Going up

Pirate drinks
An Indian summer of quaffing mojitos has made rum a runaway favourite in top-shelf tipples. According to Tesco spirits category manager, Mark Suddaby, golden rum is flying off the shelves. Diageo’s Morgan’s spiced run saw a 25% leap in sales, and that’s before hot toddy season.

Plunder the liquor cabinet for these classy cocktails

Very retro fruit
Get out your runcible spoons – quince is sexy again. The 17th century favourite is back on the menu in cocktail form at Harvey Nichols Fourth Floor bar and London’s Bond’s bar and as a fruity ganache in Metropolitan, Thornton’s chic comeback range, aimed at stylish young chocoholics.

A very ’now’ roast pork with quince

 
Sea greens
The continuing financial gloom means manufacturers are looking for affordable superfoods for health conscious consumers and seaweed is their wunderkind. The protein rich plant has already made it into designer smoothies by the Naked Juice Company and Porter Foods are launching seaweed caviar, ready for Christmas. 2010 promises the launch of seaweed cheese.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s seaweed stirfry

Going Down

Beer in pubs
More bad news for the British boozer. The amount of ale drunk in pubs is down 4.9 per cent this quarter, according to the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA). Supermarket and off-licence sales have gone up 4.4 per cent. On average, 52 pubs close every week in Britain.

Top 10 things that make a great pub

 
Fatty ice cream
Say goodbye to lardy bums! The folk at Häagen-Dazs have come up with a very clever scoop; healthy ice cream – well, almost healthy. The new Five range, just launched in the US, boasts only five ingredients (see?) and is lower fat than the classic range, with all the creamy loveliness HD fans know and love. Expect skinny sundaes in the UK soon.

Watch the 4Food video guide to making your own, lower fat ice cream

 
Caffeine fixes
Sales of coffee have dropped as consumers are more conscious about how they spend a penny, according to a report in the Grocer. Figures released by market research company Deloitte, show 59 per cent of shoppers have cut back on coffee and snacks, though 78 per cent of people are spending the same amount of money on groceries as they did before the economy went kaput.

Buying Fairtrade coffee? What you’re really paying for

Imagine a Benetton advert where everyone is wearing a chef’s hat – this is the scene I walk into on set of the F Word trailer. There are Chinese chefs and Indian chefs, French chefs, Rasta chefs and chefs with Mexican ‘taches. None of them are Gordon.

Apparently, Gordon has a reputation for being a bit late, but once he’s on set, he’s brilliant. “I worked with Gordon on a day when there was an awful story about him in the press,” says Phil, director of the trailer. “Off set he was on the phone, fuming, then he’d come on-set, say ‘What do you need me to do?’ and just nail it.”

In this series of the F Word, Gordon is on the hunt for the UK’s best independent restaurant. The trailer will show him being fed forkfuls of food by contesting chefs – which explains the cluster of ethnically diverse cooks. Amazingly, the entire range of world cuisine is being cooked up by three home economists working in a cramped corner of the set on what looks like a couple of Bunsen burners but is actually a competent, if compact, kitchen.

Chief home ec-type lady, Beth, is busy lining up spoons, forks and skewers ready to shove into Gordon’s mouth.

“Are you worried someone will stab him in the face with a fork full of curry?” I ask her

“We’ve sanded down the sticks on the kebabs so we don’t poke him,” she assures me.

By the time Gordon arrives and is taken through the script, the once-hot food has been sitting for a while. Congealed risotto? Rather him than me.

“How are those slipping down?” I ask him after the first cut.

“It’s all cold – f**king disgusting,” he moans, “cold quiche, cold goujon and ice cold raw f**king chips.”

True to form, Gordon is a real sport, swallowing 10 mouthfuls of unidentifiable food, before resorting to the spit bucket. I count at least 30 servings after that, there could have been more; what is certain is the grimace on Gordon’s face is the real deal.

