Crimson is the colour that my heart pours out to you

[venta]

Last night I was rummaging about in the cupboards wondering what else I could put into my vegetable bake to make it look more like a meal and less like something constructed out of things I'd found in the back of the fridge.

I unearthed a tin of spinach (in brine). Yes, I know that sounds vile, but I like spinach. And since the blood donor people sent me packing today with mutterings about low iron I figured it couldn't hurt.

Actually, I don't know quite what possessed me to buy it, because the picture on the tin is possibly the least appealing label I've ever seen.

Now would you, in your right mind, think "ooh, that looks yummy!" and buy anything with this label?



No, thought not. I particularly like the "look what you could have won" touch of including a basket of fresh spinach. Ironically, it did say "serving suggestion" on the label. I suppose they never claim that it's a good suggestion.

Really, the problem is that I'd never serve spinach by itself in a tureen. I'd put it in something else. But I suppose there is a limit to what you can put on labels - showing a vegetable bake with a dark green layer in it is probably held to be pushing the limits, since the poor ignorant public might think the tin contains the entire bake.

Do packets of lasagne habitually show entire lasagnes ? The one in my cupboard has no picture at all. Presumably the thinking is that if you're buying things which cannot be eaten in isolation, you know what you're doing and don't need pictorial guidance. Has anyone got any idea how much leeway there is in the "serving suggestion" guidelines ?

More importantly, can anyone find me a tin of spinach with a nicer label ? Not that I'll stop buying Tesco's - it tasted perfectly fine - I'm just curious.

Note for the mother: have you ever tried putting other things into Canadian Casserole ? Today's had one layer each of spinach and grated cheddar, sliced carrot and chopped portobello mushroom in addition to the usual. Oh, and some wholegrain mustard dobbed about the place. It worked quite well as a main dish.

Note for everyone else: Canadian Casserole is a vegetable side dish of some repute. Fill a casserole in the following manner: layer of thinly sliced potato, layer of thinly sliced onion, small blobs of butter/marg, sprinkling of seasoned flour, repeat until you nearly run out of dish. Finish with a layer of potato, pour some milk over it, put in the oven a couple of hours at Gas 3. Great with bacon chops.

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah. Yes. I think I've been served Pommes Dauphinoise in a posh restaurant before and been confused by it. In my mind, Canadian Casserole is an extremely cheapskate wartime recipe, and thus unlikely to be served anywhere posh.

For some reason, I got it into my head some years ago that PD are something like Duchess Potatoes, ie mashed with cream and piped. I know this is wrong but it's one of those ideas that just won't shift.

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

You are so northern.

[venta.livejournal.com]

In this case, I'm somewhat confused as to what exactly prompted that. Unless it was just intended as a generalised insult ;)

[mrlloyd.livejournal.com]

Complement, surely.

As to what prompted it, it's probably just admiration :-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Obviously I'd take it as a compliment :) I've certainly had it said to me as an intended insult before, though.

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

No insult intended, just an observance of a cultural difference. I think it was two things: firstly, the confusion about what dauphinoise actually is (as to me it's almost as usual as chips), and secondly, the fact that you think of it as a cheapskate wartime dish, while I think of it as a French classic which upmarket restaurants currently serve in tiny circular sections.

[venta.livejournal.com]

No, I didn't think you were just being rude, I was only joking.

As usual as chips ? Blimey. No, as I said, I barely remember what it is. Though, of course, the dish itself (or an approximation thereto) was quite a regular in our house, just by a different name.

Of course, you have to bear in mind that Darlington (where I grew up) actually doesn't have any upmarket restaurants. I do mean that - recently I tried to find somewhere "nice" to take my parents and drew a complete blank in the whole town. There's good curry houses, a reasonable Chinese and possibly you might find a passable Italian. I don't like admitting it, but the stereotypes are true and the place is a culinary desert.

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

Darlington actually doesn't have any upmarket restaurants.

Neither does Beccles :)

I only started encountering decent food when I started going out with Daniel. My mother loathed cooking, so we lived on an endless cycle of spag bol and mince-and-rice. I was 18 before I had a pizza - I had a snoopy scratch and sniff sticker in my early teens which had a pizza on it, and I was deeply puzzled by this alien american food which I had never heard of. We never went to restaurants: an occasional chinese was the most we encountered.

