Food Appliances - part 3 of many

The Air Fryer. (And my oh so many mistakes already - a mere 24hrs in...)

I've been anti-fryer for a long time. I saw one - once - in a friend's kitchen. right alongside another identical air fryer. They said they used them both together quite often and their children loved anything crispy-fried in air... I thought I'd never have a use for one. Well, maybe. One day. In a distant future when I found one for ten bucks at the opp shop. After I'd found an induction cooker for a tenner. Maybe then.

But things change. Life moves in mysterious ways. And the landlord replaces the old gas cooker with an electric one, and that started me looking at - going back to an electric cooker... Not even kidding, one of my favourite places where I cooked up many many storms had an electric stove. 

Also luckily, I'd found a single induction cooker at an opp shop for ten bucks about a year earlier... 

Induction Cooking

That cooker opened my eyes, it did. I started using it for simple stuff at first, cooking spuds and vegetables, that sort of stuff. Then suddenly it became my main cooking appliance and the gas cooker did the simple stuff. Then the gas cooker went away and the new electric stove seemed like a dinosaur, with elements that took longer to heat than the induction cooker did to fry an egg... 

And the old ten buck induction cooker had apparently been at the opp shop for a reason, one of the switches had been dodgy from the start and suddenly the most important switch on it - the mode switch - only worked if you held your mouth in a curse word shape, crossed your eyes, and tapped it twenty times spelling out "SOS U SOB" in Morse code and by now these things cost just a few bucks over fifty and - we bought a new one. 

The old one is in my workshop and I'll replace the tac switch and use it as a second cooker. Oh and air fryers are down at the same price range and the only thing the electric cooker has is good grille and a fantastic  oven for larger roasts and bakes and - a day ago an air fryer rocked up at the door...

Both from K-Mart in case you were wondering. 

Air Fryers

In just a bit over 24hrs I've noticed a few things already - ... Hang on. Here - have a picture:

We had some hash brown shapes from ALDI in the freezer, and around eight at a time fitted in the silicone tray liners we'd bought with it, and the machine made spectacular hash browns. We sort of tasted one or two and said goodbye to our waistlines. 

No - maybe not quite, but we decided the machine was going to be dangerous. And my wife gave me that "told you we should have gotten one two years ago when I said" look and - I didn't care. I have a new cooking technique to learn! 

This is written the next evening, and dinner ALL came out of that machine. I tested a recipe for potato chips made with baby spuds but they recommended an  oil/flour/spice dredge and honestly - next time I'll skip the flour altogether and just add salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic powder directly to lightly oiled sliced potato.  Dry the potato slices first though. Fry in small batches (layers of a few chips deep only, stop every ten minutes and shake them to make sure they all cook evenly) for around 20 - 30 minutes at 200C and there's the recipe I'll be using next time, Air Fryer Potato Crisps.

Second were some Aldi crumbed chicken tenders that I always found will go slightly soggy and often lose their coating if I fried them so I've always made them in the oven. The air fryer we bought has a 3.75 litre capacity and the actual basket is a bit smaller, so only seven of the eight fit into it. It sucks because you need to do these in a single layer just like the hash brown stars. ( Oooh, more air fryer tips!)

I noted with some interest that the packet included air fryer cooking instructions so I didn't have to guess, 180C for 10 minutes turning once - you know what? Let me cut to the chase for you. Like every other packet instruction for microvwave/oven/and-now-air-fryer, it's crap. Like wife says: "ten degrees more, ten minutes longer and that's closer."

In this case, next time I'll be cooking them at 190C, for seven minutes, then turn them, check progress, and go for another five to eight. Because I *know* these can be more crisp than they turned out with the packet instructions.

Last thing was an experiment to make a frittata-style dish, beat four eggs with three tablespoons of self-raising flour, mix in a pinch of salt, some paprika, and half a cup of shredded cheese, now use one of the silicone liners as a form, air fry at 180C for six minutes, then do the old "invert to flip" into the second one (What? You didn't get two of them when you bought the machine?) and do it same temperature for five more, turn out onto a plate and allow to set, then slice and serve. Actually better when served cold. Egg and Cheese Bake. 

