Kinkkumyrkytys

At this time of year I'd like to make a serious public health announcement and make people aware of a strange, incurable, debilitating disease affecting the majority of people here in Finland at this time.

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Kinkkumyrkytys (eng: hampoisoning)

A debilitating disease suffered around late December and sometimes early January by persons residing in Finland. Thought initially to be a genetic disease of the native Finnish population, it now appears to be some kind of virus that is transmitted to non-natives in that region.

The sufferer experiences symptoms of feeling too full, bloated and some nausea. It also causes the sufferer to lie or sit for extended periods of time; attempts to move or walk cause the above symptoms to become worse.

In a mechanism that is still unexplained the disease affects the vocal centres of the brain rendering the sufferer to emit grunts and be incapable of saying much more than simple sentences. Sufferers have been known to complain bitterly and say phrases such as "Ei ruokaa...", "Ei enää kinkkua taas...".

Curiously regardless of the nationality and language of the sufferer, these phrases are always in Finnish leading to speculation that this is some new class of neurological disorder. Because of the above utterances, it is believed that this is how the disease obtained its name.

In extreme cases the sufferer becomes a vegetable and can only blankly stare at contentless, bright, flashing pictures known as Finnish Christmas TV without comprehension for hours on end. In some serious cases people have been known to binge watch "Vain Elämä" - the prognosis in these cases is however extremely grave bordering on absolutely no hope at all.

Interestingly while sufferers have a complete aversion to roast ham at this time, other foods also cause the sufferers additional agony. These include: mätti (fish eggs), lipeäkala, joululimppu (Christmas bread), various kinds of "laatikko-" food including lanttu (swede), porkkana (carrot) and peruna (potato).

It has been suggested by some researchers that there may be a connection with excessive amounts of Christmas good consumed in Finland. However this research has been extensively denounced as being "pasta" - a Finnish term meaning "obviously not true you ignorant fool...pass me more ham and an extra helping of that lovely lanttulaatikko too!"

A secondary debate on whether lipeäkala is food or a chemical/biological weapon is tending towards the latter.

The symptoms of this disease continue for a number of days and the sufferer returns to full health quickly afterwards. However no immunity is gained and it is likely that the symptoms will reappear at the same time next year,

Some alternative therapists have suggested a treatment called "Tipaton tammikuu" involving consuming homoeopathic amounts of alcohol for a month. This rather dangerous and unethical therapy has been denounced as being "pasta".

Nouvelle cuisine meets big data?

After the post Christmas/holidays eating binge and the inevitable New Year's resolution of dieting, it seems like this article that appears in the Visual Business Intelligence blog by Stephen Few is more than a little apt.

An analogy is made between the fast food and slow food movements (hence the 'apt' earlier) and he article presents the argument that taking a much more measured, "slower" approach to data collection is the way forward.

As the slow food movement emphasizes the preparation, cooking, eating and enjoyment of food (as opposed to the idea of fast food), slow data emphasizes the same when collecting, storing, processing and analysing data. Given the rush to collect as much data as possible with often scant regard to the content, identification and value I can see the appeal of this. Regarding this latter point, an article in The Register: Craptastic analysis turns 2.8 zettabytes of Big Data into 2.8 ZB of FAIL - dramatically explains this.

Taking a moment to really think about what we are gathering, why we are gathering and what we intend to do with the data, other than the attempt construct the perfect advertisement, then we will see that we actually need very little data. This is almost an antithesis to the 'capture and collect everything everywhere just in case we might need it later' approach.

And then with that carefully chosen, semantically well-defined data we are able to process and analyse and enjoy the results of our analysis. The enjoyment of data here being that what is understood from the data and that this understand be more relevant and useful to our business and to our customers.

Taking a slow approach to digesting our data has a number of other side-effects, a few being that the amount of data we store is less, the amount of analytical infrastructure will be less and the value to the consumer (and the business) will be significantly greater as we will not have to sift through billions of uninteresting and irrelevant data-points. The effects upon areas such as privacy should be self-explanatory...indeed isn't this the true goal of the privacy advocates?

A slow data approach might just solve many of the issues we see with data: semantics, isolation, privacy, data storage, analytics, just to mention a few.

Indeed as the slow food movement has as its objectives to enjoy food, so slow data might just be the way through which we appreciate the information, knowledge and wisdom in our big data.

Are we in effect embodying the ideals of nouvelle cuisine as applied to data? A rejection of excessive complication, reducing the processing to preserve the natural information content, the freshest and best possible ingredients, smaller data sets, modern processing techniques, innovation and invention as being drivens because of the data collection (and not because they might happen if we collect data) - the analogies between slow food, nouvelle cuisine and slow data are abundant.

