soupnancy

Bits and Bites April 2009

Protecting the bagel and other national treasures: http://www.montrealgazette.com/Life/Protecting+bagel+other+national+treasures/1543689/story.html  Not only to protect and promote our treasures, we absolutely need to push for more meaningful labelling in general, to favour truth over sly marketing.  Mapleleaf should not be allowed to sell a pseudo product as Proscuitto.  Stores should not be allowed to sell meat or fish or anything without fully disclosing where it comes from.  It's so frustrating dealing with the lack of information out there  when trying to make good choices.  Meanwhile, shoppers who don't ask questions are being misled, supporting shoddy factory farms or slave picked tomatoes without knowing it.

Swine flu outbreak may be linked to Smithfield factory farms - surprise, surprise. http://www.grist.org/article/2009-04-25-swine-flu-smithfield

Compost collection available in Montreal!!

http://compostmontreal.com/

Sea choice sushi guide -restaurants in Vancouver and Halifax get serious

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090422.wlsushi22art1832/BNStory/lifeFoodWine/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20090422.wlsushi22art1832

World’s 50 Best Restaurants, And a Reminder that haute cuisine matters.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2009/apr/21/restaurants-chefs-recession

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/apr/21/50-best-restaurants

Randall Grahm (Bonny Doon) focuses on terroir Dropping the winemaking and marketing tricks, not to mention many of his popular labels, he is dedicating himself to making original wine, with no irrigation, old-style.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/dining/22pour.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Le 1608 – A cheese from the Charlevoix made in the Beaufort style from the heritage Canadienne breed of cattle http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090422.wlspread22art1832/BNStory/lifeFoodWine/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20090422.wlspread22art1832

Food.com - a promising new recipe search tool ? http://www.thefoodsection.com/foodsection/2009/04/a-new-player-in-recipe-search.html

Susan Semenak writes about maple syrup and chefs who use it (like me!)

http://www.montrealgazette.com/Life/drip+anything/1497904/story.html

More Extreme Bacon http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/blogs/editor/2009/04/extreme-bacon-i.html?mbid=rss_epilog Every day there seems to be another bacon blog, or new"bacon explosion" type recipe riding the food waves. Could bacon possibly jump the shark? No matter how much I love it, even I am getting sick of reading and talking about it. Like Leonard Cohen said about his song, Hallelujah; no matter how fabulous, it may be time for a moratorium, not at home, but in the media at least.

Great Depression Cooking with Clara: http://greatdepressioncooking.com/Depression_Cooking/

Refreshing. Important. Intriguing. This woman in her nineties shares recipes and anecdotes from the era in a series of cooking videos, telling it like it was.You can hear heron Q, the Wednesday April 15th podacast: http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/pastpodcasts.html?42#ref42

Doi Chaang, an ultra premium coffee from Northern Thailand, is a sun-dried cousin of Kopi Luak, the

Indonesian coffee made famous for the beans being digested by cats.

http://gremolata.com/Articles/597-Greenest-Coffee-In-The-World.aspx

Harold McGee always has something smart to say. This time, it’s about yogourt.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/dining/15curi.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Ratio, Michael Rulman’s new book: The simple codes behind the craft of every day cooking http://blog.ruhlman.com/ruhlmancom/2009/04/ratio-the-simpl.html

What a useful book this promises to be! I’ve always liked to think this way (because I hate recipes), constantly trying to figure the underlying principles out myself. Here, some of them will be spelled out - cool.

Bluefin tuna fishery collapse within 3 years

http://www.panda.org/wwf_news/?162001/Mediterranean-bluefin-tuna-stocks-collapsing-now-as-fishing-season-opens

On a related topic, there is a new book out on the sorry state of our oceans:

Sea Sick, The Global Ocean in Crisis, by Alanna Mitchell

http://www.mcclelland.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780771061165

Focused on Fish, “Bottomfeeder” by our own Taras Grescoe is a compelling (and alarming) read, offering a good overview of the situation. If you haven’t read it, please pick it up. http://www.tarasgrescoe.com/

Sadly, it is really difficult to find sustainable fish options in Montreal restaurants. Besides the over-fished wild species still featured on menus of our best restaurants, the vast quantities of cheap farmed salmon and shrimp shamelessly been gobbled down daily in bistros and chain restaurants is even more horrifying. Such environmentally devastating enterprises should be taxed out of business. Chefs should take a stand and be leaders, but if diners showed they cared more, restauranteurs would be more inclined to follow. When will we wake up? I guess it takes environmental disasters and fisheries collapsing.