THE SHROOM AND I

I went to the exhibition at Somerset House titled: Mushrooms: The Art, Design and Future of Fungi curated by Francesca Gavin, which according to the publicity is celebrating ‘the remarkable mushroom, and all the progressive, poetic and psychedelic wonder it evokes’ – i.e. it seemed to be heavily directed towards fans of ‘shrooming, though in fact when I went there quite a few mothers and children, ‘Oh yes, little Fiona just loves psilocybin.’  For obvious reasons I didn't photograph the children.

         The exhibition also, and I’m quoting here, shows ‘ground-breaking experiments in design, textiles and architecture that utilise mushrooms in exciting new ways – from upcycled agro-waste to sustainable shoes made with mycelium.’ I’m no fashion maven but if the shoes in the exhibition are anything to go by, it may take a while before they catch on.

         Fortunately there was art too, lots of ‘emerging artists’ I’d never heard of but also work Cy Twombly, Beatrix Potter, Carsten Höller (who made the mushroom suitcase above), and quite a few others including Takashi Murakami.  



Want to see a picture of me standing next to Takashi Murakami?  Of course you do.  I'm the one on the left.

There were also books in display cases which I always like, 

and this included a copy (actually an artist’s proof) of Mushroom Book, actually more or a folio, by John Cage, Alexander H. Smith, and Lois Long.  Since it was only an edition of 75 this is, as they say, ‘a rare chance to see.’

And frankly I was glad for the presence of Mr. Cage, (I pretty much always am) because given the rest of the exhibition you might never have known that mushrooms were things that people actually eat for food.  Cage used to forage for mushrooms and sell them to fancy New York restaurants.  He even appeared in Vogue with his recipe for ‘dogsup’ – a version of ketchup with mushrooms (type unspecified) brandy, mace, cayenne, allspice and other good things.

I came out of the exhibition wanting to have my consciousness expanded but more urgently with the urge to buy and cook some mushrooms; which I did.

Now mushrooms, as you probably know, are low in calories and fat, and cholesterol-free, they’re rich in copper, potassium, magnesium, zinc and some B vitamins, and antioxidants such as selenium and glutathione. Now I’ve never met anyboy who said, ‘Mmm I’ve really got a hankering for selenium and glutathione,’ but possibly such people exist.

I bought some brown and white shimeji, they were from China, and enoki, they were labeled ‘product of Korea’ - south, I’m assuming.  Did I feel guilty about their lack of localness, well of course I did.

I fried ‘em up with garlic and rocket, and stirred in some cooked gnocchi and a bit of grated cheese – and they weren’t bad at all, though when I do it again there’ll be a LOT more garlic, and perhaps a splash of psilocybin

SUGAR MY SQUID

Since you probably aren’t going to ask, it’s ‘Jane Jane’ Prepared Rolled Squid,

made by the Shin Ho Sing Ocean Enterprise Company of Taiwan.

The ingredients are squid, sugar, salt, lactose, vinegar, red pepper and Preservative E200.

       Of these flavours the most dominant by miles is the sugar.  In general I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, and I definitely don’t want my to squid to taste sugary, but in the name of orientalism I snaffled it down.  Ah international cuisine – bringing nations together.

DEVELOPMENTS

It’s an Ossau Iraty from the Largeveau Dairy, by way of Marks and Sparks:  ancient, Franco-Basque, make from sheep’s milk.  The packaging tells us it has a ‘nutty flavour which develops in the mouth.’ Now, I may be naïve in these matters, but y’know that strikes me as the very best place for flavour to develop.

POLICY

I had lunch t’other day in the Bibendum Oyster Bar in London, day with my literary pal Kirsty Allison. 

This is Bibendum (not my picture):

This is Kirsty Allison (my picture):

We didn’t have oysters, they were a bit pricy, and they’d run out of the cheapest ones – from Maldon; although since Maldon oysters are what I buy many weekends at my local farmer’s market I’d have been a bit reluctant anyway. 

I had fish and chips and they were very good, I liked the curl, though not quite as good as Ms. A’s soup of the day which was fantastic – though I forget what was in it. Jerusalem artichoke, possibly.