“What the f**k was that?” he cries as a spoonful of frogspawn-like pitahaya is popped into his mouth by one of the chef extras.

When feeding time is over, I ask Gordon if any of the independent restaurants he’s visited so far have impressed him. “There’s a Spanish place in South London,” he muses. “And a Chinese place in Edinburgh, where they make these extraordinary dumplings.”

What about the celebrity guests – are they back this year?

“Jordan’s coming in. God help us. Kelly Brook was in looking great – especially when she was getting food out of the back of the oven.”

When the anecdotes turn to Max Beesley and a deer penis, I take my leave.

“It was about 16 inches long!” Gordon calls.

Worth tuning in for.

Watch the trailer and more from the F Word

Going up
Jamming in the kitchen
Either the Women’s Institute has discovered Red Bull or preserves have got sexy. Either way you’re making jam by the vat-load; and not just any old jam – plum jam. “Sales of English plums are up by 140% year on year with sales of preserving sugar and jam sugar up by 181% and 70% respectively,” says an insider at Waitrose.

How to make jam

Squid and chips
As the struggle to save our sole gathers momentum and fish sustainability becomes the watchword for discerning foodies, it’s time to find something a little more exciting to partner your portion (of chips). According to Marks and Spencer, the solution is squid. Two British cephalopods (lolingindae forbesii and loliginidae vulgaris) will hit their shelves in October.

How to prepare squid and cuttlefish

Eating your pinks
Breast Cancer Awareness Month marks 30 days of guilt-free face stuffing in the name of a very worthy cause. Food favourites including Cadbury’s Flake and Gü’s hot chocolate soufflés are donning pink packaging for the duration of the campaign, with proceeds from their sale going to Breast Cancer Care. Check your supermarket for more pink products.

Improve your food karma by eating ethically

Going down
Hangovers
Yep. Eat your greens and morning-after misery could be a thing of the past. Results just published in the Journal of Food Science claim an extract taken from asparagus boosts liver function and the metabolism of alcohol. Asparagus season might be a way off but at least now you can toast it with bucket loads of Champers.

Your hangover remedies put to the test

British food
Traditional British dishes have been abandoned in favour of fancy-pants foreign food, according to a survey by tourism website www.iknow-uk.com. Their research found 50 per cent of Brits have never even tried toad in the hole, Welsh rarebit or bubble and squeak. Instead, the treacherous households admitted to serving pasta or pizza up to three times per week.

Master these classic British recipes

Baobab
Hailed as this year’s hot new superfruit, baobab has failed to conquer the food-world like fellow exotic imports goji berries and quinoa. Market research giants Mintel had backed a boom of the sustainable, anti-oxidant rich fruit but it is thought baobab’s dry powdery pulp is holding up research and development but manufacturers are optimistic it will soon hit European shores in products such as smoothies and cereal bars.

Top 10 superfoods

24 year old restaurant manager, Stuart Donnely, is the first Manchester host to fire up his oven and a little thing like food miles won’t stop him serving a feast that’s downright fabulous. The Champers is soon flowing at Stuart’s fabulous penthouse pad and the confident host thinks his night is basically unbeatable.

After the first flamboyant evening, Angela Daly is suspicious that Stuart, might cause a stir on her special night. Still, she is putting her heart and soul into her home-made menu  to show her guests how a top-notch hostess lays out a spread. Will that be enough to curb Stuart’s comments?

Eco warrior, Josh Steiner, is next up and while his guests have lost their appetite for their hosts many environmental tips, they can’t get enough of his food. Even Stuart has something nice to say about his rival. It’s not enough to keep everyone happy though and Angela has had as much as she can swallow of her fellow guests Stuart and Rachel.

On the final night it’s claws out, as Rachel Vose struggles to maintain decorum in the face of a very feisty Stuart. He has ignored the dress code but he won’t ignore Rachel’s glamour model past – as much as she’d like him to. As Stuart and Angela clash again, it’s an optimistic Josh who’s left hoping the foursome meet up again.

