Starters Archives - Page 9 of 10 - Retro Food For Modern Times

Category: Starters

13
May
2013

Retro Food For Modern Times – Not Eating My Way To Love and Beauty

categories: Carrot, Celery, Desserts, Dip, Eggplant, Mocktails, Soup

Can you believe I’ve been doing this for nearly a year?

And as the anniversary approaches, I’ve been thinking about how to celebrate. Somehow my normal process of pulling one of the many vintage cookbooks from the pile under my bed at random doesn’t seem quite joyful enough. Primarily because this invariably involves me knocking the pile over, uttering some sustained invective as I pile it all back up then muttering “I really should Hoover under there one day”. That is not the stuff of celebration!

I had planned to sift through the pile to find something special. However, when I found “Eat your Way To Love and Beauty” by Swami Sarasvati in my local charity shop I thought I had found my birthday book! Who doesn’t want to be loved and beautiful? Especially on their birthday? And, why not eat my way there? It beats getting there by the other “e” word. You know, the one we try very hard not to mention here. Hint: it rhymes with…mexercising. Yes, I know that’s not a word. If you’re so smart, you try coming up with a word that rhymes with exercising. Anyway, it’s obviously working for The Swami. She’s cute. And limber!

Eat For Love and Beauty 001

The caption to this photo says

“Swami Sarasvati, her youth and vitality living proof of her cooking, exercises among her health dishes”

Please note: Retro Food For Modern Times in no way condones its readers exercising among their health dishes. Nor will I bear any responsibility for damages incurred if you decide to do so. To put it bluntly, if you end up with a pineapple up your clacker by engaging in this you’re on your own. And be aware that hospital staff will mock you behind your back. “Of course you slipped over whilst exercising among your health dishes… that’s what all the deviants say.” You have been warned.

Swami Sarasvati was a tv icon on Australia in the 1970’s, where she taught a generation of early morning tv watchers the art of yoga and the delights of a vegetarian lifestyle. I wish she was on the telly now. I would totally watch her. Well, I probably wouldn’t get up that early but I would record her shows, meaning to get around to doing some sun salutations one day…right after I vacuum under that bed! She also still runs a yoga retreat in New South Wales. It is currently ranked the number one hotel in Kenthurst on Trip Advisor. That it is the only hotel in town is by the by.

Speaking as someone who has been on a yoga retreat, the Swami’s looks pretty good. I had a miserable time the last one I was on. It was freezing and in lieu of heating, my room came equipped with a massive spider. I thought it would be not in keeping with the yoga/vegan/hippie vibe of the place to beat the ugly fucker to death with my shoe. This meant I was too scared to sleep for the entire time I was there in case, during my slumber, the spider decided to break our unspoken entente cordiale to crawl into my hair or lay eggs in my face.

You will be disappointed, though if you click through the link. Eat Your Way To Love and Beauty is no longer on the list of the Swami’s books available for purchase. We’re about to find out why.

Some of the sensibilities of the book feel very modern. Take for instance the Swami’s response to the question:

“What is healthy food?”

“It is food as fresh as possible and eaten as soon as possible. Refining, preserving, canning or colouring food should be avoided wherever possible”

That doesn’t last long…we descend into the land of the loony almost immediately.

Q – “How can food make me more loving?”

“A well nourished woman will have the strength to be patient and understanding and loving even when life seems impossible. Your children won’t turn to drugs”.

Q – “My Husband won’t eat health foods”

“Girls, to keep your marriage fresh and exciting, you must keep yourself and your husband youthful and vital….there are enough tangy gourmet health dishes in this book to tempt your husband. Before long he will be better at business and sport.

You know what Swami? You had me at love and beauty…let’s not bring my husband and non-existent children into it.

But despite all this…despite dooming Mark to bankruptcy and failure on the sporting field (by which I mean his PS3 breaking) and the poor dogs to having to sell themselves to strangers for Schmackos…I will not be celebrating this birthday by eating my way to love and beauty. Eating for hatred and ugliness has got me thus far, I guess I can continue for another week or so!

I have made a few recipes from “Eat Your Way To Love And Beauty” being a celery soup, an eggplant bhurta and a carrot halva.

