Cook's Encyclopaedia

By Tom Stobart

A descriptive compendium of just about everything we eat and how we cook it—selected as “one of the greatest cookbooks of all time” (Waitrose Food Illustrated).
 
Arranged alphabetically from Abalone to Zampone, Cook’s Encyclopedia covers the majority of foods and processes used in cooking. Hundreds of ingredients are described, with English and foreign synonyms and scientific names; recipes are given in many cases to illustrate the use of the foodstuff in question. Cooking processes—including bottling, brewing, brining, curing, smoking, and vacuuming—are explained in great and illuminating detail. The aim is to both entertain and to instruct—in particular, to give a sense of the essence and individuality of each ingredient. Tom Stobart traveled widely, both as an explorer and a filmmaker, and his book was informed by an eye for telling details.
 
Many fans say they would be lost without this book, which segues effortlessly between exhaustive reference work and handy recipe book, and back again. It explains the world of the kitchen, whether you’re a beginner or an old hand, revealing the facts behind foods, equipment, and techniques. Stobart describes how baking powder works, for instance, the temperature at which bacteria grow, and how to make your own tomato ketchup, so every time you dip into this book, you’ll be better equipped to return to the stove.
 
“A MUST, comprehensive, well-organized and well-written . . . a serious and important work of reference.” —Alan Davidson, author of The Oxford Companion to Food

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781910690833

Tom Stobart

Tom Stobart OBE, was a traveller and explorer as well as a cookery expert. He originally trained as a zoologist and later became a documentary film maker, most notably recording the ascent of Everest by Sir Edmund Hilary. He died in 1980.

Book preview

Introduction

Ingredients are the fundamentals of cookery, and every cook who hopes to excel should know about them. Great chefs and restaurateurs are likely to pay just as much attention to choosing their ingredients as they do to choosing their recipes – the two are inseparable.

When I was making films on European cooking, I got to know a number of distinguished chefs from various countries. Many of them worked in towns with good open-air markets. As I have always been fascinated by markets (and my love for them is one of the reasons why this book came to be written), I would visit them as soon as they opened, which was well before even an early breakfast. In the beginning, I was surprised to see a certain master chef, one of that exclusive body, the Maîtres Cuisiniers de France, was at the market before me. He was not young and was certainly wealthy enough to take it easy, but still he had come himself to prod the strawberries, smell the melons and squeeze the onions. Later, I came to accept this keenness as normal, as I observed chefs doing the same in country after country.

Great chefs become marvellously choosy and dogmatic. They are likely to tell us that coq au vin absolutely requires a real Bresse chicken and thyme from Provence, so that any idea of making it in America or Australia is absurd. In many ways, that is the right approach, even if it is a little chauvinistic. We might equally ask if a Frenchman in France could bake a proper New England Johnnycake or a Yorkshire pudding.

Of course, some ingredients – olive oil, for instance – are more critical than others – but even seemingly mundane things, like salt, are worthy of close attention. The very air can come into the equation. It is not just that local dishes do not taste right or that recipes do not work with the wrong ingredients – using the right ones is among the secrets of good cooking.

There is, of course, a no-nonsense view that holds that if a recipe calls for a Bresse chicken, the operative word is chicken and any chicken, even a broiler, will do. This is a sure route to mediocrity as it will inevitably eliminate the subtleties that are the mark of fine cooking. The more ‘nonsense’, then, the better. Why waste effort trying to imitate classic recipes with only substitutes for the ingredients they demand? Surely it is better to discover the virtues of what is actually available. We should remember, too, that inspired improvisation by cooks in circumstances where only a limited range of ingredients were obtainable led to the invention of some of the world’s great dishes.

No book can list every ingredient that is locally available or discuss every nuance. Nor can it be totally objective about such subjective qualities as taste. Personal judgement cannot be avoided – in any case, there is no such thing as a good but impersonal cookery book. What I have tried to do is to list as wide a range of ingredients as possible, to give some of their background and to identify their particular characteristics. They should have an individuality and an identity beyond mere appearance – a brown root or a white powder. It is the specific qualities of ingredients that give the cook something to build on.

While I hope that this book will provide entertainment for people who like to browse in cookery books (as I do), my aim has been to offer practical advice to cooks who buy unfamiliar ingredients and try to use them. Today, shops and markets offer the most staggering variety of produce. In them, you can drool over anything from bottled insects to dried duck’s feet and long for advice. ‘Oh, those!’ the shopkeeper may well say. ‘Some Tibetans or Koreans from up the road come in for them, but God knows how they cook them. We just get them from the wholesaler.’ It is possible that, after boiling the things for several hours, you will find that they are pan scourers.

With the jet age, the world’s food has entered a phase of explosive evolution, and anyone who is essentially curious is likely to have a hard time keeping up. Indeed, while writing this book, I have sometimes felt like a hunter tracking the Yeti; it became evident that the Yeti was walking faster than I was. New ingredients crop up faster than they can be tried out – which should not be a cause for despair but rather of rejoicing at the richness that is available to us. At least by mastering the usual ingredients and processes, we can have more time to devote to the unusual.

This is not a recipe book, but recipes have been included for a variety of reasons. In some cases, they have been chosen simply to illustrate the use of an ingredient, or how to prepare it in ways other than those commonly used in British or American cooking. For instance, nuts are not just for eating at Christmas but can make subtle additions to the consistency and flavour of every course. Recipes are also given so that expatriates can make basic ingredients for themselves when they are living out of reach of suitable suppliers. Others are there because showing how something is made may be the best way of defining or describing it. The rest are there just because I felt like putting them in or because one of the many people who have helped with the book wanted some particular recipe. The same freedom has been taken with the methods and the science. In general, I have put in what I remember that I once did not know myself and what I still have to look up, often in books on agricultural botany or geography or biochemistry or nutrition rather than on cookery. I have also tried to straighten out old confusions. Again, even though the book has grown far beyond its intended size, there has had to be selection, as the subject is infinite.

