Make It Melt on Your Tongue: A Night of Chocolate with the London Gastronomy Seminars

Posted on by doreen
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Earlier this week I attended my first seminar with London Gastronomy Seminars on that lovely product of bitterness and sweetness enjoyed by so many: chocolate.

Chocolate, an object of desire for many and perhaps fetishised heavily particularly around holidays, as the recent catalogue for Hotel Chocolat demonstrates so well, is amazingly ubiquitous but still rather mysterious because no one seems to be really informed as far as who makes it, how it’s made and what it really is comprised of. As people become more and more curious about the provenance of their pork, their bananas or their bottle of wine, so to are they beginning to consider the importance of where their chocolate comes from, how it’s made, and whether or not the people involved in the production of chocolate are getting a fair wage.

The seminar featured three speakers who had a lot to say about different aspects of chocolate. Martin Christy of Seventy% led us through a number of exercises in how to taste chocolate. His main message was to enjoy chocolate slowly, and through simple comparisons and directions to an audience given pieces of chocolate to eat, he showed quite effectively how we eat chocolate is paramount in our enjoyment. I was selected as one of the guinea pigs to help demonstrate flavour notes that would have been otherwise lost. As I let a piece of chocolate melt slowly in my mouth, I was instructed to say what flavour notes I was picking up to Martin, who was writing them all down.

Of course:

Me: “It tastes really malty… like, like a dark stout or porter.”
Martin: *pauses* “Okay, well, that’s a new one.”

Leave it to me to bring up beer.

But, as someone who in one of my jobs discusses the ‘chocolate notes’ in a pint of beer, and has had quite a few different chocolate stouts in my day (the Heartless Chocolate Stout from Red Willow Brewery is a current love), it would be natural for me to say “dark ale” as a tasting note for chocolate. It just goes to show I drink good beer.

Anyway, back to chocolate. In addition to the excellent point of ‘slow chocolate’ Martin Christy brought up, we also learnt quite a good deal about where chocolate comes from by chocolatier Raffaella Baruzzo of Baruzzo. Admittedly, it was a heavy amount of information, but I thought it was quite interesting to learn about the four main types of cocoa trees, what a cocoa plantation is like, and the delicate processes of fermentation, drying and roasting involved and how that affects the finished product. Raffaella could easily have her own seminar on the journey of chocolate from bean to bar, or to truffle.

Paul A. Young, whose chocolates I’ve seen in his Islington shop, talked about his development into a chocolatier, as well as the ingredients he uses, particularly the unexpected ingredients one doesn’t normally associate with chocolate. To illustrate that point, boxes of his chocolates were passed around featuring his Roquefort, walnut and honey truffles, his cigar tobacco and caramel truffles, and his Marmite truffles. Personally, I enjoyed the former two (particularly the tobacco truffle) but winced at eating the Marmite truffle. Raffaella, in her talk, brought up how cultural the elements of taste are, and how tastes can differ between cultures and nations and groups. For me, the Marmite truffle was overpowering, but I didn’t grow up on Marmite. Upon speaking with someone after the seminar who did grow up eating Marmite, the truffle was too subtle for his tastes.

Because Raffaella’s lovely talk on chocolate sadly overran, at the end of the seminar we got up and took some of her chocolates and her card. We crowded up to swipe some of these thin slabs of pretty chocolates and filed out of the room. I paused in the hallway to read what Baruzzo chocolates I had in my hands. The rosemary one intrigued me the most, and I took a bite.

And there, in the halls of Senate House, was this explosion of honest flavour that could only be described as orgasmic.

It may possibly be the best chocolate experience I’ve ever had.

The flavours of the chocolate and the rosemary melted over my mouth, causing such a rush that gave me a slight shudder and caused the top of my head to prickle. I had to lean against the wall as my mind struggled to process how insanely good this beguiling piece of chocolate was. My eyes grew wide with excitement over the magic of it all.

Of course I had to hang around a bit to try and swipe another piece of this delicious slab of ecstasy, but I was in good company of other vultures who preferred the orange blossom chocolate over my newly beloved rosemary.