Here they are:

Celery Soup

Celery Soup 001

Eggplant Bhurta

eggplant bhurta 001

Carrot Halva

Carrot Halva recipe 001

These all tasted ok. Actually, the carrot halva was really good once I added a bucketload of brown sugar – kind of like carrot cake without the cake. And the eggplant was also pretty good. The celery soup was average. There was nothing wrong with any of them. They were just a bit drab. Look at them. They’re not screaming party are they? They look, earnest, well-meaning, brown. The food version of Coldplay. Worthy but kind of boring…

Which brings me to the second reason, we will not be celebrating Retro Food For Modern Times first birthday by eating our way to love and beauty.

Here is a the Swami’s recipe for a Gimlet:

Lime Gimlet

Now, for those of you who are not au fait with the gimlet, it is defined by the fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia, as:

“A cocktail made of gin and lime juice”

Two ingredients. One of which is missing from the Swami’s recipe.

Never mind, I thought, the next recipe is called Singapore Gin. Maybe I’ll make that as my birthday cocktail.

Singapore Gin

Or maybe I wont…we like our booze here at Retro Food For Modern Times, celebrating anything without booze is anathema.

No wonder this book isn’t for sale anymore, it was probably banned for false advertising. I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to call a cocktail Singapore “Gin” when it contains not the slightest whiff of a juniper berry!

Next week we’ll party like it’s 1969. I won’t give too much away but there will be gin and there will be gelatine; if I can get sufficiently organised there maybe something else starting with a “g” to make up a full three course meal…cocktail and dessert count as 2 courses don’t they?

I’ll be spending my week frantically trying to think of that third course…

Grapes?

Grapefruit?

Gorgonzola?

Have a fabulous week whatever you do!

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22
Apr
2013

Retro Food For Modern Times – Liptauer: Lunch, Lunacy and Death By Cheese

categories: 1970's food, Cheese, Cottage Cheese, Dip

Let’s face it, cottage cheese exists for one reason and one reason only. I call it “The Posts” as in post-Christmas, post-New Year, post holidays, birthdays, Easter, you get my drift. Pretty much post anything that is fun (i.e. involves large volumes of eating and drinking). Mondays feature strongly.

The symptoms of The Posts are a glance in the mirror that is quickly averted, followed by a groan of “I really need to go on a diet”. The effect of The Posts is a lightening of the wallet as you race down to the supermarket and fill your trolley with carrots, celery and the aforementioned cottage cheese. Which will be thrown into the rubbish about three months past its use by date. Sometimes, it may have even been opened. It’s not so much the lack of taste it’s that curdy texture which is just…ewwww….And yet, I keep buying it.

I have, in the past, resorted to other methods of getting rid of The Posts. One such event saw me popping down to the local health food shop to pick up some magic thinness bullets a.k.a diet pills. Of course, they were hidden so I had to ask the weightlifter type who was stacking shelves where I might find them.

He was one of those muscle-bound creatures with prominent veins, a shaved head and a tattoo on his neck. I have nothing against tattoos in general. I have one myself. Neck tattoos, however, are generally skanky. No one looks good with a neck tattoo. Except maybe George Clooney in from Dusk til Dawn. His was kind of hot.

Clooney

Most other people look like trailer trash or like they just got out of prison.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT DIET PILLS FOR?” the possible ex-convict snarled back at me. And he didn’t ask it in a “Because you’re so svelte you don’t need them” tone either. He started off belligerent. And it went downhill from there.

Why do you think I want diet pills, idiot? Because I read on the internet that if I shoved them up my arse the alien rectal probes couldn’t get me? What kind stupid question is that? It’s the equivalent of asking an adolescent boy why he’s buying condoms. There is pretty much only one reason. To be asked to explain that reason out loud, in a crowded shop, is just humiliating. Actually, I take that back. It’s worse than questioning a boy buying condoms. At least in that instance he could snap back “To fuck your mother.” I had nothing.

Prisoner 845 had one volume. Annoyingly loud. “DIET PILLS DON”T WORK”

You really don’t understand the nature of retail do you Sunshine? It’s probably why you got sent to prison in the first place. So, here’s how it should work:

I ask for diet pills.
You give them to me.
I give you money. (That bit’s important. It’s probably the part you forgot last time)
I leave happy.
Your shop stays in business

“YOU DONT NEED DIET PILLS. YOU NEED TO EXERCISE”

Really? I never realised that steroids made you stupid as well as shrinking your penis. If I was that way inclined I wouldn’t be here asking for diet pills would I? I’d be out…skipping… or whatever it is that people do when they exercise.

