you may be interested to look through this site, it is all about fat. I can certainly recommend the lardo.

[urlhttp://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2009/11/food-lardo-real-thing.html[/url

Nice one – thank you.

To all – have you seen [url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fat-Appreciation-Misunderstood-Ingredient-Recipes/dp/190641727X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325610703&sr=1-1[iFat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient with Recipes[/i by Jennifer McLagan[/url?

She's a chef – but she also goes into some history, some chemistry and some biology. Even setting aside some very nice recipes (salted butter caramel tart, anyone?) it's a very strong argument and, I think, a quite important book.

The most expensive sandwich I ever ate was a salt-beef sandwich at Selfridges' Oxford Street branch, in the 1990's.
Very expensive but by 'eck it were tasty.

Still in London but going back even further, to the early 1970's, around what is now called Fitzrovia, especially along Goodge Street, you could get decent salt-beef on what seemed like every street corner and even up to the mid-90's you could still call at Bloom's on Whitechapel High Street and get a lavverly salt-beef sandwich, even though Brick Lane had already become BanglaTown ... as I recall from my days as an East End boy.
Blooms still exists, but in Golders Green (what a cliche !), in fact I think they had that shop before they shut down the Whitechapel shop.


But you don't see salt-beef much now, a real shame because it's delicious.

EDIT - Just remembered, you can get a very nice salt-beef bagel at the Brick lane Bagel Shop, or at least you could when last I was in the area, and it's open all night too ... or at least (usual disclaimer etc) ..

Oh god - don't get me started on Blooms! What an experience - and ta was well before my foodie days!

It's all flooding back now "a la recherche de temps perdu" and all that.
For madeleine, read salt-beef.

Walking along Goodge St, away from Tottenham Court Rd (on the corner of which was a Golden Egg cafe, remember them?), about four shops further along on the opposite side was a sandwich shop where I bought my first ever kebab in my first ever pitta.
They called it a "kebab sandwich" which, of course, it was.
I thought it was amazing you could get something so exotic for 30p.

They sold salt-beef as well.

1971 that was.
Blimey.

McF should be able to tell us whether you can still get salt-beef in Moortown, Leeds?
You could when I lived in Roundhay in the mid-70's.

OK, apologies ...nostalgia trip now ends.

Did anyone else watch [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0195pt5A Question of Taste[/url on BBC2 last night? I quite enjoyed it as a 30 minute quiz show format, they even had bone-marrow scoops just for Minty

yes I saw the programme and thought the same when I saw the scoop.

Damn. Missed that. Will look it up on iPlayer.

But back to Blooms: I remember being taken, with two other 'young people' (we were in our mid-twenties) to the Blooms in the East End by a Jewish friend. He was much older – we were all gentiles.

This was well, well before my foodie days, so the food is not what I really remember – although I and one of the other youngsters did order salt beef, were overwhelmed with the amounts, could only eat a small amount and were then given vast doggie bags.

But I remember the waiters with clarity. They knew our Jewish friend – and boy, did they give him stick throughout (or should that be 'schtick'?). It was close to outrageously rude. But he was happy – delighting in being know, I suspect. We didn't know where to put ourselves, frankly. I remember being fascinated but shocked but delighted all at the same time.

The memory stuck – it always makes me think of the waiters in [iHello Dolly[/i.

Oh. And my doggy bag included a badge for Blooms too. Amazing experience.

I got a 750g boneless turkey breast the other day.I simply cut it into 1" cubes and oven cooked it for a couple of hours with 1pt of chicken stock (1pt water and 3 oxo cubes) about 1/2 pint of good red wine ,button mushrooms and a chopped onion.I've just eaten the last of it with mash and curly kale ,it was delicious .

I don't know, I suspect that you can, there are just a few isolated pockets of ethnic specialist food purveyors around these days and Moortown corner is one of them.

I have eaten salt beef though, and pastrami on rye - both from the excellent (but now sadly demised) Kendall Moore deli in Headingley ('twixt 3 Shoes and New Inn), a most excellent double fronted shop unit that sold the most exotic foodstuffs, our office used to be around the corner and lunchtime was always an adventure - it was there that I first tasted, and hated, proper pickled rollmop herring, uuurgh!

They flog salt beef at loads of posh deli style sandwich bars there to fleece suits on a daily basis around where I work in London. I've never had the urge to try it, didn't realise it was particularly unusual/nice.

As many may know I came to work for my father in the 1980s in his industrial clock repair business, he wasn't Jewish but a lot of his friends in the jewelry and clock business were, as were many of our clients in the Leeds tailoring businesses. The practice of insulting your friends and more especially your business suppliers is a true art form in Jewish society and as you say its never taken as an insult, more a mark of your friendship, my dad was one of those salesmen who took on the characteristics of his customers when speaking to them and we'd be in tears of laughter listening to him on the phone sometimes, he was known by his close friends as "Solly" which I believe is a Jewish nickname (Solomon ?), hilarious times.

Once a year I still get a call from one of his old mates who in his nineties still runs a tailors finishing business and I just know that at some point in the conversation he's going to shout down the phone at me "HOW MUCH!!! YOUR FATHER WOULD NEVER HAVE CHARGED ME A CALL OUT FEE!!!", its all part of the game...

In response to Mclaren - LOL

Done properly, it's seriously good stuff.

Has anybody here been on a Historic Food course by Ivan Day or know of anybody that has ?

[urlhttp://www.historicfood.com/portal.htm[/url

I have been bought a course for Christmas and will probably choose the roasting course.
[urlhttp://www.historicfood.com/roasting.htm[/url

Or maybe the Victorian Cooking
[urlhttp://www.historicfood.com/Victorian%20Cookery.htm[/url (note the lard sculpting tool)



Just wondering if anybody had any knowledge or experience of the courses. I do know lots about Ivan Day.

