Food for thought

Having finally ground our way through the BBC's Masterchef contest last night (courtesy of 'i-player': http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00hzdnj/MasterChef_Series_5_Episode_32/) we food-a-holics in the Lees-Warwicker family, in common with many of our companions in the West, need another food fix (writes novice blogger as she eats toast!).



I was therefore delighted to read the article by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in yesterdays Guardian Weekend, about her soon to be published Settler's Cookbook (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/feb/28/yasmin-alibhai-brown-cookbook). Her recipe for Dry Potato Curry reminded me of one we ate when I first visited India in 1984 and her story of return to Kampala was very moving.



So I dream about fusion food, of which we make a lot in our household. First there's Italian fusion and French fusion, products of my time spent as an au-pair in both France and Italy in my late teens and early twenties. I had thought it strange that an 8 year old child should eat pasta three times a day until my own daughter showed everysign of preferring to do the same. As for France, it's in everything from the herbs and garlic to the salad, cheese and wine, and of course the chocolat.

Then there's Asian fusion. This mostly means combinations of spices and red lentils, commonly called lentil mush in our household; another thing Hannah would eat daily if at all possible.



There are earlier attempts at fusion food that have fizzled out. For a while when I lived in Palmers Green about 20 years ago I ate a lot of pilchard lasagna but it rarely if ever appears on menus here these days. It was cheap. I joke about making soup with turnips but actually I hate them. Hannah's good on fairtrade fusion cookies. That's cookies with anything fairtrade in them. They feature on the Bible Year Menu on the Vision4life website in the Kennings and Cookies activity. Why not give it a try?



Then there's British fusion, which I mostly learnt from my mum and gets embellished by all sorts of stuff from anywhere. Last night we had our first Yorkshire Triangle Rhubarb of the new season. you can find out all about it here: http://www.yorkshirerhubarb.co.uk/ruhbarb_triangle.htm

But most of all of course, there's bread pudding: mum's piece de resistance. Once again Guardian Weekend featured a recipe, but it didn't seem to be the one I remembered. These days toast sees off stale bread in our house so there's little opportunity for bread pudding even if I could remember it. Maybe I'll give it a little thought.