So, Ted - Never In A Million Years, Eh?

yeah. My wife is the best. When she edges me out of my comfort zone, she expands my horizons, and now you can expect a few more AF recipes as well. (There are thee - sort of - hidden somewhere in this article, can you spot them? 😹)

The Alternative Appliances Show, part 3.

Yeap. This is part of the series, I have two more in draft and then see where it takes us. The thing I meant to demonstrate here is that when you find a new appliance, don't be afraid to mess up, think outside the supplied recipe booklet, and be prepared for some bad potato crisp slices... I'm already wondering how low I can get this one to run in order to dehydrate something like tomato puree to make tomato powder, because that's how you get BBQ flavour... I'll fail a few more times before I figure it out, but it's part of the process. 

Anyhow - please share this, hit one of the donation buttons and support my research, and see you on the next article!

TEdGEREE Kedgeree

NAME: _TEdGEREE Kedgeree

A British Colonial thingie, and people are re-inventing the recipe, really, there are so many emasculated homeopathic - thingies - but (Argh I’m becoming a grumpy grumpy GRUMPY old guy) originally it was someone in India thinking "I wish I had some smoked kippers or haddock for breakfas. . ." - . . . - "Boy! Please ask Cook to make something like that for breakfast! But make it a bit local, okay?" 

I'm paraphrasing a bit but this is a pastiche recipe - an Ayurvedic khichari style dish that included spices, fried onions, ginger, and lentils. As a result, if you'd like to also add ginger (I leave it out because no Kedgeree recip[e really ever mentions it) that's probably within the rulez. 

But it peeved me that so few recipes mention the lentils either. So yeah - GetchaKedgereeHere! 

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INGREDIENTS/UTENSILS:

3-4 eggs

1c basmati rice (or golden sella is also nice, or any other Asia/Indian rice, whatever you think they used)

1 - 2 smoked cod fillets (any nice smoked fish actually, haddock often gets a mention) 

1c milk / water 50-50 mix

100g butter

2 onions

1/4c lemon juice max (you can use more - or less - or none - use your taste buds)

Bunch of fresh coriander 

1/4 - 1/2c frozen peas

1/4c red lentils

1tsp salt

3tsp curry powder

(or . . .)

2tsp curry powder, 1/2tsp cumin powder, 1/2tsp coriander powder

1tsp cardamom seeds or 1/2tsp cardamom powder

1/2tsp ginger powder (oh so optional!)

 

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METHOD:

Hardboil the eggs. (Or use yesterday’s hardboiled eggs. Whatever happened to just having a couple of hardboiled eggs? We had pumpernickel with cream chees, chives, beetroot, and sliced hardboild eggs. Delicious and quick. Should be more of it.) Peel the hardboiled eggs. Quarter or six-way wedge them. Set aside.

Cook the rice as you normally would (with the exception of adding the red lentils along with the rice) nice and fluffy and slightly on the firm side rather than tender. (Don’t know how to make failproof rice? DON’T rinse it unless you buy really shyte quality rice. Use 2c water to 1c rice/lentils, DO add half a teaspoon of salt, bring to a boil with the lid on, then simmer and stir occasionally until the water’s evaporated. Keep putting the lid back on between stirs. When it gets to the “water almost entirely gone” stage turn off the heat and set it aside for 10 - 15 minutes. It’ll be lovely.) 

Cut the smoked fish or break it into large chunks. You can skin if you like but the flavour’s in there. Try and get as many small bones out as possible along the way. Set aside.

Peel the onions, cut off both ends, stand upright and slice lengthways into crescent wedges. Put the butter in a large enough frypan  pan and add the onions, place over low-medium heat. (Or a dutch oven or a wok, I have a big stainless steel wok and find it ideal, but you do you.) 