So yes, for ten pounds I had quite an adventure of the senses. Considering the retail prices of Paul A. Young’s and Baruzzo’s fine chocolate creations, I more than got my money’s worth, and then some, for I’ve fallen unashamedly in love with a piece of chocolate.

The Kernel Brewery, aka Further Confirmation that I am a Beer Dweeb

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I love beer. If you’ve been following this blog, you should know I love beer.

But when I mean beer, I mean good beer. Delicious beer. Beer that’s so great it’ll make your eyes widen with the epiphany of how magnificent it is. Beer that makes your tongue want to bathe in it for its entire existence in your filthy mouth. Beer that is majestic, wondrous, beautiful, amazing, etc.

Being a lover of beer, if not a passionate fiend for it, I have made a couple of Saturday morning/afternoon trips to The Kernel Brewery‘s table at the Maltby Street Market to buy some of the most intense and idiosyncratic examples of good beer in this city.

When I went most recently on New Year’s Eve, the market was mostly deserted save for the archway that was open for cheese, meat and Kernel beer. A small handful of people were gathered, drinking halves of the beer they had on draft that day, which was the India Pale Ale Citra. I’ve had the IPA Citra before, made with Citra hops that give a fruity, flavourful characteristic to beer.

I’d previously gone to the Kernel Brewery’s table with my friend Tim, a colleague at the pub I work at that sells Kernel beer, so we knew what wondrous beery amazement we were getting into. Rob, on the other hand, had never had beer from The Kernel Brewery before, so it was a pleasure for me to purchase our halves of the IPA Citra and hand him his glass.

If there is such a thing as a beer dweeb, I am one. In spades.

But I’m in good company, as there were quite a few people who turned up with backpacks and bags to purchase the bottles The Kernel Brewery were selling that week. I bought six bottles of beer that day, which consisted of pairs of the India Pale Ale Nelson Sauvin, Imperial Brown Stout and Stella for Breakfast, a stout that was a collaboration with Brodies Brewery in Leyton. The total for these six beers wasn’t cheap at £19.20, but considering the small scale in which these beers are produced, the uniqueness of the brews and that the Imperial Brown Stout cost more for being 9.8% ABV (£4 each), I don’t feel any guilt in parting with my money for what will certainly be fantastic beer.

If you’re keen on tasting some of The Kernel’s magic yourself, you can go to their table every Saturday at the Maltby Street Market from 9 am until 3 pm. Their beers are also available throughout London at various retailers and pubs, and in a few places outside of the city. Have a look here to find a place close to you. It’s important to keep in mind that the beer they have on offer changes frequently, which keeps it interesting as well as encourages people to try different beer. Check out their website to see what’s on offer. I think their Saturday stand is cash-only, but I could be wrong on this.

I haven’t dipped into drinking yet from my latest stash of beer purchased from The Kernel, but I do have a healthy list of favourites. So far, I’ve really enjoyed the Pale Ale Motueka, the IPA Centennial Simcoe, the IPA Citra, the Breakfast Stout, the Export Stout London 1890 (and the other Export Stout), the India Brown Ale and the Imperial Brown Stout. But there’s lots more to try from The Kernel’s vast rotating selection of pale ales, IPAs, stouts, porters and black IPAs, so there won’t be a shortage of new ones for me to try anytime soon. I’m looking forward to my recent purchases, as well as trying out other brews throughout this new year.

Tofurky Hunting

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Last year for Thanksgiving, I roasted a Tofurky roast and wrote a bit about it here.

Seeing as how this year for Christmas I will be on my own, I still wanted to have a festive meal when I got home from working at the pub on Christmas Day (yes, I will be working on Christmas Day). So, I thought I’d see about sourcing another little Tofurky roast.

The thing is, I haven’t been able to find the Tofurky roast on its own here in London–only the Vegetarian Feast made by Tofurky is available. Although the Vegetarian Feast contains the ball of Tofurky I so desire, it also contains a whole load of other sides that are much too much for a single, solo Christmas dinner, especially considering the box states it’s a feast that’ll feed six.

Plus, it’s £29.95. If I want to spend thirty quid on a roast, I won’t be making it myself and there’d better be gold hidden somewhere in the fake meat.

