This is the first of a two-part round-up of this year’s Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery which took place from July 9-11, 2010 at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford. The weather was unseasonably warm and I was glad the College Bar — why don’t American colleges have official bars? It’s so civilized — opened at [...]
Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category
Highlights from Oxford 2010: Cured, Fermented and Smoked
Posted in Festival Cooking, Food History, Food as Anthropology, Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010, Traditional Foodways, Travel, tagged Cured Food, Fermented Food, Food History, Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010, Smoked Food on July 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
A Toast to Some of Oxford’s Famous Writers
Posted in Food History, Food and Fiction, Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010, Travel, tagged oxford, real ale, cask ale, Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010, Eagle and Child Pub, J.R.R. Tolkien, old pubs on July 16, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
When you visit Oxford you are surrounded by history of all types. Some of the colleges were founded in the 13th Century, and their famous alumni are too numerous to count, stretching across all imaginable professions including historians, chemists, writers, explorers, politicians and more. One quite pleasurable way to make a connection with some of [...]
The Infamous Surströmming of Sweden
Posted in Food History, Food Safety, Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010, Traditional Foodways, Travel, tagged Food History, Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010, Surströmming, Swedish Food, Fermented Herring on July 12, 2010 | 3 Comments »
Just a quick note from the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. As this year’s theme was Cured, Fermented and Smoked Foods, I got to try lots of unusual preparations from around the world, the most striking of which was Swedish surströmming. Food science maven Harold McGee spoke about it in his Plenary presentation titled [...]
Cured, Fermented, and Smoked
Posted in Food History, Food as Anthropology, Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010, Traditional Foodways, Travel, tagged Cured Food, Fermented Food, Food History, Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010, Smoked Food on July 7, 2010 | 3 Comments »
The highlight of my food history year is coming up this weekend. I’ll be attending the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery in the UK. This annual gathering of food historians includes both professionals and enthusiastic amateurs and focuses on a specific theme. This year we’ll be exploring cured, fermented, and smoked foods. These are [...]
An Australian Sampler
Posted in Food History, Not A Restaurant Review, Travel on May 7, 2010 | 6 Comments »
As usual, I’m sad to leave Australia. It’s such a huge country (as large as the continental US) with so much to offer. Even after multiple visits, I feel like I’ve barely seen any of it. Here’s a smattering of some of the fun things we’ve seen and done on this trip: A large influx [...]
The Sydney Fish Market
Posted in Farmers' Market Cooking, Food History, Ingredients, Travel, tagged Travel, fish, Sydney Fish Market, abalone, australian fish, sydney, australia on May 3, 2010 | 2 Comments »
As proudly announced in its national anthem, Australia is “girt by sea.” That makes for bountiful fresh seafood, ranging from oysters, to coral trout, to pricey greenlip abalone. One of the best places to sample this briny harvest is the Sydney Fish Market, the largest in the southern hemisphere. Unlike the “New” Fulton Fish Market [...]
Farmers’ Market Shopping in Queensland, Australia
Posted in Farmers' Market Cooking, Food History, Food Zen, Ingredients, Travel, tagged Brisbane Farmers' Market, photos, tropical fruit on April 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
One of the most exciting parts for me about my recent visit with Janet Clarkson in Brisbane was our trip to the local farmers’ market. Brisbane, being in the southern part of the state of Queensland, is sub-tropical, but much of the rest of the state lies squarely in the tropics which means, exotic fruits [...]
18th Century Prawns
Posted in Farmers' Market Cooking, Food History, Travel, recipes, tagged Food History, recipe, Australian prawns, 18th Century recipe on April 26, 2010 | 2 Comments »
While visiting Australia I had a chance to catch up with one of my favorite food history bloggers Janet Clarkson of “The Old Foodie”. We had a great visit, diving into her terrific collection of historical cookbooks, including her latest work: Menus from History: Historic Meals and Recipes for Every Day of the Year. I [...]
Deutschland Down Under
Posted in Food History, Traditional Foodways, Travel, tagged australian food history, German-Australian food, Hahndorf on April 22, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Traveling in Australia one expects Vegemite, or a burger “with the lot” which includes, depending upon whom you ask, pickled beets, a fried egg, and a slice of fresh pineapple. But a lunch of homemade mettwurst and sauerkraut, washed down with rich German beer, and finishing off with a nice slice of apple struesel? That’s [...]
Vegemite: Australian for “Yummy”
Posted in Food History, Food as Anthropology, Ingredients, Traditional Foodways, Travel, tagged Australian Food, australian food history, how to eat vegemite, vegemite on April 19, 2010 | 6 Comments »
When visiting Australia it is impossible not to encounter Vegemite, that mysterious black goop which many Aussies spread on their toast every morning and hold in a special place in their hearts. As a recent commercial attests, “Australian made….internationally misunderstood.” I can report that while it looks like sludge left over from a secret experiment [...]