I am frequently asked why someone who has spent so much time travelling and ‘exploring’ should want to write books about food instead of concentrating on such excitements as man-eating tigers. Food, though, is one of the greatest of all travel subjects – people who fly around the globe but never eat outside the international hotels are hardly to be described as travellers. Their only contact with foreign lands is through the soles of their shoes; they never become involved. Anthropologists, on the other hand, sometimes go as far as to marry a girl of the country they want to study, which is hardly a practical solution for the traveller, who is unlikely to spend more than a few months in any country (it is also liable to create little problems).Visiting a place and eating the food that the people there enjoy at home or on their feast days is also a way of becoming involved in local life. Those who have smelled the aroma of garlic and Gauloises, eaten tapas or meze, or chewed grilled meat wrapped in entrails will understand why, as a traveller, I became interested in cooking. They are the kindred souls that I had particularly in mind when I was writing this book. My aim has been to provide a reference source for cooks who are adventurous in spirit, whether they are able to travel widely or must find their culinary adventures at home.

About this book

Contents. The majority of the entries in this book deal with the ingredients and processes used in cooking. The ingredients that I have included are in general of sufficient culinary importance to be sold somewhere in the world. Very many things that grow wild can also be eaten or at least made edible and used in cooking to an extent that depends on the cook’s determination and ingenuity (or sometimes eccentricity). Although there are various books, like Richard Mabey’s Food for Free (Collins), about edible wild things, these can relate only to a particular country or area. A similar effort on a worldwide scale would be endless; on the whole, the wild animals and plants covered here are, at least locally, objects of commerce. Even so, I have been rather sparing in the number of entries allotted to one category of wild food that is very widely sold: fish and shellfish come in such a multitude of species, many of them rather restricted in distribution, that I have dealt only with the main edible groups. Finally among the list of intentional exclusions, I should mention that I have not gone into cuts of meat. Again, regional variation is the reason. Because not just the names but the actual cuts can differ even between different areas of the same country, any straightforward translation tables are likely to be misleadingly oversimplified. In any case, those outlines of carcases divided up with neat lines into named areas are moderately uninformative. The best way of learning about the cuts of meat you can buy is from the butcher who actually produces them.

Arrangement. The entries are arranged alphabetically and cross-referenced. Words preceded by asterisks can be looked up for further information relevant to the entry in which they appear. However, the absence of an asterisk does not mean the absence of an entry for the word, merely that looking it up will not yield much that is germane to the matter in hand.

Foodstuffs often go under so many different names that it would have been easy to swamp the whole book with cross-references for every imaginable synonym. Two restrictions have been applied to save the day here. First, only the most important dialect names, archaic names and spelling variants have been included (a particularly rich source of cross-references could have been alternative transliterations from, say, Arabic). Second, I have taken advantage of the undoubted intelligence of my readers by doing away with cross-references from the whole of a name to its second word. Thus, you will not be given a cross-reference to take you from brown sugar to sugar or from red mullet to mullet. Where the destination is not the second word of the name, a cross-reference is, of course, provided, as from green bean to kidney bean.

Units. Much of the English-speaking world is at present in an awkward stage of partial metrication. A large part of the population, especially its older members, can cope only with the traditional units, while school leavers now emerge into society thinking entirely metric. The rest of us switch uneasily back and forth between the old units and the metric ones. At present, and probably for some years to come, the only sensible course in a cookbook is to include both units.

In the British edition of this book, metric units are given first, followed by their Imperial equivalents in parentheses. Anyone who cares to check the conversions will quickly find that they vary considerably in their accuracy. The rule here is a very simple one: conversions have been made only as accurate as they need to be, which is to say pretty accurate for baking, where quantities are often critical, and often quite approximate elsewhere. The abbreviations that have been used for the various units are the conventional ones with the exception of litres, for which the Italian abbreviation It has been chosen as being less confusing typographically than the more usual l. The various units are covered in some detail in the entry on weights and measures.

Scientific names. Popular names for plants or animals can often be confusing, with the same thing having a variety of names or, worse still, the same name applying to a variety of things. Scientific names are supposed to sort out the confusion by being internationally accepted. Unfortunately, though, the scientists have managed to create some muddles of their own and have had to ape the College of Heralds in unscrambling confusions in nomenclature. For example, two biologists may independently have given a name to what later turns out to be the same species; the older of the two names is the one that sticks (unless, of course, it has previously been used by someone else as a name for another species altogether). Groupings into genera, families and so on are meant to reflect relationships and to make up a sort of genealogical table. But since there are no church registers in evolution, taxonomists have to work on the available evidence, so that generic names (the first word in the name of any species) tend to be changed. To make a biological name unambiguous, you have to add the name of the person who first described the species (and ideally the date of the description).You will then know that when you are talking about White mustard as Sinapis alba Linnaeus, you are referring to the same species that other authorities have called Brassica alba or Brassica hirta, which is all very clear for a scientist. For the purposes of this book, such extremes of scientific pedantry seem unnecessary and the scientific name that seems to be most commonly used has been adopted without the name of its author. For the most part, scientific names are there either for precision or just as an extra piece of information that might be useful. There are, however, some things such as edible fungi and exotic fish and shellfish that have no popular names in English. Where a number of species of the same genus have been referred to in the same entry, the convention has been adopted of abbreviating the generic name on its second and subsequent appearances, as in Brassica napus and B. rapa.

Translations. Entries for the more usual ingredients and processes give translations in French, German, Italian and Spanish. For processes the translation is always the infinitive i.e. the French for boiling is given as bouillir – literally ‘to boil’.

Sources. Books that have been important as sources of information have been acknowledged in the particular entries for which they have been used, and the British publisher has been given for the edition that was consulted. Some books, such as Alan Davidson’s invaluable works on seafood, therefore receive quite a number of mentions. There are, however, a number of titles that have been consulted for a large number of entries. Five that have been at hand throughout the editing of this book are Food Science – A Chemical Approach by Brian A. Fox and Allan G. Cameron (University of London Press, 1970), Success in Nutrition by Magnus Pyke (John Murray, 1975), Teaching Nutrition and Food Science by Margaret Knight (Batsford, 1976), The Oxford Book of Food Plants by S.G. Harrison, G.B. Masefield and Michael Wallace (Oxford University Press, 1969) and my own Herbs, Spices and Flavourings (Grub Street, 1998).

a

ABALONE and ORMER. These flattened molluscs of the genus Haliotis, the sea-ears, are best known for their ornamental shells, which have a row of holes and a fine mother-of-pearl lining. They have almost lost their spiral shape and creep around in a limpet-like way eating the algae on rocks below the low tide mark. The edible part is the muscular foot which serves the creature for both anchorage and locomotion. After the animal has been taken out of its shell, the dark-coloured visceral hump (the guts) must be removed. The remaining foot should be beaten soundly to break up the muscle fibres. Otherwise it will be exceedingly tough.

