Alex Watts's Blog, page 7

Pork Found In ‘Halal’ Meat Served To Muslim Prisoners

Muslim prisoners have been unwittingly eating pork in
the latest scandal to hit Britain’s tainted food industry.




Pasties and pies labelled as Halal - where meat is slaughtered
by hand and blessed by the person doing the killing - contained traces of pig
DNA, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) confirmed.




The Ministry of Justice refused to name the UK
supplier or the jails involved, but said the products have been withdrawn and
the firm suspended.




Under Islamic law, Muslims are strictly forbidden to
eat pork, and Justice minister Jeremy Wright said the incident was
"absolutely unacceptable" and prison bosses were investigating "as
a matter of urgency". 



He added: "Clearly this must be distressing for
those affected and they can be reassured we are doing everything we can to
resolve the situation."




He said the tests were commissioned after "recent
high profile incidents" - where beef burgers sold by Burger King and some
supermarket chains were found to contain horsemeat . An extra value burger
flogged by Tesco contained nearly a third horsemeat, leading the retail giant
to give full-page apologies in national newspapers.




The Ministry of Justice said the results of the
tests, undertaken by an independent agency, became known on Thursday. It has
not been disclosed how long inmates have been eating the pork-tainted products
for.




A spokesman said: "All prisons have been
informed about this very regrettable incident and we reported this issue to the
Food Standards Agency immediately. We are taking immediate steps to suspend the
contract with the relevant sub-contractor."




The FSA said it was "informed" that a
number of meat pies and pasties supplied to UK prisons - which were labelled
and served as Halal - contained traces of pork DNA.




A spokeswoman said: "The local authority is
investigating how this contamination came about and whether these products have
been distributed further across the UK." She added that the supplier and
the local authority were based in the same area, but declined to say where.




Editor of the Muslim News, Ahmed Versi, said the
development was disturbing.




"This is very serious because no Muslim would
ever eat pork meat - anything to do with pork - and it must be very distressing
for those in prison who have been given this meat to realise they may have been
eating food which was contaminated with pig," he told the BBC.




COMMENT: People have a right to know what food they
are eating, and retailers and suppliers have a duty to describe their products
correctly, and should not be allowed to cut corners by secretly padding out food with
cheaper meats to boost profits.




There is little doubt the latest lapse will have
offended and distressed high numbers of Muslim prisoners and their families,
and will be another serious blow to the British food industry’s already heavily
tarnished reputation. The supplier concerned should be named quickly to help remove
the stench of Soylent Green that is sadly surrounding a growing number of UK
meat processors. 



:: Horse Meat Found In Tesco Burgers - Every Little Pony Helps

:: What's Really In Your Lamb Doner Kebab ?

Unseen Documents ‘Reveal Michelin’s Cover-Up Over Chef's Suicide’

The Michelin Guide is in hot water after being accused
of hiding its role in the suicide of one of France’s greatest chefs, Bernard
Loiseau.




Loiseau was terrified of losing his third Michelin star when
he shot himself in the mouth at his home near La Côte d’Or, his gastronomic
temple in Burgundy, France, in February 2003. A week before, Michelin's rival the GaultMillau had reduced his rating from
19 to 17 out of 20.








His friend, three-star chef Jacques Lameloise,
recounted how Loiseau - whose cuisine eschewed cream, butter,
flour and fat, but remained quintessentially French; his signature dish being frogs' legs and garlic purée on a bed of parsley sauce - had told him how much his Michelin rating meant: "He
said, 'If I lose a star, I'll kill myself.'"




Loiseau’s death shocked the culinary world and led
to the critics themselves facing criticism. They were accused of exercising too
much power, toying with the restaurants they assess, and ultimately pushing
Loiseau over the edge.




Amid the backlash, the tyre guide kept its head down and
left Le Figaro’s restaurant critic Francoise Simon to be a “scapegoat” for his
death. He had published an article shortly before Loiseau’s suicide citing Michelin
sources as warning his third star was "legitimately under threat".




Michelin denied ever threatening to withdraw a
star, which Loiseau’s restaurant ended up keeping. But previously unseen
documents suggest Michelin had told him it had serious reservations about his restaurant four months before he shot himself.




