You Could Start From Here...

30 Must-have food items for your pantry

Somebody asked me once for advice on stocking their larder.  “What are the basic foodstuffs that any kitchen should have?”  I did what anyone would do and looked on Google.  To my frustration, the first four sites I looked at all contained perfectly reasonable lists of common ingredients that a decent cook might use in the course of a year.  There was nothing I didn’t agree with except that these lists ran to dozens, even hundreds of items, which was not I thought the point of the question.  A basic list should be just that, the basics.

After a little thought I came up with the following list.  It includes mainly things which any busy bachelor is likely to have at home already: bread, milk, eggs etc. plus a shortlist of dried or canned ingredients which can sit in your larder for months without doing any harm.

Thirty seemed like a nice round number, though I have cheated slightly by the inclusion of the general terms ‘herbs’ and ‘stock (bouillon) cubes’.  Ideally you would have different bouillon cubes or powder to make chicken, beef and vegetable stocks.  As for herbs, I listed the top ten most useful culinary herbs on this blog some time ago.  It really is worth growing your own and can be done in pots or a small window box and they require only minimal attention.

Don’t get too hung up on different types of pasta, rice or sugar.  Obviously it’s fun to experiment with different ingredients and sometimes authenticity demands a particular variety, but in an emergency they are more or less interchangeable.

Clearly there is a big cultural influence here.  I wonder what the list would look like in Italy or Russia or Brazil.  Perhaps someone will write and tell me.  There is also a large slice of personal preference involved. I seriously considered lemons, capsicums and chilies, all of which I use extensively.  I rejected them because they don't keep and are better bought fresh.

I list ‘cheese’ as a single ingredient.  In reality my fridge is almost never without several different cheeses including: cheddar, parmesan and mozzarella.  Similarly I list ‘butter’.  You need something in this space and frankly I think nothing compares with good old fashioned butter. But I myself have flip-flopped several times in my life depending on whether I was more worried by saturated fats in butter, or trans fats and the long list of E numbers found in most emulsified vegetable spreads.

Plain Flour	Eggs	Black Pepper
Corn Flour (Starch)	Bacon	Salt
Sugar	Cream	Paprika
Ground Almonds	Milk	Vanilla
Baking Powder	Cheese	Stock (bouillon) cubes
Dried Yeast	Butter	Mustard
Rice	Olive Oil	White Wine Vinegar
Pasta	Bread	Jam (raspberry)
Tinned Tomatoes	Onions	Potatoes
Frozen Peas	Garlic	Herbs

With only a few moments of pondering I have come up with a fairly long list of snacks, meals and desserts which could be created with nothing more than my list of basics.  Although visitors are often impressed by an apparent ability to conjure up something from what appears to be an empty kitchen, my main point is to demonstrate that these genuinely are the basics.

  

Fried eggs	Cheese and Potato Pie	Cookies
Scrambled eggs	Bacon, Cheese, Potato Bake	Scones
Poached eggs	Cheese Soufflé	Tattie Scones
Boiled eggs	Cheese Pudding	Shortbread
Egg Mayonnaise	Quiche Lorraine	Victoria Sponge
Omelettes	Savory Pancakes	Scotch Pancakes (Drop Scones)
Toast	Pizza Margarita	Meringues
French Toast	Pasta Sauces	Blancmange
Garlic Bread	-          Tomato	Rice Pudding
Sandwiches (egg, cheese, bacon)	-          Carbonara	Crepes
Chips (French fries)	-          Cheese	Bread and Butter Pudding
Crisps (potato chips)	-          Baked (al forno)	Queen of Puddings
Baked Potatoes with various fillings	Fried Rice	Crème Brulee
Hollandaise Sauce		Crème Caramel
Mayonnaise		Bakewell Tart
Custard		Steamed Jam Sponge

Realistically, in order to turn out an interesting, varied and healthy range of recipes, most people would want to add fish, meat, fresh fruit and vegetables, and any number of those hundred other items which I have rejected as not being basic enough.  And by that stage you are cooking!

Feeling Thirsty?

Today is World Water Day and 2013 is the UN’s International Year of Water Cooperation.

World Water Day was established as an annual event 10 years ago to highlight the plight of millions of people who live without secure access to clean fresh water.  According to UN figures 780 million people – 1 in every 9 – don’t have access to clean water.  Dirty water kills 3.4 million people every year.  A child dies every 21 seconds from a water related disease.

This has greater significance than usual for me this year as I am currently staying in India, in Bangalore in the southern state of Karnataka.  The climate here for eight months of the year is hot and dry.  The region depends entirely on the annual Monsoon rains that fall between June and September to refill rivers and aquifers. In the residential compound where I am staying, householders have recently received a communication from the management company saying that collectively we are using too much water and imploring residents to be more efficient in their usage.

It’s a big deal.  In 2009 the Monsoon ‘failed’ in India.  This is to say the rains came late and when they did come they brought about 43% less water than an average year.  Thousands died in the drought and neighbours turned upon each other in vicious squabbles over water.  India was forced to increase food imports and world sugar prices reached a 30 year high. Of course water is essential not just for drinking but for agriculture, industry, power generation and for the country’s wildlife.

Last year, a long running dispute over the use of water in the Cauvery (Kaveri) River which runs between Karnataka and the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu burst back in to life.  An agreement forged in 1892 between the princely state of Mysore and the Madras Presidency, part of the British Raj, attempted to divide the river water fairly for all people living along its course, but population growth has put that agreement under continuous stress ever since. It has been a constant problem for the successor states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry.  Last year the state of Karnataka restricted water flowing across the border and in the ensuing arguments the Supreme Court of India had to order Karnataka to release more water.  The decision led to strikes and demonstrations across the state.

Worryingly, a report published last November by researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research warned that changes to global weather patterns could cause Monsoon failures to happen more frequently, with severe water shortages occurring one year in every five..

The one good thing about the Cauvery dispute is that is entirely contained within India and the national government and its agencies can enforce relatively peaceful resolutions.  The UN is currently monitoring several regions of the world where international water disputes have the potential to develop in to more serious conflicts.  These include water from the Euphrates and Tigris rivers which are shared between Turkey, Syria and Iraq; the Jordan River which involves Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories; The Nile which borders Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan and South Sudan; The Mekong River which links China, Vietnam, Laos, Burma, Thailand and Cambodia; and the Central Asian basin around the Aral Sea, connecting Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Many analysts predict that water will be the main cause of wars in the coming century.  In fact some people point to the recent conflict in Darfur and the 1994 genocide in Rwanda as examples of ‘water conflicts’, hence the emphasis on Water Cooperation which is the theme of this year’s activities.

Here in Karnataka, in the village down the road the bore holes are drying up and the Monsoon is still three months away. Meanwhile, at the exclusive golf course where I have been spending much of my time here in Bangalore, members complain about the state of the fairways which are hard and dry, and the owners are buying tanker loads of water to fill the ornamental lakes.  What was that about water cooperation?

It's Called Democracy Mr Paterson

MP Owen Paterson bombarded by 80,000 bee e-mails

North Shropshire MP Owen Paterson said today he felt as if he had been under cyber attack after receiving more than 80,000 e-mails over the weekend.

Shropshire Star,  Wed March 20th, 2013

BTW his email address is  defra.helpline@defra.gsi.gov.uk