The restaurant is currently run by Claude Bosi who is a very big deal – French, much travelled, lots of Michelin stars - and there are many rooms in his mansion: i.e. inside the big Bibendum building. 

He runs a tight ship – check this out from the website (and admittedly this applies to the fancy restaurant upstairs, not to the more modest the oyster bar):

“CANCELLATION POLICY: In the event that a booking is cancelled with less than 48 hours notice, a cancellation fee of £85 per person for lunch or £115 per person for dinner will be charged to the card provided at point of booking. PLEASE NOTE: In the event that the party arrive at the restaurant as a smaller group than expected, we reserve the right to charge for the missing guest(s).” 

Jeez.  I’d think this is the kind of malarkey that might make a person hesitate ever to make a reservation at said restaurant, but what do I know?

Above is a picture of me at the end of lunch with a cup of coffee, and I include it not because I particularly like to show my face (and what exactly am I doing with my face?) but because of that olive tree behind me.  There was a sign on it saying it’s for sale – though no price is given, nor any details of how you might get it home – perhaps Mr. Bosi would give you a hand loading it into the back of Subaru.  Perhaps, if the price was right.

FYI, the olive tree pictured at the top of this post is not at Bibendum, it's in my own back garden..

Mmmm ... SMEARY

Since you ask, it’s truffled Taleggio, bought from the Solo Cheese stand at the farmer’s market in Manningtree. Taleggio is, apparently, a ‘smear ripened’ cheese, traditionally matured in caves and washed with seawater once a week to prevent mould as it forms its crust.  All the sources comment on the fact that it has a strong smell and yet a mild tangy, creamy taste.  Sometimes sources get it about right.

SIZE IS SOMETHING

The local farmers’ market has lately been selling some big potatoes – 5 for £1.50.  I bought some, obviously.

There’s no arguing that they’re big but they’re just awful.  I was going to say the tasteis just awful, but there really is no taste.  It doesn’t seem to matter what you do to them – mash, roast, fry, whatever  – they continue to taste bland and watery.  Sure, you can pile on the salt and pepper, add the butter, the cream, the goose fat; but then, at best, they just taste of salt and pepper and so on.  Still they do make for a reasonable photo–op

Of course I didn’t grow these monsters and by many standards these aren’t even all that monstrous at all

Above is Mr Peter Glazebrook with a potato he grew in 2010.  It weighed 3.8kg and appeared in the Guinness Book of Records.  I’ve long admired Mr Glazebrook who’s produced all manner of mighty vegetables, though of course I don’t know how his potato tasted.

And  even so it’s perfectly possible to imagine bigger potatoes, and many have, like this:

and this: 

and this:

SOME LITERARY OYSTERS

Here is Herman Melville in Moby Dick: ‘Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air.’

OK, I understand the metaphor, but in what conceivable sense do oysters observe the sun?  Even in 1851 when Moby Dick was published, it must have been common knowledge that oysters don’t have eyes with which to do any observing.

But then in The Walrus and the Carpenter, 1872, Lewis Carroll gave them hands and feet, and I suppose ears.

"O Oysters, come and walk with us!"
The Walrus did beseech.
"A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each."

And here’s Raymond Chandler writing in what I think is a faux-self-deprecating way about his first novel The Big Sleep, 1939 ‘My story is just another detective yarn that happens to be more interested in people than in plot, to try to stand on its own legs as a novel with the mystery a few drops of Tabasco on the oyster.’

 And here is the person I consider to be the greatest literary oyster eater: Isaak Dinesen, 

who accrding to legend consumed only oysters, grapes and Champagne, which I thought wouldn be the worst diet, though apparently not - at the time of her death she was suffering from malnutrition (and a few other unpleasant things as well) 

She did write however, in ‘The Deluge at Nordeney.’  

“Do you know a cure for me?"
"Why yes," he said, "I know a cure for everything. Salt water."
"Salt water?" I asked him.
"Yes," he said, "in one way or the other. Sweat, or tears, or the salt sea.”

The last of these is also the brine in oysters.