Watch the action Sunday 27th September on Channel 4

Browse all the Come Dine With Me recipes

Going up
Healthy kiddies
Back to school means its time to think lunchboxes, but what to pack to keep the little darlings happy and healthy? Hovis says the sarnie for savvy mums combines peanut butter with apple. According to nutritionist, Fiona Hunter, who developed the health-boosting butty, it’s a winning combo: “It is cost-effective, very simple to make and has all the nutrients children need – but doesn’t compromise on taste.”

Need more inspiration? Check out these lifestyle lunchboxes

Cheese bomb
Turophiles take note – this season’s hottest cheese is the Lancashire Bomb, a 24 month matured creamy Lancashire coated in black wax. It might look like something from a Road Runner cartoon but the fromage is a favourite with serious cheese lovers. “The Lancashire Bomb is flying at the moment,” says Andrew Harper of BritishFineFoods, who rates the Bomb as his cheese of choice.

Build your own Great British Cheeseboard

Skinny latte lovers
Just a year since its launch, 1 per cent fat milk has become a shopping basket staple for health conscious consumers. Sainsbury’s, who launched the lower-fat milk, says 1 per cent fat milk accounts for 10 per cent of their total milk sales. “It tastes like, and has the same amount of calcium and vitamin B as semi-skimmed milk, but with half the fat content,” explains the supermarket.

Find the hidden fat in your food

Going down

Shop-bought cakes
Have you been baking? There must be some reason why gateaux gurus Sara Lee have announced a 22 per cent drop in their international bakery sales. The company attributes the slump, in part, to customers switching to own-label products to save pennies in the miserable financial climate.

Flour your surfaces and try these baking recipes

Organic food (again)
It has been another challenging month for team organic as a new survey reports shoppers are spending their money elsewhere. The research, carried out by market research company IGD, revealed 10 per cent of UK shoppers opted for cheaper products they perceived to have the same benefits as organic, while eight per cent said they are no longer sure what ‘organic’ stands for.

Find out what organic is all about

Bog off, BOGOF
Buy one, get one free deals (or BOGOFs) could be out the door since the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) decided they contribute to the food waste problem. It believes switching to half-price offers will help reduce the 4.1m tonnes of edible food that is binned in the UK each year.

Tips for fighting food waste

Having previously created a Christmas dinner pizza I feel I’ve covered that most typically British meal – the roast – and learnt that, whilst tasty, a roast meat and gravy pizza is a bit, well, brown. This time I opted for more vibrant dishes and baked a Ploughman’s lunch pizza, an English breakfast pizza and – for afters – a trifle pizza.

Bring on the Branstons
Since cheese is a key component of the Ploughman’s, the transition from salad to pizza was not too earth-shattering. The final creation looked like a vinegar-charged version of the classic tomato-free pizza bianca. Apple sauce and pickle added moistness and man-sized chunks of quality ham made this a dish fit for the hungriest farm hand.

The Full English
And so to breakfast. If there’s a better hangover cure than this, I want to see it. Sure, the base layer of beans makes it a knife and fork job, but what’s a little cutlery between pan-European friends? For maximum breakfast satisfaction, the bacon and black pudding were pre-grilled and the baking tray buttered for a sort of fried-bread-meets-toast effect. But the star of this show is the egg. Crack a free-range uovo into a mug then carefully tip it onto the pizza and pop it all into the oven – the white is free from fried-egg rubberiness and the yolk was perfect for dipping crust soldiers into.

Good’un for puddin’
Domino’s launched an Oreo pizza in the States but UK pizzerias are less bothered about indulging our sweet tooth. Having tried this pudding pizza I really don’t know why. It’s fantastic. It truly is. In fact, one tester thought it was better than actual trifle because it had bite without the unpleasant mouth-feel of soggy sponge cake. If you’re making it prepare for a gooey, sloppy mouthful you’ll definitely want seconds of. Don’t forget the hundreds and thousands though – it’s just not a proper trifle pizza without them.

