Hotel du Vin. I was hooked. I had to find a bottle. I kept a weather eye out for it on other menus, searched for it online and hunted in Oddbins. Nada. Temporary respite was gained when I discovered you can buy it through calvadosonline.co.uk, which is one of the few places — the only place? — that imports the stuff. It's close to my home in Lewes, so I ordered a bottle of the 1970 vintage, and went there one Saturday morning to pick it up. Soon afterwards, halfway through that bottle, I realised I had to go and find the people who made it, and see, smell, experience, the place where it's distilled. And by the time the bottle was three-quarters empty, things were getting desperate. I bought a ferry ticket. Though Calvados is fairly accessible to us Brits, the Lemortons live in Basse Normandie, a good three to four hour drive from Boulogne. About as far south as you can get while remaining in Normandie, their farm in the tiny hamlet of Mantilly is near the small and attractive town of Domfront, which donates its name to the local variety of calvados, AOC Domfrontais. To gain the appellation, it’s supposed to be made up of at least 30 per cent pears, the rest apples, using a single, continuous distillation process using a column still. But six generations of Lemortons, the latest of whom are père Roger and fils Didier, have made it with a minimum of 70 per cent pears. That's the secret of the unique flavour and texture of the stuff. The final leg of the pilgrimage: about 10 miles west of Domfront, we turned into a narrow track, at the end of which sits the house of Lemorton. As the car crunched into the farmyard, father and son were attending to a contraption — an alembic or still — from which the smells of alcohol and wood smoke blended wonderfully, although the rusty-looking object resembled nothing more than a Heath Robinsonian version of Stephenson’s Rocket. The still visits the farm every September, just before this year’s crop of fruit starts falling from the family orchard's trees, to distil calva from cider that's been sitting in oak barrels for the last 11 months. Perfect timing for a visit. Scraping the rust off my French, I asked them about the process. Not only were they delighted by my interest, as they tweaked the still’s valves and turned knobs to keep the temperature at a steady 93 degrees, they explained how the fire burned only oak while the resulting raw spirit flowed into a milk churn. Hope they don’t get those churns mixed up. Then we tasted the stuff that’s ready to drink — ah yes! Mme Lemorton senior pointed to bottles of the 1968 and the 1984 respectively and said: “père et fils”; the 1948 she offered was, at about £150, just a financial step too far, though it did taste wonderful. The 1968 calva had been distilled by Roger Lemorton nearly 40 years ago — and he was still in pretty good nick for a man of around 70. Two of his found their way into the car. And it seemed churlish not to buy one of Didier’s first vintages from 1984, so one of those slipped gently into the car boot too. Money was saved by buying it there, but that’s almost beside the point. I hope to visit again — but even if I never do, every sip of Lemorton Calvados will remind me of them, that place and those moments. Priceless. - Copyright Manek Dubash 2006. +07: The food spot: Winter warmer finds its perfect match - by Peter Grogan. Out in the wilds of the Languedoc, you’d want your winemaker to be somewhat wild of hair, with features sun-burned to copper and a handshake like a blacksmith’s. The ones foregathered recently at Chelsea’s Colombier restaurant to celebrate the perfect marriage of their red wines to a robust cassoulet all answered satisfyingly to this description even if they were — to a man, as it were — women. Fittingly, behind the stove was a man, and one who knows a thing or two about French provincial cooking – Henry Harris, excellent chef-patron of Racine in Knightsbridge. “Cassoulet is half about the meat,” he says “and you need at least two of the ‘big four’ – always best quality Toulouse sausage, then some confit of duck or rabbit, and pork belly – and half about the beans. I prefer Haricot Tarbais if I can get them.” The evening was arranged by the AOC du Languedoc trade association and among the wines presented were a couple from Constance Rerolle’s excellent Château de L’Engarran. The “Cuvée