MELTINGLY

Since you ask, it’s a standard Asda supermarket ‘Blue Stilton – Strong & Rich. Wonderfully intense and meltingly creamy.’

No provenance – no reference to artisans and affineurs, to happy, environmentally-friendly cows, but I thought it wasn’t bad at all – more convincing on the intensity than the creaminess, but I’m not complaining – hey, it comes from Asda.

ME AND MRS WENNA - WE AIN'T GOT A THING GOING ON

Since you ask, it’s a 'Curds Croust Miss Wenna Cornish Brie' – ‘mellow smooth and creamy with a delicate velvety rind’ according to the label, though I thought it was a bit bland.

BLUE BISHOP

Since you ask, it's  a Cropwell Bishop, Shropshire Blue, 

made by Hamish Johnson,  Unit 51 Martlesham Crescent, 

IP12 4SD.  It's a Stilton.  I thought it tasted of ammonia, but 

that my have more to do with the storage than the actual 

quality of the cheese.

THE ANNOTATED CHEESE

I’ve been reading Alice in Wonderland, more correctly Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.  I’d like to be able to say ‘rereading’ but I can’t really, because I’ve never actually sat down and read it from beginning to end.  I suspect not all that many have.  It's one of those books where people pick out their favorite bits.

And it seemed to me that it was food, food, food all the way – the Madhatter’s Tea party (obviously), the Lobster Quadrille, the stolen tarts, the treacle well, the mock turtle, Father William and his goose, 

and of course all the drink me business, and the eating of the mushroom that made Alice change size.  

No doubt this must say a great deal about Victorian tastes and desire for food but I’m not absolutely sure what.  Presumably Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell were well-fed at a time when not everybody in Britain was.  It seems to be rubbing it in.

To be honest with you I was reading Alice with a plain text in one hand and Martin Gardner’s Annotated Alice in the other.

Much has been said, some of it by me, about the problems of annotation, and Gardner’s special problem as an American explicating for other Americans is that he explains a lot of stuff that doesn’t need explaining for an English reader.  And inevitably there are some things that could do with a lot more explaining.

And one of these things is the Cheshire Cat.  Gardner says ‘We know that Cheshire cheese was once sold in the shape of a grinning cat. One would tend to slice off the cheese at the cat’s tail end until finally only the grinning head would remain on the plate.’

Well, do we know this?  I certainly didn’t.  A lifetime’s obsession with cheese, with Cheshire as one of my favorites, has never brought me this bit of information.  And in any case I can’t picture this cheese cat, was it moulded in three dimension?  It certainly sounds like it from Gardner’s description, but how many cat moulds would a cheese maker need in order to produce them in any quantity?  It's not like a butter mould where you can press one out and move on.  Or was there a whole class of 19th century English cheese carvers?

A root around in the books in the Psychogourmet Library, and indeed the internet, reveals nothing whatsoever about this cat-shaped cheese.   Alan Davidson in the Oxford Companion to Food  has a lot to say about Cheshire cheese (Domesday Book, Gerard, giant American 300 pound political cheeses) but nothing feline.

Anybody got any views or further info on this?

GET YER FRITAS OUT

Photo by Luna Goodyear Smythe

If Santa’s going to bring you a stocking filler, what could be better than a large quantity of potato crisps? And if they come in an elegant tin, then so much the better.  Of course it would be a mighty big stocking that could accommodate such a tin but that’s the magic of Christmas innit?

It’s a serious business, as you see from the photo above at the top, but open the can and things cheer up considerably.

These in fact are Spanish crisps or, to get bilingual, ‘patatas fritas’ and they’re fried in 100% olive oil (aciete de olive) – there’s sea salt in there too.  In general I think the best crisps (chips) are fried in lard and usually come from Pennsylvania (op cit elsewhere in this blog) but the Spanish result is pretty great; light and crisp (as is only right) and very satisfying, by which I mean that you don’t have to eat a ton of ‘em to feel satisfied (depending, naturally, on how easily you’re satisfied).