Ormers are small European abalones which are found as far north as Guernsey, although they have become very scarce; they are very rare in Jersey (which is too far from the Gulf Stream) and are almost absent from Britain. The name is a Channel Islands corruption of the French ormeau or oreille de mer. Ormers may be gathered from the rocks at spring low tides. They are out of season in the summer, when they are at their toughest. Some authorities distinguish the slightly smaller Mediterranean ormer (Haliotis lamellosa) from the Atlantic ormer (H. tuberculata).

Abalone is the Californian Spanish name for the species of Haliotis found in warm seas; they are commonly much larger and finer in flavour than ormers.The true abalone is the Red abalone (H. rufescens), which is fished in southern California and traditionally prepared for market by Japanese girls whose forebears would have eaten them in their own country. Other species, such as the Black abalone (H. cracherodii), are popular in Mexico. Indeed, abalone are eaten wherever they occur in sufficient numbers. In Australia, they are known as mutton fish. In Japan, they are famous as awabi or turbo, and the fishing was done traditionally by almost naked girls, called ama, who went down to a depth of 12 m (40 ft), wearing no more than a G-string and carrying a large stone to help them sink.

In countries where abalone is found, the foot, cleaned and pounded, is sold by weight, fresh and sliced. lt can be eaten raw or cooked. Fresh or frozen slices may be covered with breadcrumbs and fried like cutlets, but they must be cooked on each side for no more than a minute or they will become tough. Recipes can be found in American, Japanese and Chinese cookery books. In China, abalone is often dried; it is then called pao yü and must be soaked for four days in fresh water before use. In Europe, canned abalone is available. The cream-coloured foot should be sliced; it may be served in a salad or as part of an hors-d’oeuvre.

[Ormer – French: oreille de mer, ormeau German: Seeohr, Ohrmuschel Italian: orecchia marina, orecchia di San Pietro Spanish: oreja de mar]

ABELMUSK. See mallow.

ABUTILON. See mallow.

ACETIC ACID (CH3COOH).This, the acid of *vinegar and of spoiled wine, is an important organic acid formed when alcohol is oxidized by acetic-acid producing bacteria. These are aerobic – they require oxygen from the air – and so cannot spoil a properly corked bottle of wine, but can turn it sour after it has been opened. Natural wine vinegar will contain 5-10% acetic acid. Acetic acid is an important flavouring, and traces of it are responsible for a pleasant tang in yoghurt and cheese.

As acetic acid is volatile, the strength of vinegar can be increased by distillation or conversely weakened by long boiling. Industrially, acetic acid can be made from coal and limestone. (They are heated together to make calcium carbide. This, slaked, makes acetylene gas, which in turn is converted to acetic acid.) Pure acetic acid looks a little like a mixture of ice and water, which is why it is known as glacial acetic acid. Being a highly-corrosive substance, it is not one to keep in the kitchen, but suitably diluted (to 5%), and often coloured with burnt sugar, it is used in cheap pickles and as a vinegar substitute, which turns up in fish and chip shops labelled Non Brewed Condiment. It also is added to natural vinegar (like fortifying wine with alcohol) to make it keep better, since dilute vinegar is open to attack by bacteria which change acetic acid into carbon dioxide and water. Acetic acid is a stronger preservative than other kitchen acids (citric, lactic and tartaric), and even at the same *pH is more toxic to spoilage organisms, though less so than benzoic acid (see preservation). Even a 1% solution strongly inhibits most bacteria, though not moulds. These qualities make vinegar effective in pickling.

[Acetic Acid – French: acide acétique German: Essigsäure Italian: acido acetic Spanish: ácido acético]

ACIDS. From the Latin acidus (sour) – all sour foods contain acids. Sourness is an important taste and is supplied by acids in many natural ingredients, such as *acetic acid in vinegar, *citric acid in lemon juice, *tartaric acid in wine and unripe fruit, *malic acid in sour apples, *lactic acid in sour milk, and *oxalic acid in sorrel and rhubarb.

Although naturally-occurring sour ingredients are the ones most commonly used in cooking, there is sometimes a need for pure acids such as citric and tartaric, which may be bought as crystalline powders. Even *hydrochloric and *sulphuric acids, which are highly corrosive and dangerous, have some relevance to food.

Acids are highly active chemicals: even rather weak ones will attack iron, zinc (on galvanized articles) and, more slowly, lead and copper in the circumstances in which they may occur in the kitchen. The resulting salts of zinc, copper and, above all, lead are poisonous. On the other hand, for practical purposes, organic acids do not attack enamel, stainless steel, tin (on cans or tinned pans of brass or copper), aluminium, silver or gold. Wooden tubs, china, stoneware, enamel and plastics are also resistant, but acids should not be kept in marble mortars, which they will dissolve, in earthenware vessels with low-fired glazes that are high in lead content, or in high-lead crystal glass bottles – the last two are potentially dangerous. Acids dissolve carbonates (marble, limestone, chalk, washing soda) and bicarbonates (baking soda), giving off a fizz of carbon-dioxide gas. This property is used in sherbets, fruit salts and baking powders. Acids are always neutralized by *alkalis, and the two cannot exist together. It is no good mixing fuming hydrochloric acid and caustic soda together to make a double-acting cleaner – one will neutralize the other with some violence. In theory, fruits can be made less sour by adding soda or lime. Home winemakers sometimes temper rhubarb by adding chalk, which is quite logical, but the salts formed can taste nasty and may be purgative. Sugar, on the other hand, does not neutralize acids but produces a pleasant sweet-sour sensation in the mouth.

Adjustment of acidity, and therefore of sourness, is a fundamental operation in cooking, which is why a last-minute squeeze of lemon juice can be so important in finishing a dish. Fruits with insufficient acidity are insipid. A wine with less than 0.2% acid will be uninteresting and moreover will not keep, while one with more than 1.5% will be too sour.

Acids above a certain strength are *preservatives (though some are more toxic to bacteria than others), which is why Viking relics are pickled in peat bogs and vegetables are preserved in vinegar.

Acid and alkaline solutions can be distinguished with litmus papers, which are turned red by acid and blue by alkalis. Many of the natural colours of food behave in a similar manner. Acid vinegar will turn beetroot or red cabbage a bright red, while cabbage boiled in acid water turns an unappetizing yellow.