Food for thought...almost literally.

Home cooking: aioli

There's something about home cooking, a few, simple ingredients that just beats even the best restaurants. Some of the best meals, if not, the best meals I've had have been home cooked.

So, in the spirit of the above, I decided to make some aioli today (done this before). Now, all an aioli is, is a mayonnaise made with garlic and maybe mustard as additional ingredients. Actually despite its reputation, a mayonnaise is actually quite simple to make - as long as you can whisk fast enough.

The surprising thing about good, home made mayonnaise, or aioli this case, is how different it tasted from anything is a bottle or jar, ie: mass manufactured. Rather than getting a sweet, white, runny sauce, you get a complicated, rich, yellow, fruity, peppery, spicy sauce with lingering and changing aftertastes - superb with pasta or fish.

My particular combination today: aioli made with, garlic, egg, olive oil, whole-grain dijon mustard and a touch of black pepper.

Fried carrots with cheese and sage

Have to try this:

Fry 500g small sliced carrots in butter, garlic, touch of salt, pepper and chopped sage leaves. When cooked add a tablespoon (or two) of dark syrup. Serve with goats cheese broken over the hot carrots and spinach.

Might do this as the accompaniment with seared duck's breasts and a port wine sauce...

Also on a food theme, a blog from a photographer/chef friend: From A Cook's Heart

Stuffing

Here's my recipe for stuffing...I have no idea of the amounts per se so you'll have to use your judgement...

Ingedients:

• Breadcrumbs from, 6 or 7 (or more, or less) slices of Finnish dark, rye bread.
• 1 onion
• x cloves of garlic,    1 < x < n, where n is probably greater than 4 or 5 - let's say x = 3
• 2-4 mushrooms - brown
• horse chestnuts (See this recipe for preparing the chestnuts)
• herbs, eg: sage, parseley, whatever you fancy
• salt, pepper
• 1 egg

Method:

1. Prepare some horse chestnuts, chop finely.
2. Chop the onion roughly, same for the garlic and mushrooms
3. Place everything (breadcrumbs, onion, garlic, herbs, chestnuts) into a bowl and mix
4. Salt and pepper to taste
5. Add the egg to bind, mix

Texture should be sticky so that you can make balls of stuffing. Too dry, add an egg or butter, too wet, add some more breadcrumbs.

Split the mixture in half and use one half in the goose/duck/turkey/chicken and the other place on a baking tray and roast with the meat - no idea exactly how long this takes to cook or the best point to put it in the oven; I guess everytime :-)    You could try adding a little goose fat to the mixture as well....

Enjoy :-)

Food Blogs

An advertisement for a friend who is both a chef and a photographer....

From a Cook's Heart
 
I recommend the roast garlic soup.....

Eggs Benedict etc

Hungry...?

Eggs Benedict

Eggs Benedict is a dish that consists of two halves of an muffin topped with ham or bacon, poached egg and hollandaise sauce.

1. Muffin
2. Poached Egg (see below for recipie)
3. Ham
4. Hollandaise Sauce (see below for recipie)

Eggs Benedict with Laverbread (I guess this would be Wyau Benedict a Bara Lawr)
(c)2011 Ian Oliver

•  fry laverbread with bacon (fry small pieces of bacon in their own fat, until almost crispy, then add laverbread and fry until that is cooked)
• place thick slice of ham (real ham!) on a muffin or half bagel
• place fried laverbread and bacon on top
• then a poached egg
• then Hollandaise sauce over the top (seasoned with a little black pepper)

Hollandaise Sauce

A buttery sauce made from egg yolk, butter and a little lemon juice... 

• Delia Smith recipie
• Eggs Benedict  (includes Holandaise Sauce recipe) from Jamie Oliver

Poached Eggs (properly)

• boil water with a touch of vinegar and salt (helps keep the egg white together)
• break egg, drop into boiling water for 2 to 2 1/2 minutes
• take eggs out using slotted spoon - dry a little to remove excess water (most of which should evaporate)
• the whites should be cooked and the yolks runny (!!)

Food ideas: Bento !

Fantastic website full of great Bento lunch-box ideas...Just Bento

Simple one to start off with : Bento no. 76: Chicken and pepper rice cooker bento

I intended to find another, but there are too many.... :-)

Aioli

Here's a fantastic recipe for Aioli found via Wikipedia (as always)...

Image Copyright FXcuisine.com