I didn’t say that.

He was big. And mean looking. And one of the veins in his neck was starting to throb alarmingly. I started to back away from him because he was quite clearly suffering from some sort of ‘roid rage. I didn‘t even understand why he was there. Health food shops should be run by aging hippies not steroid abusing, serial killers.

Eventually I was backed into a shelf of herbal tea. He then leant over me and said in the most threatening voice I have ever heard. “YOU EAT DAIRY DON’T YOU?”

Yes I do and whilst we’re on the subject of dietary habits you should probably lay off the red meat. There’s a box of Sleepytime Tea digging into my left shoulder. Maybe you should try a cup.

I didn’t say that either.

Liptaur Ingredients

He then leant down so he was about a centimetre away from my face. He was all red and his eyes were bulging out; he looked like he might be about to have some sort of apoplexy. He was also one of those people who spit when they talk and he was so close it was getting all over my face which was….I give up…there are no words to describe how utterly, utterly repulsive that was.

And then, as I was trying to surreptitiously wipe my face he bellowed (and spat) at me:

“CHEESE… IS… DEATH.”

Nothing in my life had prepared me on how to deal with a spitting neck-tattooed lunatic in my face and screaming about how dairy products would kill me. I was also slightly more concerned about my impending death at the hands of the psychopath in front of me than any damage a camembert could inflict. So, I did what I usually do when I don’t know whether to shit or go blind. I started to giggle. Then I ran. As fast as my chubby little legs could carry me. All the way down the street to the next health food shop where a lovely aging hippy had absolutely no qualms about selling me some piece of crap, expensive diet pills that didn’t work.

Liptaur Recipe 001

An easier way to get rid of The Posts and to thus avoid health food shop sociopaths would be to make Mary Meredith’s recipe for Liptauer (or as she calls it Liptaur).

This was good. Really good. Both as a dip and as a healthy lunch.

However, I don’t understand the point of mixing cottage cheese and butter. Next time I make it I’ll use a low-fat cream cheese instead. This will also remove the cottage cheese curdiness which was the only downside of the recipe.

Mary Meredith mentions that the Liptauer is also really good with baked potatoes. I wasn’t about to bake a potato as we were having bangers and mash for dinner. Hang on…potato is potato right? Should I? Dare I? I’ve put cheese, chives and mustard into mash before – maybe not all at the same time but they all worked. Anchovies are mostly salt. What could go wrong?

Yeah, ok, you can all stop facepalming.

The gherkin. The gherkin could go wrong. I know that….

Now.

I put it down to temporary insanity caused by finding a delicious use for cottage cheese.

Here is a picture of the Liptauer mash. Don’t try this at home. It was revolting.

So, I ask you. Is cheese death?

And if so, outside of the Liptauer Mash debacle of 2013, could there be a better way to go?

Have a great week!
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25
Mar
2013

Retro Food For Modern Times: Angels, Devils and Cheesy Devils on Horseback

categories: 1970's food, Bacon, Goat's Cheese, Hors D'oeuvres, Oysters, Prunes

No, it’s not my review of the new Dan Brown blockbuster, it’s bacon! Lovely, crispy, salty bacon wrapped around…stuff that isn’t bacon.

Angels, Devils and Cheesy Devils on Horseback

I love bacon even though it was my undoing. I was a very happy vegetarian for two years in high school. If my mother is reading this, right about now, she will be having a little snicker to herself and muttering “Huh…The only vegetarian in the world who didn’t eat vegetables.” And there is a grain of truth in that. I did spend two years eating not much more than tomato and cheese sandwiches and the occasional omelette.

Until I was brought down by bacon.

(Cue dramatic music…wow, this could be turning into a Dan Brown novel).

Angels on Horseback (picture from The Party Cookbook).

I used to have tennis lessons, very early, every Sunday morning. The family that lived next door to the tennis courts would, without fail, have a fry up for breakfast every week. The smell of bacon would drift out over the tennis court in a haze of mouth-watering deliciousness. “Eat me, eat me, ” it taunted.

