+++SCOFF! - The free email newsletter on good food and drink. - ISSUE EIGHTEEN, MARCH 2007. 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 Eighteen Contents: 01: Editorial: - Goodies For All. 02: An A-Z of Scoff: the alphabet of food wisdom - ‘R’ is for ‘Recycling Food’: Compost and Beyond. 03: Special News Report: Retailers square up in battle of the labels - Dan Jellinek talks to the inventor of food label ‘traffic lights’. 04: Recipe: Red Pepper Soup by Rosemary Perkins. 05: Titbits and Crumbs: Relaxed Aga Cooking – new book; BBC Food Events Calendar – nationwide round-up; Food, a Fact of Life - kids’ resource site. 06: The drink spot: All shapes and sizes Audrey Simpson on how the shape of a wine glass can affect the taste of the precious liquid it contains. 07: The food spot: Number five with Grüner Veltliner? - Most of us enjoy a Chinese meal, but how to match a wine to its robust tastes and flavours? Fiona Beckett has the answers. 08: How to: Host a shared dinner party - by Rosemary Perkins. 09: Friends of Scoff! - A Select Directory of Our Friends and Helpers. 10: Ray’s Ramblings: - Are the days of the corkscrew numbered, in a world of twist-off caps and other devices? [Contents ends]. +01: Editorial: Goodies for all Welcome to Scoff! The national diet has been in the spotlight in recent months, and this issue we feature an exclusive interview with the Oxford academic responsible for creating the new ‘traffic lights’ system for front-of-pack food labelling. He explains how the system works, and why he thinks it is better than the alternative ‘guideline daily allowance’ system proposed by some major food retailers. Elsewhere Audrey Simpson explains why and how the shape of your wineglass affects the taste of your wine; Rosemary Perkins offers up a soup recipe that is both healthy and tasty; and Fiona Beckett adds sophistication to an everyday combination: wine and Chinese food. Surely, something for everyone – so Happy Reading, and do keep recommending our free newsletter to your friends – it’s what keeps us going! +02: An A-Z of Scoff: the alphabet of food wisdom - ‘R’ is for Recycling Food This alphabetical column has already looked at the problems caused by excess packaging a couple of letters ago: but what are the best ways of recycling the food inside them, if some of it remains uneaten before or after use? People with large enough gardens for a compost heap have always been able to recycle vegetable waste, and in these more environmentally aware times there are community or council-run composting schemes now available to many other households as well. And while a traditional compost heap was not suitable for dairy, bones and meat for fear of attracting scavengers, new systems contained in plastic bins and using new forms of treatment and many commercial or council recycling schemes now accept all kinds of food. Check your local authority website for more information on your council’s composting schemes, or try the ‘Direct.gov’ public services portal for details of local schemes. Visit http://www.direct.gov.uk and use the search engine to search for ‘composting schemes’. For volunteer-led community composting schemes see the Community Composting Network website: http://www.communitycompost.org/ If you are a food wholesaler, retailer or caterer, you can donate waste or spare fresh food which is edible to the charity FareShare, which redistributes food to vulnerable people including homeless people nationwide. Working from a network of national depots part-funded by the National Lottery, FareShare helps thousands of people through a range of community projects. You can find out more including how to donate food or money through the charity’s website: http://www.fareshare.org.uk +03: Special News Report - Retailers square up in battle of the labels - by Dan Jellinek. The developer of the Food Standards Agency (FSA)’s experimental ‘traffic lights’ labelling scheme to display levels of fat, saturates, sugar and salt has told Scoff! that a rival system of ‘Guideline Daily Allowance’ (GDA) labelling developed by some major retailers is harder for many shoppers to understand. Dr Mike Rayner, director of the British Heart Foundation Health Promotion Research Group at Oxford University, developed the traffic lights label scheme which uses green for low content, amber for medium and red for high (www.eatwell.gov.uk/foodlabels/trafficlights). The scheme was launched in January and has been adopted by a group of major retailers including Asda, M&S, Sainsbury, Waitrose and the Co-op. The rival GDA scheme is championed by a separate group including Tesco, Morrison