Food news antipasto

Farewell, room service? The growth of delivery services like Deliveroo have led to a decline in sales at hotel restaurants in the UK. People want what they want, not necessarily what the hotel chef has decided to serve, so they turn to something akin to room service, ordering food to be delivered. One hotel is trying to mitigate these losses by creating an app that has an interface similar to those of delivery services: “It’s got pictures of all the menu items and people go downstairs and collect the food themselves, so they feel like they’ve had Deliveroo experience. We’re using that to try and bring room service sales back up again,” said Andy Goss, Clermont Hotel Group’s food and beverage director.

Foragers beware: a spate of wild mushroom poisonings in California’s wine country has led to 4 deaths and 43 hospitalizations. This ranks as the biggest ever outbreak of its kind in the United States. The poisonings have stretched across 10 counties in the state concentrated in the San Francisco Bay area and central coast. Experts are puzzled by this large outbreak because it occurred later in the season than most, and as of now, they cannot pinpoint the reason.

I have to post a mea culpa about an article I shared last week about DIY fertilizers for tomatoes. The University of Minnesota Extension Service points out that some additives, while they sound promising, have not been shown to have any benefits, and may even be detrimental to your garden. Epsom salts in particular can harm your soil and plants by inhibiting calcium uptake and increasing mineral contamination.

There’s more to rice than meets the eye, according to scientists who have been studying the humble grain, which is a major calorie source for billions of people across the globe. Researchers at the University of Birmingham just released results of a study that reveals how tightly packed rice exhibits different properties depending on how fast pressure is applied to it. They used this finding to create a new material by combining the rice with silica sand, which responds to pressures in the opposite manner. “Rice might be best known as a staple food globally, but it’s rarely associated with advanced engineering,” Dr. Mingchao Liu of the University of Birmingham, who also led the research, said in a statement. “Our research shows that it can form the basis of a new class of functional materials.”

There is no such thing as too much kitchen equipment or cookware, right? Diana Henry weighs in on this with a short post about her cake tin collection and a recipe for passionfruit cake (I hope the link works – it should be free). One part I really enjoyed was when Diana discussed where the bases to cake tins end up: “I don’t know where they go, but probably to the same place that socks go, a kind of Bermuda Triangle of socks and cake bases.”

Over at the newly-formed Ravenous, Amy McCarthy grieves the loss of great grocery shopping experiences (must be a member to read – Ravenous doesn’t offer gift links). To give you a taste of the article, here is a short excerpt: “But it’s starting to feel like the thrill of wandering down the aisles is fading. Where I once relished the opportunity to spend an hour — or hell, two — browsing the aisles and tediously reading the labels on every can of soup, fueled by the hazy energy of a sativa cannabis gummy. Now, though, I now feel more like a contestant on Supermarket Sweep, making a mad dash to grab my yogurt and potato chips instead of luxuriating in the experience.”

Other articles you may have missed:

Michelin Guide expands to include new locations

Author events added since last update:

• Özlem Warren – Istanbul
• Monti Carlo – Spanglish
• Nichole Accettola – Scandinavian Everyday
• Elisa Sunga – Cake Picnic
• José Andrés – Spain My Way
• Greg Baxtrom – Nothing Matters but Delicious
• Erin O’Brien – Dig In