Over weeks of this, bacon came to represent so much more than a tasty breakfast dish, it became a symbol of a better life. The kind of life where, on Sunday mornings, people had leisurely cooked breakfasts and listened to Mozart and spoke French whilst doing the Sunday crossword in less than twenty minutes. It represented a glamour and sophistication utterly removed from my reality of huffing and puffing around a glorified field, still half asleep, wearing a polyester track suit that did not so much keep the cold out as keep the sweat in and having someone repeatedly yelling at me to hit a damn ball over a stupid net. I began to yearn for bacon in the same way I yearned for Paris and champagne and pink Sobranie cigarettes in one of those long cigarette holders like Audrey Hepburn’s in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

I was a weird child.

Angels on Horseback - Ingredients — Angels on Horseback – Ingredients

I have no idea whether the neighbours were the glamorous types I imagined them to be or a bunch of suburban lard-arses who are now appearing on The Biggest Loser so that their fat-clogged arteries can be given a second lease of life. I suspect the latter. If so, can I suggest that the producers of the show make them play tennis. At seven. On a Sunday morning. In winter. I’ll be lurking somewhere near by with a portable grill and a couple of rashers. Let’s see how they like it.

Anyway, I lasted about three months before I caved. One cold wintry morning I came home from said lesson. Mum asked if I would like my tomato and cheese sandwich plain or toasted.

“I want bacon” I snapped in the snotty way only a 16-year-old can. Then I stomped upstairs to my room and listened to The Smiths until mum called me back downstairs for a plate of lovely, lovely life-affirming B & E.

History lesson over. And that’s about all the history I can give you because the reasons oysters are linked with angels, prunes with devils and either wrapped in bacon is termed “on horseback” are lost in time. Maybe that could be the subject of the next Dan Brown… an obscure culinary term could lead Robert Langdon on a search that reveals the long hidden conspiracy behind whether Elvis really did die on his toilet. (If you’re reading this Brown, back off now. I know what you’re like. The Fried-Peanut-Butter and Bacon-Sandwich Code is mine.)

Inspired by the Angels on Horseback recipe in The Party Cookbook I recently went on a bacon rampage and made three versions of this classic hors d’œuvre.

Angels on horseback recipe 001

If you like it spicy, adding a dash of tabasco sauce to the Angels only makes them more delicious!

For Devils on Horseback, substitute Prunes for the Oysters above and leave out the paprika.

Devils on Horseback and Cheesy Devils on Horseback - Ingredients — Devils on Horseback and Cheesy Devils on Horseback – Ingredients

For Cheesy Devils, stuff the prunes with Goat’s Cheese before wrapping in the bacon.

Some people like to serve their Devils on Horseback with Mango Chutney. I’m not a big fan but I did have some Kashmiri Date Chutney in the fridge and this was quite nice as a dip for the Cheesy Devils.

These were all delicious and I would make them all again. In order my preference was Angels on Horseback, Cheesy Devils, then Devils on Horseback but I would not discount any of them.

I no longer desire the Sobranies, but Angels on Horseback with a Glass of champagne and the Sunday Cryptic crossword? C’est parfait!

Have a great week!
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18
Mar
2013

Retro Food For Modern Times Invites You To The Worst Cocktail Party Ever

categories: 1970's food, Books, Canapes, Vintage Cookbooks

I have a bone to pick with Louis Ferguson who wrote the Cocktail Party Section of the The Party Cookbook.

Let’s get one thing clear Louis. A cocktail party is called a cocktail party for one reason, and one reason only. And that is the presence of cocktails. So, by rights, given that your chapter contains absolutely no recipe for, or indeed barely a reference to, these alcoholic delights, it hardly warrants the title.

Whilst I’m on the subject – for any workplaces that happen to be reading? Wine and beer are not cocktails. Stop calling events where these beverages are served cocktail parties. It’s annoying and pretentious. Alternatively, keep the name and actually serve cocktails.

That I am even bothering to talking about Louis is because I wanted another chance to use this delight of 1970’s food photography.

Pinapple Prawn and Parsley Pot — Pineapple, Prawn and Parsley Pot

Unfortunately, Louis lets us down here too. In addition to not having any cocktail recipes he also does not offer any details on how to construct the Zig Zag Pineapple, Prawn and Parsley Pot.

What we are given, ad nauseam are Louis’ instructions for canapés – some of which you can see in the photo.

