Taste makers, deciders, and Brocciu
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Hello, and welcome to this week’s news and thoughts from The Lemon Grove and me, Bruce McMichael. In this issue, we’ll take a look at the Great Taste Awards, an international competition of some 14,000 products are tasted, nibbled, slurped and swallowed in the search for coveted gold stars ready to be sticked onto winning food and drink products. We also offer some brilliant reading to enjoy during your coffee break, highlight a cooking course in the beautiful English countryside and delicious recipe for Fiadone, a very special lemon cheese cake from the Mediterranean island of Corsica. This newsletter will be published weekly and will over time include much more from podcasts and videos, to classes and lemon-themed merchandise, travel and recipe tips. Thank you for reading and welcome to the journey, especially to our Founder members and subscribers.
Great Taste Awards 2022 … Lemon scented and golden forks
Type 'LEMON' into the Guild of Fine Food's website search box and you'll be presented with a scrolling list of dozens, if not hundreds, of products. The roll call includes all the starred food, drinks and ingredients of the Guild's annual Great Taste Awards in the list of winners published Monday, August 1st.
Gins, ice creams, flavoured teas, juices, hummus, and even marshmallows (Sicilian lemons) have all won one of two stars. While none collected the precious 3-Star award, there's still plenty to celebrate.
But first, I should offer a reveal. For this year and 2021, I have been involved in tasting, judging and recording scores for the Guild in a series of lively sessions at their south London offices-cum-kitchens.
Teams of judges working in London and Gillingham, Dorset biting, chewing, swirling, nibbling and drawing on vocabularies steeped in food lore, sensory experiences and memory to assess the vast range of products. Over 14,000 products from around the world were entered into this year’s awards.
Judges take this responsibility seriously. These opinions matter to the producers, many of whom are young entrepreneurial companies, even one-person operations. The awarding of one, two and particularly three stars is keenly sought after, attracting as it does the interest of buyers for supermarkets and specialist food stores, as well as shoppers often seeking an affirmation of their choice.
Awards are often maligned. Criticisms have included being subjective, an in-house back-patting exercise, or a cynical money-making exercise.
Indeed, the Guild's awards were recently subject to scrutiny and a hard-hitting appraisal in another Substack newsletter, Vittles.
However, having seen the lengths the Guild team goes to in anonymising entries and the expert level of the many judges, which include Masterchef (TV) winners, food writers, chefs and new product developers, I can vouch for the integrity and democracy of these awards.
And while I can mention which products I judged and commented on, there are many I recognised (we take notes of products we wish to follow to reference later).
Last summer, while visiting Rethymno in Crete, my eyes were drawn to a two-star bottle of pomegranate dressing for our lunchtime salad. It was the stars that clinched the deal for me.
For cheese fans, Kent-based maker Blackwoods scooped two two-star awards for its soft Edmund Chew and the feta-inspired Graceburn Original. I have a special fondness for these cheeses. For a few weeks leading up to Christmas 2021, I helped pack these cheeses. I gained valuable insight into how hard artisan makers work and how precarious their passions and livelihoods can be - not least with (in the UK) steeply rising energy and utility bills and ingredient costs.
For the complete list of winners, click here.
Golden Forks preview tasting
For the chance to join the Guild at the first Great Taste Golden Forks (the best of the best) preview tasting on Monday, September 5th, click here.
The lucky 25 will spend two hours tasting their way through approximately 25 Great Taste Golden Fork nominees (the best of the best) ahead of the results being announced that evening. The tasting includes some of the best from the 14,000 products that took part in Great Taste this year.
THE MENU ... FOOD, DRINK, INGREDIENTS, PLACES
Delicious! Award-Winning! If that's your homemade jam, there's still time to enter the Word Jam Festival held in Helmsley, a beautiful market town in England's North York moors. Check out the information on the website, here. My crop of blackcurrants has already been harvested, made into jam and shared with family. Otherwise, I'm convinced it could have been a winner in the 'Homegrown' category!
Good luck to all you dedicated jammers who get involved in this year's event.
For more sweet information, click here.
Freekeh & Ancient Grains Cookery Workshop
The Grainstore, Lewes, East Sussex, UK
September 8th, 2022, 10am - 4pm.