I'd never heard of them before, but they look intriguing.

Nice pressie.

It's one of those big birthdays at the end of this year and I'm contemplating a cookery course. Possibly patisserie at Le Manoir. But then again, I'd benefit from something really basic on fish.

Quote ="Mintball"I'd never heard of them before, but they look intriguing. Nice pressie. It's one of those big birthdays at the end of this year and I'm contemplating a cookery course. Possibly patisserie at Le Manoir. But then again, I'd benefit from something really basic on fish.'" I've always fancied Rick Stein's school www.rickstein.com/Seafood-School.html expensive yes but is there any better place to learn?

Quote ="Mintball"I'd never heard of them before, but they look intriguing. Nice pressie. It's one of those big birthdays at the end of this year and I'm contemplating a cookery course. Possibly patisserie at Le Manoir. But then again, I'd benefit from something really basic on fish.'" I've always fancied Rick Stein's school www.rickstein.com/Seafood-School.html expensive yes but is there any better place to learn?

Quote ="Big Graeme" Quote ="Mintball"I'd never heard of them before, but they look intriguing. Nice pressie. It's one of those big birthdays at the end of this year and I'm contemplating a cookery course. Possibly patisserie at Le Manoir. But then again, I'd benefit from something really basic on fish.'" I've always fancied Rick Stein's school www.rickstein.com/Seafood-School.html expensive yes but is there any better place to learn?'" Some friends went to Rick Stein's school last year and really enjoyed it, they cooked and ate plenty also they took home lots of fish dishes they had prepared throughout the course along with jars of sauces, marinades etc that had been made in house, though not by them.

Quote ="Big Graeme" Quote ="Mintball"I'd never heard of them before, but they look intriguing. Nice pressie. It's one of those big birthdays at the end of this year and I'm contemplating a cookery course. Possibly patisserie at Le Manoir. But then again, I'd benefit from something really basic on fish.'" I've always fancied Rick Stein's school www.rickstein.com/Seafood-School.html expensive yes but is there any better place to learn?'" Some friends went to Rick Stein's school last year and really enjoyed it, they cooked and ate plenty also they took home lots of fish dishes they had prepared throughout the course along with jars of sauces, marinades etc that had been made in house, though not by them.

Quote ="Big Graeme"I've always fancied Rick Stein's school www.rickstein.com/Seafood-School.html expensive yes but is there any better place to learn?'" Really interesting point – but that made me think and [url=http://www.leiths.com/enthusiasts-courses/fish-evening-course/Leiths[/url is probably pretty good too. And it's London.

Quote ="Big Graeme"I've always fancied Rick Stein's school www.rickstein.com/Seafood-School.html expensive yes but is there any better place to learn?'" Really interesting point – but that made me think and [url=http://www.leiths.com/enthusiasts-courses/fish-evening-course/Leiths[/url is probably pretty good too. And it's London.

Quote ="Mintball" Quote ="Big Graeme"I've always fancied Rick Stein's school www.rickstein.com/Seafood-School.html expensive yes but is there any better place to learn?'" Really interesting point – but that made me think and [url=http://www.leiths.com/enthusiasts-courses/fish-evening-course/Leiths[/url is probably pretty good too. And it's London.'" C J Jackson used to be with Leith's and she does (or did) the training courses at Billingsgate. I know the courses are still extant but whether CJJ still does them I don't know. I do have it on first-hand authority (pm me for detail if needed) that the courses are very good, they start with the market (very early a.m. !!) then you prepare and cook (and eat) ... I seem to remember that you're all done and dusted by 3pm. .... and, of course, Billingsgate is only down by Canary Wharf, not too far from your manor.

Quote ="Mintball" Quote ="Big Graeme"I've always fancied Rick Stein's school www.rickstein.com/Seafood-School.html expensive yes but is there any better place to learn?'" Really interesting point – but that made me think and [url=http://www.leiths.com/enthusiasts-courses/fish-evening-course/Leiths[/url is probably pretty good too. And it's London.'" C J Jackson used to be with Leith's and she does (or did) the training courses at Billingsgate. I know the courses are still extant but whether CJJ still does them I don't know. I do have it on first-hand authority (pm me for detail if needed) that the courses are very good, they start with the market (very early a.m. !!) then you prepare and cook (and eat) ... I seem to remember that you're all done and dusted by 3pm. .... and, of course, Billingsgate is only down by Canary Wharf, not too far from your manor.

Quote ="Mintball" Quote ="Big Graeme"I've always fancied Rick Stein's school www.rickstein.com/Seafood-School.html expensive yes but is there any better place to learn?'" Really interesting point – but that made me think and [url=http://www.leiths.com/enthusiasts-courses/fish-evening-course/Leiths[/url is probably pretty good too. And it's London.'" Aye, I did think I'd get as much out of 5 meals at his restaurant as I would the course.

Quote ="Mintball" Quote ="Big Graeme"I've always fancied Rick Stein's school www.rickstein.com/Seafood-School.html expensive yes but is there any better place to learn?'" Really interesting point – but that made me think and [url=http://www.leiths.com/enthusiasts-courses/fish-evening-course/Leiths[/url is probably pretty good too. And it's London.'" Aye, I did think I'd get as much out of 5 meals at his restaurant as I would the course.

Which is an entirely relevant point. And indeed, part of why I have been contemplating Le Manoir.

Rather than an arty-farty type course, I'm seriously considering booking something similar to [url=http://www.coastalsurvival.com/courses_coasthunter.htmla two-day Coastal Survival Course[/url

That's "arty-farty" to most of the rest of us, Cod'ward.