Yesterday, L’Express magazine published a confidential
note written by the guide’s then British head, Derek Brown, that appears to contradict
Michelin’s version of events.




Minutes from his November 2002 meeting with Loiseau
and his wife Dominique at his head office recount how Brown left them with
little doubt that a star was under threat, and even mentions how shocked the 52-year-old
chef was by the news.




“I spoke of our concerns: irregularity, lack of
soul, of recent character in the cuisine and readers’ mail that is VERY mixed in
terms of quality,” Brown wrote. “Visibly ‘shocked’, [Loiseau] took me
seriously. We’ll see.”












Two days later, Mrs Loiseau sent a deeply
apologetic letter, promising to get their cuisine “back on track”. Her
husband - who she says was a manic depressive “capable of great moments of
euphoria and periods of deep anxiety” - apparently never recovered.




Simon said yesterday he felt vindicated because he
had merely reported on Michelin’s warning. “Michelin did indeed envisage
docking Bernard Loiseau a star. They wanted to pass me off as a killer, while
Michelin exempted themselves of any responsibility,” he said. “I was thrown to
the dogs, treated as a murderer and still am by some. They needed a scapegoat.”




Brown insisted this week: “There was no threat made
to Bernard Loiseau of losing a star at any time. Michelin doesn’t threaten
anybody. He asked to see me. People who want to come and talk about their
restaurant are very welcome. The idea of telling him about the concerns we had
about some of his cooking was in order to give him an opportunity to consider
whether he wanted to do something about it, which he did, as it turned out.”




Michael Ellis, the current director of Michelin,
told L’Express: “These types of meetings are part of daily life at Michelin.
I’m not surprised such a meeting took place. We don’t summon chefs. We only receive
ones who wish to see us.”

Restaurant Serves Up £70 Tasting Menu Made With Dirt

Even before my grandmother’s eyesight went, she wasn’t
the cleanest of cooks. Her teacups were always grimy and stained the colour of
David Dickinson’s face. The plates she served sandwiches and crisps on were
often greasy from some previous opened tin of ham. And the vegetables she
pulled from the garden were given a cursory swish under the tap, and were gritty
and tasted of soil. “You eat a peck of dirt before you die,” she would always
say, dismissing any concerns about hygiene.




I may not have fully appreciated her boil-in-the-bag
cod in parsley sauce, and cold platters of crisps and Spam always with an
opened tin of sweetcorn on the side, but how ahead of her time she was when it
came to garnishing her boiled-to-blithereens vegetables with soil.




Like comedy, they say timing is everything in
cooking, and I can only think of the money she could have made if she’d only moved
to Japan and opened a fancy French restaurant selling dishes caked in dirt for
£70 a pop, like Tokyo’s Ne Quittez Pas.




Of course, this isn’t just any common or garden soil.
It’s special black compost from Kanuma and is apparently safe to eat just like
fugu. According to Japanese news website Rocketnews24 , Ne Quittez Pas’ chef
Toshio Tanabe once won a TV cooking competition with his dirt sauce, and from
there his soil-infused tasting menu took roots.




The first course is a shot glass of potato starch
and dirt soup, dusted with salt around the rim, and topped with a slice of
black truffle. “It was divine! There wasn’t a dirty flavour at all. Instead,
this simple soup went down smoothly with just a hint of potato flavour,” gushed
the reviewer.









Then comes a salad of grilled eggplant, tomato, and
turnips with a dressing made from dirt and ground popcorn, followed by “minerals
of the sea and minerals of the land” - an aspic jelly made with clams and a top
layer of sediment, with dirt risotto, fried sea bass and burdock root.




“With these dishes too, there wasn’t a dirt flavour.
I had to wonder what had happened to the characteristic yeasty smell of soil,”
said the reviewer, which does beg the question why add the stuff in the first
place? But then in a nonsensical, PR-savvy age, where freshly-foraged ants in Kilner
jars are all the rage, what the hell do I know?




For pudding, there is dirt ice cream and a dirt
gratin, washed down with dirt mint tea which “looked like muddy water (sorry,
but it’s true), but the minty taste was bracing.”