and Somerfield. “It seems intuitively obvious that colour traffic lights would be better,” Rayner told Scoff! “Front of pack labelling needs to be simpler. GDA works for people who are comfortable with working out percentages, which a lot of people aren’t. On the other hand, GDA does give you more information: perhaps you could use both, GDA and colour- coding.” In any case the UK alone cannot insist on any single labelling system, which would have to be passed as EU law, Rayner says. “The EU is revisiting the issue of food labelling in the summer. They are sure to make nutritional information compulsory – currently voluntary unless a nutritional claim such as ‘low fat’ is made. “I am hoping they will also do something about front-of-pack labelling,” Rayner says. “If they do I don’t think it will be traffic light labelling, it is more likely to be GDA, or even simpler, just calories, or % GDA of calories on the front. But all the evidence suggests consumers do need more than calorie labelling – you need to see saturated fat and sodium.” Ultimately, more research is needed into the impact on sales of the different types of front of pack labelling, he says. - For a fuller report on this issue see the News section of our site: www.gastronomail.com +04: Recipe: Red pepper soup by Rosemary Perkins This is a very healthy recipe, but it certainly does not taste like diet food! - 6 or 8 red peppers . . . choose dark ones - 1 tbsp olive oil - 2 large onions, sliced; 1 clove garlic - 1 or 2 large potatoes, peeled and cubed - 400g tin chopped tomatoes (Italian, in juice) - 3 tbsp tomato purée - 2 litres stock (any stock you like) - Freshly ground pepper, salt, chilli flakes - To garnish, small slices of bread or baguette - Pesto . . . make your own or buy a good jar. Preheat grill very hot. Halve the peppers, remove seeds and pith, lay them skin side up on a baking tray and grill until most of skin is black. Pop into a plastic bag and leave for 10-15 mins, then peel off skin and slice flesh. Heat oil in a large pan, add the onion until starting to soften, then add garlic and potatoes and cook for 1-2 more mins. Add the can of tomatoes, tomato purée, pepper slices and stock. Season lightly. Simmer until potatoes are tender, about 15 mins. Blend in a food processor until fairly smooth and season again with salt, pepper, and chilli flakes to taste. You can enrich this soup with a little cream, but if you are doing a low cholesterol version and feel it is a little thin, mix a spoonful or two of plain flour with a little skimmed milk, blend into soup and cook for a couple of minutes. To garnish, toast small rounds of bread, or thin slices of baguette, then spread each one with a little pesto. Drop the croutons onto the soup when serving. +05: Titbits and Crumbs. Relaxed Aga cooking: If you own an Aga you’ll need a copy of Sarah Whitaker’s new book, ‘Relaxed Aga cooking’. One of a small group of authorised Aga- Rayburn demonstrators, she has cooked for cabinet ministers and rock stars: www.sarahwhitaker.com . BBC Food events calendar: Useful round-up from the BBC of food and drink events nationwide: www.bbc.co.uk/food/news_and_events/calendar_index.shtml . Food – A Fact of Life: Useful kids’ food resource site for primary schools and others who work with children, including recipes for kids, and a podcast on teaching children about food: www.foodafactoflife.org.uk/ . +06: The Drink Spot: All shapes and sizes by Audrey Simpson I was in love, the sea and the sky were in clichéd tones of azure blue, the wine was probably little short of vinegar and it was drunk from a throwaway plastic beaker. But it tasted like nectar. Ah! Such is the poignancy of memorable moments. Since those heady far off days I have become more picky about wines and my husband would say positively pedantic about what they are served in. But I would argue that my finicky behaviour was justified at a recent wine tasting – or rather glass tasting. Always an open mouth for a ‘wine tasting,’ we mistakenly thought we were chipping in with useful remarks in exchange for some free wine. ‘Oh yes’, we murmured appreciatively as the second wine was being slurped ‘this one is much superior to the first one’. Then our faces collapsed as the wine server announced with a superior grin that both wines were from the same bottle. He then went into an overdrive of instruction about shapes, sizes and material of glasses. The truth is, just as all wines are not created equal, all wine glasses are not the same. The shape of a glass affects the taste of the wine. If you do not believe me, try doing a blind tasting with the same