Weight for weight, some acids are much stronger than others. For instance a 1% solution of hydrochloric acid is much stronger than a 1% solution of citric acid, in that it is sourer and able to neutralize a greater amount of soda, attack metals faster and so on. In fact, it is more acid. The essential acidity of solutions, irrespective of which acids are present, can be compared by means of the

*pH scale.

[Acids – French: acides German: Säuren Italian: acidi Spanish: ácidos]

ACIDULATED WATER is water that has been made slightly acid with a teaspoon or so of vinegar or lemon juice to each half litre or pint of water. It is used for briefly holding cut fruit or vegetables which would otherwise darken quite quickly when their cut surfaces come into contact with the air. It is effective for fruit such as apples and pears and for vegetables such as globe and Jerusalem artichokes and salsify. It can also be used as a cooking medium – cauliflower cooked in acidulated water will be beautifully white even if the curd was rather yellow when raw.

ACITRÓN. A candied substance made in Mexico from the large cushion-like Biznaga cactus (Echinocactus grandis). It is shaped into bars and is used for meat stuffings. Any sweet candied fruit may be used as a substitute if it is not too strongly flavoured.

ACKEE or akee. A tropical fruit (Blighia sapida) belonging to the same family as the lychee but very different to look at. It was introduced from West Africa to Jamaica, where it has become particularly popular. The fruit, some 8 mm (3 in) in diameter, is bright red. When ripe, it bursts open to reveal three large shiny black seeds and the creamy aril which is well described by the name ‘vegetable brain’. This is all that is eaten, because the pink parts of the fruit are very poisonous, as are both the unripe and over ripe fruits. The flavour of ackee as a fruit is delicate, but its most famous use is cooked in the West Indian ‘salt fish and ackee’. As canned ackees are available outside the West Indies, anyone could attempt the following recipe:

Salt Fish and Ackee

Soak 450 g (1 lb) salt cod and cook it in water. Fifteen minutes before the fish is cooked, add the creamy part of 24 ackees. Drain, skin and bone the fish, flake it and mix with the ackee. Dice 100 g (4 oz) salt pork and fry it until crisp and brown.

Remove the pork, and in the fat fry 2 finely-chopped medium onions and a chopped sweet pepper until very lightly browned. Then add 1 or 2 chopped chillies, 4 chopped spring onions, 3 peeled and coarsely-chopped tomatoes, and a sprig of thyme. Fry this gently for about 5 minutes, and finally put in the salt cod and ackee, together with the fried salt pork, to warm through. Serve seasoned with pepper and garnished with crisply fried slices of bacon, a few tomato wedges and parsley or watercress for decoration. lf canned ackees are used, a 450 g (1 lb) tin will suffice. They do not require cooking, but should be drained and added with the fish and pork near the end of cooking.

Those interested in further recipes should consult Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz’s Caribbean Cookery (Penguin) on which this salt fish and ackee recipe is based.

ACORN. One of the original foods of man, acorns are still used extensively in some parts of Europe and also by North American Indians. Acorns from all species of oak are edible but those (e.g. of the English oak, Quercus robur) that taste very astringent should first be ground and washed or boiled in water until the water-soluble tannins, which could cause stomach upsets, are dissolved out. However, a number of oak species bear acorns which are sweet and edible without treatment. Among the best is the evergreen Holm oak or Ilex (Quercus ilex), which grows on the stony hillsides of Mediterranean countries and has plump brown acorns. The cultivated sweet varieties (var. ballota) are sold in the markets of Spain, Algeria and Morocco in January, and fetch the same price as chestnuts which in many ways they resemble. They become sweeter with keeping, but may acquire a winey flavour.

Other sweet acorns commonly eaten in Europe are those of the Valonia oak (Q. macrolepis) from Italy, Greece and the eastern Mediterranean, and of the Manna oak (Q. persica) and the Kermes oak (Q. coccifera), also from Mediterranean hillsides. In North America, the best are from the White oak (Q. alba) and the Live oak (Q. virginiana). Acorns are also eaten in China (Q. cornea) and in Japan (Q. cuspidata).

Acorns are usually eaten roasted like chestnuts, but I have also found them useful as a substitute for water chestnuts, as they do not disintegrate quickly on boiling. It is possible to make use of any acorns by shelling and boiling them until they are sweet and dark brown, or by pounding and washing them for a day in running water, after which the residue can be dried and be used in cakes, like other nuts. Roasted acorns are sometimes used as a coffee substitute, and acorn flour can be made into bread.

[Acorn – French: gland German: Eichel Italian: ghianda Spanish: bellota]

ADULTERATION is the trader’s dirty trick of padding foods, especially expensive ones, with cheaper materials of similar appearance to cheat the customer. Because adulteration of this sort is difficult to detect and needs the trained investigator with microscope and laboratory, we all depend on the vigilance of food inspectors. As individuals we can protect ourselves only by avoiding incredible bargains (nobody is going to sell saffron cheaply if it is real saffron) and by buying items like spices whole – it is only too easy to fake ground pepper with ground date-stones. In other cases, the adulteration is done quite openly: thus ground almonds are commonly padded with biscuit meal and almond flavouring. The confectioner knows he is buying a substitute – he is continually visited by salesmen selling substitutes for eggs, cherries, chocolate, cream and other ingredients, and there is often no concealment. As for the tradesmen involved – most have long ago stopped being concerned that such things as genuine ground almonds ever existed. That, one may say, is not quite the same as selling salami made of plastic, as was done when I lived in Italy. (After an official inquiry, the local river was suddenly flooded with large sausages bobbing their way to pollute the Mediterranean.)

Although dictionaries do not do so, I have made a distinction in this book between adulteration and the much more worrying question of additives which are put into manufactured foodstuffs – often, though not always, with good intentions. Additives are there to improve texture, colour and appearance, to prolong shelf-life or to bring out flavour. They might be acceptable, if they were not so often substances which in quantity might prove a health hazard.

[Adulteration – French: freletage German: Nahrungsmittelverfälschung Italian: adulterazione Spanish: adulteración]

ADZUKI BEAN. A small reddish brown bean (Phaseolus angularis), easily cooked and with a very pleasant, sweet flavour. Adzuki beans are much grown in China and Japan, and have now become generally available outside the Orient. In Japanese cooking, the boiled beans, mashed and sweetened, are an important base for various cakes (e.g. yonkan) and sweets, and in red rice. The beans are also sold powdered (azukisarashien) – a short cut. I have found adzuki beans tender and palatable when used in place of other small beans in non-Oriental recipes.