“As to why the meal didn’t taste at all of dirt,
that is likely due to the dirt itself, which is supplied by a company called
Protoleaf. Using coffee grinds and palm fibre, which were previously just
thrown away, the company has created a novel and eco-friendly compost,” added
the reviewer.




I’m not convinced it will catch on. But if it does,
it will bring a certain authenticity to the many “dirty” burgers and other
gourmet fast foods doing the rounds in London.

Marco Pierre White Walks Out Of Radio Interview After Being 'Bullied And Insulted'

So what do we know about the cooking genius and dummy-spitting toy
hurler Marco Pierre White ? He’s a monster to live with and has a terrible
temper, according to at least one of his three ex-wives. He was a notorious bully
to his kitchen staff when he actually bothered to cook in his own restaurants,
and once made Gordon Ramsay cry (I suppose you can’t blame him for the latter).





He peddles stock cubes for Knorr and regularly appears in adverts proclaiming
that adding a meaty crumble to a meal will lift it out of a slough of saporific
drudgery - words that would have choked the younger version of White when he
won his three Michelin stars, working 18-hour days behind the stove, fuelled by
strong espressos, red Marlboros, and regular delves into his ingredient drawer.





And it seems that like all bullying celebrity chefs with monstrous egos
- Ramsay , James Martin , Gary Rhodes , and the seemingly mild-mannered,
rosy-cheeked Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall etc - he is also very good at dishing it
out, but painfully sensitive when it comes to tasting his own medicine.




As happened when White walked out of a radio interview in Australia yesterday
after being questioned - in his words “bullied” - about his three ex-wives and
his cooking skills. The final straw came during the Triple M Adelaide breakfast
show when one of the presenters dubbed the TV chef a “rude prick”.




Dale ‘Louie’ Lewis and co-hosts Warren ‘Warrie’ Tredrea, Jon 'Blakey'
Blake, and Ali ‘Ali’ Carle were banned by the Austereo-owned radio station, still
cowering from the royal prank call scandal , from playing the interview this
morning, but were allowed to discuss the controversial exchange, pre-recorded
yesterday.




Lewis, a former Sydney Swans AFL player, incurred the celebrity chef’s
wrath after raising the question of White's three failed marriages, asking
whether his “first wives” had been “dismissed, for want of a better word, cos
they can't cook, or didn't like your cooking?” Lewis then quipped: “Cos if
you're the rude prick you come across on TV...I wouldn't be there long either.”




White tried to play down the marriage dig, but took offence at the language.
He ended the interview, telling Lewis there was “no need for rudeness” before
accepting the presenter's apology. “Rudeness is not having fun when it is at
the expense of another person. You're a very rude man. And I hope your mother's
not listening to this show today because she would not be proud of her son,” he
said.




White told reporters later he was deeply offended by the remarks.




“To be honest, I was a bit off balance when it was said to me and I
thought why should people get away with this? Why should they be allowed to
bully people? It's why I said what I said. What's very sad is this is a radio
show where children could be listening and to use that sort of language in
front of children is wholly inappropriate.”




If it was for comic purposes, White said “it was scurrilous behaviour.”
He added: “This is my third time in Australia in eight months and this is the
first time anyone has shown me rudeness or disrespect. I just excused myself
and left.”



He added: “To expose listeners and especially children to that kind of
language leaves a lot to be desired. I'm not saying I've been a good boy all my
life but you get to a stage in your life where you've just got to be corrected.
It's called growing up.”




I’m sure the many chefs who suffered in White’s “SAS-style” kitchens ,
under a constant tyranny of personal abuse and savage aggression, will be
amused to hear him complain of being “bullied” and the victim of bad language.
Especially the poor chef who was once forced to stand in the corridor all night
with his trousers down, telling every waitress that walked past that he had asmall penis . Talk about a case of pot kettle White.




TRANSCRIPT:




DALE LEWIS: Hey mate, married three times, was (sic) the first wives
dismissed, for want of a better word, cos they can't cook, or didn't like your
cooking? Is that an issue with them?




(Female host giggles)




MARCO: I just think of myself as being a lucky man that I found three
women who wanted to marry me.




(More laughing by hosts)




LEWIS: Yeah, cos if you're the rude prick you come across on TV, I
wouldn't be there long either. That's just me surmising what I've seen on TV




ALI CARLE: Marco, I wouldn't stand for that




MARCO: All you're doing is giving me insight into you as a person.




