Food news antipasto

It’s easy to find chefs who will wax poetic about the best meal they’ve ever eaten. They will go on about the perfect ingredients, skillful presentation, or exemplary service and atmosphere. What is not often discussed is their worst food experience. Several of Australia’s best chefs recently dished on that concept, telling Gourmet Traveller about the worst food they have ever eaten. The answers range from pig’s testicles to durian mochi.

Spoiler alert: the following is a discussion of the most recent GBBO episode. The looks on Paul and Prue’s faces as they came out to judge the technical challenge, when contestants were asked to create maids of honour tarts, was priceless. I can’t remember a technical where everyone did so poorly. The tarts were rather complex, which made me (and I suspect many others) look at recipes for them to see if I could recreate one. I did not try it yet, but Emma Beddington of The Guardian did. Her results were…let’s just say interesting.

Keeping on the GBBO theme, Brian Moylan thinks that it’s time to retire the coveted Paul Hollywood handshake. Moylan makes the argument that the gesture “it represents an inflection point for the series”, where Hollywood is no longer tempered by Mary Berry and is allowed to “run roughshod over everything, smearing the judging with his own puffed-chest bravado.” Let the arguments commence.

This week’s cooking tip comes to us from a farmer in Minnesota. Even if you love fresh corn, you probably do not like the process of cutting the kernels off the ears. One clever guy has created a rig that makes shelling a piece of cake – almost literally. He uses an angel food cake pan to get the job done.

Apparently the answer to ‘is there anything people won’t make into a ‘sexy’ Halloween costume?’ is no. This year you can go to your Halloween party dressed as a Sexy Beyond Burger, complete with a “plant-based” flag hat and “Not Grade A Certified” stamped on the rear. You can’t make this stuff up.

Photo of Maids of honour tarts from Canadian House & Home by Victoria Glass