Tradition” 2003 (Oddbins £7.99) is all about aromas of leather and juniper and coffee partnered with well-judged, toasty oak but Constance has given it a softer, feminine touch in the palate as well. Her top wine, the “Cuvée Quetton Saint-Georges” 2003 (Oddbins £12.99), has spent 18 months in oak and is a notch or two up in terms of concentration, extract and intensity. “There’s a long tradition of independently-minded women in our part of the world and we’re just carrying it on,” Constance remarked of her fellow vigneronnes. The region has made great strides since the days of producing only endless tankerfuls of vin ordinaire and a lot of the wines kept something about them of what in the Rhône they call garrigue — the low-growing herbaceous scrub that includes wild thyme, juniper and rosemary and that seems to scent the whole region. It’s such a marked characteristic in Susan Close’s Château Camplazens wines that she’s named one of her cuvées after it. Susan is not the only English lady winemaker in the Languedoc, but I’m taking bets that she’s the only one to get there via 20 years living in New Orleans. You can smell the summer heat of the South-West — in a good way — in her Garrigue 2003 (£7.99 Delibo Fine Wines) which has dollops of brambly fruit and solid tannins on the palate. Now I was going to sign off with a recommendation that you hie thee to Fortnum and Mason to stock up on a few tins of their cassoulet to tide you through the winter but I’ve just been down there and they’ve put it in a posh jar with a fancy label and doubled — yes, doubled — the price to a tenner. I suppose they have to pay for their impressive remodelling of the shop somehow, so instead it’s me asking you for a recommendation: just who does sell quality Cazzers at a decent price? Drop us an email if you know . . . +08: How to: Make delicious chicken (or turkey) soup by Hattie Ellis. Everyone knows chicken soup, or Jewish penicillin, is delicious and this alone must make us feel better in the shivery times of winter. By being good and hot it clears the tubes. Beyond this, scientists at the University of Nebraska in Omaha have proven some of the medicinal effects of chicken soup by showing its nutrients and vitamins can slow the action of some white blood cells, making it anti-inflammatory. 1: Obtain a pile of wing tips from your butcher, or carcasses left over from his chicken pieces. Breast, back, wing and neck make the best stock. At this time of year, the turkey carcass provides top stock. Learn how to joint a chicken so you can use the carcass left over for stock. Free-range and organic birds have more developed skeletons and make better soup. The older the bird, the better the flavour. Bog-standard chickens are killed at around 6 weeks; the best happy chickens live 3-6 months. Boiling hens, generally more than a year old, make the best soup of all. 2: When making the stock, brown the meat and bones in the oven and the veg in the stock pan. This gives the end stock or soup an appetizing colour and a beautiful toasty savour. Adding a splash of wine makes a big difference. 3: As well as peppercorns, parsley stalks and bay leaves, try putting other flavours in the base stock such as a clove or two, some Sichuan peppercorns and even a very small piece of cinnamon stick and some root ginger if making Asian soups. 4: Bring back consommé! This elegant chicken stock is magically clarified by adding egg white and crushed shells to the finished broth. These rise to the top, bringing all impurities with them and creating a sparkling liquid. I like to flavour mine with tarragon and a little Madeira or sherry. 5: Some favourite classic variations on chicken soup include the Greek lemony avgolemono, thickened at the end with egg yolk; hot sopa di lima from the Yucatan; cock-a-leekie from Scotland and Harira from Morocco. Every country has its own chicken soup, to keep out the cold, and colds. +09: Friends of Scoff! - A Select Directory of Our Friends and Helpers. - Averys, one of the UK’s most respected wine merchants, is offering our readers a £10 discount on all new orders over £49.95, to 31 December: http://www.averys.com/scoff - All About Wine is a seminal book covering all the basics about enjoying wine from our Drinks Editor Jonathan Ray. Scoff! readers benefit from a special price of £17.99 inc. p&p: call Macmillan Direct