My father, a fine gardener, strongly believed in the power of urine as a fertilizer. Last thing at night, he would head for the compost heat and pee on it. He is not alone among gardeners, who also, if they own a dog, dilute that urine for a free method of creating bright green lawns. Now a French start-up is taking a leaf from their books.  Toopi Organics is aiming to replace chemical fertilizers with human urine. Urine is naturally rich in nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and other growth factors. Chemical fertilizers, used to excess in farming, are linked to damaging effects on biodiv ..read more

Go to Work on An Egg was the slogan created by author Fay Weldon, who was then a copywriter, for an Egg Marketing Board campaign of the 1950s. It targetted boiled eggs, not the fried eggs of the full English breakfast, a stupefying meal. The problem with the Full English in my book is it is served about three hours too early - unless you’re off on horseback to slaughter some wild animal. The weighty fry-up was designed to empower not workers off at dawn to till the fields as often thought, but to invigorate the landed gentry back in the 15th century as a grand hunt breakfast. The Victorian mi ..read more

When my sister and I were small, my mother regularly baked vanilla and chocolate cookies. They were crumbly yet crisp, like the best of shortbread but much lighter and as buttery. While they were cooking, the house would fill with the warm scent of vanilla and the velvet scent of chocolate.  I didn’t really give them much thought until I opened up one of Nigella Lawson’s cookbooks and found a recipe for them called Granny Boyd's Biscuits. No, they’re not! I objected, they’re not Granny Boyd’s, whoever that is. They’re my mother’s! Besides, her ‘Granny Boyd’ recipe only called for the cho ..read more

If my laptop were not a machine but a toga-wearing scribe to be dictated to, it would probably faint. Last night, with a glass of robust red wine to hand, I ate several cloves too many of confit-ted garlic. The cloves had been simmered in oil over the lowest possible heat in a small saucepan until the palest gold, then jar-stored in their oil in the fridge. I smeared some onto a toasted slice of sourdough, here and there dopping on top (this verb I made up has wide cooking applications) a soft teaspoonful of goat’s cheese mashed with a little crème fraiche and flakes of chilli pepper.  ..read more

Citizens of the Périgord are justly proud of their truffles, known informally as black diamonds. Woe betide anyone who might suggest that the white truffles of the north Italian town of Alba are superior. However, if you go by the prices those fetch, it’s hard to dispute which type of truffle is the more revered.  In a good year, the average cost per kilo of the Périgord’s black Melanosporum weighs in at $721.25, while the Tuber magnatum, the so-called truffle of the white Madonna, is so rare that in good condition they can fetch up to $10,500 a kilo. At last year’s late autumn festival ..read more

High summer, and the weight of the heat bears down on the weight of the heat in the kitchen - and the duty of the continuous provision of meals for hungry holiday-making guests and family. Oh, for a break! To dip in the pool and river without a care for what will be put on the table at lunch or at supper.  What we need at this time of year is food that is quick to prepare. Of course, the markets are filled with easy solutions: plump tomatoes ready to burst their juicy seams, crisp salad leaves, endless piles of strawberries that only cry out for a dribble of cream or a sprinkle of sugar ..read more

One of the outcomes of Russia’s war against Ukraine is not just the impact on global food stocks of Ukrainian exports of grain and sunflower seeds, stalled by Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s seaports but the rising cost of white fish. Were you aware that Russia is responsible for the provision of 45 percent of the world's whitefish supply, largely pollack (lieu jaune), cod (cabillaud) and haddock (églefin), all fished in the Barents Sea?  Not just a shortage of sunflower oil is pushing the price of fish-and-chips to extraordinary heights. High-end chefs are taking specialities like scallo ..read more

June is the month when fruits and berries tumble onto summer stalls, scenting the air of farmers market streets. Nostrils flaring, we abandon the thought of the pies and crumbles we made during winter which worked to disguise the poor quality or tedium of the only fruit available then for us to eat. We’re now well into the season where we should stop meddling with fruit and allow it to shine on its own or at most sprinkle it with sugar and maybe dribble it with cream. But if you do want to tizzy it up a bit, or improve a fruit such as apricots which may not be quite ripe, or stretch the fruit ..read more

The poor benighted potato has generally been treated dismissively as a cheap stomach filler, or a backgrounder to the main event of meat or fish. Yet it’s a vegetable with a remarkably sophisticated history.  It’s believed cultivation of the tuber may have begun 10,000 years ago in South America. However, because potatoes don’t preserve well, physical evidence hasn’t been found that far back, only artistic references on pottery remains so this is conjecture. The earliest actual remains date to 2500 BC, at Ancón in Peru. That’s where the potato’s domestication is thought to have begun, as ..read more

Sorrel is a vegetable that is thoroughly worth growing yet few people do. Given how popular is its use in sauces in France this is a pity, since it’s not all that easy to find in supermarkets or farmers’ markets. It reappears in the ground without fail every year from April to September, in a clump that increases annually. It doesn’t mind being grown in poor soil and is perfectly happy being raised in a large flower pot.  We’re talking about common sorrel here, Rumex acetosa, not to be confused with ‘sorrel of the Caribbean’, Hibiscus sabdariffa, whose name will immediately bring to mind ..read more