Aidan Brooks: Trainee Chef: Bad Eggs

Sunday, 19 November 2006

Bad Eggs

Free range eggs, or battery farmed cheats?

The big food news here in the UK during the past week has been the passing off of millions of battery farmed eggs as "free range".

The newspapers are reporting that up to 30 million eggs supplied to shops and supermarkets as "free range" were actually from caged birds.

Police have been investigating the allegations and have already raided one packaging and wholesale distribution business near Coventry.

Just to add misery to woe, The Food Standards Agency has just published estimates that salmonella is present in one in every 30 boxes of imported eggs on sale in England, with the worst offenders amongst exporting countries being Spain, followed by France.

When I was just less than a year old, British Health Minister Edwina Currie was forced to resign in a blaze of publicity after provoking outrage by saying that much of Britain's egg production was infected with the salmonella bacteria.

So, plus ça change then, or should I say nada cambia.

3 comments:

astillac said...: Hi, followed you from Shauna's blog. I'll be sticking around for some time; you've got a nice place here.

Keep posting your creations!

(Sucks about those eggs, doesn't it? I wish I had more land so I could just use my own eggs.); 11/20/2006 04:21:00 am
Mallika said...: That story was a shocker. A while ago I decided to go organic but then who knows what one gets when they go shopping??; 11/23/2006 03:10:00 pm
Trig said...: It is shocking that suppliers think they can get away with this sort of thing, especially when consumers are making genuine efforts to eat organic and free range food.; 11/24/2006 12:53:00 am

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Welcome

I'm Aidan "Trig" Brooks, a 22-yr-old from Hackney in London's East End. I left Westminster Kingsway College with a Professional Chef Diploma in summer

2007 and moved to Spain, where I trained in Barcelona at Carles Abellan's Comerç 24 (which won its first Michelin star) and Martín Beresategui's Lasarte (which won its second Michelin star) and was chef de partie and later Pastry Chef to Paco Morales at the amazing hotel restaurant Ferrero in the Valèncian mountains. This Spring I returned to London as part of the team of celebrated Portuguese chef Nuno Mendes, opening East End restaurant Viajante. I'm still working with food, but taking a break from fine dining. Passionately pursuing my life-long ambition to become a top-class chef and, one day, a world-famous restaurateur.

Independence and code of ethics

What's in season in the UK?

Here is this week's UK seasonal food item, courtesy of eat the seasons. This week's seasonal food item is monkfish. This resident of the deep is often described as the ugliest fish in the oceans, though from looking at the beautiful picture below it's hard to see why. Actually, monkfish isn't a fish, but a generic name given to fish from several different genus. The most common is the anglerfish, but the generic term can also refer to angel sharks and sea monks. Whichever variety we are talking about, they should be considered a special treat as all are listed as being unsustainably fished at present. Monkfish has a firm but succulent texture and a slightly sweet flavour and is often compared with seafoods such as lobster and scallops, with which it pairs well to make some luxurious dishes. Monkfish has long featured in Iberian regional dishes, but was almost unknown in the UK until recent years. It now appears on many restaurant menus and is highly sought after by fishing vessels in the waters around SW. England, W. Ireland and W. Scotland. Monkfish is low in calories and a good source of protein. It contains useful amounts of vitamin B3 (aids proper functioning of the metabolic system), potassium (controls the balance of fluids) and selenium (an antioxidant that also helps the immune system). The flesh is sufficiently strong to stand its own against otherwise dominant flavours such as the chorizo, saffron and pimentón typically used with it in Spanish dishes.