I am rarely happier than when someone puts a menu in front of me. In this month’s issue, Tony Naylor takes a look at restaurant-menu speak, from the over descriptive, florid style that takes longer to read than it does to eat, to the minimal three-worder – say, cockles, nori, orange – favoured by other places.
Browsing a menu (I take my time) I rather like coming across ingredients I don’t know and really enjoy asking the staff about them. I find it amusing that it is all too often just another word for something rather commonplace. Others find such things intimidating and skip that dish rather than admit they haven’t heard of it before. The description of any offering should, surely, be tempting, but that doesn’t mean I want to be on first-name terms with the pig whose braised belly I am about to tuck into.
We have some great recipes for you, including Anna Haugh’s fennel sausage meatballs, and lamb kofta with yoghurt dressing. She also brings her sea bream puttanesca which, like her other recipes, can be ready in 20 minutes or so.
There is a seemingly never-ending appetite for chef’s memoirs, especially those involving tales of bullying, disrespect and appalling working conditions. The latest, written by Sally Abé, is less of an exposé and more of a story of survival, and details how she burned out and ended up in therapy. Her story ends well and we have an extract for you from her unvarnished culinary memoir.
We also have an interview over lunch with Chris van Tulleken, one of the key people in the debate on ultra-processed food, and comedian Nish Kumar tells us about his Life on a Plate.