Perhaps, then, this has less to do with the north/south divide than it does with the fact that I've spent the last seven years eating in the kind of places that the son of a BBC controller frequents, and shopping at Waitrose.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Whereas my mother is a cookery columnist but, on enquiry, was far more likely to say something along the lines of "I dunno, it's a recipe someone sent me which I adapated a bit, and added some stuff which happened to need eating" than to provide me with a French name. I'm sure she'd know what dauphinoise potatoes are, though :)

A friend of mine visited when I (and she) were around 18. The mother enquired whether she liked curry, and we were both kind of horrified to find she didn't know, because she'd never eaten it. So I probably had quite an adventurous diet at home, just not always a classically-named one.

[marjory.livejournal.com]

Darlington actually doesn't have any upmarket restaurants

Sardi's! We have Sardi's! Really good, upmarket, mostly Italian stuff! Next to The Sitar (which is the only good cuzzah I can think of). Or am I easily impressed?

There are only 3 good pubs, though.

Pommes Dauphinois are just what me and my chavvy lot call scalloped potatoes, right?

Darlo is a bit of a desert in some regards. Beats stockton and Billingham into a cocked hat, tho'...

[venta.livejournal.com]

OK, I'm not familiar with Sardi's. I'll give it a try next time I'm home :) Though I have to admit when I was talking about nice restaurants I was really think of places which serve "normal" rather than "foreign" food, for some very nebulous definition of normal that wombles about between France, England and probably several other areas.

I don't now the Sitar, either. I'd have cited the Garden of India (or something like that) which is somewhere opposite Blackett's-ish as a good curry place. Mind you, my information may be well out of date. There's a nice one in Gladstone Street, too, but don't buy their wine. GrahamW[*] and I once shared a bottle there that even we wouldn't drink.

[*] Falling foul of my own don't-mention-full-names-on-LJ policy here, but I'm sure you know the guy.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Oh, an no to the scallops. At least, what I was always served as scallops at school were sort of cod roast potatoes made by deep frying parboiled potatoes.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

almost as usual as chips

That evokes a wonderful mental image of some random pot-bellied workman type wandering into a chip shop and saying "Batter sausage, beans an' a dauphinoise, please luv".

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

As a native of Reading, I am also rather taken aback that dauphinoise should be as usual as chips.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

you think of it as a cheapskate wartime dish, while I think of it as a French classic which upmarket restaurants currently serve in tiny circular sections

Not that the two are in any way contradictory, since (a) classicly-speaking, the French have been at war for half their history and hence presumably cheapskates on many occasions, and (b) upmarket restaurants will, given half a chance, serve any old bollocks in tiny circular sections.

Disclaimer: I am genetically northern (although not nearly as northern as venta or mrlloyd), but raised in the south. Which ought to settle the nature/nurture argument for good.

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

Not that the two are in any way contradictory, since (a) classicly-speaking, the French have been at war for half their history and hence presumably cheapskates on many occasions, and (b) upmarket restaurants will, given half a chance, serve any old bollocks in tiny circular sections.

Indeed. QV the ham, eggs and mushy peas served in the recent BBC 'finding a chef to impress the French with' programme. It's just a question of how you frame it.

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

It's Dolphinwars Potaters to poor folks.

[pm215]

My family calls them 'Dolphin-nose'...

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

The way I make it, it has no flour,a nd uses cream rather than milk, which I suppose makes it slightly less war-time. My mum used to do a version with left-over gammon in between the layers, which was fabulous.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Back in wartime Oxford, I often put streaky bacon between the layers. I reckoned that was impolite when I was feeding it to my vegetarian housemate, though :)

I'll have to try the cream instead of flour-and-milk idea.

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

I got it into my head some years ago that PD are something like Duchess Potatoes

You might be thinking of pommes Dauphine. Mashed potato mixed with choux pastry and then deep-fried. They are like crack, and about as good for you, too.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Good lord, no, I've never eaten heard of something like that. What a mad idea. Where do I try them ?

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

You'll probably have to make them yourself. They're not easy to make in quantity, so you don't see them very often in restaurants.

IIRC, it's something like 2/3rds mashed potato to 1/3 choux pastry. You have to get the consistency right or they disintegrate when cooking. Shape into quenelles and deep-fry in hot oil. They only take a minute or so.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Stupid question: we're talking abuot uncooked choux pastry batter, here ? I think I was originally envisaging mixing mash up with bits of pastry, which just seemed really odd.

I think I might have to give them a try.

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

Yes - raw pastry. It crisps up on the outside and the resulting tasty morsel looks a bit like a yam croquette.