Today I was working in South Tel Aviv. The entire workforce of this bakery is African, I presume from Senegal, as they spoke something sounding like French and they seem to know how to make excellent French baguette. South Tel Aviv is another county, like Lagos, specially in this very hot summer day. K will understand what Motzee Lechem stands for.
18 comments:
Min HaAretz, Amen.
Not just K I'm sure.
If French colonialism did one good thing, it was to leave behind excellent bread (and sometimes wine) where ever they went. The Vietnamese also make nice French bread. I'll bet you can get good French bread in Beirut too. The British left democracy and the rule of law instead but their bread (like all of their cuisine) sucks.
K
Their original bread was OK, it's this mass-produced stuff which tastes like a cross between plastic and cotton wool.
Anon.
English cuisine was never spectacular but I'm sure there was a point in the distant past where it was at least made of fresh honest ingredients like peasant cooking everywhere - simple breads made of stone ground whole wheat, farm made butter, etc. However, England was the very first place to have an industrial revolution and then first place to industrialize the production of food, so the time when Britain had that kind of close to the soil peasant cuisine is well beyond living memory . There has been some revival but still the British diet consists of too much abysmal processed food - the bread you speak of, sausages made of mystery meat, frozen fried potatoes, etc.. Except for a few high end self-consciously chic places featuring "British cuisine" your best bet is anything but British food - thank god for all the immigrants, especially the Indians.
K
It sounds like you go there more often than you would like to.
Anon.
It's not a bad place to visit, aside from the food. The amount of loot they took from all over the world and put in the British Museum is just mind boggling - that place alone is worth a visit but there are maybe 10 more great museums in London with other interesting collections, not to mention the architectural treasures, etc, etc. I guess no culture is perfect - aside from the bad food and the anti-Semitism Britain has a lot to offer. But I have to say the accomplishments of Western civilization are getting long in the tooth - the good stuff seems to run out circa WWI and everything after that is pretty crappy.
K
There has been some revival but still the British diet consists of too much abysmal processed food - the bread you speak of, sausages made of mystery meat, frozen fried potatoes, etc..
That sounds like the American diet.
I would say the British diet is even worse, if such a thing is possible. An American hamburger is at least recognizably 100% beef muscle. A British banger (sausage) is made of some kind of mystery meat and fillers where the meat part is sometimes less than 1/2 the total.
It is unadvisable to research the contents of processed meat products. I read trade magazines full of ads for meat massagers, injectors, etc. and conditioning chemicals. I stopped eating industrial processed meat. In fact, I stopped eating. Almost.
In addition to the terrible additives, pre-ground meat is also at high risk for bacterial contamination.
Also, there is something called "mechanically separated meat" in processed meats - this does not resemble meat at all but something like pink colored toothpaste which is produced by putting bones thru a hydraulic press. There are also technologies for recovering meat from the fatty trimmings by rendering.
All these technologies are driven by cost - real meat costs a lot of money, stuff which is recovered from what used to be garbage is much cheaper and by mixing a certain % of it with real meat, the consumer may not notice its presence. But this stuff is "meat" only in a legal sense (because it comes from a cow) - it doesn't resemble what you or I would call real meat in the slightest.
If you are going to eat ground meat, it's best to start with a whole piece of meat and grind it at home. That way you can also control the fat content. My mother in law buys preground meat and I notice that when I grill it at her house it shrinks to almost nothing because much of the fat melts away in the grill so you are left with a hamburger that is half as big as you started. So aside from the health aspects, it is a false economy to buy this kind of cheap ground meat.
K
A British banger (sausage) is made of some kind of mystery meat and fillers where the meat part is sometimes less than 1/2 the total.
That sounds like a Bar S brand hot dog. Nothing is different.
K
The shrinking of the hamburger is caused by the loss of water, more than fat. Water and gelatin. The same happens to the frozen fish I eat, I am supposed to eat 200 gram, but sometimes it is 80% water. Fresh fish in this heat is not really fresh.
But if I grind the meat myself the hamburgers shrink much less. Also you can see visibly less fat. Maybe they add water as well as fat?
K
Most processed meat is is 10% water, give or take 10%.
In America poultry is sold in plastic bags and they try to add as much water as possible to the bag so that they can sell you water at $4/ kilo. All that bloody water in the bag provides a nice home for bacteria too.
There are many additives like gelatin that change the consistency of the meat,like soy meal that increases its protein content and many others yet undiscovered and unpublicized. In general, I dont eat processed meat products any more.
Some of those additives are harmless or even healthful - soy is probably better for you than meat. But preservatives, etc. not to mention the biggest additive - salt, are not good for you. All the health recommendations are to consume processed meats, especially things like salami, corned beef, etc. that contain nitrites, sparingly if at all. And yet when I visit the supermarket, there is a huge array of frankfurters ("hot dogs"), many different brands at different prices, made with beef, pork, chicken, turkey and mixtures of same - they are very popular.
Soy is a source of estrogen like compounds. Although soy could be considered healthy or neutral, I'm not going to praise it either.
I guess we will all have to stick to canned tuna.
Re: Tuna -One word - mercury.
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