These include:

Spread a slice of toast with softened cream cheese. Cover the entire surface with drained sweet corn kernels. Press well onto the cheese. Cut into diamond shapes and garnish with small diamonds of red capsicum.
Spread a slice of toast with softened cream cheese. Cover with finely chopped red and green capsicum. Cut into diamonds with a wet knife.
Cut buttered toast into rounds with a one inch cutter. Cut thin slices of salami the same size. Place onto croûtes and garnish with three peas held in place by a dab of French mustard.
Cut buttered toast into rounds with a one inch cutter. Cut thin slices of beetroot the same size. Place onto croutes and garnish with halved cocktail onions

I’m sensing some trends here.. Oh, ok, here we go, something different…

Cut buttered bread into small crescents. Cut crescents from slices of mortadella sausage and place them on the croûtes. Garnish with “zig zags” of creamed butter.

Crescents and zig zags. Just when you thought the canapé could not get any better Louis gives us crescents and zig zags. Genius.

However this genius was short-lived. I suspect that by the bottom of the second page of canapé suggestions, Louis was pretty much phoning it in vis a vis:

Spread a slice of toast with mustard butter. Cut into rectangles and cover with several thin slices of cooked frankfurter sausage,

There’s no love in that suggestion. Cold frankfurters on cold toast is not the offering of a man passionate about his craft. It’s the offering of a man who has lost the will to live.

Louis also suggests that once you have assembled your bread-in-a-shape + protein + garnish that you then coat the entire combination in either aspic or a mixture of gelatine and chicken stock. He doesn’t actually explain why. I suspect it has something to do with making his readers and their cocktail party guests as miserable and life-loathing as himself.

Apparently, no booze, cold frankfurters, peas cemented to salami with mustard and a beetroot and pickled onion combo weren’t bad enough. Chicken-flavoured gelatine also needed be added into the mix. Yecchh!

The lack of cocktails has given me a thirst, I’m off to hunt down a tipple (or two) and work on the party food for next week’s post.

Hint…it contains bacon. Lots and lots of lovely bacon.

Have a great week!

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12
Mar
2013

Retro Food For Modern Times: Lessons Learned From Masterchef and Two Ways with Oysters

categories: Bananas, Lemon, Oysters, Starters, Swiss Cheese, Tabasco, Worchestershire Sauce

“It’s a brave man who first ate an oyster”

Jonathan Swift

I had a dilemma this week. I was reading “The Party Cookbook” and found a recipe for a little dish called Osborne Oysters. Now, it just so happened that with the half dozen oysters we buy as a little treat each Saturday, I had all the ingredients on hand to make this dish.

But, let’s face it. Oysters aren’t cheap. And this recipe consisted of a few ingredients that I would never have put together – what if it tasted as bad as it sounded? On the other hand, what if it turned out to be a magical combination that would have the likes of Heston Blumenthal lamenting “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Just to be clear on what I was up against, here are the ingredients for Osborne Oysters:

No, you don’t need to adjust your screen….that is an oyster, a banana and some Jarlsberg. Now you see my dilemma? My gut instinct is that those are three things that should never even be seen together (which is why one lives on the land, one in the sea and one on a tree) let alone combined into a dish. I was still torn though, a little Heston Blumenthal devil on my shoulder was urging me to do it. Then a tiny angel looking suspiciously like Marco Pierre White jogged my memory of a more recent seafood – banana melange.

Early in the current series of Masterchef: The Professionals, one of the candidates made a name for himself by serving Marco Pierre White a fish stew with a banana flavoured aioli.

That name was buffoon.

Marco described it as one of the worst things he had eaten. Ever.

So the big question. Did I make and eat Osborne Oysters?

Not on your life. I listened to my inner MPW and ate those oysters in my preferred fashion…with lemon, Worchestershire sauce and Tabasco. And they were delicious!

My preferred Oyster mix (although I don’t usually measure it out) is:

½ teaspoon lemon juice

3 drops Worchestershire sauce

1 drop Tabasco

Et Voila…down the hatch!

Oysters My Way - Good to Go — Oysters My Way – Good to Go

I always follow this up with some bread and butter. I have no idea why but Oysters make bread and butter taste even better than normal!

For anyone ~~more stupid~~ braver than me…here is the recipe for Osborne Oysters:

Osborne Oysters Recipe

For everyone else, if you take one thing away from this week’s post it’s to always listen to your inner Marco.

Enjoy your week.

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