AGAR-AGAR, kanten, Japanese gelatine or vegetable gelatine. Available as a powder, in sticks or in shreds, agar-agar is obtained from a number of seaweeds by boiling them in water, then filtering and drying the resultant jelly. It is a complex carbohydrate, unlike gelatine which is a protein. Agar-agar melts at about 90°C (194°F) and sets at about 45°C (112°F); gelatine melts at about 27°C (80°F) and sets at 20°C (68°F).

Agar-agar can be obtained from pharmacists, because it is the usual medium for cultures of bacteria. It does not melt at blood heat and so can be incubated. This characteristic suits the bacteriologist, but makes agar-agar unpopular in the kitchen, as it does not melt in the mouth like other jellies. Also, the texture is peculiarly short and brittle.

Agar-agar will dissolve only in boiling water. Like gelatine, it varies in jellying power from sample to sample, but 1 teaspoon to ¾ lt (1 ⅓ pt) of water would be a sensible point to start from. As agar-agar jelly sets at 40-44°C (104-111°F) – which is lukewarm – it is not too long a job to learn by experiment. Do not, however, boil agar-agar for long with an acid, or it will change its character and fail to set at all. On the other hand, one can make fresh pineapple or papaya juice into jellies with agar-agar, but not with gelatine, as they contain substances which attack the protein in gelatine.

As kanten, agar-agar is an ingredient of Japanese cooking and is often used to make a very stiff, coloured jelly from which decorative shapes – leaves or fruits – are cut. For this purpose, kanten, which often comes in cakes, is heated rather gently in water until it melts; then it is seasoned, coloured and set in sheets of the required thickness. Kanten is also an ingredient of fake bird’s-nest soup, in which it provides the viscous texture.

AJOWAN, bishop’s weed or omum. A spice seed (Carum ajowan), closely related to caraway, but with a strong taste of thyme and containing thymol; it therefore has antiseptic properties. It is used in Indian cooking, but dried thyme is a very fair substitute.

AKAVIT. See liqueurs and cordials.

AKEE. See ackee.

ALBACORE. See tuna.

ALBUMIN. Member of a class of proteins once thought to make up almost the entire protein content of egg white which was called albumen. In fact, the protein of egg white is only about 70% ovalbumin and 9% conalbumin. Albumins are an important constituent of seeds, a stored food for the embryo to use for a start in life. They are also a constituent of milk and of meat, as well as being the main protein in blood plasma, which is why egg-white substitutes used by commercial confectioners are often made from blood. During World War II, certain jokers used to make meringues from plasma filched from the field hospitals. Like many proteins, albumin coagulates and hardens when heated. Ovalbumin starts to coagulate at 60°C (140°F); it is also partially coagulated if beaten into a foam (see whipping). Because this process is slowed down at low temperatures, it is slower work to beat the whites of eggs that have come straight out of the refrigerator than it is with them at room temperature.

[Albumin – French: albumine German: Albumin Italian: albumina Spanish: albúmina]

ALCOHOL. Chemically, there are dozens of alcohols, several ranges of them, but popularly (and in our context) by alcohol we mean, unless otherwise qualified, only potable alcohol, silent alcohol or neutral spirit, which are all names for ethyl alcohol mixed with water. Ethyl alcohol or ethanol is one of a series of alcohols of which the simplest members are:

methyl alcohol CH3 OH boils at 55°C (149°F)

ethyl alcohol C2H5OH boils at 78°C (173°F)

propyl alcohol C3H7OH boils at 98°C (208°F)

butyl alcohol C4H9OH boils at 118°C (244°F)

Each member of the series has one carbon and two hydrogen atoms more than its predecessor and has a higher boiling point; from this list the would-be moonshiner, who wishes to distil ethyl alcohol without too many of its more poisonous relations, may get some idea of his problems. Methyl alcohol, also known as wood alcohol or methanol, is the most volatile. It is the stuff that sends methylated-spirits drinkers blind. Other series of alcohols include such substances as glycerine and are well represented in the higher boiling point mixture of congenerics known as *fuse! oil, which comes over towards the end of distillation. Ethyl alcohol is produced when sugars are fermented by yeasts, but the raw materials usually used for making alcoholic drinks – grapes, malted grain, potatoes, rice, fruit juices – contain much more than just sugars, so that many reactions take place, and other substances – the congenerics – are formed in fermentation. Many people regard ethyl alcohol itself as a poison, but some of the other substances are far more poisonous and are largely responsible for hangover headaches (See distillation).

The Properties of Ethyl Alcohol. At ordinary atmospheric pressure, pure alcohol boils at 78°C (173°F). Since pure water boils at 100°C (212°F), a mixture of water and alcohol will boil somewhere between these two extremes, depending on the relative amounts of each. *Proof spirit boils at 82°C (180°F). Of course, the alcohol does not all boil away suddenly when the temperature of wine, for example, reaches the boiling point of alcohol, but the higher the temperature of hot punch or spiced wine, the more alcohol is lost, until finally at 100°C (212°F) it is gone altogether.

Alcohol freezes at a much lower temperature than water, which is why thermometers for low temperatures are frequently filled with coloured spirit. Every winter there are fatal accidents in the Arctic when thirsty travellers swig vodka or akavit which has been left in sub-zero weather. This causes internal burns from frost-bite and caustic burns from the alcohol being strengthened as the water freezes out of the original mixture.

Pure ethyl alcohol is known as absolute alcohol; it is clear, inflammable and exceedingly caustic. The strongest alcohol normally sold in shops is 90-95% and is found in countries where the duty is not prohibitive, such as Spain (as alcohol para licores) or Italy (as alcool puro grado). It is used in home-made liqueurs and for preserving fruits such as grapes and cherries. This alcohol must be cut with an equal quantity of water before it is in any way comparable to ordinary spirits, such as gin and whisky. Taken neat, it will skin the mouth and possibly have fatal consequences. When water is added to such strong alcohol, the total volume shrinks slightly and heat is generated. It is best to dilute it with ice water.

The Effects of Alcohol. Alcohol depresses, but as it depresses first those parts of the brain which cause depression and inhibition, it appears to act as a stimulant. Later effects are impaired efficiency, slow reactions, recklessness, self-pity, bad temper, aggressiveness and falling flat on your face. Alcohol also increases the circulation in the skin, which may make you feel warmer but will, in reality, lead to cooling. Thus, a Planter’s Punch on a hot day is sensible, but the idea of a St Bernard bringing help with the brandy keg is sheer lunacy. Brandy makes the avalanche victim feel warmer, but increases his heat loss and reduces his chance of survival. A man who is cold must get into a warm place before having his whisky and hot water.