Add the cardamom seeds if you’re using those. (Actually, I put the cardamom seeds in the wok earlier, with a splash of vegetable oil and salt, toast them gently until they start popping, then carefully pour in a few tablespoons of water, simmer until most of the water’s gone, and by then the cardamom seeds are a bit softened. When most of the water’s gone I put that into a small bowl and wipe the pan out with paper towel and add the seeds and liquid back in a bit later.)

Once the onions start sizzling, drizzle a bit of water in (again being very careful, it’ll try to spit) and let that completely evaporate, then reduce the heat, check if the onions are soft. When they are:

Add the dry powdered spices and salt and gently fry until the aromas start to stand out. (If you’re still using slow gentle heat then this can be toasted for a bit longer than you think you need, just stop short of burning the powders.) 

Once the dry spices are aromatic, add the cardamom & liquid if you did that the way I do, add the water and milk, and bring it to a gentle simmer. Add the peas. Add the fish chunks, stir very gently. If it looks like too much is evaporating, add a bit more milk. 

(Look - I know most recipes faff around with “poach the fish in milk and water, throw away all that flavour and the dairy fats softening the curry flavours…”  - There’s a reason why so many curries and spicy foods have yoghurt or cream or sour cream as side dishes or include them in the recipe.)

Add the cooked rice and lentil mixture. This will absorb the remaining liquid, which is why slightly firmer rice is good. Once the liquid is absorbed, gently fold in most of the eggs, some chopped fresh coriander, and serve. 

 

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SERVING:

You can put aside a few egg wedges and some chopped coriander for dressing when serving. You can also sprinkle some red paprika powder over the dish. (Indian paprika is slightly “sharper” in flavour than the usual red paprika you get at the supermarket but it’s worth it if you make this dish, other curries, and dips like dal and babaganoosh.)
 

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NOTES:

I put a lot of stuff in parentheses in the recipe above. Because this was a flexible recipe but it has some rules. Sorry. 

It's a dish that has curry, rice, smoked fish, coriander (not parsley!) and was usually made for breakfasts by a cook hired to the particular house. The eggs and peas were added because eggs are a breakfast dish to the British and peas were a familiar vegetable, the spices and coriander added the fillip of oriental spice that the expat British enjoyed. 

I make it for dinners rather than breakfasts. My one break with tradition. 😺  (Actually, my breakfasts are always breaks with tradition - I'll probably put up an article here on what I do and why. Promise it's interesting...)
 

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ENJOY!

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Aussie Icon Anniversaries

Just last week I posted about the Aussie icon, Vegemite, reaching a 100-year anniversary, by whatever bumpy and often-offshore means. Now another icon has passed a milestone, but sadly it's not exactly what you might think...

It's Not Vegemite

So Vegemite was an Australian invention. It was modelled around some similar products but as far as I know it was Ausie. It was divisive, you either loved it or loathed it. And we lost it to overseas interests, then got it back.

Sara Lee

Now Sara Lee is undergoing a shake-up. After more than fifty years, Sara Lee is in liquidation. Fair enough, Sara's not a true Aussie but the desserts company became part of the Australian food chain in 1971 when the first Sara Lee facility opened in NSW. 

Now we have the sad news that the Australian arm, Sara Lee Holdings, has entered voluntary administration. Given the evil, greed-driven, and depressing state of the world's "economies," it seems almost like some kind of end-of-the-desserts-world knell of doom. 

Aussies need a much more fair go than we're getting. The planet needs much more of a fair go than it's getting. Please share my articles to raise awareness of these sorts of stories. Wnat to find more of them to share? Click the newspaper in the graphic below to find a list of all the most recent of my articles. You'll find quite a few to enjoy and share, across all the different topics that the different blogs cover.  The further the distribution the articles get, the more people will get these messages and start caring for our good companies, our beneficial organisations, and how to mitigate our impact on the planet that's creating the disaster we're sliding into.

EDIT 3 Nov 2023: At least our list isn't this long...

Please use the links in the graphic above. Use the Mastodon link to chat with me, the newspaper to see my News Stand where you can see ALL my recent posts and subscribe to a once-a-week newsletter. 