In this quest for the Christmas Tofurky, I’ve phoned up two Planet Organic  shops and been into the Whole Foods shop in Stoke Newington and called the Kensington High street one as well. My phone call to the Whole Foods in Kensington, actually, was inconclusive, because I was, frankly ineptly, transferred to the meat department, and it took speaking with three different people to find someone who realised that, no, I wasn’t talking about getting a turkey but rather a tofurky. I was transferred then elsewhere, to someone else who basically transferred me to a line that hung up on me.

Nice one, Whole Foods. I should note that the gentleman I spoke with at the Planet Organic store at Westbourne Grove actually called the grocery department to see if they could just sell me the Tofurky roast itself out of the box of Vegetarian Feast, which was unnecessary, but very earnest and sweet. At least he knew what I was talking about.

So, friends. If you are in the megastore that is the Kensington High Street Whole Foods, would you mind peeking into the frozen foods section to see if there’s a wee cube-like red box that says “Tofurky Vegetarian Roast”? It will look kind of like the box on the Wikipedia page.

In all likelihood, I’ll probably default to having a nut roast. Any good recommendations on brands of nut roasts? Or perhaps a good recipe that’ll be easy to make on Christmas Eve after a shift at the pub? I have a nut roast in the freezer right now that’ll feed 3-4 people, but smaller options would be welcome.

I leave you with the amazing video from Vegan Black Metal Chef: Holiday Hell Roast. Enjoy, and happy holidays.

Dream Liqueurs, Bum Sandwiches and Dodo Cake: The Experimental Food Society Spectacular and V&A Talks

Posted on by doreen
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On the 22nd, I met up with friends on Brick Lane to attend the Experimental Food Society‘s exhibition, or as they deemed it, “Spectacular.” After seeing a horrendously long queue full of young, fashionable folk, I was a bit alarmed and worried about the event… until I realised the line was actually for the American Apparel rummage sale that was going on, and not a bunch of foodie fashionistas eager to try camel milk ice cream.

I was so relieved.

Rather than being right on Brick Lane, the Experimental Food Society Exhibition was spread out between three spaces in the Old Truman Brewery housing a motley group of coffee aficionados, cake artists, sugar sculptors, food-based model-makers, bakers and all sorts. For the £5 door fee, there were a large number of sights and delights available for the Spectacular visitor in the three locations, with additional things for sale, like these awesome cake pops from Pop Bakery I regret not buying, especially considering my crazy obsession fondness for cats and catlike things.

Although maybe the reason I didn’t indulge in buying a cat pop may have been because I might not have eaten it, but rather would have given it a name and saved it… until a mouse got to it, which would have been a funny sort of justice in a way.

The Experimental Food Society Spectacular was quite an experience, and the people showing their art, crafts, wares and talents were a diverse bunch. My personal reactions to the different works exhibited varied generally along the lines of:

  1. “Oh, neat!”
  2. “Oooh…”
  3. “Whaaat?!”
  4. “Whoa!!”
  5. “Um, okay…?”
  6. “Dude, what the fuck?”

I would say that the three friends who I was with probably had a similar set of reactions, although there were probably variants as to what reaction was applied to each display.

Overall, though, the Spectacular was really a great venue to see amazing things created with foodstuffs, like Scott O’Hara’s American Harpie Eagle made out of the same stuff we dump in our morning coffees or tea (see Reaction #4 above). I found myself staring at the pointy beak of O’Hara’s bird and thinking about how purposeful the beak was for tearing flesh, then remembering that this particular specimen of avian creature is made entirely out of sugar.

But I still couldn’t get the image of the sugar eagle tearing through flesh out of my head, because, by god, it looks so damn real.

O’Hara’s bird came with a stern sign telling us not to touch, but there were other tables that we could interact, purchase and/or taste. In addition to the aforementioned awesome cake pops by Pop Bakery, Pomp De Franc‘s tiny cakes inside quail eggs were for sale, creating a puzzling image of an egg topped with a dollop of icing and chocolates. Also for sale were the cupcakes of Petit Pois, that were “secretly made with vegetables,” two per pack. Also for sale were scoops of camel milk ice cream from the food truck outside one of the venues. Ginger’s Comfort Emporium were selling cones of camel milk ice cream in flavours of plain and rose & lemon. I purchased a cone of the rose & lemon flavour to share with my friends Ella and James, and it was surprising how creamy the ice cream was. Ella, who wasn’t a great fan of flower-flavoured foodstuffs, eventually came around to enjoying the ice cream after I had to pass it on due to my lactose-intolerancy worries–although delicious, I could tell eating the whole cone would have caused me, erm, problems later. But it had to be tried, because, well, when would be the next time one would be able to try it?