DIY Britalian pizzas

All bases were made using Jamie’s pizza dough recipe

Ploughman’s lunch pizza
Serves 2

Ingredients
250g grated Cheddar
5 large pickled onions, sliced
5 tbsp apple sauce
5 tbsp pickle
150g thickly cut ham
200g watercress

Method: How to make Ploughman’s lunch pizza

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Roll out the dough and place onto a lightly greased baking tray.

2. Scatter the grated Cheddar over the base and arrange all the other toppings – except the watercress – in an attractive manner on top of the cheese.

3. Bake for 20 minutes.

4. Scatter watercress over the top and tuck in.

Full English breakfast pizza
Serves 2

Ingredients
5 rashers streaky bacon
150g black pudding
3 tomatoes, sliced
1 tbsp butter
1 tin of baked beans
1 free range egg

Method: How to make full English breakfast pizza

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C.

2. Grill the bacon and black pudding until they are fully cooked.

3. Fry the tomatoes until they are soft and about to caramelise at the edges.

4. Butter the baking tray and roll out the pizza dough.

5. Spread the baked beans over the pizza base and top with the bacon, black pudding and tomatoes.

6. Crack the egg into a mug and carefully tip it out onto the centre of the pizza. Keep the lip of the mug as close as possible to the pizza to help keep the egg in one piece.

7. Bake for 20 minutes.

Trifle pizza
Serves 2

Ingredients
25g golden caster sugar
250ml custard
298g tin mandarin segments
100g strawberry jelly
Whipped cream
Glacier cherries
Hundreds and thousands

Method: How to make trifle pizza

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C.

2. Roll out the dough and place onto a lightly greased baking tray.

3. Sprinkle the sugar over the base and bake for 3-5 minutes until the sugar starts to cook into the dough.

4. Remove from the oven and cover the base with custard. Scatter the mandarin slices over the custard topping.

5. Bake for 15 minutes.

6. When ready, remove the pizza from the oven and top with whipped cream, cherries and hundreds and thousands.

Find out more about Dolce Vito – Dream Restaurant

Try more British recipes

Going up
Pies
Who ate all the pies? Looks like you did. “The weather has been so awful that people are tucking into them,” said a Waitrose spokesperson. “Pie sales are up 34 per cent compared to this time last year.” Other cold weather warmers enjoying a summer run-out include Yorkshire puddings (up 40 per cent) and fresh soup (up 56 per cent).
Tuck into these pie recipes

Premium products
Is the recession over? The answer could be in your shopping basket. Despite a market report suggesting consumers are ditching organic food to save pennies, Tesco report a 52 per cent boom in its high-end and ethical food ranges, which it is calling ‘optimistic signs’ of a recovery from recession. Hurrah.
Find tips on eating ethically

Frozen food
Captain Bird’s Eye must be grinning all over his beard as figures show the frozen food market has grown into a £5 billion industry. According to Brian Young, Director General of the British Frozen Food Federation (BFFF): “Locked in goodness, minimal wastage and terrific value are just a few of the massive advantages of frozen food.”
Cut down on waste with these freezing tips

Going down
Lettuce
Remember the promise of a scorching summer? Ha. Salad is the latest victim of another wash-out July. “We have to monitor the weather 24/7 to make sure the correct fresh products are always available,” said a Sainsbury’s insider. “Salad and lettuce sales dropped by 12 per cent, and all because of a little rain.”
Buck the trend with these salad recipes

Organic’s halo
A review commissioned by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) claims organic food offers no important differences in nutrition content or any additional health benefits. But Peter Melchett, Policy Director at the Soil Association, believes the report has ignored key research on the benefits of organic eating. “The review rejected almost all of the existing studies of comparisons between organic and non-organic nutritional differences,” he commented.

