Food news antipasto

This week’s food news recap is a day late, but hopefully not a dollar short. We start with Tucker Shaw (of The Bittman Project) who has surprising uses for a packet of yeast (subscription required). Add it to cake, banana bread, and other baked goods, where it adds an intriguing flavor and contributes to the texture as well.

London’s Borough Market has denied reports that it has instituted a ban on food influencers. It comes after The Times reported that last May, a food content creator was asked by security to stop filming and leave after posting a negative review of one the vendors. The market denied that the filming was stopped due to any commentary by the influencer and a spokesperson said that Borough Market has had a standing policy that commercial crews provide advance notice of any filming, stating that “occasionally means we ask food reviewers to stop filming if they are causing congestion or haven’t got the relevant permission.” The market is looking at updating its policy to better reflect the way content creators film today. The Independent’s Hannah Twigg offers her own perspective on the debacle. She says the controversy “stems from the sense that influencers are being punished for doing what professional critics have done for decades. When Marina O’Loughlin posts a photo of her lunch, it’s journalism. When a 23-year-old with a smartphone does it, it’s apparently a nuisance.”

Just in time for holiday baking, Southern Living gives us the dos and dont’s of reusing parchment paper. The upshot is that you can use a sheet of parchment more than once, although you should stick to similar types of foods so you do not transfer flavors from one item to another. The article also provides advice on how to prepare the parchment for its next use.

If you’ve ever wondered whether you should keep or toss the foil seal that is found on many yogurt and sour cream containers, the answer is definitely toss that foil. Once you open the container, says Dr. Francisco Diez-Gonzalez, director of the University of Georgia’s Food Safety Center, the seal has no further use and should be discarded. Leaving it in place can actually make the product spoil faster, she adds.

In a recent post, Saveur breaks down the reasons why splurging on real vanilla is worth the cost. I would expect nothing less when the post is sponsored by a vanilla company (in this case, Nielsen-Massey). Saveur is upfront about the post being sponsored and I suppose it has to pay the bills somehow, yet it still feels a little bit icky to read what is essentially an advertisement dressed up as an article. As many of the commenters pointed out, America’s Test Kitchen did a blind tasting that concluded most people couldn’t tell the difference between real and artificial vanilla flavoring, so do with that as you wish. Regardless of whether anyone can tell the difference, I like using the real stuff. As an aside, there is no truth to the rumor that artificial vanilla is made from beavers’ anal secretions.

We end this week’s recap with Josh Barrie claiming that the club sandwich is the best sandwich of all time. He traces the origins of the iconic sandwich to c. 1889, noting how the club has evolved over the last century plus. Barrie ends with a note on where to best eat a club sandwich: “due to history, time and circumstance, clubs are best in hotels, the more luxurious the better for the most part.”