The same ethos of “Hey, what other time would I be able to try this?” could be applied to Stefan Gates’s Extraordinary Snackbox and seminar. The contents of this snackbox, sold at £6.95 to bold foodies, included the following:

  • bum sandwich (in other words, a sandwich you sat on)
  • jellyfish, fungus and noodle salad
  • pan-fried lamb’s testicles served on couscous
  • curried mealworms on yoghurt with bee vomit
  • sausages in clapshot wrapped in pure gold & pure silver
  • cochineal bugs with marshmallows and cola bottles
  • seaweed snack
  • Space Dust pack

And a vegetable instrument: carrot bassoon.

I admit I did not purchase a Stefan Gates Extraordinary Snackbox, citing my vegetarianism as the main reason why I did not venture to try out lamb’s testicles. However, my daring friends Ella and James split a pack between the two of them, although the carrot bassoon included in their pack unfortunately did not work, much to all of our dismay.

There were other things to try, though. For example, I was lucky enough to swipe a sample from the last batch of syphon-brewed coffee from the Purfrock Coffee table. I’ve never seen a coffee syphon before, and the photos I have on my Flickr account of the demonstration don’t quite do it justice. If you’d like to know what I’m talking about, have a look on the website of Prufrock Coffee and watch the video on syphon filtered coffee. It’s really cool. In addition, there was a cold coffee drip being brewed that had been percolating drops of water since earlier that morning, and it was still going on, no doubt creating a ridiculously smooth, albeit cold, cup of joe.

Alchemist Dreams were handing out samples of a more intoxicating sort. I was handed a little plastic glass holding a delicious purple liquid from their range of rainbow liqueurs on display. My sample was “Rainbow Violet,” which I was told by the soft-spoken woman handing out the little glasses was flavoured with strawberry, cardamom and butterfly pea flower. It was delicious, and I’ve been staring at the lovely bottles on the Alchemist Dreams order slip ponderously. The bottles of liqueur, at 19% abv, would make an amazing gift for those with steampunk, fantasy, vintage or otherwise twee tendencies, and you can even blend your own flavours on their website.

I must say, though, I do have a critique of the event in not having any sort of pamphlet or event directory for attendees, as some of the displays and tables weren’t well-marked, and it would have been nice to have a list of exhibitors with their websites and contact information. There were lovely cakes, for example, that I took photos of, but I have no idea who was behind their creation.

In addition to the Experimental Food Society Spectacular, I attended the talk at the V&A on the following Tuesday. Although the exhibition was nice, it was also nice to sit down and have some of the people behind the fantastical array of art, sculpture, tastes and visions discuss their work and what drew them to creating what they do. Talks were given by foodscapist Carl Warner, Harry Eastwood of Petit Pois, gastronomic tailor Emily Crane and Michelle Wibowo, the fantastic cake artist who shared with us her dodo cake, of which I have a crappy iPhone video of her cutting.

The dodo was quite buttery, but amazingly nice, and a good way to end the events the Experimental Food Society had that weekend. I look forward to the next Spectacular, as well as other events the Experimental Food Society may be behind.

Adventures in RumFesting

Posted on by doreen
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After an hour or so at the UK RumFest, sampling a silly amount of rum, my friend Rob turns to me and says, “I think I’ve had enough rum.”

I respond, “Did you ever think you would say those words?”

It was Saturday, the 15th of October, and the first day of the UK RumFest, aka the Rum Experience. Large numbers of people turned out to crowd bars and tables set up in Kensington’s Olympia 2 in the name of a distilled liquid once made on sultry plantation land as a by-product of sugar, used as currency to trade for slaves, often associated with pirates, used in voodoo and santeria rituals and found in watermelon mojitos.

Rum: It’s a multi-purpose drink.