LEWIS: (laughing) Now he's analysing me




CARLE: (laughing) He's reading you




LEWIS: He can cook and he's a psychoanalyst




CARLE: Like a book, Marco. Now, you said




MARCO: There's no need for rudeness




LEWIS: No, no, no it was just




MARCO: I think you should say good morning to me, and good bye, because
one, I take offense to being called that. I haven't shown you disrespect, I
haven't been rude to you. I don't like being called that word. I'm very sorry.




LEWIS: Well, I apologise Marco. I was just trying to have some fun.




MARCO: Your apology is accepted. Rudeness is not having fun when it is
at the expense of another person. You're a very rude man. And I hope your
mother's not listening to this show today because she would not be proud of her
son. Have a nice day, bye bye.

Poems Written In Kitchens: Tintagel Castle

This is the first of a number of poems I wrote while
working in restaurant kitchens in Cornwall, and hallucinating from sleep
deprivation. They were scribbled down in a plastic-coated notebook filled with
recipes and cooking notes. 




Head chefs always told me to never write down
recipes unless I’d cooked them myself and knew they worked. I suppose the same
should be said for poems, here it is anyway...







Tintagel Castle




See the jackdaws by the castle,

Like ancient chess knights in black,

Peering across the stones they have guarded,

Since the time of Camelot way back.




And if you are searching for King Arthur,

And think Excalibur’s just well hid,

Then have a look in the village gift shop,

Because there’s a plastic one for each kid.




And if it’s Avalon you’re really after,

And your quest is to find the Grail,

Then read all about it in the village gift shop,

But only the jackdaws know the tale.




Because they were here when the walls were scarlet,

With the blood of a thousand knights,

And gouged and gorged as the dead lay dying,

Scattered over the rocks after every fight.




So if you are searching for King Arthur,

And climb through ruins to Merlin’s Cave,

Then look a bit further from the ley lines,

And behold those birds as bold as day.




Because they no longer feast on the flesh of fighters,

Their carrion call is no death knell,

It’s the crumbs of the pasties they’re after,

Which is why they will never tell.

Horse Meat Found In Tesco Burgers - Every Little Pony Helps

It says 8 per cent more beef on the Tesco Everyday
Value Beef Burgers box, and promises no artificial preservatives, flavours or colours.
But what Tesco doesn’t tell you is the pink slimy patties inside are made up of
29 per cent horse meat.




The supermarket chain says it wants to “apologise
sincerely” to customers following the discovery of its Shergar burgers from DNA tests by the Food Safety
Authority of Ireland (FSAI). Tesco lists the, err, mane ingredients on the box as 63 per cent Beef, 10 per cent Onion, which I suppose in fairness
might actually be the horse’s name, followed by wheat flour, water, and beef fat.






The meat came from Dalepak Hambleton processing plant
in Yorkshire, and two plants in Ireland, Liffey Meats and Silvercrest Foods.
The burgers were sold by Tesco and Iceland in the UK and Ireland. And Lidl,
Dunnes Stores, and Aldi supermarkets in Ireland.




Investigators said 27 burger products were analysed
- and 10 contained horse DNA and 23 revealed pig DNA. Another 31 beef ready meals,
including cottage pie and lasagne, were 
tested, and two thirds contained pig DNA.




Professor Alan Reilly, chief executive of the FSAI,
said there was no health risk but also no reasonable explanation for horse meat
to be found.




"Whilst there is a plausible explanation for
the presence of pig DNA in these products due to the fact that meat from
different animals is processed in the same meat plants, there is no clear
explanation at this time for the presence of horse DNA in products emanating
from meat plants that do not use horse meat in their production process,"
he said.




"In Ireland, it is not in our culture to eat
horse meat and therefore, we do not expect to find it in a burger. Likewise,
for some religious groups or people who abstain from eating pig meat, the
presence of traces of pig DNA is unacceptable."




The FSAI also found traces of horse DNA in batches
of raw ingredients, including some imported from the Netherlands and Spain.