wine in different glasses and detect the difference. Next time you are in a restaurant, ask the waiter to leave both the red and white wine glasses on the table (ignoring any looks of irritation). If you are drinking red wine, give the glass a swirl, smell its bouquet and taste it, noting the aroma and flavour. Next, pour some wine into the white wineglass, give it another swirl and taste it again. You will find that the bouquet is not as pronounced and the flavours are slightly more muted than they were in the red wine glass. At our glass tasting we were introduced to Riedel glasses. Claus Riedel was the first designer to recognize that the bouquet, taste, balance and finish of wines were affected by the shape of the glass from which they are drunk. We were informed in a scholarly manner that the tongue is comprised of four 'flavour zones', which work in harmony with the shape of the glass. The tip of the tongue senses sweetness, the sides are susceptible to acidity, the centre of the tongue picks up saltiness, and the back of the tongue detects bitterness. Stem or no stem? I have a friend who swears that her pastry suffers unless there is a glass of chilled white wine near by to keep her hands cool. What a perfect excuse! However if, as in this household, stemmed glasses have a habit of falling over and breaking, then maybe the Riedel O wine tumbler is for you. We were told they are ‘the ideal glass for every day use’: they can’t fall over and can be stacked. Well – your place or mine for testing? But let’s not get too serious. If the company is good and the wine OK, I think I could leave my ascetics to one side and just get pleasure from the occasion, whatever the shape of my glass. - Audrey Simpson is a restaurant reviewer and former hotelier and restaurateur. +07: The food spot: Number five with Grüner Veltliner? by Fiona Beckett Most of us enjoy a trip to a Chinese restaurant or planning a Chinese meal at home. But which wine to serve? I’ve talked to Chinese chefs and food writers about their own preferences and you’d be surprised how many of them reach for a full- bodied red rather than the floral whites that are usually recommended. My failsafe recommendation if you want to pick just one wine is a fruity rosé – the Merlot-based ones from Bordeaux such as Chateau de Sours are perfect. Better still treat a Chinese meal like any Western meal and serve a lighter wine with the lighter dishes and a more robust one with more robust dishes such as glazed ribs or dishes in black bean sauce. - Delicate dishes such as dim sum and steamed or stir-fried vegetable dishes: Champagne or sparkling wine is the ideal answer with dim sum – both the steamed and deep fried variety, especially when stuffed with shellfish. It also goes well with lighter stir fries and steamed fish and vegetable and with the more delicate flavours of Cantonese food. A clean, minerally, citrusy Sauvignon Blanc (rather than a grassy, herbaceous one) is also a good match with seafood, and dry Rieslings such as those from Germany, Austria and Alsace work well too. - Sweet-sour dishes: This is where off-dry wines score best and why fruity rosé works so well. Even those who don’t like white Zinfandel concede that it’s in its natural element with these types of dishes. Aromatic whites such as Riesling, Pinot Gris and Austrian Grüner Veltliner are good matches. And if you’re feeling extravagant, ‘rich’ Champagnes such as Roederer’s and Veuve Clicquot’s also handle sweetness well. - Dishes featuring duck: The wine-friendliest dishes of all in the Chinese repertoire, fabulous with lighter reds such as Beaujolais and Pinot Noir as well as more intensely-flavoured Merlots (including merlot-dominated blends from Bordeaux) and lush Australian Shiraz (the latter two benefit from a couple of years of bottle age to mellow the tannins). Duck is also in my view the best partner for Gewürztraminer, which can overwhelm some of the more delicate elements of a typical Chinese meal. - Powerful dishes with sticky sauces: Such as glazed ribs or crab in black bean sauce. Here fruity reds again come into play. When leading Chinese food writer Ken Hom introduced a range of varietal wines to go with Chinese food a couple of years ago, he picked a Mourvedre and a Grenache, both big wines but without excessive tannins. Ripe fruity reds certainly tend to deal best with the hotter, spicier dishes such as Szechuan beef. If you prefer a white wine, consultant and MW Peter McCombie favours rich waxy Pinot Gris from Alsace, Oregon or New Zealand which he has found works with tricky-to-match customers such as eel and black beans. Which