Absorption of alcohol into the blood-stream starts soon after a drink has been swallowed and is especially rapid once the drink has entered the small intestine. This happens quickly if the drink is diluted and is taken on an empty stomach. The absorption occurs more slowly if you are eating as well as drinking especially when the food is fatty, oily or heavy. There is some sense in taking a spoonful of oil or a slice of bread thickly spread with pâté before a drinking party. Similar wisdom lies behind the Russian zakousky, the Spanish tapas or the Levantine meze. Elimination of alcohol from the blood goes on much more slowly than its absorption, particularly if drinks have been taken which are rich in the higher alcohols (fusel oil).lt is a scientific fact, and not an advertising gimmick, that people will sober up far more quickly after a session on highly-rectified vodka than after the same quantities of brandy or whisky. The trouble with mixing drinks is not the alcohol but the congenerics.

Germicidal effect. Tests have shown that the germicidal effect of alcohol is greatest at a 50% concentration (i.e. at American proof). Some people disinfect jam papers with spirits, but such treatment, as usually carried out, is probably not effective. Stronger or weaker mixtures are even less effective. At a concentration over 18%, alcohol will stop the fermenting action of yeasts and will not be turned to acetic acid by bacteria. At this sort of strength it is used to preserve fruit syrups (e.g. crème de cassis). When preserving fruit such as grapes or cherries in alcohol, you should remember that it will be diluted by the juices of the fruit. You therefore have to start with a good, strong spirit.

Italian Cherry Liqueur

Wash 450 g (1 lb) ripe bitter black cherries. Put 300 g (11 oz) sugar, 2 cloves, a 5 cm (2 in) of stick cinnamon, and 150 ml (¼ pt) water in a pan, bring to the boil and cool. Mix the cooled syrup with 300 ml (½ pt) 90% alcohol. Pack the cherries into the jars without breaking them, but include a couple of cracked stones if you like. Fill the jars until the fruit is covered. Seal. Put the jars daily in the sun, turning and shaking them gently each day. After some weeks, the bottles are ready. The liquid may be drained off and bottled (adjust with boiled syrup if necessary).You can eat the cherries.

[Alcohol – French: alcool German: Alkohol Italian: alcool Spanish: alcohol]

ALE. Alcoholic drink brewed from a cereal. Now more or less synonymous with *beer, a term which used to refer to hopped ale.

[Ale – French: ale, bière German: englisches Bier, Ale Italian: birra Spanish: cerveza]

ALECOST. See costmary.

ALEXANDERS. A heavily-built, strong-smelling umbelliferous herb, with yellow-green flowers, indigenous to Mediterranean Europe but naturalized in Britain. Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum) was once important as a vegetable, with a flavour between celery and parsley. Today, celery has superseded it.

[Alexanders – French: ombrelle jaune Italian: macerone Spanish: esmirnio]

ALFALFA. Probably the world’s most important forage legume, alfalfa (Medicago sativa) is a native of the Mediterranean region. It was grown by the ancient Persians, Greeks and Romans, and spread into China and the whole of Europe. It is fashionable at the moment to sprout alfalfa seeds as a salad food. The flavour is mild and pleasant.

ALKERMES. An old-fashioned French and Italian sweet red cordial made with *kermes.

ALKALIS are, in many ways, the opposites or antagonists of *acids. The word comes from the old Arab alchemists and referred to the white ashes of wood; these were mostly carbonates of potassium and sodium and were used in experiments as well as for cleaning and making soap. Today we would use the much stronger *caustic soda and *washing soda. When dissolved in water, and perhaps filtered, the wood-ash solution was known as *lye. Other common alkalis are *bicarbonate of soda (the one alkali commonly used in cooking), *lime and *ammonia. Substances which neutralize acids and combine with them to form salts are known in chemistry as bases; alkalis are bases that are soluble in water. The alkalinity of a solution is measured by its *pH.

Many alkalis are dangerously caustic when strong. Even when highly diluted, they feel slimy on the fingers and often have an unpleasant soda taste, although an alkaline flavour is sometimes liked in soda bread, scones and girdle cakes, or as the ash on bonfire-roasted potatoes or on the bottom of old-fashioned, brick-oven bread.

Alkalis turn litmus paper blue and likewise affect beetroot and red cabbage, turning them an unappetizing purple; on the other hand, they intensify the green of green cabbage. Also they soften the skins of seeds, which is why bicarbonate of soda is frequently added to the water in which beans or chick-peas are cooked. They can even be used to remove skins entirely. In some places, bicarbonate of soda is also used to tenderize meat. *Lime-water and lye are required in some pickle recipes, and dilute caustic soda enters into quick commercial cures for green olives.

[Alkalis – French: alcalis German: Alkalien Italian: alcali Spanish: álcalis]

ALKALOIDS. Nitrogenous organic substances which are basic (alkaline, hence the name) and often poisonous and bitter, alkaloids are found in certain plants. Many of them are used as drugs. Examples are morphine in the gum of unripe poppy capsules, belladonna (atropine) in the leaves and roots of deadly nightshade, cocaine in coca leaves and strychnine from the seeds of the East Indian nux vomica tree. Perhaps the instinctive dislike we have of bitter tastes could be an archaic survival trait. Quinine in very dilute form is used in the Indian tonic water of gin and tonic. In larger quantities, it is a powerful and dangerous drug, but in amounts likely to be immediately harmful, the bitterness would be intolerable. *Caffeine is a common alkaloid present in coffee, tea and cola nuts. Another alkaloid associated with caffeine is theobromine, which does not stimulate the brain, but dilates the arteries.

[Alkaloids – French: alcaloïdes German: Alkaloide Italian: alcaloidi Spanish: alcaloides]

ALKANNA, anchusa, or dyers’ alkanet. A plant of the borage family (Alkanna tinctoria), native to the Mediterranean and south-east Europe. It has bright blue flowers, and the roots contain a powerful red dye, soluble in oil, alcohol and water (in the last giving a brownish colour).Alkanna is used to colour wine, drinks, ices, sausage skins, margarine, etc. As a colouring for meat dishes, it is frequently mentioned in 14th century recipes.