on 01256 302 692 and quote GLR D47. - Sweetness & Light: The Mysterious History of The Honey Bee by our editorial consultant Hattie Ellis is published by Sceptre. To order at the special price of £14.50 (inc. p&p), please call 0870 7552122 and quote offer code BSH139A. - The Handmade Loaf by Dan Lepard, “contemporary European recipes for the home baker,” is published by Mitchell Beazley. Special Scoff! price £16: call 01903 828503 quoting PUB195. - Wendy Brandon Handmade Preserves is a small company making a very wide range of jams, marmalades and chutneys: http://www.wendybrandon.co.uk/ - We are grateful to Oregon Wines for providing us with our October competition prize. For more information on the wines of Oregon visit: http://www.oregonwines.com - Another generous prize came courtesy of New Zealand Winegrowers. To find out about New Zealand tastings in your area including the London Consumer Wine Fair on 15 January at Lord’s Cricket Ground, email: info@winzuk.com And for more NZ wine info see: www.nzwine.com - Another of our offers showcased the ‘Curious Brew’ beer brand of award-winning wine producer Chapel Down. Curious Brew Brut, Cobb IPA and Admiral Porter can be ordered with online discounts from: www.chapeldownwines.co.uk NOTE: Inclusion in this directory is free, but you must help to increase our readership! To find out more contact Jo Weatherall on jo@gastronomail.com . +10: Ray’s Ramblings . . . I loathe Christmas with the same passion that my kids love it, and am a fully paid-up member of the Bah Humbug Brotherhood. One bright spot of the festive season, though, is the promise of plenty of fizz, and now’s the time to buy with merchants and supermarkets falling over themselves to discount their champagnes. Majestic, for example, is knocking up to 50% off many of the well-known brands and have one of my favourite stand-bys, Nicolas Feuillatte NV, down from £21.99 to £11.99, if you buy two. Sainsbury’s has reduced most of its champagnes by £5+ a bottle (1999 Veuve Clicquot is down from £38.99 to £29.99), and M&S too, is knocking a fiver off a bottle. Oddbins has a ‘6 bottles for the price of 5’‚ deal on all champagnes except Roederer Cristal, and Thresher/Wine Rack has a similar’3 for 2’ deal‚ on its champagne. But there are some great non-champagne sparklers around too. My three current favourites being the charming Lindauer Rosé NV from New Zealand (£8.99, or buy two and get third free at Threshers and Wine Rack), the equally tasty Graham Beck Brut Rosé NV, from South Africa (£10.50 at Bibendum) and the stupendously stylish 1999 Nyetimber Classic Cuvée, from Sussex (£21.99 at Waitrose and selected independents). Supermarket own-label champagnes are getting better than ever, and Sainsbury‚s Taste the Difference 2000 Premier Cru Blanc de Blancs even came top of a recent WHICH? blind tasting. My advice, though, is to shop around for your favourite big name champagnes — you can buy all but the grandest for much the same price as the supermarkets’ own. After all, how many birds do you think James Bond would pull if he wooed them with bottles of Sainsbury’s ‘Taste the Difference’ rather than his habitual vintage Bollinger? - Jonathan Ray is Wine Editor of the Daily Telegraph, and Co- Editor of Scoff! ++End Notes: +HOW TO RECEIVE YOUR REGULAR ‘SCOFF!’ To subscribe to this free monthly bulletin, Send a blank email to scoff-subscribe@gastronomail.com Please encourage your friends and colleagues to subscribe! To unsubscribe at any time, email: scoff-unsubscribe@gastronomail.com For further information on subscription see: http://www.gastronomail.com . +ACCESSIBILITY NOTE: This newsletter conforms to the accessible Text Email Newsletter (TEN) Standard, which makes email publications easier to access for people with impaired vision using text-to-speech devices. For details see: http://www.headstar.com/ten . +COPYRIGHT 2006 Gastronomail Ltd. If you would like to reproduce stories from this newsletter, we generally allow this as long as a full credit is included, with our web address and a description of our newsletter. For permission please email jo@gastronomail.com . +PERSONNEL: Food Editor - Dan Jellinek dan@gastronomail.com Drinks editor – Johnny Ray johnny@gastronomail.com Consultant Editor – Hattie Ellis hattie@gastronomail.com Marketing Director – Jo Weatherall jo@gastronomail.com [Issue ends.]