Food news antipasto

May 6, 2024 by
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Are you brand loyal or do you seek out bargains with off-brand items? If the latter, you might want to check out Walmart’s latest foray into upscale store-label products. The brand is named Bettergoods and is targeted at younger shoppers who want chef-quality items at affordable prices. Walmart hopes to roll out 300 items by autumn including “frozen foods, dairy items, snacks, beverages, pastas, soups, coffee and chocolate.” Bettergoods has three main categories – plant-based options, items aimed toward dietary restrictions such as gluten-free, and what they are dubbing “culinary experiences.” The costs of the products range from $2 to $15 USD.

The Happy Foodie (the culinary website of Penguin Books UK) just announced a new baking series from cookbook author Nicola Lamb called Baking Basics. In the inaugural post, Lamb teaches readers how to make the perfect Victoria sponge, starting by explaining what each ingredient in the recipe contributes to a cake. After diving into the properties of eggs, sugar, flour, butter, leavening, and additional ingredients, Lamb shares the recipes for her Roasted strawberry Victoria sponge and Miso walnut double-thick chocolate-chip cookies from her new book Sift: The Elements of Great Baking in the referenced article and we have added those links to the index. Please note that the US edition of Sift will be published in November of this year.

What is the best way to use and store spices? That’s the question recently put to Yotam Ottolenghi, and as you would expect, he has plenty to say about the topic. Even though he’s a chef, at home he buys in small quantities, preferring whole spices to pre-ground options. After providing additional advice, Ottolenghi recommended a book to dive deeper into the subject: The Spice Companion: A Guide to the World of Spices by Lior Lev Sercarz.

As humans consider putting a permanent station on the moon and using it for research and as a launch pad for deeper space travel, thinking about food is a huge part of the equation as Saveur Magazine explains. While the International Space Station (ISS) gets regular food deliveries, it won’t be practical to do that for a base on the moon or if we plan to get to Mars, which would be a five-year journey. The article discusses what strategies NASA is contemplating and the challenges astronauts face when eating in space.

The question of who owns a recipe is often not cut-and-dried, especially because one cannot copyright or trademark it. A feud between chefs – each claiming a dish as their own – popped up recently in Season 21 of Top Chef. A dish of scallop chou farci helped contestant Danny Garcia win an elimination challenge, but his former boss, Victoria Blamey, says he stole it from her. “The dish was created while I opened Mena by me, between 2021-2022,” Blamey posted on Instagram Stories this week. “To have someone copy the exact same dish and win Top Chef is not only a lack of moral and professionalism but a sad demonstration how this person has no creative guts of his own. Surprise that @bravotopchef doesn’t do their research better.” However, in a 2022 interview, Blamey discussed the collaborative approach used in creating the dish, making the issue less clear-cut than it might seem.

Category: Antipasto
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7 Comments

  • Indio32  on  May 6, 2024

    Sift is a great book…. followed the link to be met with 4 versions. Is there anyway to label which version is which as its mighty confusing otherwise.

    Have always been hugely sceptical about large retailers and there supposedly premium products/brands. It’s usually a quality lift of 20% but a price hike of 50%. Uk supermarket ‘Taste the difference’ & ‘Finest’ et. al. are a case in point.

    • Jenny  on  May 6, 2024

      You followed the author’s link and up came the four versions of the book UK Hardcover and Ebook published 5/2024 – yellow covers and US Hardcover and Ebook publishing 11/2024 – pink covers. The US editions will be linked to the UK master in November. They are clearly labeled – UK Hardcover 5/1/2024 – etc. This is how we have distinguished books/editions for years. I hope it is a little clearer now.

  • breakthroughc  on  May 6, 2024

    I buy a lot of store brands and for the most part really don’t notice a difference. I avoid highly processed foods, so it may be less of an issue for me. Buying ingredients to make your own granola is very different from buying premade granola. I shop a lot out of the bulk bins at Winco (a very low end grocery store that is cheaper than Walmart) and find their nuts, dried fruit to be excellent. The panko out of the bin is just pennies and I can’t tell the difference. However, meat and produce is an area where I find a big difference and am selective about what I buy at a store like Winco.

  • Jenny  on  May 6, 2024

    Sift is spectacular. The book will be published in the US in November.

  • TammyT2024  on  May 6, 2024

    Having a husband that has worked in food production I have learned that many store brands are similar if not the same as other labels. It has made me a bit more flexible in what we buy. I do agree with breakthroughc that it highly depends on what you are buying!

  • Indio32  on  May 8, 2024

    Regarding the 4 editions of Sift I fully understand that each edition is listed separately BUT there’s no (from what I can see) note listing or mention in the title which is which edition. Clicking through each one shows identical listings and no mention of it being the UK hardback or the UK ebook. One listing has 28 owners to which I presume is the UK hardback but without a title stating that it is thats only a guess. Again there are 2 versions in pink which again I assume is the US version but don’t actually know as its not marked as such.

    • Jane  on  May 8, 2024

      Each edition of Sift lists the publication country and the format – you can see these clearly on the author page. If you are viewing the books in the Library on a phone, click the down arrow under the listing to see the book data.

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