Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Tomatoes and Milk
In Ford Madox Ford's book on Joseph Conrad - like The Soul of London, a joy - the latter finds himself in a situation where he only has tomatoes to eat and milk to drink. Is this the most disgusting food combination imaginable, worse even that the cod in chocolate that crops up in some Mike Leigh film? Others have struggled to unite these two ingredients with the aid of soup as catalyst and I can see their point, but, in truth, I fear it cannot be done. Perhaps the Higgs Boson will provide the solution to this conundrum, as it will, I am assured, to everything else.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
I once lived for a while on sardines (tinned) and milk (longlife), washing down the one with the other and mopping up the remains with the cheapest bread rolls (white) available - then lighting up one of the old Yugoslavia's finest cigarettes (3 old pence for 20?). I never felt fitter in my life. But I was young.
ReplyDeleteAbout the same time, I believe, I would eat McVitie's chocolate digestives and Lancashire cheese for breakfast. Or was it Wensleydale?
ReplyDeleteknew a chap, a Viking & fundamentalist Xian actually, who lived off raw sugar. Whenever he'd get hungry, bingo, another handful of sugar from the bag, problem solved. He was a Protestant.
ReplyDeleteIs he still around? Unlikely I would have thought.
ReplyDeleteDisturbingly, he enjoyed excellent health. He only tried the sugar diet for a few weeks, then announced sepulchrally "I have grown weary of raw sugar" and supplemented this with mashed potato, liquorice & Snickers bars. He chose Snickers because he believed the nuts contained valuable protein - he didn't enjoy them. He claimed to enjoy liquorice and mashed potato, but i believe he felt that Calvin's incomprehensible God would - if pushed - have licenced him to subsist on mashed potato & liquorice, anything else being damnable Popery.
ReplyDeleteHe's also a chemist and knows how to blow shit up with bunsen.
now whatever happened to lateral thinking? juice the tomatoes and make cheese from the milk...
ReplyDeleteIf you want to develop an appreciation for milk and tomatoes, try a diet of chocolate and red wine together for a time. Disgusting, but healthy, a combination that surely would win the blessing of elberry's pal's deity.
ReplyDeleteIn the past I've substituted a cup of milk to a can of Campbell's tomato soup instead of water with no ill effects.
ReplyDeleteI'm currently doing the Atkins diet, which translates for me to a hamburger patty grilled on my George Foreman grill, with sides of cheese and peanut butter. Dull, but effective. It's hard to find a variety of protein foodstuffs that don't contain massive quantities of fat. Breakfast is a protein powder shake, with a side of fiber.
Elephant testicles & gin.
ReplyDeleteChocolate is truly an international food, isn't it? I'm sure there are places in the world where not cod but chihuahua in chocolate sauce would go down a storm. And no matter how awful the combo, a TV chef will have popped up somewhere saying that it's "delicious" and "full of flavour".
ReplyDeleteGreat to see Conrad mentioned. Being lashed to the wheel of a plunging square-rigger during a typhoon in the South China sea, with nothing more than a raw seagull to chew on, sure beats funny hats and wizards.
Oh, dairy and tomatoes definitely go together. Here's a delicious summer soup (I like to cook), best served with grilled cheese sandwiches (get fresh bread and some really good cheddar -- and in England it will be easy):
ReplyDeleteTomato Bisque with Cumin
You need fresh tomatoes (2 cups); 2 leeks; some ground cumin (about a tablespoon); an onion and a celery stalk; a carrot; virgin olive oil; parsley, thyme, basil, bay leaf; a clove of roasted garlic; 2.5 cups of chicken broth; 1/2 cup of creme fraiche.
Put the cumin in a small pan and heat it until you can smell it -- a delightful nutty odor. Put it aside.
Tie up the herbs and one leek, also set aside.
Put the rest of the veggies in a skillet with the olive oil; cook on a medium-low heat until they're soft (5 minutes or so). Put the cumin on 'em and cook a bit more.
Raise the heat to full medium and add the tomatoes. They'll release their juices in the heat and when they do, put in the broth, the garlic, the herb bundle and 1/4 cup of uncooked rice (oops -- forgot the rice above, but you need it for texture of the soup). Simmer until the rice is soft -- about 15 minutes.
Let it cool a bit and toss out the bundle of herbs. Stick it in the blender in batches and puree it, then fold in creme fraiche (or sour cream for you non-Frenchies). Season it with salt & pepper and serve it with grilled cheese.
This soup rocks and I know 'cause I've made it for dinner parties. The cumin scent is the bomb.
This soup rocks
ReplyDeleteThe cumin scent is the bomb.
I don't understand this language at all. I've never heard of soup rocks & I'm completely flummoxed by cumin scent being any kind of bomb, never mind "the bomb". Perhaps you meant to write, "mustard gas is the bomb."
Sorry, Andrew: American slang. Translation: It's simply BRILL!
ReplyDeleteGood grief, this blog is turning into some kind of lifestyle mag. I may start a recipe of the day. Any original thoughts on halibut, my favourite fish?
ReplyDeleteYes, substitute salmon for it whenever you can.
ReplyDeleteSalmon! Yuk!
ReplyDeletehaliburt? isn't that just a front for the Cheney/Bush junta?
ReplyDeletei smell fascism.
Oh no, f*ck, that's my toast burning!
Substitute beef for salmon and halibut.
ReplyDelete