Horse meat was found in Tesco Everyday Value Beef Burgers
29.1 per cent; Tesco Beef Quarter Pounders 0.1 per cent; Oakhurst Beef Burgers
in Aldi 0.3 per cent; Moordale Quarter Pounders in Lidl 0.1 per cent;
Flamehouse Chargrilled Quarter Pounders in Dunnes Stores 0.1 per cent; two varieties
of Iceland Quarter Pounders 0.1 per cent.




Retailers said they have now removed the burgers
from their shelves and are investigating.



A Tesco spokesman said: "We are working with
the authorities in Ireland and the UK, and with the supplier concerned, to
urgently understand how this has happened and how to ensure it does not happen
again. We will not take any stock from this site until the conclusion and
satisfactory resolution of an investigation."




He added: “We understand that many of our customers
will be concerned by this news, and we apologise sincerely for any distress.
Our customer service team is standing by to answer any questions customers may
have.”



It seems Tesco will resort to anything in its unbridled pursuit of profits, and there must be some very long faces in the press office today, all hoping it won't go on furlong, and sales remain stable etc etc.




From Twitter:



@moanup: Just had a Tesco burger, it's given me the trots."

@HylandIan: Think I might give these Tesco 'smoked paddock fishcakes' a miss.

@karlpweb: "Horsemeat in the burgers? That's a bit rum. A bit red rum to be precise. For shame."

@TheRealJackDee: "Nothing about Tesco surprises me. A burger is like Noah's Ark in a bap."

@feintzebra: "What's the difference between a Tesco burger and a McDonald's burger? A Tesco burger will filly you up."



:: MORE: What's really in your doner kebab ?

French Restaurant In Hot Water Over Sex And Drugs Parties

A French restaurant in Catford, south London, faces closure after allegations of customers having sex on the premises, brawling, drug use, and people defecating outside the building.



Le Bourgeois, situated under a block of flats called appropriately enough Eros House, is also said to run a weekly late night adult party called Thick Lick, advertising "male and female performers, exotic dancers, private rooms" and a "birthday special".



"On several occasions I saw finger and hands prints places on the bonnet of my car in a compromising position," one local resident told police. 



Other neighbours gave anonymous statements complaining about finding used condoms in the basement, a gun being fired, shouting and screaming, and drug dealing at the venue. 



The Met Police have called for Le Bourgeois’ licence to be revoked, and Lewisham Council’s licensing committee will decide the matter on Thursday.



Lewisham East MP Heidi Alexander told reporters she was first contacted about the problems nine months ago.



"People talked about having to clean up faeces from outside the restaurant. They told me there are strippers inside and there are people having sex at the back of the restaurant," she said.



"Given the length of time that these problems have been going on, I do think some serious action needs to be taken."

Quality French Food In A Rough Part Of Town

We’d been urged not to review Chez Gaston by one or
two regulars who loved the place the way it was, and didn’t want it frequented
by trolls. But trolls don’t eat real food, we said. They live under bridges in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, feasting on passing, bloated corpses.




But as it turned out, we nearly didn’t find the
place anyway. Because, like all great restaurants, it was tucked away in a
hard-to-find spot. In this case, a rough neighbourhood with ludicrously random
building numbers on Street 15, just off Kandal market, where you wouldn’t even
park your moped, let alone expect to find French cooking of such an
exceptionally high standard.




It was Saturday night and the small bistro was
nearly empty, but still had bags of atmosphere. A French party was sat at the
bar sipping drinks, all laughing before they’d finished a sentence, the soft
hum of blues, or was it jazz, in the background.




There was no menu, or English translations – just
blackboards on the brothel-red walls, giving the names of bistro classics like
oeufs mimosa (devilled eggs), joue de boeuf au vin rouge (braised ox cheeks),
and andouillette de Troyes (gloriously stinky sausages made from pork
intestines) that a French mayor once famously said politics should be like –
smell a little like shit, but not too much.




I loved the place already. It was the very
antithesis of pretence and unmitigated poncery. A true bistro, not a brasserie,
with simple, hearty meals and a short menu. There were seven wines of the
month, and we ordered the 2007 Bordeaux for $17, which was nicely chilled and
eminently drinkable. We swigged away as a basket of excellent French bread
arrived, quickly followed by our starters of foie gras ($14.50) and escargots
de Bourgogne ($7).