[Alkanna – French: orcanette German: Alkanna Italian: alcanna Spanish: alcoma, orcaneta]

ALL-GOOD. See spinach (Good King Henry).

ALLIGATOR PEAR. See avocado.

ALLSPICE, Jamaica pepper, or myrtle pepper. The dried berry of a tree (Pimento dioica) native to tropical America. Although it is grown in other tropical countries, the bulk comes from Jamaica. The name allspice describes its taste, which resembles a mixture of several Old World spices, in which cloves predominate. However, it really cannot be imitated exactly.

Whole allspice looks like large peppercorns. They are often included in pickle-spice mixtures and in marinades and brines for herring and beef. In Arab countries, although it is not normally used in curries, it has been adopted for pilaus and is very popular. Ground, preferably freshly, it is a usual spice in fruit cakes, mince pies and plum pudding. It can be used with discretion in many places where a hint, but no more, of cloves might be nice, for instance with tomatoes and beetroot or, for those who like it, with cooked apples and pears. In fact, allspice is rather liked in northern Europe, but surprisingly in view of historical connections, it is not much used in Spain. In recipes from Yorkshire, allspice is often referred to as sweet pepper, which can be confusing.

[Allspice – French: quatre-épices, piment de la Jamaïque German: Allgewürz, Jamaikapfeffer, Nelkenpfeffer Italian: pimento Spanish: pimiento de Jamaica]

ALMOND. From a gastronomic point of view, undoubtedly the world’s most important nut. Almonds come from the kernel of a fruit closely related to the apricot and like it in many ways, except that the fruit of the ripe almond is leathery, dusky green and quite inedible. Only when they are very young, before the nut is formed, is it possible to enjoy the sour, hard little fruits as a rough sort of hors-d’oeuvre, for which they are eaten occasionally in the places where they grow. They have the same internal effects as sour apples.

Almond trees (Prunus amygdalus) are essentially Mediterranean, and indeed are probably indigenous to the eastern Mediterranean (they are mentioned in the Old Testament), although it has been claimed that they came from further east. They were spread by the Romans and later by the Arabs, but can be grown profitably only in the warm climate liked by the rather hardier lemon and olive. The almond is the first orchard tree to flower in the spring, often in January, which makes the young fruit exceedingly vulnerable to frost. It flowers well further north, but the results are too uncertain to make it a commercial crop. The decorative blossom often seen in English gardens is usually of hard-stoned, bitter varieties, which rarely get nuts, not just because of the frost but because almonds are self-sterile and need another almond of a compatible variety growing nearby.

Today almonds are grown extensively in South Africa and Australia, but do not like the tropics, where the so-called tropical almonds (which are not almonds at all) have to take their place. The bulk of the world’s supply comes from Spain, Italy and California, and almonds are also grown in Provence (especially around Aix), Languedoc, Portugal, the Canary Islands, North Africa (especially in Algeria and Morocco), Greece, Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan and Kashmir. This distribution means that almonds are traditional in the cooking of Europe, the Middle East and as far away as northern India, where they are commonly used in the more elaborate Mogul food.

Bitter Almonds (Prunus amygdalus var. amara), grown mainly in Sicily, Sardinia, North Africa and southern France, are small with very hard shiny shells. The kernels are usually less oily than those of sweet almonds, but the important distinguishing characteristic is the strong taste of bitter almond which develops when mixed with water (or saliva). They contain a glucoside (a nitrogenous substance related to sugar) which, when acted on by an enzyme, reacts with water to form prussic (hydrocyanic) acid and benzaldehyde. Prussic acid is lethal in very small doses, which is why it is unsafe to eat more than one or two bitter almonds, peach stones or other bitter-almond flavoured nuts or leaves. Fortunately, this acid is highly volatile and vanishes into the air on heating, leaving behind only the bitter-almond flavoured benzaldehyde, which is relatively harmless in small quantities. Roasting fruit kernels will also destroy the enzyme system. Those who like the taste of bitter almonds will find it in confections like amaretti (but not in amaretti di Saronno which contain apricot kernels), macaroons and some pastes; there is also *noyau. With more delicacy, the flavour pleases most people in plum, cherry and apricot jam, to which it is imparted by adding a few crushed stones. An almost unrecognizable waft of it is delicious with pork, too. But almond essence, as bought in bottles, is almost always a fairly nasty substance, and since it is used heavily in the average multi-storey wedding cake, people with discriminating palates may be encouraged to live in sin. When the flavour is wanted in emergency, then cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) or peach leaves may be used provided that, after maceration in water, the liquid is heated. Ratafia, orgeat, noyau and other almond-flavoured liqueurs may also be pressed into service. Bitter almonds are illegal as a commercial ingredient in the US.

Amaretti

Blanch 100 g (4 oz) each of sweet almonds and bitter almonds. Dry them in a cool oven and pound them with 225 g (8 oz) sugar. Beat 2 egg whites until they are stiff and gently fold in the almond mixture to form a medium-soft paste. Pipe blobs of this on to rice-paper. Sprinkle them with icing sugar and let them stand for a few hours. Then bake for 40 minutes in a moderate oven.

Sweet Almonds. When the type of almond is not specified in a recipe, one should use sweet almonds. They have a delicate flavour with no trace of benzaldehyde. The many varieties differ in size, shape, oil content and shell hardness (important in dessert almonds).There are paper-shell and soft-shell types, which can be cracked with the fingers, and famous varieties like the Jordan (jardin) almond and the Italian premice with fine, large, flat, regular-shaped nuts. You should suspect round nuts, especially if they have close-textured, shiny shells, as these are usually commercial types intended to be cracked by machine and may not be sweet almonds at all. For purposes other than dessert, most people will prefer to buy shelled almonds, which keep well and can be bought whole, either in the skin or blanched, in halves (for cake decoration), sliced, shaved, chopped or ground. They are also available roasted and salted for snacks. Ground almond is easy to adulterate and, since almonds are expensive, this is frequently done (though in most countries will be indicated in the ingredients listed on the label).When buying ground almonds or almond flour, check to make sure that it has not been padded with cheap nut flour, biscuit meal and sugar, and flavoured with bitter almonds. If it is, avoid it because it will ruin any recipe and the result will taste like a nasty product from some third rate shop.

