Category: British Cooking

Posted on

Musing On The Heart With John Of The Cross, Dante Alighieri, Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, Sappho And Julia Child. A Most Monstrous and Wondrous Orgy With Recipe.

My devotion to offal, especially heart, has appeared frequently throughout this blog.  Recipes for this great, bloody muscle resurrect my body and spirit, piercing my tongue and thoughts with recipes revealing its divine aroma and taste.  I have worshipped lamb hearts.   I have worshipped smoked reindeer heart. I have smoked a heart myself. I have … Continue reading Musing On The Heart With John Of The Cross, Dante Alighieri, Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, Sappho And Julia Child. A Most Monstrous and Wondrous Orgy With Recipe.

Posted on

Cooking The Bog. Day One.

Think of a community of the living and the dead, mingling together in water, jostling back and forth with each other; bones and flesh, blood and fin, and all sorts of vegetal matter bubbling and foaming, slowly turning into a dense red bog.  In the beginning however, ah, in the beginning, there’s the fishmonger Melanders … Continue reading Cooking The Bog. Day One.

Posted on

Onion Pie With A Cold Eye Cast On Fear And Hate In America.

Early 1960s America and Nietta Dunn defies Jim Crow laws by sitting at the H. Green lunch counter in downtown Lexington.  African-Americans may buy food, but they may not sit at the counter.  Here’s the thing, food doesn’t work well with fear and hate–not when planting, not when harvesting, not when cooking, and especially not … Continue reading Onion Pie With A Cold Eye Cast On Fear And Hate In America.

Posted on

Sausages And Cooking Murder.

Louis Vincent Palliere renders in bright colors the infamous Slaughter of the Suitors” by Odysseus and Telemachus, note those gorgeous capes tripping hues between orange and red. I love cooking sausages.  All sorts of sausage.  Beef, chicken, lamb and pig; andouille, bloedwurst, boudin, bratwurst, chorizo, hot dogs, kielbasa, knackwurst, linguiça, longaniza, merguez, morcilla, saucisson, soppressata,  … Continue reading Sausages And Cooking Murder.

Posted on

Brains and Balls.

To cook, to eat, to kill.  An animal’s life taken, body split open, applied to fire and torn between teeth.  What are the aesthetic and ethics?  Dan Barber argues that good taste necessitates sustainable farming to table.  Tayyib and Halal mean the animal has been raised in a “good” environment–think ethically sourced and sustainable–and then … Continue reading Brains and Balls.

Posted on

Reading And Cooking Liver While Several Species Of Small, Furry Animals Gather Together In A Cave And Groove With A Pict.

Liver has pride of place in the human body in ancient texts as a producer of blood and a source of life.  The Etruscan bronze liver above with its inscriptions guides the reader of entrails through a large, meaty organ considered the basis of life.  The ancient Greek term is hēpatoskōpia, which means to examine the liver. … Continue reading Reading And Cooking Liver While Several Species Of Small, Furry Animals Gather Together In A Cave And Groove With A Pict.

Posted on

A Few Thoughts On Soup

Such a sacred tableau in Pablo Picasso’s 1902 painting La Soupe.  There’s a graceful, reverential bow on the part of the mother as she offers a bowl of soup to her daughter, who springs forward, ready to receive sustenance, ready to receive a gift. I love cooking soup.  A small, crafted merging of nature and … Continue reading A Few Thoughts On Soup