The snails were magnificent and cooked in parsley
and garlic butter, which when you turned the shells over drooled into a
savoury, verdant pool, with bread for the mopping. They were piping hot on a
clay dish that looked like a Stone Age egg poacher, and came with an arsenal of
curious tools that reminded me of that scene in Marathon Man. “Is it safe?” I
don’t know, but it was bloody delicious.









The foie gras was heavenly and a hymn to the
pudding-like texture, rich flavour, and oily feel of this decadent,
feather-ruffling dish. It came with strips of tomato skin garnish, and two
spots of stewed plum and fig puree, the perfect accompaniment to the buttery
foie.




The service was excellent, and our Khmer waitress
was as knowledgeable and passionate about the food, as she was insistent with
her recommendations. And I felt so sorry for her when the comedy moment came,
and she knocked over my wine glass, leaving the tablecloth looking like a
butcher’s apron. She kept apologising over and over, and the more we made light
of it, the more she seemed to despise herself.









My main of onglet a l‘echalotte ($9.50) had come
highly recommended by our server – who said it was far superior to the girlie
filet de boeuf ($9.50). It’s a ropey-textured cut (skirt steak in English,
hanger stake in Ameriglish) from the cow’s kidney area and packed full of
offal-like flavour. It was beautifully rare, which it has to be or it gets far
too chewy, and was topped with a mountain of sliced shallots fried in the pan
juices.




It came with cauliflower, green beans and carrot
that were just the right side of crisp, and a tower of gratin dauphinoise that
was beautifully creamy if a little under seasoned. The peppercorn sauce was
very good, not overly spiced, and with all the richness of a good
béarnaise-style base. Whoever was slaving away at the stove – presumably
the owner who’d answered the phone and given us directions in French as we
padded up and down Street 15 – clearly knew what they were doing.









My friend’s main of magret de canard ($9.50) was
wonderful too. He’d asked for medium, and the duck breast came in pale pink
slices, with the same vegetable garnish, and was full of gamey flavour. He
chose red wine sauce that could have been reduced a tad more to remove the
acidity, but was still good.




For afters, our waitress recommended the raw milk
camembert ($3.50) – which was beautifully punchy and just starting to grow
legs. And the reblochon ($3.50) had a nutty flavour, with a faint, earthy,
musky taste of truffles. They were such generous portions, it would cost you
more buying them from the swag bag carriers at Lucky Supermarket. Not that
you’d get that quality there.









There was nothing pompous about the place at all.
The owner, who looked happy and well-oiled, came through after service and
shook everyone’s hand with a cheery “bon soir”. He was clutching a mysterious
potion, and two saucers with what looked like a marshmallow in each. He poured
a few drops in and they sprouted into white sausages. What fiendish trickery
and bolts of bedevilment? We both stared.




“It same as thiz,” he said, pointing at the napkin
on my lap. We wiped our faces and were engulfed in menthol. He was soon pouring
us home-made strawberry vodka that was so thick it could have been happily
up-ended without fear of spillage. We then moved on to Calvados, which was the
perfect end to a wonderful meal.




We left with a Ready Brek glow, feeling very happy
and full. The owner shook our hands again on the way out. “Did you cook the
meal?” I asked. “Me! No way! She did,” he said, pointing at a pretty Khmer
woman sitting on a moped. We thanked her several times until it became
embarrassing. ”I wonder if she’s married,” my friend asked, as we loaded our
guns and headed back out into the hood.




Chez
Gaston, #76, Street 15, Phnom Penh (Tel: 077 910 945). Meal for two, including
drinks and service: $70

Celebrity Chefs’ Farts: The 2013 Food Trend Everyone Missed

After being bombarded with endless listicles predicting food trends for
2013, I wonder if there’s one that’s been left off? Or let off. And by that, I
mean celebrity chefs’ farts. Perhaps sealed in vac-pack bags and poached gently
in a sous vide water bath at exactly 37.2C for 37 minutes and then carefully
unsealed at the table to be sniffed eagerly while licking a shit-caked brick
served by a cook who talks about himself in the third person?




