Italian

Pizzeria Dar Poeta, Rome

Pizzeria Dar  Poeta Rome

We’d travelled a long way, and when we arrived in Rome, it was late, right in the middle of that strange hinterland where the kids flick from being wide awake and excited to worn-out zombies within a couple of seconds. Not feeding them properly helps to hasten the transformation, so we strode out into Trastevere [...]

Eating out

Messada di bue – Italian-style cured beef

Messada di bue – Italian beef cured with herbs and garlic

I’ve said this before, many times, but it bears repeating – the best thing about cooking is the transformation of unpromising ingredients into something better. Take this dish… normally, I’d never dream of eating a piece of brisket without at least a couple of hours on a low heat, let alone raw, but here it [...]

Food & drink

Should you eat rabbit?

Rabbit meat and why we should eat it

Douglas Coupland’s Generation A is a story about a time when all the world’s bees have died and everybody is hooked on a drug that makes them want to be alone. It’s full of Coupland’s characteristic little asides and stories, including one where the highly-politicised, overwrought and transitory girlfriend of one of the characters freaks [...]

Food & drink, Food politics

Duck prosciutto – the simple art of making your own ham

How to make duck ham

Salt gets a bad press. I know it’s responsible for the untold misery of heart disease, high blood pressure and a thousand other fairly major medical complaints, but it also has a near mythical ability to preserve food and concentrate flavour, the closest thing to culinary alchemy there is. This duck prosciutto, a ham born [...]

Food & drink