Cost: £150
Chef and food writer Ruth Nieman explores the ancient lands and food of the eastern Mediterranean lands around Israel, Lebanon and elsewhere. In this class, Ruth will deep dive into her latest book, Freekeh, Wild Wheat & Ancient Grains and share cooking tips and inspiration alongside stories and memories.
For more information, click here.
READ, WATCH, LISTEN ... SOME RECOMMENDATIONS
'Inside the Colorful, Campy, Unapologetically Horny World of Erotic Cookbooks'. An unexpected boom in demand is seeing this genre of books blossom. They offer more than just a comedy gift, says Eater. To read full article, click here.
How did 'Recipe Developer' become a famous job?’ An intriguing article from Gawker looks at how this tight role emerged and how social media and the Covid-19 pandemic boosted this career option.Please share your thoughts on this in the Comments section; thank you. To read full article, click here.
AND FINALLY ...
In the week the world lost famed British chef and restauranteur Alastair Little (1950-2022) one of America's highest-rating TV reality food shows, Top Chef, announced it was setting the next series in London. What's the connection? Well, Little's eponymous Soho restaurant and his book Keep it Simple 'helped set the wheels of modern British cooking in motion', according to an obituary published by Eater London. The city is rightly regarded as one world's great food cities, and Little was instrumental in shaping British dining from the days of gruel leading up to the 1970s. Meanwhile, Top Chef contestants will use 'the best ingredients the UK has to offer from its sought-after seafood, high-quality meat and produce'. Series regulars Padma Lakshmi, Tom Colicchio, and Gail Simmons will be joined by 'distinguished judges from the international versions, as well as esteemed global culinary experts'. Top Chef season 20 begins filming shortly and is scheduled for broadcast early next year.
Eater London's tribute to Alastair Little is here.
RECIPE OF THE WEEK
Fiadone Cheesecake
Made with the Corsican cheese, Brocciu
Citrus and cheese may not seem like natural bedfellows, but it's a pairing that often works. Think 'Key Lime Pie", a simple 'Lemon Meringue Pie' from the United States, or perhaps the classic Italian dessert, ' Lemon Ricotta Cake' and you'll see how the combination of acid and dairy works.
For this week's recipe, let's head to the Mediterranean island of Corsica, a place of mountains, harsh farming and independently-minded people.
Made with sheep's milk, Brocciu is similar in texture to ricotta. It's fragile and creamy, with a gentle graininess but a slightly stronger tang. It's the only cheese with official recognition through the French Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée system.
Only about 358 tonnes of the cheese is made each year, and much of it is eaten locally.
Brocciu is often eaten after a meal, often paired with a shot of the local chestnut liqueur and sugar or with a spoon of fig jam.
This recipe offers a substitute for Brocciu, which can be hard to find outside Corsica or in specialist cheese shops across France.
Do try and make this cheesecake and let me know how much you enjoyed it :) This recipe includes ideas from Delicious magazine, Saveur, and my experience.
Serves 10
Softened butter, for greasing the tin
110gm caster sugar, plus 1 tbsp for coating tin
500g Brocciu cheese
Alternatively, combine 400g ricotta & 100g Greek yoghurt; or 500g ricotta
Finely grated zest of 2 lemons
1 tbsp limoncello (optional, although not for me!)
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp salt (kosher is the best)
4 medium free-range eggs
Crème fraîche, sprinkle of icing sugar to serve
Heat oven to 140°C fan/gas mark 3
Method
Brush your 20cm flan tin, or similarly sized (can be rectangular) ceramic container with the butter, and layer the bottom with grease-proof paper. Sprinkle over the 1 tbsp sugar, and jiggle to coat the tin.
Next, whisk (until smooth) the Brocciu (or ricotta and yoghurt mix) with the zest, the limoncello (if using), the vanilla and salt.
Whisk the eggs and 110g sugar in a separate, clean bowl until the mixture is pale, thickened and foamy. Gently mix and combine well in the cheese mixture.
Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 35 minutes.
Check after 30 minutes for setting around the edge and some wobble in the mix.
Either turn out or grill briefly to enjoy a burnt top.
Serve with double cream, crème fraîche, and perhaps a dusting of icing sugar.
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