The use of almonds in confectionery is well known. They are used in almost every country, in panforte from Siena, in Schokoladetorte mit Mandeln from Austria and in Bakewell tarts from Derbyshire. There are also sugared almonds and rich sweetmeats such as torrone (Italy), turrón (Spain) or touron (France) and marzipan, marchpane, massepain (France), marzapani (Italy) or mazapán (Spain), which are of ancient origin. Less well known outside the almond-producing countries of the Middle East and Mediterranean are the various forms of almond milk; for instance, the popular leche de almendras of Spain, which, with sugar, becomes an almendrada or a horchata de almendras (and is made like *horchata de chufas).ln the Spanish supermarkets, there is miel de almendras (literally, honey of almonds) in jars.

Of the savoury uses of almonds, everyone knows truite aux amandes, a universal restaurant dish. Oriental countries, from Turkey to India, use almonds with rice in stuffings for poultry and in pilau. Chinese chicken or pork with almonds is widely known. Raw or toasted almonds are used in salads for nourishment or texture, as in salade forestière (where sliced raw mushrooms, bound lightly with mayonnaise, are covered with a layer of almond shavings) or the nougada of the Middle East (which, like homous, is more of a dip than a salad: a cream of pounded almonds, garlic, parsley and lemon juice). In the sopa blanca of Andalusia, an emulsion is made by pounding together a small handful of blanched almonds with an equal volume of peeled broad beans and a clove of garlic. Into this, olive oil is gradually worked; finally, the emulsion is diluted with the juice of a lemon and 1 It (1¾ pt) of cold water, salted to taste, and strained over bread cubes in a tureen.

Dishes containing toasted almonds have a rather different flavour. Such almonds are used particularly in Catalan cooking. A paste of toasted almonds (sometimes with pine nuts) pounded with garlic, fried bread cubes, parsley and saffron is added to many dishes. One may see a bottle labelled picada (made by liquidizing olive oil, saffron, almonds, parsley and water) standing near the stove in restaurants from the Costa Brava to Tarragona. Examples of dishes using this combination are mero a Ia costa bravo, langosta del ampurdán (a casserole of langouste with snails, onion, tomato and wine) and gallina tibidado (chicken). Spain has many almond recipes including those for eels and other fish in almond sauce, artichokes stuffed with almonds, and kidneys with almonds. Other countries do not so far seem to be so prolific in this respect.

Ajo Blanco

Soak 1 or 2 crustless slices of bread in water and squeeze them dry. Pound them to a paste with 100 g (4 oz) blanched almonds and 2 large cloves of garlic. Work the mixture to a cream, slowly adding olive oil and wine vinegar. Beat well and add salt to taste. This can be eaten, diluted, as a cold soup, as a seasoning or as a sauce with fish, vegetables or anything with which its smooth garlicky flavour will blend.

Salted Almonds

Many recipes advise frying almonds, but this leaves them rather oily. It is better to roast them very slowly, watching all the time, till they go a pale biscuit colour and can be snapped. Cool them and, when they are almost cold, shake them first with egg white and then with very fine salt. Some people put them into saturated brine before drying.

[Almond – French: amande German: Mandel Italian: mandorla Spanish: almendra.

Bitter almond – French: amande amère German: Bittermandel ltalian: mandorla amara Spanish: almendra amarga]

ALTITUDE. The effects of altitude on cooking are considerable, because the higher the altitude, the greater the drop in atmospheric pressure and the lower the temperature at which water boils. For those who live at around 4000 m (13,000 ft), it is impossible to cook a potato or a cabbage properly without a pressure cooker. Such effects are felt not only in places like La Paz, Bolivia, at 3590 m (11,800 ft) but even in Johannesburg – at about half that altitude. In particular, the lowered boiling point critically affects things like sterilization and canning. Camping on the shores of the Dead Sea, 395m (1,296 ft) below sea level, one can notice a slight shortening of cooking times. In canning and bottling, temperatures and pressures should be adjusted as follows:

In rough terms, the boiling point of water drops 1°C (about 2°F) for every 300 m (1,000 ft) of altitude.

[Altitude – French: altitude German: Höhe Italian: altitudine Spanish: altitud]

ALUM. The alum which has most commonly been used in the kitchen is potash alum, potassium aluminium sulphate, K2S04.Al2(SO4)3.2H2O. Like all alums, it is a double salt, and is made by mixing solution of potassium sulphate and aluminium sulphate and crystallizing out the alum. It also occurs naturally (as in the Yorkshire alum shales, which have been worked since 1600) and in 18th century recipes was called rock alum. It was used by the Arabs as a mordant for dyes and used to be a common household remedy: being very astringent, it was used to treat piles, gumboils and sore gums caused by ill-fitting false teeth; it also formed the basis of an invalid drink called alum whey.

In cooking, alum had various uses (I have an old recipe for curd cheese cakes which used it) and was not thought harmful. Today, it is largely banned from commercial products (although it is permitted in glace cherries). It is also used in some baking powders, but this, too, is forbidden in Britain.

[Alum – French: alun German: Alaun Italian: allume Spanish: alumbre]

ALUMINIUM or aluminum (US). The most abundant metal in the earth’s crust, aluminium cannot be smelted from its ore by simple means so was one of the last of our common metals to be discovered (in 1825). Even then, there was no way of making it in quantity until 1886, when the electrolytic process was invented. For many years more, it remained expensive, but in this century, with the arrival of plentiful electric power, it has become the cheap everyday metal of kitchen utensils, while the iron pots have become more costly.

Aluminium, when exposed to the air, gets a thin coating of oxide which protects it. It is dissolved by strong alkalis, such as caustic soda, but only to a small extent by fruit and kitchen acids, although these are likely to strip off the film of oxide. In any case, after extensive research, no harm has been found to come from using aluminium pans, and taste changes are much less than with iron saucepans. (The violent antipathy that some people have to aluminium utensils has no known scientific basis.) Aluminium is an excellent conductor of heat, better than iron, though not as good as copper – as long as pans are fairly thick and heavy, they do not develop hot spots. Some foods have a tendency to stick to aluminium, especially when the pan bottom becomes pitted. Unlike cast iron, aluminium is not porous, so does not trap fat and develop its own non-stick surface, nor can it be coated with tin.lt may be treated with a non-stick plastic, but that is all too vulnerable to scratching.

Foils made of aluminium have happily replaced lead foil for most purposes. They have also come into general kitchen use for wrapping meat for the oven, for pit barbecues, covering pans, sealing sandwiches and a host of other purposes. The foil does not burn, and, being