History of the (British) Home

O tempora! O mores! Such news, such ups and downs... Jubilee...Libor...Occupy...we sometimes wonder how we will survive. But as our history shows, we shall...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/chefs/clarissa_dickson_wright The Forme of Cury online http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/foc http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8102

"Drink up thy Zyder"

We love the smell of simmering mulled cider - a traditional British and American drink - during the Christmas holidays, and offer guests hot mulled cider throughout the cold winter months.


Cider making in Somerset - video at link
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/video/2010/dec/06/cider-making-somerset

UKCider - the real cider website and directory anyone can edit
http://www.cideruk.com/
http://www.ukcider.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Mulled Cider
Recipe courtesy Nigella Lawson from Nigella's Christmas Kitchen, 2007

Prep Time:30 minInactive Prep Time:--Cook Time:30 min
Level:
Easy
Serves:
6 servings

Ingredients
1 pint (16 fluid ounces) cider
2 fluid ounces dark rum
9 fluid ounces apple and ginger tea, from herbal teabag
1 1/2 ounces soft dark brown sugar
2 clementines
4 cloves
2 sticks cinnamon
2 fresh bay leaves
2 cardamom pods
Directions
Pour the cider, rum and herbal tea into a wide saucepan. Add the sugar and place the saucepan over a low heat. Slice the clementines in half and stick a clove into each half. Add the clementines to the pan. Break the cinnamon sticks in half. Add the cinnamon, bay leaves and cardamom pods to the saucepan. Heat the saucepan until the mixture is almost boiling. Turn down the heat once the pan is near to boiling.

To serve, ladle the mulled cider into heatproof glasses with handles.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/nigella-lawson/mulled-cider-recipe/index.html




From Jamie Oliver -
Incredible mulled cider
drinks | serves 15
It wouldn’t be Christmas without mulled something, whether I make wine or cider, its just one of those things that tells me I’m home and it’s Christmas. I know there are loads of packaged mulled wine and cider flavourings in the shops these days but honestly, it’s not hard to make this from scratch so please don’t cheat! Just pick up a few bottles of decent Scrumpy and give this a try. You’ll be simmering away most of the alcohol so if the kids want a taste, it’s ok to give them a little glass.

Ingredients
• 2 litres good cider, such as Scrumpy
• 6 cloves
• 3 or 4 star anise
• ¼ nutmeg, finely grated into the pan
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 vanilla pod, halved
• juice of 1 orange
• juice of 2 clementines
• juice and seeds from 1 pomegranate
• 4 or 5 tablespoons of caster sugar, to taste

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fruit-recipes/incredible-mulled-cider

Recipe: Nigella's Chocolate Cake

Nigella with daughter Cosima











Recipe

Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake

Makes 8 to 10 slices

Ingredients

225g soft unsalted butter

375g dark muscovado sugar

2 large eggs, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

100g best dark chocolate, melted

200g plain flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

250ml boiling water

Use one 23 x 13 x 7cm loaf tin

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/gas mark 5; put in a baking sheet in case of sticky drips later, and grease and line the loaf tin. The lining is important as this is a very damp cake: use parchment, Bake-O-Glide or loaf-tin shaped paper case.

2. Cream the butter and sugar, either with a wooden spoon or with an electric hand-held mixer, then add the eggs and vanilla, taking care to blend well but being careful not to overbeat. Nigella says: "You want the ingredients combined: you don't want a light airy mass."

3. Gently add the flour, to which you have added the bicarb, alternately spoon by spoon, with the boiling water until you have a smooth and fairly liquid batter.

4. Pour into the lined loaf tin, and bake for 30 minutes. Turn the oven down to 170C/gas mark 3, and continue to cook for another 15 minutes. Nigella says: "The cake will still be a bit squidgy inside, so an inserted cake-tester or skewer won't come out completely clean." Charles says: "Unlike King Alfred, keep an eye on the top of the cake, to avoid burning."

5. Place the loaf tin on a rack, and leave to go completely cold before turning it out. Nigella says: "I often leave it for a day or so: like gingerbread, it improves."

Nigella's serving suggestions: Eat with ice cream; or with a bowl of straw-berries and a jug of white-coloured rum custard; or cold cream cheese.

Visit Nigella's site here

The Soil Association and The Feast of Albion

Get a taste of the Feast of Albion here

Soil Association - inspiring a new generation of eco-farmers

A star-studded dinner next week will help 80,000 children visit organic farms in the coming year. It's a noble cause, says Christopher Middleton, but will it inspire a new generation of eco-farmers?

It's a glorious morning in South Devon but, in the midst of all the sunlight and blue sky, a life-and-death battle is being fought out in a muddy field.

At stake is the future of the British countryside, the health of the nation and possibly the survival of the entire planet. High stakes indeed - and to think it all rests on the outcome of a confrontation between five small children in fancy-dress costumes.

At the centre of things is the farmer, played by Christopher Hern, one of the senior boys at nearby Yeoford Primary School.

Wearing a cloth cap and a tweed jacket several sizes too big, he brandishes the ultimate weapon: pesticide.

Prior to his arrival, his fellow participants have been quietly going about their daily food-chain chores, with the greenfly (Tazmyn Sayers) devouring the wheat (Charlotte Duxbury-Watkinson), the ladybird (Natasha Matthews) chomping on the greenfly, the skylark (Charlotte's brother, Jack) gobbling up the ladybird, and the majestic pale blue sparrowhawk (Martha Beal) polishing off the skylark.

"But now look what happens," cries their teacher, Sue Cameron, "when the farmer comes along with his chemicals!"

Striding forward with plant spray outstretched, young Christopher gives it to the greenfly good and proper, before treating the other creatures to a few quick squirts, too. There's much squealing and protesting, followed by some impressively improvised dying on the part of the insects.

"You see what's happened?" says Miss Cameron, taking centre stage. "The farmer finds millions of pesky little greenflies running across his wheat, so he gives them a spray" - she nudges Christopher for a quick rerun - "and they all die." Cue re-enactment of greenfly demise.

"Trouble is, what's the ladybird going to eat now that there's no greenfly? She'll die, too, won't she? Or at least have to go elsewhere. And the same goes for all the other animals. But why were there so many greenfly in the first place? There weren't enough ladybirds to eat them, because the farmer had chopped down all the hedges where ladybirds normally live. And why had he done that?"

Hands shoot up like young parsnips. "Because he wanted more land for his crops, Miss."

"That's right," says Miss. "He was greedy, wasn't he?"

And there it is. The parable of the farmer, the greenfly and the postwar industrialisation of British agriculture. All down to human avarice.

Simplistic? Perhaps, but there again this isn't a fact-finding mission for high-ranking European Union ministers and Defra officials, it's a school trip to a local farm. And although it has been organised by the Soil Association (SA), the body that has sworn by the blood of the beetroot to shun all chemical fertiliser and artificial enhancement of livestock, the level of propagandising is low.