You can also help me by sharing the link to this recipe to your social media or messaging sites. 

You can help me most of all by using the Ko-Fi mug or Paypal to make a donation to help me keep all these things online. 

Vegemite Scores A Century!

The iconic - and divisive - Aussie legend has been in production for 100 years. (Or out if you're one of those people who can't stand it.)

The iconic (and no matter which side of the debate you fall, you can't deny its status as a slightly tarnished Aussie icon) spread was born from a desire to make an Australian equivalent to the British Marmite, and was at various times up against (and sometimes using) such marketing gems of names like Promite, MightyMite, AussieMite, OzEmite - and my personal favourite but most regrettable, Parwill. 

In 1922 Fred Walker directed Cyril Callister to come up with the Australian version of Marmite and Callister did it by autolysing spent beer brewer's yeast. A competition was held to name the new product, and Fred's daughter Sheilah chose the name Vegemite out of the pool because the name Fred had chosen, "Pure Vegetable Extract" apparently failed to set hearts alight or even suggest that the product was similar to Marmite. It was for a while renamed to Parwill (Ma might? But Pa will! a really silly schoolyard pun) but luckily the name was reverted to Vegemite or we'd have a whole new level of cringeworthiness to deal with. 

Stop. Whoa. Dundee Time. 

I'd like you to reflect for a moment on the collected Australiana in that paragraph above. A really crappy Dad joke pun, a guy named Fred, another guy named Cyril, a sheila named Sheilah, beer waste turned to yet another beer product. Young Einstein eat your heart out. You're toast. Lastly, notice that it's the 100 year anniversary of that name, a century. And in cricket (Yay for Aussie cricket) a century is a score to be proud of. You get the Crocodile Dundee / Paul Hogan reference for free.

Good News Week

In Australia there was a TV weekly comedy/news show called Good News Week. It was a success, it was Aussie larrikinism at its best, and it included this segment of video that for me, cemeneted Vegemite as our most iconic icon ever. If you're eager to just see that iconinc minute and a bit of TV skip to 3:15 in the timeline, but I reckon you should just enjoy the plot developing. Reg Hunter's comment pretty much sums it up. Every audience member knew that jingle. You just don't get more Aussie or iconic than that. 

So say "Happy Century Vegemite!" It's had a pretty checkered innings but it's still there and not out.

And A Sad Departure:

Another Aussie iconic product, Fantales, sadly however won't be marking a 100th year, with manufacturer Allen's ending production earlier this year in July after a still-respectable 93 years of delighting children's tastebuds and curiosities about the stars of the world. 

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Food Cooking The Green Way - part 2 of many

I've posted about rice cookers as a very inexpensive way to cook and use less energy, make fewer dishes to wash up, and generally make your kitchen life a lot easier. I'll add a few more notes on them here, and continue on to a few related things.

I know there are some bloody expensive rice cookers out there that have programs for everything. But do they make for better rice? Undoubtedly - if you're new to cooking rice. Are they more versatile? Possibly. But even a cheap Big-W AUD$13 rice cooker is okay if you want to take the time to get to know them. 

The biggest secret to rice is the rice to water ratio. The second biggest, and which affects that ratio the most, is what type of cooker you have. If you use a saucepan then 1 portion of rice by volume to 2 portions of water by volume is about right. If the saucepan has a tight-fitting lid, you can use less water, but you'll need to dial it in. If you have a AUD $400 computerised Ferrari of the rice cooker world, you might get away with a 1:1 ratio. Most of my rice cookers like a 1:1.5 ratio - 1 cup rice to 1.5 cups water. 

But also - in the saucepan, don't boil the guts out of the rice. Bring it to the boil then reduce to a simmer. Much nicer rice. Even my simple rice cooker can do that - it cooks until the water's all evaporated and the temperature internally goes above 100C, then reduces its heat to the keep warm setting. 

So - you don't need the best appliances, just tips, tricks, and techniques - and I have plenty of those for you. 

