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Perfect mashed potato is simple, argues Simon Hopkinson—all it needs is butter, hot milk and a deft hand with the vegetable mill...  read more »

~ Posted by Kassia St Clair, January 19th 2012  read more »

Posted by Rebecca Willis, January 16th 2012

“We’ve sold out of kudu” is not a phrase I’d ever expected to hear in a shop in a sleepy Cotswold market town. It sounded more like a Monty Python sketch. But that’s definitely what the butcher said. So he ran us through some other options. In the absence of kudu - a handsome antelope with spiralling horns that I remember from a safari in Kenya – we could choose from kangaroo steaks, python fillets, ostrich steaks, buffalo burgers, crocodile tails, zebra steaks, bison steaks and wildebeest steaks. 

We had in fact seen all these listed on the blackboard outside, and decided it must be a joke. Then curiosity had drawn us in, and there it all was - frozen, admittedly, and doubtless accompanied by a hefty slice of food miles. Except for the kudu, of course.

It turns out I'm behind the curve. I’ve seen celebrity chefs cook ostrich, for example, but I’d assumed they were just attention seeking; likewise the sort of extreme eating programmes that are screened where the presenters chow down on road kill and snakes: what you might call survival cuisine. But there’s also a book called “Exotic Meat: from Antelope to Zebra”, published 18 months ago. So I feel obliged to ask, what is this really about?

It could be that it tastes good – I’m not qualified to say, as I don’t eat meat. But my instincts tell me it’s more. Perhaps it’s a response to boredom with our usual diet, or showing off – to wow the dinner guests as pineapples once did. It could equally be a kind of culinary colonialism, an attempt to reassert our dominance at least on the plate.   read more »

~ Posted by Julie Kavanagh, January 9th 2012  read more »

... and the ears, brains, trotters and testicles. Christopher Hirst sets out to cook the cuts of meat that time forgot ...  read more »

Damsons in September, apples in October, blueberries all year round: Simon Hopkinson gives his tips on baking fruit pies and crumbles ...  read more »

A good drink is hard to find in this city—until you discover a former wine bar with junk-shop décor ...  read more »

It ain’t what you add, it’s the way that you add it. In his latest Stove Notes column, Simon Hopkinson sets out his rules for a dish his father loved ...  read more »

Reviewing restaurants was once an art. Now people post their whims while they are chewing. Tom Harrow is wistful for the old days ...  read more »

Lysandra Ohrstrom heads to North Carolina for a taste of one of America's fastest-growing sports ...  read more »