Ginger Tablet

Trenching your gushing entrails bright - Ginger Tablet Hearts Rabbie

I read the tea leaves incorrectly. I thought that people would be preoccupied with health and fitness at this time of year. I thought people would want to talk about vegetables. Nope. Do you know what my google hits are telling me? They're saying people want to know if they should eat haggis while pregnant and what food goes well with whisky. Screw healthy resolutions! It's almost Burns Night!

 

Ok. I'm with you. It's just that the date always sneaks up on me. But being flexible and highly adaptable, starting on Monday we will have a WEEK OF REALLY GOOD SCOTTISH FOOD AND DRINK. I haven't come up with a catchy name yet. I'm excited though because this is a big year; it's Robbie Burns' 250th birthday. The milk jugs have wee verses on them and tiny pictures of mice. There's a new banknote. People are going to Ayrshire for cultural reasons. The Scottish government is hoping to attract tourist over here in January. This is huge. Plus last year I was sick, sick, sick right about now so I didn't eat any haggis at all. Unacceptable. I'm going to make up for it now.

So what can you expect? I'll be writing about one of my favourite Scottish dishes every day this coming week as well as one of my favourite whiskies. It's going to be informative and instructive and delicious. I'm going to keep things pretty seasonal, so no waxing about Scottish berries (although my goodness they are wax-worthy). Expect potatoes. But in many, many exciting ways. Fortunately we're also back in shellfish season, so some of those critters will make an appearance. And I will show you how to make the most amazing fish soup in the world that also happens to be so easy, that even a poet who's been dead for 200 years could probably do it.

Then we can talk about vegetables again after that. Don't worry.

In the meantime, if you are curious about whether you should eat haggis when you're knocked up, you can find a (sort of) answer here.

If you want to know what I would eat with whisky (aside from "absolutely anything") stay tuned.  

P.S. Dad, please send me a picture of yourself in your full Burns Night regalia. I think it's time for the world/a few people to see.

Answers to Your Google Searches: Matzoh Meal in Glasgow

This week someone googled: matzoh meal glasgow and clicked on my site hoping to find some answers.

Did I provide them? No.

I have never found matzoh meal in Glasgow; I import it from London. But soon this cosmopolitan affectation may no longer be necessary. On a recent visit to the Buchanan Galleries location of Sainsbury's, I spotted a sign that said that their "full range of passover products" would be available by the middle of March. So that's a good sign, right? I'll try and take a picture of what a "full range of passover products" looks like in Glasgow. Who knows what this could mean? Could Manischewitz start breaking the Buckfast market?

While I'm plugging that location, I'll also mention that they do stock regular matzoh pretty much year-round. If passover doesn't bring matzoh meal, you can easily make your own by crushing up some matzohs in a blender.

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FARMERS' MARKET UPDATE

For all of you silly people who still live in the West End, you should know that your farmers' market has changed location. It won't be held at Mansfield Park anymore, but will now set up at Dowanhill Primary School (30 Havelock St, just west of Byres Road). It'll be there this Saturday. This time of year the veg selection is a bit grim, but it's a good place to find meat, fish and baked goods.

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March may turn out to be a field trip month. There are some really exciting ones percolating. Cross your fingers. The focus of these trips will not be 'health' so I would recommend that you eat a lot of whole grains and fruit and vegetables between posts. That's what I do, I swear.

Answers to Your Google Searches: Pregnancy and Haggis

I often check in on how my nascent web empire is progressing. I take a look at the number of people reading this site via my stats page (a couple of times a day like a sicko). These charts and numbers stroke my fragile and brittle ego and also provide some illuminating information. What do people read most? Which sites send the most readers my way? How long do people linger? But true intrigue arises when someone comes across the site through a google search. Then the stats page then allows me to click on the link and see what keywords the person used. This can be very interesting. Sometimes they've just typed in "ginger tablet" and so possibly my site has been useful. But sometimes people are searching for some interesting information and decide to give my site a try, and looking back, I can see that they wouldn't have found what they were looking for. I hate it when I know that I didn't answer their question. I like having the right answer. I like getting gold stars. It's a common personality among dedicated cooks and a mandatory one among food bloggers.

To address this situation, I'm going to occasionally provide a (late and probably now useless) response to these anonymous queries. I'm starting with my favourite one of the week:

can i eat haggis during pregnancy

Good question Anonymous Searcher! I have no idea. But, I did a little research myself into this matter. I think there are two things that could be an issue for a haggis-craving pregnant gal. First of all, haggis contains liver and liver contains vitamin A. Apparently you aren't supposed to eat too much of that while you're pregnant because amounts dangerous to your wee baby could build up. Liver is a really rich source of vitamin A and so should be generally avoided. In my extremely non-professional opinion, the amount in one serving of haggis is probably not an issue, though. There's lots of other offal and grains in there diluting the liver content. Besides, not all haggis even has liver in it. And everyone needs a little bit of vitamin A. It's not like anyone is telling the pregnant to avoid carrots or mangoes. Just don't have a haggis supper every night. (Ugh. Can you imagine?)

The other issue is the more serious threat of listeria. That's a bacteria that's found in many soft, unpasturised dairy products and can also lurk in poorly cooked meats. It also thrive in pates (imagine the correct accents please) and the pregnant are told to definitely avoid it in all forms. I am not sure why pate can be such a problem, but I suspect it's because you basically mix raw meats and then cook them slowly at a low temperature. It might never get quite hot enough to thoroughly kill the nasty little guys. Also, many pre-cooked meats can get contaminated while they are being packaged, so it's important for those heavy with child (I will absolutely murder anyone who addresses me in that manner if I ever get knocked up, btw. How horrible is that expression?) to make sure that anything pre-cooked has been really, really heated before eating. Maybe the packaging process is an issue for pate, too.

So could haggis, being a delicious product of many mixed meats, harbour listeria? I contemplated it, but again in my near-ignorance, I don't really think so. Haggis is cooked for ages and ages; you'd simmer one from the butcher for about 3-4 hours and even a pre-cooked grocery store should be re-heated for 45 minutes or an hour. You have to serve this hot. 

If there wasn't a tiny and fragile little guy at stake I would tell Anonymous Searcher that she should probably avoid eating cold haggis pakora from her local Spar (not making this delicacy up), but that a well-cooked portion at her mom's house is probably going to be fine. If she could make sure that it was really, really cooked then all the bacteria should be killed off. As the life of a tiny little dude is weighing in the balance, I hope that Anonymous Searcher asked a medical professional for guidance. There didn't seem to be any answers on the web. I wasn't the only useless one. Phew.

(On a separate, but thematically-aligned note, I just saw Juno and I thought it was a bit flawed. Didn't quite hang together for me. She did the right things, but in a super annoying way and all I was really interested in was her parents. How did they navigate the whole blended family dynamic? Why did they name their kid Liberty Bell? What was it like when they were pregnant? How did they resist the urge to hit their child repeatedly? I wish the movie had been about them instead. Plus movies with pop culture references are always tricky, and it seemed pretty forced here. By the end my face was locked into a tight incredulous grimace that only shifted due to my urge to vomit during the last extremely fucking cloying scene. I really wanted to like this one. Oh well.)