Rachel Roddy's recipe for spaghetti with olive oil, tomato and anchovy
Picking up where I left off last week, with an olive tree. As far as I know, only the kids and birds pick the olives from this particular tree, which means that between June and December they complete a self-contained, cycle-of-life paint chart: green, to yellow, to violet, to black, to wrinkles, which then return to the earth. If someone were to interrupt this quiet cycle with olive oil in mind, they should do so at the point of invaiatura, or half-ripeness, when the olives are “firm, swollen and virile”, a friend informs me, without laughing. Once picked, olives need to be pressed as soon as possible, and certainly within 48 hours, to avoid the precipitation of acidity and of oxidation, which ruin the distinctive smells, flavour and bitter finish, and sabotages the valuable antioxidants, polyphenols, minerals and vitamins.
One of the most interesting parts of my Zoom olive oil education with
Johnny Madge was talking about the relationship and healthy tug between tradition and innovation. When it comes to planting, pruning, tending and picking, traditional and laborious methods still rule among good producers the world over (big producers are, of course, big producers, and generally have one thing in mind). The pressing of olives to olive oil, however, has changed. While Johnny paid respect to millstones and impregnated filler mats, he celebrated the modern continuous method, whereby olives are crushed with stainless-steel rolling hammers and undergo centrifugation, all in scrupulously clean machinery and at a steady temperature, which preserves the natural aromas of the olives. It takes about 8kg olives to make a litre of oil. The first press is what produces extra-virgin olive oil, which also needs to have no defects and more than 0.8% of oleic acid. If a second press were to take place, it would be virgin or olive oil.
So here I am at my desk, with a minibar of evoos from Puglia, Sicily, Lake Garda, Tuscany, Calabria, Trentino and Umbria, good makers with good values, which ripple back into wherever they are. JM instructs us to pour a little of the oil into a plastic cup or glass, then cup it in our hands to warm it up slightly, inhale deeply and enjoy what it smells like. After sniffing, we sip, swish like mouthwash, then clench our teeth and suck air through them and over the evoo. Then we wait to meet the flavour, which, of course, is mostly smell: tomato vines, unripe bananas, almonds, artichokes, cat pee, pear drops. Not that this is about getting anything right, just enjoying the waves of miraculous scent, and peppery tonsils.
As fun as tasting is, olive oil is a social substance that comes into its own in company: salad or, better still, warm vegetables, zig-zagged on soup, where all the scents we met before have a small party. As gorgeous as it is just so, it’s a myth that it can’t be heated, or cooked with. Quite the opposite, in fact. Just go slow, which is also the way to go with garlic when you make this week’s recipe for extra-virgin olive oil with spaghetti, tomatoes and anchovies.
Extra-virgin olive oil with spaghetti, tomato and anchovy
Prep 5 minCook 20 minServes 44-6 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil 1 garlic
clove,peeled and crushed for a milder flavour, or thinly sliced for a stronger one1 x 400g tin whole plum tomatoes, drained of their juice6 sweet cherry tomatoes, chopped (optional)1 small piece dried red chilli,or 1 pinch dried red chilli flakesSalt 4-8 anchovy fillets 450g spaghetti
Bring a large pan of water to a boil for the pasta. Working off the heat, put the oil in a large frying pan and add the garlic. Put the pan on a low heat so the olive oil and garlic warm gently, until the latter is very softly sizzling in a coat of bubbles.
Add the tomatoes, crushing them with your hands as you put them in the pan, and chilli, raise the heat slightly and leave to bubble away while you cook the spaghetti.
Add salt to the boiling water, stir, add the pasta, stir again, glance at time and cook until al dente. When the pasta is almost cooked and the tomato thickening slightly, add the anchovies to the sauce and stir so they disintegrate.
Drain the pasta, saving some of the cooking water, or use tongs to lift it directly into the sauce pan, then stir or jolt the pan vigorously, adding a little cooking water if it seems at all stiff. Serve immediately.
BP has told 25,000 office-based staff that they will be expected to work from home for two days a week as part of a post-pandemic shift to flexible working patterns.
The global oil company introduced the new hybrid model of working to staff last month, and expects the 60-40 split between office and home working to take effect from this summer as Covid-19 restrictions begin to ease.
The company said it recognises the value of in-person collaboration and remote work, and hopes that the mix will offer individuals and teams a more “flexible, engaging and dynamic” way of working.
The hybrid working approach will extend across BP’s global network of offices and is expected to affect 6,000 staff in the UK, including more than 2,000 in central London.
The working pattern overhaul, which was first reported by the Times, is part of a major modernisation programme for the 111-year old oil company under the leadership of Bernard Looney, who took over as chief executive in February last year with a promise to become a “net zero carbon” company by 2050.