But Wait There's More

I'm assuming a small (0.75litre or so) so-called "mini" rice cooker here. They're the best for a single person or for preparing rice or beans etc as a side dish/carb for two.

Most rice cookers have a short period of time where the temperature can be above 100C before their thermostat kicks in. That's where a nice sautee comes in. Put in some peanut or vegetable oil, some choppped onions, meat, vegetables, whatever, and put the lid on and hit "cook." After a few minutes you'll hear sizzling, then the "click!" as it turns to the keep warm setting. Let it go another minute, open the lid, use a chopstick or other wooden implenet to stir and decide - another sautee? 

If not, add softer vegetables and rice, stock, flavourings and seasonings, and let it cook the meal to the end.

This is a one-pot meal (don't eat it from the rice cooker though, you'll mess up the coating) and as simple as it gets. 

I've also used rice cookers to prepare lentils and small beans like mung or field beans, you just need to put in less than a cup of the dry food and more water, you'll need to find your own ratio here or may even have to add a second lot of water for some.

You can also make cous cous or polenta, cook buckwheat, pasta, or boil two minute noodles. You get the idea - for a person who boiled eggs and pasta in an electric kettle in one's student days (and we've all been there, right? Hunger and lack of funds produce ingenuity) these gadgets are an eye-opener. I'd go as far as to say that I wish this was the first appliance I bought instead of an electric kettle and toaster. 

Beyond The Rice Cooker

Appliances I've tried and found multiple uses for:

• Pressure Cooker: This old gadget was a game-changer for cooking, reducing cooking times for difficult foods by an order of magnitude, and people developed a plethora of recipes  to take advantage of the technological marvel of the day.
• The Toaster: These two devices I wasn't going to bother with but then I remember shared house days...
• The Kettle: Between the toaster and the kettle, we made entire dinners. So yeah, I'll include them both.
• Sandwich Press: Sandwich presses and panini presses are great little cooking gadgets that are so simple that they've become one of the more versatile ways to get stuff done. 
• Microwave: This is pretty much THE modern appliance to start New Wave Of Cooking, after all. Ther were electric kettles and toasters, but they were just advances of existing devices.
• Instant Pot: This is one of those devices that everyone had to have a few years ago, but are now old hat. They do have a good range of uses though
• Electric Pressure Cooker: I have one. It pretends to be an IP but it has far fewer uses than the instant pot, is still a valuable part of my kitchen
• Air Fryer: in the last few years a new thing's arisen, the air fryer. There are so many variations and they're the ne plus ultra of current kitchen "healthy" appliances. I haven't used one but I have my doubts.
• Steam Oven: More recently I found out about these - their angle is that they're a tabletop oven (like the AF mentioned above) but they generate steam and circulate that to conduct heat into the food. 
• Tabletop Oven: There were also many tabletop ovens and toasters, up to the size of microwaves and having one or two heating elements to them. 
• Tabletop Convection Oven: A good cross between the AF and the tabletop ovens, these had a large thermal glass bowl on some kind of stand, and a glass lid with the actual heating gear in it. 
• Dehydrators, Vacuum Sealers: Yep I consider dehydrating a kitchen and cooking hack, especially when making biltong or jerky, veg crisps, tomato (and of course other vegetables) powder, drying out bread cubes for crouton or dumplings. 
• Blenders, Food Processors, Stick Blenders, Stand Mixers, Hand Mixers, Juicers, Graters, Grinders, Mincers, Pasta Rollers and Presses, oh yeah and Ice-cream Makers: You get the idea... These things are designed to be versatile and I don't think I'll be able to suggest recipes that push the envelope that haven't already been covered in the decades that we've had them.
• Anything else not covered above: There are of course slicers dicers and Flying Spaghetti Monster knows what else, I'll endeavour to cover all those I've found useful and versatile as well.