Eau de Heston ? Ramsay No.5 ? And what about an iPod playing the actual
sound of the famous chef’s trump that created such a umami-bubbling bouquet as
thrill-seeking, trendsetter diners tuck into the food his slaves have cooked in
his own name?




I’m joking, of course, but it does give me the opportunity to point out
once again how many bullying, megalomaniac, deviant psychos you’ll find
in professional kitchens. I wrote about this in my book Down And Out In Padstow And London about the insane characters you find behind the stove and the abuse
they regularly inflict on their staff.




But I was still surprised to read about the actions of an apparently
fairly well-known American chef who started out on a culinary mission five
years ago to fart on every one of his 37 employees - including his accountant -
and to chronicle his attacks in some sort of bilious journal, the same way a
stalker might keep disturbingly detailed, breathless notes of interactions with
victims.




The mystery carrot chopper claims to have had one or two shows on
something called the Food Network, which narrows him down to about 100,000 and
counting, because everyone’s a celebrity chef now aren’t they. You only have to
do a quick news search on Google to find idiots you’ve never heard of donating
mince pies they’ve incredibly made themselves - in their own time, and out of
the very goodness of their heart - for some charitable cause and a few lines in
the local paper.




The chef, who claims to have a restaurant in New York’s Meatpacking
District, apparently even has a colour code for the offending farts he forced his
employees to inhale, and has recorded his parps in a “rant and rave” section on
Craigslist.




In the first strike, inflicted on a lowly kitchen worker on January 21
2008, he says: “It was hot as hell in the kitchen that night, sometimes I like
to turn off the air conditioning to give my staff a bit of a stir, it makes
their blood flow, their tempers flash, but for some reason, their discomfort
turns out better quality food.




“So with all the air off, there is no air flow in our downstairs
kitchen, and its small and cramped and really, really fucking hot, even in January.
We have our plates in the warmer under our pass, so i was helping my hot apps
guy plate a new fungi misti when it happened.




“He had the pan in his right hand, and we both reached to bend over to
get the hot plate, i got there first, so he inhaled the entire hot air load
that i let roar out of my pants. It was bold, loud, and completely
unapologetic...”




He was so delighted, he decided to fart on the rest of his kitchen crew
in alphabetical order of their surnames. One by one. And two days ago, his
quest was complete.




“I think it took them out of whatever musical they thought they were
living in, and made them alive, made them smell, made them want to throw up for
a valid reason,” he muses.




“I think all farts should have a color assigned to them, because you
know when that one fart comes out and lingers in the air and wont leave, I mean
its obvious that is a green fart. Everyone should know this by now, its even
documented in cartoons.




“A red fart is a spicy one, probably incurred by some type of spicy
ethnic food with a great amount of chilis and onions. A yellow fart, well these
are worse on the farter, than they are on the fartee. These are sick farts, the
ones that are on the verge of being sharts. Just imagine the fart that comes
after downing like gallon of vodka, eating like 5 gyros on st. marks, then
bagging a hooker named natasha, who acts like she is from russia etc etc.”




The chef - who describes himself as “definitely known in and around NYC”
and brags that he has had “several specials on foodnetwork (sic)” - promises to
detail the story of each fart over the next 37 days. Well, he would have done
if his odious postings hadn’t already been removed by Craigslist. If his tales are true, let’s hope
there were lawyers reading...

Paris Bistro Cooking 6,200 Miles From France

There is a book called The Art Of Simple French Cookery by Alexander Watt,
a notorious gourmet who spent much of his life lounging around in Gallic
restaurants, which perfectly captures the essence of the Parisian bistro in the
1950s.




No doubt beginning his day with pastis, moving on to red wine, and then
finishing the night on brandy, Watt would gorge himself on bistro classics such
as poularde Marie-Louise, boeuf en gelee, rognons a la moutarde, gibelotte de
lapin, and always a plate of seasonal cheeses.




The accounts of his “gastronomic peregrinations” are a joy to read, as is
his book, Paris Bistro Cookery, which adjoins the back of The Art Of Simple
French Cookery like an upside down Siamese twin. As you flick through the
pages, you can picture Watt swaying in the doorway of tiny Parisian kitchens,
disrupting service as he scrawls into a grease-spattered notebook.




