Num num num

[geckzilla]

Your town has like 10 people in it though doesn't it?

[Chris Peterson]

Your town has like 10 people in it though doesn't it? :D

The town itself has about 30. But the community extends for about 10 miles around the town, so we have a few hundred people. Our annual Pie Palooza is a fund raiser for the school. My pie sold for $310. In total, almost $7000 was raised by auctioning about 50 pies.

[geckzilla]

Well, you might have me beat on both dishes, either way. I've never cooked competitively even against 1 person.

[neufer]

I got second place in our town's annual pie contest a couple of months ago with Sticky Toffee Pudding Pear Pie.

So, then you lost to Pat Lamb's Lemon Meringue. Say la vie.

[geckzilla]

It's pretty hard to beat Lemon Meringue.

My pie is now in shambles on a plate in a box after Pat's mom attempted to move the delicate pastry into a smaller container.

[Ann]

Pat's mom and dad brought some bulk plums and strawberries home and I thought we'd have trouble eating them all while they were still fresh so I threw them into a yummy pie. The plums are quite tart but the strawberries are very sweet. A little sugar, a little cornstarch... delicious!

Wow, that looks delicious!! Tart plums and sweet strawberries make for a delightful combination!

Sticky toffee and pears aren't bad, either, and I'm sure your pie was great, Chris. But I'd rather have Geck's pie, myself. (But you can keep all the lemon zest stuff, Geck. The worst cake I ever ate was a meringue, strawberries, whipped cream and lemon curd one. The lemon curd made it intolerably bitter.)

Ann

[geckzilla]

My lemon puddings were far from bitter! They were delightfully sweet and sour. I didn't add enough zest to make it bitter. It makes it smell good, though. Fruit pies shouldn't be bitter! That said, if others did not find the pie bitter, you could have variant taste receptors.

Pat and I have noted in various instances that we each find certain foods intolerably bitter. One of them, Chinese bitter melon, is horrible for me. I'll take one nibble and be on the verge of crying, but him and his family will shrug and say it's not a good one because it's not very bitter at all. Meanwhile, I can chow down on mustard greens with little effort, but Pat is repulsed by what he describes as an extremely bitter flavor.

[Chris Peterson]

Pat and I have noted in various instances that we each find certain foods intolerably bitter. One of them, Chinese bitter melon, is horrible for me. I'll take one nibble and be on the verge of crying, but him and his family will shrug and say it's not a good one because it's not very bitter at all. Meanwhile, I can chow down on mustard greens with little effort, but Pat is repulsed by what he describes as an extremely bitter flavor.

I recall you dislike cilantro. Different people taste it very differently, and the differences have a strong ethnic/ancestry component. Given that you and Pat presumably have pretty different genomes, how does he like cilantro?

[geckzilla]

His mom seems to eat some foods for the sake of adding cilantro to them: "Would you like some [food] with that cilantro?"
Pat doesn't seem to care one way or another. He enjoys food with or without it. And yes, I am repulsed by it. I am not totally sure if it is my ability to taste or simply that I didn't grow up with it. It could be both! There could be some gene expression that can get turned on or off after a certain amount of exposure.

[Chris Peterson]

His mom seems to eat some foods for the sake of adding cilantro to them: "Would you like some [food] with that cilantro?"
Pat doesn't seem to care one way or another. He enjoys food with or without it. And yes, I am repulsed by it. I am not totally sure if it is my ability to taste or simply that I didn't grow up with it. It could be both! There could be some gene expression that can get turned on or off after a certain amount of exposure.

I doubt your gene expression changes. Some tastes are simply acquired.

[geckzilla]

Heh, it's just an idea. They're learning more and more every day about how environmental factors affect gene expression.

[Ann]

The Diffen Compare Anything page compares, among other things, bitter and sour taste. This page says that coffee, bitter melon, beer, unsweetened cocoa, and citrus peels taste bitter. They say that lemon, orange, grape, melon, wine and sour milk taste sour.

I don't know anything about bitter melon, because I have never tasted it. But I completely agree about the rest. I do drink coffee, but I can't drink it with milk or sugar, because the milk and sugar seem to enhance the bitterness of the coffee and make it jump out at me. I don't drink beer, because it's bitter, but I rather like wine, because it tastes pretty good. I don't mind lemon, as long as I don't have to eat the peels, because lemon just tastes sour and that's okay. But lemon peels, and all other citrus peels, taste bitter, and they turn me off. A lemon meringue pie for me, which is full of lemon zest? No, thanks. Marmalade on toast, where the marmalade is full of citrus peels? No, thanks.