The company that makes them is Bonilla a la Vista.  Their website says ‘DEVOTION IS OUR MAIN INGREDIENT - Bonilla a la vista is always with you during your daily moments of enjoyment: after work with your friends, with some beers at the pub, during a youngster’s birthday celebration, when you sit in the sand and feel the sea breeze after a session of surfing… special and unique moments.’

I shall keep that in mind after my next session of surfing.  In the meantime, this is a picture of their factory, a little less artisanal than I’d imagined, but evidently none the worse for that.

Also it appears that Bonilla a la Vista has friends all over the world, or at least in South Korea.

CHIMPS WITH EVERYTHING

Even the most jaded, sensation-seeking omnivore (that would be me) has to draw the line somewhere, and I think the eating of our fellow primates is as good a place to draw it as any.

And so I was vaguely alarmed, if not really all that surprised, to learn that The Beatrice Hotel, in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo had been offering on its menu ‘bébé chimpanzé fumé.”  24 hours notice required and about £27, a pop.

This is apparently illegal because the chimpanzee is a protected species in the DRC.  In fact it’s illegal ‘to hunt, injure, kill, sell or buy, gift or detain’ a protected species of animal or plant, and a criminal complaint has been lodged against the hotel by a local conservation group.

The hotel management blamed it all on a cook who’d made a ‘mistake’ and the generally expressed sentiment is that it’s those darned Asians who are driving the trade, but this isn’t 100% convincing. 

Adams Cassinga of the group Conserv Congo was quoted as saying that at any given time in Kinshasa there are at least ten great apes for sale; though I think these may not all get eaten.  But he also says that red-tailed monkeys are butchered in hundreds every day as ‘bush meat.’

 Although I have no intention of eating chimp, or any other kind of bush meat, I did start to wonder what it tasted like.  Presumably the smoking changes the flavour a lot, but I did find on Quora, a man who goes by the moniker Jonny Shortcake (possibly not his real name) who says he had monkey meat when he was Marine Corps in the Philippines undergoing jungle survival training.  He doesn’t say what kind of monkey he ate, but having captured one they boiled it he concludes ‘all I can say is it’s tough and chewy it’s not unlike squirrel.’  Which, of course, begs another question.

In any case, I’m somehow glad to know that it doesn’t just taste like chicken.

Above is a chimp smoking as opposed to being smoked.

SNACKALICIOUS (NO, NOT REALLY)

Man, you know the party’s over when it’s past twelfth night and all you have in the house by way of snacks are ‘Pigs in Blankets’ flavoured crisps and special festively packaged mini twiglets.  Though admittedly there are times when you want the party to be over.

THE QUEEN AND IT

There was a lot of stuff in the media over Xmas about the Queen being a martini drinker. This seemed somehow cheering, though it was all a bit of an echo chamber; the information bouncing around between English tabloids, Vanity Fair, Food And Drink, and  Business Insider and others. 

‘Royal expert’ Ingrid Seward was quoted as saying said: 'I think the Queen likes a martini,’ though I’d have expert a royal expert to be less tentative. So I tried to find a picture of her majesty sipping a silver bullet.  I haven't found one yet. There are a zillion pictures of her drinking champagne but not a martini in sight.  (Gosh, the queen does have big, manly hands).

She apparently has the martini with dinner, which may possibly be the reason we’re not allowed to see it.  Let me explain. 

My contacts with the royal family, surprisingly, are not quite zero: I was once introduced to the Duke of Edinburgh at a reception and dinner for the Greenwich Festival.  He seemed a man of some charm.  I assume he was gritting his teeth throughout the episode, but he hid it perfectly.

I can’t remember whether or not I saw him with a drink in his hand, but I do know that when it came time to eat he and the other VIPs (though I suppose nobody was more ‘I’ than him), went to a table on a dais and screens were drawn around them.  The word was that royals were not allowed to be seen eating.  I have never heard this from any other source but on that night it certainly applied.  And if the queen has her martini while eating dinner that may explain why we’re not allowed to see it..

Still, keeping up family traditions here’s Charles drinking a martini in a gin distillery in Northumberland at11 o’clock in the morning.  That’s the royal spirit.