Food news antipasto

August 20, 2023 by
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As if people in the US didn’t have enough to worry about with oppressive heat in multiple locations, hurricanes AND an earthquake in California, and tornados in the South and Midwest, now we have to be careful about foamy, exploding watermelons. What’s next, locusts?!

If you are the kind of person who will take a chance on a foamy watermelon, you might be part of a rebel alliance. I am not talking about Star Wars, but rather about home canning. A growing number of people have become so-called ‘rebel canners’, thumbing their noses at official recommendations and using recipes and techniques that fall outside of normal safety guidelines. Rebel canners say they are not doing anything unsafe, but most food experts disagree.

Although Jamie Oliver recently opened a new London restaurant called Jamie Oliver Catherine Street, don’t expect it to branch out into a chain. Oliver does not plan to create another casual dining brand in the UK due to the “huge pressure” on restaurants, according to a chief executive of Oliver’s company, Kevin Styles. He said the launch of the new eatery would not be the start of a “30-40 site restaurant chain”. Even though a new chain is not in the works, it looks like the company is doing well, as Jamie and Jools paid themselves nearly £7m in dividends in 2022.

Who doesn’t like a “secret” sale? The folks at Food and Wine recently found an obscure part of the Williams-Sonoma website where select All-Clad cookware is being sold at discounted prices. The page is titled “Cookware – Commercial Grade” and features mainly All-Clad pieces with a few Hestan pans thrown into the mix.

Bee Wilson’s new book (and first book with recipes), The Secret of Cooking, is out later this month in the UK, and you can read an excerpt from it at The Guardian in which Bee shares “the recipes that rekindled my appetite for life.” As usual, those of us in the US get a less attractive cover when the book is released stateside in September.

I feel attacked by a recent article in Good Food that examined the nutritional pitfalls lurking in my morning latte. The good news is that coffee seems to offer heath benefits, but adding a lot of milk (either cow’s milk or plant-based alternatives) to make that coffee a latte or flat white can be an issue if you are consuming multiple of these every day. I usually only have one, but sometimes I just need a little something extra – perhaps I should opt for plain espresso for the second round.

Category: Antipasto
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4 Comments

  • veronicafrance  on  August 21, 2023

    In Europe it’s totally normal not to process jams and chutneys, just pot and seal in sterilised jars when hot, having ensured the correct proportion of sugar, for jam, and acid, for chutney. But I would not bypass sterilising for less acidic/sugary foods.

  • breakthroughc  on  August 22, 2023

    I’m in the US and am almost 60. I learned to can in my early twenties. The official instructions on jam back then was the inversion method for sealing jam. You filled a jar with hot jam and put the seal on, then put the jar upside down for 10 minutes. You flipped the jars upright after the 10 minutes. They always sealed and no one got sick. I do water bath jam now. While I don’t consider myself a rebel canner and think canning butter is pretty crazy, I do play a little loose with some of the guidelines. I never hot pack pickles for example. I think our grandmothers would roll their eyes at the official guidelines of today.

  • whitewoods  on  August 22, 2023

    I hadn’t heard about exploding watermelons before, but the part about the rebel canners reminded me of the previous blog entry, “Moldy jam causes a stir at Sqirl”, with Jessica Koslow and her low-sugar moldy jam at the restaurant. I’ve never done any canning myself–so I’m not qualified really to offer an opinion. In general, though, guidelines are meant to be guidelines–people have to do what works for them. I do think sometimes people get hung up on guidelines, as though they are the rule of law. But thanks for all of the food news, Darcie.

  • sayeater  on  August 22, 2023

    I taught myself to can from the Ball Blue Book of Canning book and have always followed tested canning recipes. That being said I’ve been a member of a rebel canning Facebook group for years, it’s good for canning ideas, equipment recommendations and mostly entertainment, they’re a interesting and surprisingly diverse bunch.

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