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9 April 2022 THE WEEKFood & Drink
LEISURE
What the experts say
Cider vinegar: the hipster’s choice
Pucker up, says Xanthe Clay in The Daily
Telegraph: a shot of apple cider vinegar
has become “this year’s avocado toast”. In
the 1970s, the benefits of a daily dose of
vinegar were proclaimed by “socks-with-
sandal” types. Now the practice has been
revived, with proponents claiming that
drinking vinegar promotes healthy gut
microbiota and reduces “bad” cholesterol.
And it has spawned a new generation of
products, designed to tick “a lot of hipster
boxes”: they’re marketed as alcohol-free
“wellness tonics” and invariably produced
by “local” artisans. I sampled a turmeric,
ginger and horseradish one from The Bath
Alchemist, which sells 240ml bottles of
flavoured vinegars for £12.95. I’m not
hardcore enough to drink vinegar neat,
so I added a tablespoon to a glass of
sparkling water – and was pleasantly
surprised. A “savoury-sweet, mouth-filling
revelation”, it was as “satisfying a flavour
as alcohol, without the hangover or the
calorie load”. And if it boosts my health,
so much the better.Reviving multisensory eating
Eating is the most “multisensory” of
activities, says Bee Wilson in The Guardian- and yet today we treat it as though we
were “sense-blind”. To tell if a piece of
fruit is ripe, people no longer give it a
squeeze: they check for the words “ripe
and ready” on the label. Although our
noses can distinguish fresh milk from
sour, we prefer to rely on the use-by date.
“We order groceries on a computer, or
takeaways on a phone, and they arrive
wrapped in plastic, so that we can neither
smell them nor see them before we take
the first mouthful.” According to food
researcher Prof Barry Popkin, this sensory
disconnect from food is the product of the
“nutrition transition” – a phenomenon of
the past half-century marked by a shift
from meals to snacks, from savoury to
sweet, and from local homemade dishes
to homogenised, processed foods. This
transition hasn’t been all bad – it has
coincided with a fall in global hunger –but it has “ushered in a vast rise in the
prevalence of diet-related diseases”. One
way to counter its damaging impact is to
reconnect with the basics of food, and
trust our senses a bit more.How to cut your food bill
With inflation soaring, how can we
continue to eat well without spending
far more, asks Ameer Kotecha in The
Spectator. My first tip is not to fear the
“yellow sticker and the discount aisle”:
I’ve always relied on both. Of course,
you’ll save money if you waste less. Instead
of tossing out that piece of parmesan rind,
pop it into a minestrone; use parsley and
coriander stalks in curries and stir-fries;
and turn stale bread into breadcrumbs – or
a panzanella salad. Admittedly, this may be
teaching “grandmothers to suck eggs”, but
don’t forget the economies of bygone times- such as using tougher, less well-loved
cuts of meat, and padding out expensive
proteins with lentils or carbs. One way to
make expensive ingredients go further is
to choose big flavours: use extra-mature
cheddar instead of mild, say, or “boisterous
smoked haddock” in a fish pie. Modern
technology will assist you in all this,
whether it’s to find recipes that will use up
whatever leftovers you have, or apps such
as Too Good to Go, which allows you to
“buy food – at a great price – from shops
and restaurants that hasn’t sold in time
and would otherwise go to waste”.
Cider vinegar: reinvented as a “wellness tonic”- Preheat the oven to 220°C. Put the pumpkin
cubes on a baking tray lined with baking paper.
Drizzle with sunflower oil and lightly dust with
ground cinnamon, then shake the tray so all the
cubes are well coated. Roast in the oven for
20mins or until the pumpkin is tender and the
tip of a knife slides through easily. - Meanwhile, heat a frying pan, ideally non-stick,
over a medium-high heat. Add the walnuts and
toast, stirring often, until lightly browned. Leave to
cool, then transfer to a food processor and process
until finely ground. Set aside. - Heat 2 tablespoons of sunflower oil in a large
saucepan over a medium-high heat. Add the garlic
and onion and fry, stirring often, until the onions
start to soften. Add the cinnamon bark and
continue frying, stirring, until the onions are
light brown. Stir in the cumin, turmeric and ½ a
teaspoon of ground cinnamon, and stir together
for 30 seconds. Add the chickpeas, pomegranate
juice, pomegranate molasses, salt, pepper and
a good grating of nutmeg. Increase the heat and
bring to the boil, stirring.- Add the pumpkin cubes and ground walnuts
and return the mixture to the boil, stirring until the
stew thickens. Add the orange zest and stir in just
enough water to get the thickness you like. Taste
and adjust the seasoning, if necessary, and if you
think it’s too sour, add maple syrup to taste. Stir in
the pomegranate seeds and garnish with parsley
before serving.
Khoresh fesenjan: Persian pumpkin and chickpea curry
½ a large pumpkin or butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and cut into bite-sized cubes, about 400g prepared weight sunflower oil
ground cinnamon 75g walnut halves 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 1 onion, chopped 7cm piece of cinnamon bark 1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground turmeric 2 x 400g can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed 100ml pomegranate juice 75g pomegranate molasses ½ tsp salt
¼ tsp ground black pepper freshly grated nutmeg, to taste, or a pinch of ground nutmeg 1 unwaxed orange, zested about 500ml water, as
needed maple syrup, optional 80g pomegranate seeds salt and ground black pepper chopped flat-leaf parsley or coriander, to garnishThis is my vegan version of an Iranian classic, says Atul Kochhar, a rich dish with walnuts and pomegranate flavourings and
a hint of cinnamon. You can use vegetable stock if you’d like, but I wanted to keep the flavours of the other ingredients quite
pure, which is why I’ve specified water.© MIKE COOPER
Taken from Curry Everyday by Atul Kochhar, published by Bloomsbury Absolute at £26. To buy from The Week Bookshop
for £20.99, call 020-3176 3835 or visit theweekbookshop.co.uk.