Ann

[starsurfer]

Heh, it's just an idea. They're learning more and more every day about how environmental factors affect gene expression.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[Moonlady]

main course:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

and dessert:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[neufer]

[b][color=#0000FF]Robert Pope & J.T. Witcher's[/color][/b] [url=http://www.cloudbait.com/science/guffeymet.html]Meteorite Meringue[/url][b][color=#0000FF] came in 4th :!:[/color][/b]

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I got second place in our town's annual pie contest a couple of months ago with Sticky Toffee Pudding Pear Pie.

So, then you lost to Pat Lamb's Lemon Meringue. Say la vie.

[Chris Peterson]

[b][color=#0000FF]Robert Pope & J.T. Witcher's[/color][/b] [url=http://www.cloudbait.com/science/guffeymet.html]Meteorite Meringue[/url][b][color=#0000FF] came in 4th :!:[/color][/b]

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Hmmm. Crunchy on the outside, crunchy on the inside. (That piece there is worth around $500,000 in today's market!)

[Nitpicker]

How interesting. Chris, did the Guffey Meteorite in any way shape your decision to move to Guffey? What is its estimated age?

(And I really must get back into baking pies. I have a mean, minimalist, apple pie and a reasonable lemon meringue in my arsenal.)

[Chris Peterson]

How interesting. Chris, did the Guffey Meteorite in any way shape your decision to move to Guffey? What is its estimated age?

Didn't know about it until after I moved here. The slice in my picture is part of our collection at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The large piece is an old photograph made before the end was sliced off. Here's that same piece now, at the American Museum of Natural History:

AFAIK no dating analysis has been performed. Probably the best analysis is here, although it's quite old.

[Ann]

Click to view full size image

Looks like a fine slice of bread with a somewhat silvery crust. Spread it with some butter and add a slice of cheese or two, and it should make a fine Swedish "smörgås". Particularly if you bear in mind that some like their "smörgås" to be made with crispbread.

Ann

[Ann]

Click to view full size image

Katrinetorp. Probable photographer:
Jeannette van Mullem.

I cycled to Katrinetorp today, which was built in the year 1800 as a summer residence for a prominent Malmö family. I had the following lunch there:

Fillet of rooster, with roast potatoes, sliced pumpkin "al dente", sliced uncooked mushrooms, a generous sprinkling of watercress plus a few beautiful twigs of red wood sorrel. It was served with slightly tangy green pepper gravy and little drops of green parsley oil.

Yummy!

Ann

[rstevenson]

That sounds delicious, Ann. I've never heard of green pepper gravy or red wood sorrel, and in North America pumpkin is almost always a dessert. Is this a traditional Swedish kind of meal?

Rob

[Nitpicker]

I had rarely seen pumpkin served as a dessert until I spent time in North America. I much prefer it in savoury dishes.

[Ann]

That sounds delicious, Ann. I've never heard of green pepper gravy or red wood sorrel, and in North America pumpkin is almost always a dessert. Is this a traditional Swedish kind of meal?

Rob

Pumpkin isn't used that much in Swedish cooking at all. Around Halloween, savory pumpkin soup is moderately popular, but sweet pumpkin pie hasn't taken off at all.

Green pepper is used sometimes, certainly, and more often than pumpkin, but it is not really common. I definitely like it.

I think those red clover-like little leaves on their little twigs are called wood sorrel in English. In Swedish they are called red "Oxalis". They don't taste much, but they are extremely decorative.

Ann

[Chris Peterson]

I think those red clover-like little leaves on their little twigs are called wood sorrel in English. In Swedish they are called red "Oxalis". They don't taste much, but they are extremely decorative.

Oxalis is a wildflower around here. I nibble on the leaves, which taste like lemonade. The flowers, too, although they only bloom for a short while and are easy to overlook compared with the clover-like leaves.

[Ann]

Click to view full size image

Noix de Vie and Il Topolino, shop and restaurant for mice.
Photo: Peter Frennesson.

Click to view full size image

Photo: Peter Frennesson

A new restaurant has opened in Malmö. As you can see, though, the establishment is pretty small. Its intended customers are mice.

The owner of the kebab restaurant "upstairs" isn't worried that the new mouse restaurant will steal any of of his guests. "We don't attract the same kind of customers", he explains.

The anonymous creator of the mouse establishment, Anonymouse, declares, "Small is the new black."

Read more here.

Ann