After a stout meal of Italian pizza in Notting Hill, my cohort Rob and I hopped a bus out to the RumFest and were immediately overwhelmed by a sense of, “Okay, what, where do we go?” Each bar had a sizeable crowd gathered around whatever table, counter, vintage truck, cargo box or pirate ship they were serving out of. It was a bit mental to just process the amount of people milling about and wandering around, but also to wrangle with the knowledge that, yes, there is alcohol here, and yes, we need to figure out how to get our hands on some.

But from where? The options abounded, and interestingly, the crowds were clustered around the more recognisable names in the rum biz: Mount Gay, Sailor Jerry’s, the Havana Club, Captain Morgan’s (who had the aforementioned pirate ship, natch). The crowds were also around the smaller places, actually. Okay, the crowds were everywhere, but a little less so at the Angostura counter, at least when we decided to make that our first little port of call for rum sampling.

I was familiar with Angostura bitters, having used them in homemade cocktail recipes before (see The Hangover After the Storm), but I wasn’t aware that Angostura made rum. The gentleman behind the counter wearing a black button-down shirt with the Angostura logo was quite amicable as he chatted with us about the different rums there were to try. I went for a sample of the darker rum, I think from their 1824 line, served up neat so I could taste the flavour of the rum.

With nice rummy chocolate tones and a bit of sweet molasses tang, my Angostura rum sample was delicious, and has remained a stand-out among the many other rums I sampled that day.

So. Many. Others.

We moved on from the Angostura counter and drifted over to a corner of the RumFest where there was a lot of activity. Ron Jeremy (yes, the Ron Jeremy) was on hand for photos at the kiosk for Ron de Jeremy, his namesake rum line.

“For Adults Only.”

The legend was only available at RumFest on Saturday, so Rob and I were lucky enough to have our list of celebrity sightings added to. He may be the biggest celebrity I’ve ever seen. No pun intended. Anyway, we had a taste of Ron de Jeremy (the rum, not the man) and it was okay, but not particularly outstanding. Still, that didn’t stop fans from buying bottles of Ron’s rum, and from getting photographed with Mr Jeremy. I posed for a photograph with Ron Jeremy, but alas I forgot to turn my camera on when I handed it to Rob. But he did kiss my cheek–a claim to fame my father back in Florida may have mixed feelings about. Or, as a friend of mine at work remarked after I told her about it, “Oh, where those lips have been!”

:::shudder:::

Emboldened by our brush with the Prince of Porn, we moved onward into the RumFest, finding ourselves before various other stalls for concoctions of cocktails, samples of rum (and one of cachaça) and ladles of punch served from a treasure chest.

We clustered along with others for samples, tastes, nips and sips and moved from little bar to little bar, with a quick wander downstairs to the lower level of the festival that lacked alcohol samples, so it was a lot less crowded. Still, it didn’t stop one festival attendee from snagging a sample from a bottle of Mount Gay left unattended at the Tropical Food Area, to the amusement of a man watching.

After a while, though, Rob and I felt like we saw all we needed to see and sipped all we needed to sip. Rob was tired of rum, I was tired of the taste of ginger beer, and we never got a coconut because the line was too long. We had finished festing and were in need of coffee to counteract the soporific effects of the rum we’d been drinking, as well as a respite from being around crowds–which didn’t quite happen when we wound up in Oxford Street afterwards, but oh well. At least we got coffee.

From the many rums I sampled, I found it interesting that yes, the variants between rum is quite amazing. Much like bourbon, rum is diverse in how it is distilled and spiced. My three favourite rums I sampled are below:

  1. The Kraken – My favourite out of all the rums I had, not only is the label badass, but the taste–a dark molasses/demerara flavour not overly spiced–is a quintessential rum taste that won me over. I’m looking to buy a bottle to use in holiday baking and drinking. Lots of drinking.
  2. Pyrat – It’s like bourbon and rum had a baby. The oak barrels that Pyrat is kept in definitely impart a flavour onto it unlike most rum available at the RumFest. Really unique.
  3. Angostura whatever-it-was – Presumably the 1824, but it could have been the 1919. Whatever one it was, it was nice.

I believe there are some people reading this who might be in a position to get me Christmas/New Year’s gifts…

Ahem.