The Guardian revealed last summer that BP planned to radically reduce its working spaces by embracing remote working and flexible workplace layouts in the wake of the pandemic and heavy staff cuts.
BP had a 70,000-strong workforce across 79 countries at the end of 2019. It revealed plans last year to cut its workforce by 15%, representing 10,000 jobs mostly from office-based roles.
A spokesman for BP said the company’s teams, individuals and managers would “together work out where and how they will best work, and when they come together in the office”.
The company will be “changing and reconfiguring” its offices over time, to support collaboration and create more flexible environments to hold meetings and share ideas, the spokesman added.
“Some roles will require people to be in the office or their prime location every day, and some roles will require greater travel or connecting digitally with colleagues, with less time in the office. There may also be some colleagues who prefer working in the office more,” he said.
The downsizing plan includes the sale of its London headquarters at St James’s Square. Late last year BP confirmed the £250m sale to the Hong Kong investment fund Lifestyle international. BP will lease the building back for up to two years before moving out.
By day, the field of leeks looks like any other. But, as the sun sets, blue and red light, mixed with invisible ultraviolet (UV) radiation, transforms the scene into a multicoloured landscape.
This LED light show is not just for effect. For a couple of hours every evening the lights are shone across the 20,000sq metre field in Lelystad in the Netherlands in a bid to make the leeks grow better. In a light installation that brings art and science together, four solar-powered units emit a tailor-made spectrum across the leafy vegetables.
The product of two years’ collaboration between Dutch artist and designer Daan Roosegaarde and plant biologists, Grow showcases a “light recipe” that helps crops grow better by effectively lengthening sunlight hours. “Light is all about communication, and plants are super-sensitive to it,” says Roosegaarde.
For decades, red and blue light has been used in greenhouses and, more recently, in vertical farming operations to improve plant growth and maximise yields. Now it is being applied to crops growing outside.
Prof Jason Wargent is a plant photobiologist working with Roosegaarde to preprogramme the plants using light. “Light acts as an informational cue,” says Wargent, chief science officer and founder of New Zealand-based startup BioLumic. By delivering bespoke combinations of specific types of UV to seeds or seedlings, internal mechanisms can be triggered to increase productivity at a later stage while enhancing the plants’ ability to protect themselves against pests and disease, he explains.
“UV is very specific in terms of the biology that it targets inside the plant, so it triggers things that other lights wouldn’t. It’s a secret, invisible, but potent treatment,” he says.
With an estimated global population of 9 billion to feed by 2050, according to the UN, the pressure to increase agricultural productivity is intense, yet many pesticides and fertilisers can result in pollution once released into the soil and waterways. Wargent suggests that light recipes could be “the next great revolution in agriculture”.
“Farmers need a diverse set of tools now to increase yields. This clean alternative could help reduce the need for agricultural chemicals which themselves are costly and time-consuming to develop, and can pollute the environment once applied,” says Wargent.
“We’re unlocking the plant’s ability to do things, to flower and grow, with a programmable light recipe but without the penalty.”
In the BioLumic lab, UV treatments are applied at the very start of a plant’s journey. They may be applied for seven days for a seedling or just a few minutes for a seed but, once exposed to that burst of radiation, the knockon effects will last the plant’s lifetime, says Wargent. One step on from Grow, Wargent envisages that an extra stage of light treatment could be integrated into the agricultural processing of seeds before they’re sent to the grower. This year, BioLumic is carrying out extensive field trials of light recipes on US soya bean crops and making light recipes commercially available.
Back in the leek field in Lelystad, the precision lighting design directs beams horizontally across the field. Nothing beams up and the display is localised for just a short time each evening so as not to disrupt wildlife, according to Roosegaarde, who supports the Dark Sky Movement, which aims to reduce light pollution globally.
Roosegaarde hopes that a tour of 40 countries in which he will recreate his artwork – once Covid allows – will push light science to develop even further. “From the rice fields in China to the wheat fields in the US, we can create a light recipe to suit local food production and create an experience that reconnects people with where their food comes from,” he says.
Roosegaarde says he receives hundreds of emails every day from farmers as far flung as Peru and Italy wanting to engage with the project. Light recipes alone won’t solve food security issues but he hopes they will be a welcome addition to the toolbox. He says: “By triggering curiosity for the future, this could speed up the necessary transition.”
The Grow project is just the latest in a series of works by Roosegaarde that tackle environmental problems, including an award-winning smog-filtering tower, a smart highway that charges throughout the day and glows at night, and an art installation that enables visitors to interact with lightemitting algae. His studio is currently working on a project called Urban Sun, which aims to “clean coronavirus in public spaces”.
“There is so much great science and technology but it’s hidden,” says Roosegaarde. “My job is to activate it and shine a light on it.”
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From the rice fields in China to the wheat fields in the US, we can create a light recipe to suit local production
Daan Roosegaarde