What the experts say
Making dinner parties easy
It’s been so long since many of us have hosted dinner parties, the idea of having people over “seems weirdly challenging”, says Rachel Cooke in The Observer. In the circumstances, it’s sensible to fall back on “hard-learnt” rules. Here are three of mine. One, “clever salty snacks before dinner” make people happy. “Buy some ready-rolled puff pastry, cover it in a little beaten egg, grated parmesan and some anchovies, roll it up from both sides till they meet in the middle, slice, chill and bake in a hot oven for 15 minutes.” Even non-anchovy-eaters will “love these”. Two, for the main meal, don’t attempt anything new: the tried and tested is your friend. And lastly, clean up before you go to bed, no matter how tired or drunk you are. “There’s nothing worse than coming down in the morning to sticky plates and smeared wine glasses.”
A cheesecake that’s “everywhere”
Very often, says Tony Turnbull in The Times, it isn’t clear how recipes that go viral originated. Who really knows (to take two recent TikTok hits) who first came up with pesto eggs or whipped coffee? By contrast, burnt Basque cheesecake – a dessert that’s “everywhere” in 2021 – has roots that are “easy to trace”. It was invented in San Sebastián in 1990, by Santiago Rivera of La Viña restaurant. His creation – a wobbly, baseless custard set beneath a blackened crust – was “eaten as a pintxo, or snack, with an espresso or glass of sweet wine”. In Britain, the Basque cheesecake was popularised by Tomos Parry, who a few years ago started serving a “less gooey” version at his east London restaurant Brat. Now, the dish is nearly ubiquitous: it’s served in trendy restaurants and cake shops; endlessly photographed on Instagram; and promoted by none other than Nigella Lawson, who serves hers with a liquorice sauce. Given that it flouts all the normal rules of cheesecake – “you undercook it, you burn it and it sinks as it cools” – what accounts for its remarkable popularity? Its appeal is perhaps best summed up by the food writer Ed Smith, who in his book Crave described it as “deliciously satisfying in its cream cheesy, bronze-top-yet-wibbling-middle way”.
Fortified foods: the good and the bad
All white and brown flour sold in the UK is to be fortified with folic acid, ministers have announced. By helping to ensure that pregnant women get enough of the nutrient, the measure is expected to lead to 200 fewer babies per year being born with neural tube defects such as spina bifida. The policy is a sensible one, says Sue Quinn in The Daily Telegraph. But that doesn’t mean food fortification is always a good idea. On the contrary, many nutritionists are very concerned that far too many products now have “added vitamins, minerals and other nutrients”. Fibre is being added to “everything from pizza bases to yoghurt”, while protein powder is included in a “vast array of foods, from chocolate to ice cream”. The purpose is often to give otherwise unhealthy foods a “health halo” – or to restore nutrients lost during processing. Experts warn that boasts of added nutrients could lead to people not realising that their diets are still essentially unhealthy. The bottom line is that “food pumped with extra vitamins, minerals and other nutrients is generally no substitute for a good diet – or cure for a poor one”.