For instance, mandolines and V slicers are great for making Julienne strips or fine dice, so are rotary slicers like the ones you see in delis. The old potato chip press has helped me make several sizes and styles of cubed vegetables, a potato ricer can, as it turns out, also squish over-cooked pasta or rice for thickening soups and stews. I'll get to these in future posts. Juicing vegetables and then putting both the juice and pressings into soups and stews produces incredibly flavourful meals. 

If you want me to research air fryers and steam ovens etc you could help me acquire them by scrolling to the footer and using my groovy graphic to make a donation or regular donation, and while you're there subscribe to my newsletter via the News Stand link. Also by sharing this article and others like it so I get a bit more of an audience and perhaps a new patron or donation... 

For the moment - and to start the whole topic off - I'll put a few uses for pressure cookers that aren't totally according to "the rules" but still worth remembering. Pressure cookers are great at turning dried beans into cooked beans / meals or semi-cooked for use in other dishes. They're excellent for turning a tough cut into fork-pulled roast. I've used ours to extract bone broth for future soups, to cook vegetables soft enough to blitz and then add to soups and stews. 

A Quick Disclaimer and Claimer(???)

If all you want are quick meals then I'll probably disappoint. I mean, I make my meal preps and cooking times as quick as possible using all these appliances, but my main aim is to extract every bit of value from the ingredients I buy, and make the meals as flavourful and tasty as I possible can. My wife calls me The Grand Poobah Of Soups / Stews / pretty much any meals I cook because of my focus on making the food good, nutritious, and so tasty that not a scrap is left after the meal. 

And these days that's becoming more important again. Because food waste is quite often to a meal not being enjoyed and so thrown out, or "oh, I can't cook those coriander roots / spring onion roots in this meal!" when the truth is that those are "food waste" not "crap waste" and deserve a better fate than being dropped into the compost bag. Are you throwing out the prawn ("shrimp") shells and heads when you make that specialty garlic prawns main dish? Why? Put them on a baking tray in a hot oven for ten - twenty minutes, throw them in a pot with a pinch of salt and simmer for ten - twenty more minutes, then strain the broth and concentrate it, freeze it for the next seafood dish that you want to mega-boost the flavour of. 

We never get a ready-roasted chicken but that the bones aren't immediately PC'ed for bone broth or stock. Ditto if I bone out a roast, or chops for the medallions. Ends of carrots / celery / onions / what-have-you? I sometimes gather those things in a silicone freezer bag and when I have enough, use the PC to pressure cook the he-l out of them, then concentrate the liquid, turning a few kilos of scrap vegetables into half a glass of frozen vegetable stock concentrate. Saves so much space in the freezer and it can happen in the background while I'm making dinner or whatever.

By using these (mostly) electric cooking gadgets I end up using the gas cooker (that I can't change, being a renter) a lot less and that means less greenhouse gases in the world. Unless the meal is a gassy vegetable meal and then all bets are off! 😼

Anyhow - see you next article or recipe!

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Mushrooms. Gippsland. Mayhem.

This is just a fairly short post. I'm using a fairly topical and still under investigation because many people still want to know about what occurred here, but my lesson is VERY tangential to that, it's more of a question really - about us being very deliberately separated from our food knowledge.

Okay - the story here is that four people (possibly five) were struck down with food poisoning, three passed away from the effects of the toxin, one is in a stable but still quite acute condition, and the 5th may be the suspect. This revolves around a media circus, a bunch of sometimes contradictory statements, a lot of supposition, and a handful of facts. You read it, be the judge. I say it's just not able to be decided on the few things that have been revealed. 

UPDATE: 11 Sept 2023: One thing more to support my position that we've been dumbed down with reagrd to our food knowledge: A month or more after the events that prompted me to think about our relationship to food, mushroom sales are still down. (Also, sorry the article may have appeared disorganised before this update - in fact that was caused by me clicking the update button, without realising, before I'd re-assembled the article in its updated form.)

Why Is This A Subject?