Man-sized Mars Bars
The FSA is so keen to help us battle the bulge, it’s urging producers to make single portion sizes of snacks including biscuits, chocolate and soft drinks – you know, the fun stuff. But treat makers aren’t convinced smaller bars will stop us scoffing, and reckon we’ll just buy two.
Go on, treat yourself to a little cake

Going up
Strawberries
We’re tucking into strawberries like there’s no tomorrow. Supermarkets are shifting bushels of berries, with Morrisons reporting strawberry sales up 50 per cent on last year and rising. “Sales of strawberries go through the roof in the weeks leading up to Wimbledon,” revealed Glen Cooper, the supermarket’s strawberry buyer.

See how Hugh got merry with the berry at the River Cottage strawberry fair

Supermarket own brands
The recession is hitting big brands square in the tills but savvy shopping is proving great news for supermarkets’ own ranges. Research carried out by media consultants, Arena BLM, suggests a staggering nine in 10 shoppers have switched from known brands to supermarket own brand versions.

Penny sweets
It’s not just children spending their pennies on a 10p mix-up. “The recession makes people think of the good old days,” explains Micheal Bennett from Tangerine, makers of newsagent staples Sherbet Dib-Dabs, Black Jacks and Fruit Salads. “When times are tough, consumers seek reassurance from familiar products.” And do penny sweets still exist? “Absolutely. You can still get Mojos, Cherry Kisses, Cola Bottles, Jelly Beans and Gummy Bugs for a penny.”

Ch-ching!

Make your own sweets

 

Going down

Dominant discount supermarkets
The early days of the credit crunch sent shoppers flocking to discount stores like Aldi and Lidl but a Which? report shows the big boys are bouncing back, with Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Waitrose showing an upturn in sales. There’s gold in them there tills.

Supermarket, veg box or grow your own – how to save money on food

Mouldy veg
In the ongoing battle to combat food waste, the Co-operative have printed storage instructions on their loose produce bags to help shoppers get the most from their fruit and veg. Did you know keeping apples in the fridge can help them last an extra two weeks? “We welcome this initiative,” said Richard Swannell, from anti waste campaign, Love Food Hate Waste. “This is the latest example of how The Co-operative is helping customers to save money by throwing away less food.”

Find out how to cut your food waste

Meat on a Monday
Sir Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono are encouraging carnivores to back away from meaty meals on Mondays. The Meat Free Monday campaign says foregoing flesh one day a week will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from livestock – a cause of climate change – as well as offer health benefits to consumers who will stock up on veg instead.

Dine in style with these virtuous veggie recipes

Consumers with a conscience have food packaging in their sights. This year everything from Easter eggs to egg fried rice has had its cardboard cut out, in a bid to minimise the mountains of waste we create just by buying food.

For the next week I will be trying to reduce my food packaging waste by keeping a close eye on what I buy. To get an idea of the challenge ahead, I kept hold of all the packaging I amassed with one week’s typical shop. I think of myself as a pretty switched-on consumer so it was a shock to see, sitting boldly on the kitchen table, undeniable evidence of how much rubbish I really produce.

“Hold on,” you’re probably thinking, “you can probably recycle most of that junk.” Think again optimistic one, a quick scan of the offending articles revealed 11 non-recyclable packets, with the berries I tuck into as my first way to 5 a day proving the biggest packaging pests.

Steeled by this revelation, I’ll be going less wild in the aisles in an attempt to cut back on cartons and starve my bin of packaging nasties.

Day 1
First shop of the new regime and it turns out keeping packaging to a limit is not going to be easy. Breakfast is looking decidedly less healthy as all the store’s berries come in plastic boxes. In fact, the whole fruit and veg aisle is a festival of plastic. There is not a single organic vegetable that doesn’t come wrapped in a plastic bag. Tomatoes, courgettes, lemons and limes are loose. This could make for an interesting dinner.