beers match best? I’ve found that light wheat beers such as witbiers and Bavarian weissbiers work well with Chinese-style snacks such as prawn dumplings and spring rolls, and can also handle sweet and sour flavours. Belgian ‘brune’ beers like Leffe Brune are a good match for duck with hoisin sauce. Dishes such as glazed ribs or beef in black bean sauce also pair well with brown ales and Belgian triple beers. NOTE: Article adapted from the members’ section at: www.matchingfoodandwine.com Members are entitled to Fiona’s personal advice on planning meals and menus with wine, a free e-book and regularly updated tips. Scoff! readers can claim a one-year membership to her site for just £16.75, a 33% discount on the normal rate. Enter code SCOFF0207. +08: How to: Host a shared dinner party by Rosemary Perkins If you have a group of friends who all like to cook, eat or talk about good food, why not host a dinner party where the work is shared? The idea is for each person to bring a course, allowing everyone to concentrate on one task. But the whole needs to be co-ordinated as well, as there will only be one kitchen in which to complete any finishing up tasks such as reheating food. 1: It is useful to think of a theme. I have recently hosted a curry evening, but you could choose any cuisine or any other theme, such as romantic food, food of one colour, healthy but fun – your imagination is the limit. Another idea is a pizza party....the host makes the basic dough, and a tomato sauce, everyone brings exciting toppings, and you take in turn to feed the pizzas into the hot oven. You could also extend this idea to a picnic, with flasks of hot soup and chilled drinks, interesting cold nibbles, and luxurious finger foods. 2: The host should be in charge of organising and co-ordinating the evening. The organiser should decide on what quantities of food are needed, and how the dishes should be balanced. Try to allocate tasks to suit the particular cook carrying them out. Also ensure everyone brings something to drink which is appropriate for the menu. 3: It is important to find out early if one or more of the group has a special dietary requirement, and everyone should plan accordingly. People should certainly provide something suitable for themselves, but which can be enjoyed by everybody. For my recent curry evening one of the guests was vegetarian, so she brought along a really good veggie dish, and some of the others also brought things that she was able to eat, as well as things for the meat-eaters. 4: Try to share the work evenly and make sure no-one gets lumbered with most of the expense. If the main course involves expensive meat or fish you could consider having a whip-round to cover some of the costs. 5: Finally, make sure you rotate the various tasks if you hold a series of evenings with the same people – it’s more fun that way. +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 . . . Three-year-old Ludo was rummaging around at my table before bed, doing his level best to prevent me meeting a deadline, when he spotted a gadget he didn’t recognise. “What’s this, daddy?” he asked. “A corkscrew,” I replied. “What’s a corkscrew?” “Something with which to open bottles,” I said. “Why?” he asked. Why indeed? I had just poured some Ribena for him and some Chilean Sauvignon for me, both from bottles with screw-caps. The cork vs screw-cap debate has rumbled on for ages, but Ludo’s perspicacity coincided with a number of events signalling further nails in cork’s coffin. First, I hear that of all places, the 300-year-old Berry Bros & Rudd is to bottle all its house reds and whites under screw-cap, owing to customer demand. I also discover that maverick Australian winemaker, Andrew Peace, is now packaging a Shiraz and a Chardonnay in cartons – so-called FuturPaks – claiming that they are ideal containers: 33% larger than the standard bottle, no corkscrews needed, easily resealable, and with fewer resources needed in their production, transport and disposal than glass bottles. Then I learn of the Tulipa foil-sealed glasses of red, white and rosé to be launched this summer at £3.75 a pop, affording consumers “a greater range of drinking opportunities,” and finally that the excellent Green Point sparkler from Australia is now sealed with a crown cap rather than a champagne cork. This last, although entirely logical, saddens me the most, since uncorking a champagne or sparkling wine bottle is one of life’s greatest pleasures. Besides, how on earth can dislodging a crown cap be made to replicate the sound of a duchess’s fart? - 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.]