How many of you reading this are competent at mushroom foraging? I consider myself a bit of a forager but not with mushrooms. You can eat any mushroom once, not quite so many twice. You can make a mis-identification and realise it after consuming them - and by then it's too late as the toxins in the wrong mushroom start destroying your organs, all you can do is pray you can live without your liver and kidneys and half a stomach or whatever. They are unforgiving. 

So?

Well, I was born in Europe at the edge of Alps country, but all of that area for thousands of kilometres around has abundant crops of mushrooms to be had. And many of my family there lived on the land and identifying the right and wrong types was almost second nature to them. Had I stayed out on the farm, I'd have absorbed the knowledge of that imperceptibly, and now know the hundreds of species of mushrooms from Belgium to Sicily to France and back that are edible and more importantly, the ones that are not... 

How many types of mushrooms are there in my local supermarket? Swiss Browns, White mushrooms, button mushrooms. If I went to herbs and spices and weird stuff section of that cooler, I might find styrofoam trays of Oyster, Shitake, Enoki, Pins, and maybe Straw mushrooms. There are quite literally thousands of others and many of them grow wherever you are. But unless someone shows you which ones are edible (and more importantly, shows you all the local ones NEVER to try) or you have an endless supply of test subjects and can wait for a fortnight for any to show ill effects, you won't know.

The Point - 

is that my folks back there would have known all that and passed it on to me. Someone in the past may have paid the ultimate price for identifying the wrong ones, but that lesson was passed down through generations so as not to cause more deaths. It's one of the reasons we have traditions, teachings, and recipes. 

I've just grabbed a stock photo thumbnail from a random image search, but you get the idea - for each species there, there are sub-species that are also okay, sub-species that are decidedly not, and a lot of other species that look similar but aren't. 

There are only two or three types there and they're likely to be non-toxic.

 And how's that working out for the supermarkets? Just lovely, thank you. They have customers that wouldn't know an edible fungus from a hole in the ground so if they want safe mushrooms they have to buy them at the supermarket. Or they can go pick 30 edible ones and one look-alike, and then everyone will avoid free mushrooms like the plague. 

There's a (very short) link to an article here before, the linked article is about food misinformation, long story short, things like kids thinking hot dogs and bacon and cheese are vegetables, popcorn is animal-based. 

I also collect stories like the mother chiding her child's teachers for teaching that fish come from the sea because "everyone knows they come from the supermarket." Or the person berating a person online, who admitted to being a hunter, and the naive person told them off well and good telling them to stop going out and "killing animals, just get your meat at the supermarket where it's just there on styrofoam trays." 

Have you heard that bacon isn't a meat but a garnish? I have. That cheese is vegan? I have. Follow me for more true facts like that . . . 

And the supermarkets continue to try to foster food ignorance - from things like replacing "HFCS" with "sweetener" and similar tactics. Food companies will also commit quite deliberate and bare-faced fraud. Don't let labels with great claims ("they wouldn't lie about it being organic, would they?") fool you, either.

What Does That Even Mean?

I present a well-known chilli pepper sauce with another meaningless term. "Aged for up to 3 years"

That can mean it was sold 3 weeks after being made. It's either aged for three years or it isn't. "Up to" is meaningless drivel, providing no assurance of any kind. And when you look at the ingredients you see that it's distilled vinegar and salt and chilli peppers. That doesn't generally tend to ferment any further as the acid and salt will inhibit fermentation bacteria. 

The original sauce actually was fermented for a certain period of time, but the acid content was provided by lactic acid which is produced when you add just the right amount of salt to a vegetable to favour the growth of a lactobacillus bacteria. It's how sauerkraut and kimchi are made, and also properly fermented gherkin and other vegetable pickles. 

So this is just an attempt to cash in on the mystique of the original product. Ah well... 

On the subject of total drivel is another pet peeve of mine:- "New And Improved!"

Ah... No... No, it isn't. It's either new, in which case it can't have been improved upon, or it's an existing product that's been improved. I know it's technical hair-splitting but it points out the exact kinds of bullshit food corporations get away with. Because we let them off the hook. 

KEEP THE BASTARDS HONEST!

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