Day 2
Busy day in the office means it’s a grab and go sarnie from the high street for lunch. Chucked the packet without thinking, then forced to fish it out from the bin to salvage the recyclable parts. Eew.

Day 3
Not all plastics are created equal it seems, nor are all recycling schemes. Some councils will take your plastics and give them a new life but others might not. Happily mine does. That in mind I bought some strawberries with a clearer conscience – but while the plastic box is recyclable, the label isn’t. The label. It’s not an easy peeler either so I leave it in my (yuk) dirty dish water to soak overnight – no point wasting water. By morning it still won’t budge so I spend an hour attacking it with a knife. There’s a lot of sticky residue which makes it tough to know whether or not it can legitimately go in the recycling bin. Will a whole slab of plastic really end up in a landfill because of a leaf of gummed paper?

Day 4
Hurrah for the market – loose cherries! In the supermarket the fresh-veggies-in-plastic situation is still so grim I head for the frozen aisle. The packet on my broad beans says, in the standard rubbish disposal system, it will break down in four years as opposed to 10,000 years for a regular plastic bag, so that’s a boon.

Day 5
I can’t hack the lack of fruit and veg so I’m abandoning chemical-free-but-plastic-wrapped organic for possibly-insecticide-heavy-but-packaging-light standard veggies. To avoid using the little plastic bags I usually pop veggies into to take to the till, I carry them loose in the basket and hit the self-checkout where I can weigh them and then carry home in a re-usable bag. Semi-success! My fridge is better stocked than it’s been all week and not a single bit of plastic made it into my house.

Going up
Porky picnics
Forget the fancy fare – Great Britain’s picnic hamper is fully loaded with traditional treats. Morrison’s saw sales of sausage rolls soar by 46 per cent this year. Sales of savoury eggs were up 33 per cent. “In tough times everyone loves the reassurance of their classic favourites,” said Mark Pinnes, head of media relations for the store.

Red, white and green fingered
MPs looking to cut back on expenses should try their hand at growing their own. Hilary Benn has agreed to pass on a suggestion put forward by leading organic food companies and the Soil Association, to plant an organic veggie plot in the garden at 10 Downing Street. First lady of the USA, Michelle Obama, has already got growing, planting a 1,100 square foot kitchen garden on the South Lawn of the White House.

Eco BBQs
Barbecue season is upon us and though the smoky taste of barbecued food might be delightful, the environmental impact of grub a la grill is not. Conscientious cooks can ease the guilt with some savvy shopping. Nigel’s Eco Store sells a sustainably produced British charcoal which claims to reduce carbon emissions by 25 per cent and encourage biodiversity. Grace your grill with more barbecue recipes and tips

Going down
Red Bull gives you what?
Six German states have banned Red Bull Cola after tests revealed it contained 0.4 micrograms per litre of cocaine. Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) and the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection maintain the levels found would not pose a threat to public safety. Meanwhile, Red Bull’s independent testing failed to detect any traces of cocaine. The Bavarian Ministry for Environment, Health, and Consumer Protection will investigate further.

Bye-bye bluefin
Top chefs are Tweeting about tuna. Tom Aikens and Mitch Tonks have been exchanging concerns over consumption of bluefin tuna, rated ‘critically endangered’ by the World Conservation Union. The Marine Conservation Society urge consumers to avoid eating all types of bluefin tuna, meanwhile, swanky London restaurant, Nobu, has kept bluefin on the menu but are not asking customers not to order it!

Plastic water bottles
We UK consumers love our mineral water – more than two billion litres of bottled water are sold here every year. What we don’t love is binning the bottles, so cheer hooray for the USA where Boxed Water is Better, a sustainable water company and art project, has just launched a range of water cartons that could provide the solution. Their boxes are recyclable and more environmentally friendly to transport than bottles. Founder, Kevin Hockin, says international distribution is in the (water) pipeline.

More on ethical eating

Watch the Markets will be back in July with more food news for you to get your teeth into