Food Meme

I got this from Emily's blog http://emilybarton.blogspot.com/2008/03/its-another-two-meme-day.html
at Telecommuter Talk:

Food Meme:
List five food facts about yourself. (Actually this was part of a two-part meme, but since I am making dinner, I only have time for one......I picked the easy one!)

1. I collect cookbooks. My oldest cookbook recreates recipes from the Medieval Ages. However, I lent it to a friend-who-is-barely-a-friend-because-she-still-has-many-of-my-books SEVEN years ago, and yes, she still hasn't returned it. So I can't quite count it in my library, and I haven't seen it since to replace. It was a fabulous book explaining how and what they cooked in the Middle Ages, what utensils they had, the kitchen set-up, and the different kinds of food you'd find at different levels of society. The next oldest book I have is Take a Buttocke of Beefe by Verity Isitt, which I found in a used book store in Kingston. It has over 80 seventeenth century recipes, again with modern equivalents. These are both for historical research for my writing, and for food cookery and because I love recipes. My sister once asked if I actually read the cookbooks. Yes! I read them from end to end, the first time, and pick out recipes I want to try. Lately, I have learned to write in the cookbooks - it was Nigella Lawson who gave me this idea. She said in one of her cookbooks that she had inherited one from her grandmother, that had notes written by her grandmother in the margins, changing recipes, saying what works and what didn't. She felt like her grandmother was in the kitchen with her, leaving her notes on how to cook, and what she did. Like a conversation. I loved the idea. Since I am always altering recipes anyway, I thought this would be a great gift someday for my daughter (or grandchildren), if any of them end up cooking. Plus, I can remember what I did that worked so well, next time I come to the recipe! It works fabulously (is this a word? can I invent it?) now. I can recreate what I did, and see what recipes I really do use often.

2. I can't eat onions or eggplant. This is one major reason I ended up tampering with recipes in the first place. Raw onions upset my stomach, and eggplant makes me throw up. So, I substitute leeks for onions (more delicate flavor, and cousin to onion) which I can eat very happily. And I avoid anything with eggplant. This rules out vegetarian lasagna, which otherwise always looks to delicious!

3. I am not a vegetarian. I tried, seriously, about15 years ago. I ended up missing meat too much. I'm a carnivore! I like the texture and taste! However, I hate the current farming practices of major meat production, so I try to get hormone and antibiotic free meat if not organic meat, whenever possible. I also like that when we eat organic meat, I know the animals have been well-treated and fed properly.

4. My house has been 70% organic in food and cleaning products for 21 years now. I'm lucky in that Ottawa has several very good organic grocery stores, as well as the major grocery chains are now carrying organic lines of food. I buy as many things organically as we can afford. My house has been cleaned with organic cleaners since then because smells bother my nose - and I don't like chemical cleaners. Most of our vegetables, fruit, and staples are organic, or failing that, locally grown (we have a wonderful farmer's market in the summer) and whole grain. I strongly believe that where I spend my money does count, and I am so against chemicals use, and now the sterile corn and soy crops which are truly frightening. Not to get into a rant here, but why do we think chemicals and hormones in our food won't end up in our bodies (where we store them) and end up in the earth, damaging the soil's recovery, and in the food chain itself? I can't stop the big food chains and mass-farming (and it's not the farmers, its the food industry itself and everyone involved in creating mass food production using little-understood chemicals that is the problem) but I can try to use my money where it counts. I just like the taste, colour, texture of organic food better. And I like knowing that I chose food that was grown with the nurturing of the earth in mind.

5. I am a chocoholic. I LOVE chocolate. Dark chocolate. If I buy a recipe book, chances are it has a chocolate recipe I want to try! One of my favorite chocolate recipes to make is Gooey Chocolate Puddings from Nigella Lawson's How to Eat cookbook. Made with dark chocolate, it is like a lava cake, and warm from the oven, is so-o-o delicious with cream.......m-m-m......

I still haven't figured out how to tag yet, so please, do this meme and drop me a line that you did, and I will come read it. Happy eating while reading!!!