A baguette is a long, thin loaf of bread. It’s commonly known in English as a French stick. It’s made from a lean type of dough which is defined by French law. The dough traditionally contains wheat flour, water, yeast and salt. Some baguettes are made by using a ‘poolish’ – a starter dough to pre-ferment, like a sour dough loaf – but this is not mandatory.
Due to its lack of fat content, the baguette is best eaten on the day of purchase as it doesn’t keep well.
The bagel, also spelt beigel, is a bread product which originated in the Jewish communities of Poland. Traditionally, it’s made of a yeasted wheat dough shaped into a ring, which is first boiled and then baked. These days some bagels are steamed before baking, thus eliminating the boiling stage.
This process results in a dense, dough interior and sometimes a crusty exterior. Sometimes bagels are topped with seeds, eg poppy, sunflower or sesame, or salt. Bagels can also be made from different dough types, eg rye or wholemeal.
Bagels are now very popular in North America, especially where there are large Jewish populations. They are also becoming increasingly popular and more readily available in Britain.
Ciabatta is a type of Italian white bread which includes olive oil as one of its ingredients. It was first created in Verona in response to the popularity of the French baguette. Literally, the name means ‘slipper’ as it was named by Francesco Favaron, the original baker, who thought its shape looked like his wife’s slippers.
Toasted sandwiches made from small ciabatta loaves are called panini.
Since its original invention in the 1960s, many new variations have been developed, including a wholemeal version known as ciabatta integrale.
Cranberries are little red berries with a bitter flavour. They grow wild on shrubs throughout Northern Europe and North America, but their cultivation is a major commercial operation in some American states and Canadian provinces.
They have a high nutritional content and are believed to be valuable for their health-giving properties.
Because the berries are so bitter, about 95% of the harvest is processed into juice, sauce or other condiments. They are also available dried and sweetened, as shown in the photo above.
Cranberry sauce is the traditional accompaniment to the Christmas turkey in the UK and elsewhere, and at Thanksgiving dinners in the United States and Canada.
Ginger is a flowering plant whose rhizome, or root, is highly prized as a spice. It originated in Southern Asia and was exported to Europe as early as the Roman times. These days it’s mainly grown in India, Jamaica, Africa, China and Australia.
It’s widely used as a flavouring for many Asian and Caribbean dishes – most curries have a garlic and ginger base to which other spices are added. In Western culture, however, it’s more often used in baking, particularly in its powdered form (see above photo).
The prehistoric-looking gurnard is a lean, firm, white-fleshed fish which lives on the seabed using its wing-like fins to find crabs, shrimps and other bottom-feeders. They are rather bony and lacking in flavour so the best use for them is to use the fish head to make a tasty stock.
Lobster is often considered to be the king of crustaceans and is thus an expensive delicacy. It has firm, white meat which is succulent and sweet.
When raw it has a dark blue-green colour which turns a bright orange-pink when cooked. There are three main types of lobster: Canadian or American; European; Slipper or Squat lobster from warmer oceans. These are sometimes called ‘bugs’ in Australia and are generally not found in Europe. Given that the flavour is thought to be better according to how cold the water is, the European lobster – caught around the coasts of Britain, Ireland, Norway and Brittany – is considered to have the best flavour.
The most humane way to kill a lobster is to put it in the freezer for a couple of hours. This will render it unconcious. You then insert a very sharp knife into the cross at the back of its head. This kills it instantly, and you can then proceed to cut it in half lengthways and steam or grill it.
Favourite lobster recipes include Lobster Newberg and Lobster Thermidor. It’s also popular in soups, eg bisques. ‘Surf and turf’ is another option where seafood is served alongside red meat, usually lobster and steak. This is popular in North America and Australia but has not really caught on much in Britain.
Homard is French for ‘lobster’.
Gorgonzola is a sharp-flavoured, blue-veined, creamy cheese which is named after the Italian village near Milan from where it originates.
It’s made from unpasteurised cows milk and injected with greenish-blue mould which gives a lovely sharp contrast to the creamy cheese. It’s often found as a dessert cheese and is a cheeseboard favourite. It can also be crumbled onto pasta or risotto and used in salads and dressings.
The apricot originated in China and spread slowly westward. It was introduced into England from Italy in 1542 by Jean Le Loup, Henry VIII’s gardener. It’s a fragrant fruit with a soft velvety skin and is a relative of the peach, nectarine, plum and cherry.
British apricots are available from May to September, but more often they’re imported from countries with warm climates, eg hot European countries in the summer and Chile and South Africa in the northern hemisphere’s winter.
Apricots are mostly used in tarts and crumbles or made into jams and compotes. Dried apricots are a popular, healthy snack, and are also used in savoury dishes in Turkey and Middle eastern countries.
Allspice originates from the West Indies. It’s made from the dried, unripened berry of the tree Pimenta dioica, which is of the eucalyptus family.
Historically it was called ‘Jamaican pepper’ and was frequently imported from Britain’s Caribbean colonies. Later it became more commonly known as allspice – the name given to it because it was thought to combine the flavours of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.
The berries can be used whole or ground in both sweet and savoury dishes.