And something tells me he would have approved of La P’tite France, 6,200
miles away in Phnom Penh, and the cooking of its chef-owner Didier. I wasn’t
lucky enough to go to his original, much smaller venue, just off the Riverside.
But foodies fondly recall it as a typical bistro – friendly, cramped, tables
pushed together, noise and tobacco smoke drifting over the cheeseboards. They
recall with gluttonous, lip-smacking memories, the splendid simplicity of the
dishes – always a severer test of a kitchen’s ability than the fancy stuff.




La P’tite France has since moved to a beautiful villa on Street 306, and
people who know tell me the food is even better. But everything comes at a cost
– in this case a less chirpy, more formal ambience, they say. So it was with
these thoughts and the longing for Gallic classics like confit duck, terrines,
and oysters flown in from France, as our tuk tuk arrived at the plush gates and
garish pink sign of Didier’s new home.




For 8pm on a Saturday night, business was steady rather than busy, and
we chose a table on the patio giving a glimpse of the Khmer chefs in their
whites beavering away in the kitchen. Around us sat pudgy, well-dressed French
men doing what they do best – discussing food while gorging themselves like
foie gras geese to a chorus of ooh la las.




There were specials on the blackboard – including tripe and scallops –
but sadly they’d sold out of oysters, which our waiter said arrive every
Friday.












The service was smooth and brisk, and a little plate of amuse bouche
quickly arrived – two slices of baguette topped with tomato, olive, and melted
cheese that were a little ordinary, and certainly not needed considering the
enormous portions that followed.












My $5.25 starter of marrow bone gratin with toast and a saucer of fleur
de sel was exquisite. The gooey, oozing, fatty, beef shin marrow melted in your
mouth and was a reminder – at half the price and far more generous – of the
similar signature dish at St John restaurant in London, which food writer
Anthony Bourdain claims is the best dish he’s eaten.









My friend’s starter of whelks with garlic mayonnaise ($6.25) was very
good too – no trace of grit, and a wonderful, fresh, fossily taste of the sea.
But if I were to be properly critical, the garlic should have been chopped much
finer, and the aioli was lacking in the richness it should deliver in its
perfect form.




Mon Dieu this man knows his onions though. And that view was confirmed
by the main courses. Each part was a model of how it should be cooked, with
such assurance, such taste, and such old-fashioned virtue.












My $11.50 braised pork shank with cep confit, sitting on a bed of choucroute,
and winged by two turned potatoes, was enormous and fell apart as I dug in. It
was an exceptional dish and showcased every part of Didier’s cooking skills.












My friend kept uttering appreciative noises as he ate his $12.50 braised
lamb shank nestled on creamy flageolet beans, steeped in garlic. It came with a
ramekin of fiery Tunisian harissa paste that brought the whole dish alive.




Our bellies bursting, and with the true taste of France dancing on our
taste buds, we looked at the dessert menu, boasting dark chocolate mousse,
poached pears, tarte tatin et al. But as any French cook will tell you, every
good Gallic meal should end with cheese, so we shared a platter ($6.50) that
came with a roof-of-the-mouth-etching Roquefort that would have made King
Charles VI proud, and certainly the finest French bread – baked daily by Didier
and his crew – I can remember having in Asia.












By golly it was an incredible meal. The cooking was sublime, and the
only downside was the eagerness of the well-drilled, immaculately-turned-out
Khmer waiters to snatch our plates at every opportunity. It’s certainly not a
place for night owls or loiterers. By 10pm we were the last table to clear, and
felt slightly hurried to vacate that beautiful, rare spot of leafy sanctuary in
the steamy streets of Phnom Penh.




The frogmarching, if you will, aside, I’d heartily recommend it to food
lovers, and anyone wanting a romantic notion of what it must have been like
before French colonialists were finally booted out of Cambodia. A pocket of
history, a pocket of gastronomic excellence. It may not have the informal,
neighbourhood dive ambience of a true bistro, but I know Watt would have
greeted the cooking with appreciate applause.






La P’tite France, #38, Street 306, Phnom Penh, 016 64 26 30. Meal for
two, including drinks and service: $65




:: My bestselling food book Down And Out In Padstow And London is available in paperback and Kindle

To read an edited extract published in Caterer and Hotelkeeper Magazine click here ...