We are told there are four, five, six, even seven basic nutritional food groups, but there are really only two basic food-consuming groups, at least at the top of today’s fine dining food pyramid: the tasters and the eaters.

The tasters are driven by consumerism and connoisseurship — they collect culinary experience; and the eaters by hunger and old-world gourmandise — they crave culinary experience. Both lay claim to the gastronomic high ground. And they have gone to war, at least in the media.

Pete Wells of the New York Times, a partisan in the battle, cleverly placed these two feuding foodie factions into a class perspective last fall in his Times article, “Nibbled to Death”:

… the elite who now fill these [tasting menu-only] dining rooms are a particular kind of diner, the big-game hunters out to bag as many trophy restaurants as they can. Another kind of eater, the lusty, hungry ones who keep a mental map of the most delicious things to eat around town, may be left outside.

Are tasting menus taking us to the cleaners?

Wells appears to have at least made peace with the best of the tasting menu-only restaurants, the ones that have captured most of the Michelin stars across America — like Alinea in Chicago, Atera in New York, Saison in San Francisco and, of course, the mother of all tasting-menu meccas, The French Laundry in Yountville, Calif.

But Corby Kummer in Vanity Fair (“Tyranny — It’s What’s For Dinner”) is taking no prisoners:

The entire experience they will consent to offer is meant to display the virtuosity not of cooks but of culinary artists. A diner’s pleasure is secondary; subjugation to the will of the creative genius comes first, followed, eventually, by stultified stupefaction.

Thomas Keller’s French Laundry takes much of the brunt of Kummer’s explosive salvos. Kummer’s snarky gibes about the Stalinist tyranny and torture of contemporary tasting menu meals must have gotten Keller’s free-range goat.

In a recent interview in HuffPost San Francisco, Keller responded with careful disdain:

It’s fine. I can’t control what people write and Corby has to make a living …  His argument was that diners don’t have a choice when they come to French Laundry, but as Michael Bauer pointed out [Inside Scoop SF], you make the choice when you make the reservation.

I’m not sure that Bauer, the San Francisco Chronicle’s veteran restaurant critic cum blogger, has the requisite firepower to go up with Keller mano a mano against Kummer and Wells, but I think on this point the Keller/Bauer team wins the skirmish if not the war.

A French Laundry I could love

Keller also scores big when he comments in the interview that Kummer had not been to The French Laundry since 1997. A more recent visit would have revealed that the 40-course menu Kummer remembers so clearly has shrunk at the Laundry to just 12 courses. Not particularly overwhelming as tasting menus go.

Which is precisely why I made a pilgrimage to Yountville in March for a birthday lunch at The French Laundry. I had had a disappointing meal there in 2010 — you know, the usual complaints: too many dishes, food too fussy, nothing served hot, etc. — but didn’t want to rely on impressions from the past.

Of the dishes served this time, half were still either not to my liking (the raw-ish room temperature morsel of Hawaiian big-eye tuna was rather flavorless even with its quirky  ”everything bagel” crust) or unnecessary (a pretty standard potato salad), and the other half surprisingly good, like exotic culinary jewels glittering with serious flavor.

If those delicious little dishes were repurposed on a prix fixe eating menu (see illustration), and portioned accordingly, it would have been one of the best meals of my life. Imagine an optional menu at The French Laundry that flips the traditional French dégustation menu on its head — more food per plate, fewer plates, same price ($270).

Looking back in hunger

When I decided to enlist in this battle of the tasters and the eaters, I assumed I’d take a few pot shots of my own at tasting-menu tyranny. But truth is I’ve found the media brouhaha overwrought and critically myopic. Would I have held with the Fauves when Cubism ascended to the throne of 20th-century painting? I might have found Cubism too drab and analytical compared to the wild color symphonies of the passing Fauvism; but the glory of art, real art in any medium (even food), is that it’s ultimately, and endlessly, expansive, never reductive.

Foreshadowing our current foodie feuding in his 1976 essay, “The Eaters and the Eaten,” John Berger, the English art critic and novelist, got it spot on, I think, when he identified the two basic kinds of eating in our post-modern, post-consumerist world — peasant vs. bourgeois:

… the peasant way of eating is centred on the act of eating itself and on the food eaten … Whereas the bourgeois way of eating is centred on fantasy, ritual and spectacle. The first can complete itself in satisfaction; the second is never complete and gives rise to an appetite which, in essence, is insatiable.

Fifty years from now, I don’t want to sound like one of those 19th-century critics who wrote about Impressionist painting as amateurish and unfinished, if not outright evil. Contemporary tasting menus, for all the technical nonsense and extravagant excess, are far from evil, Stalinist or merely culinary. At their best, these meals are like going to the opera or those large multimedia art installations museums love to exhibit these days — a once-a-year adventure.

On the other hand, eater’s menus that present a simple food aesthetic paying homage to a traditional cooking and eating style (local, seasonal foods prepared well and served without fuss in standard courses to hungry eaters) can in fact bring greater satisfaction, as Berger suggests, than the most brilliantly avant-garde tasting menu spectacles. Cassoulet anyone?

Source: www.zesterdaily.com

Using a simple smartphone application to photograph one’s meals is a useful slimming aid for the overweight, according to an experiment reported on Sunday.

The app, designed by British doctors, aims at promoting “food memory” so that people recall what they have eaten and are encouraged not to snack on high-calorie treats.

The app has three parts:

• Before eating food or drinking a beverage, the user snaps a picture of what is about to be consumed.
• After finishing the meal or drink, the user then looks at the picture that was taken, and answers questions about the consumption experience: “Did you finish it all?” and “How full are you now?”
• Before further meals, users also look back at the file of pictures that have been taken in the course of the day, and get a text message urging them to remind themselves of what they have already eaten.

The researchers recruited 12 overweight or obese men and women and monitored them over four weeks in a small-scale pilot study. The volunteers accessed the app more than five times a day on average, and recorded 2.7 daily “episodes” of eating and drinking.

Over the study period, the participants lost 1.5 kilos (3.3 pounds) on average.

Six lost a kilo (2.2 pounds) or more and four lost between zero and one kilo (2.2 pounds), although the other two gained weight, by 100 and 400 grammes (3.5 ounces and 14 ounces) respectively.

“Raising awareness of eating and weight loss achieved suggest this approach could be fruitful,” said University of Liverpool investigator Eric Robinson.

“Given that our trial was a very brief intervention with little contact time and no nutritional advice or support, this is a promising finding.”

The work was unveiled at the European Congress on Obesity in Liverpool, northwestern England.

Source: www.rawstory.com

A Repositioned Palate: In the past consumers used to eat food for sustenance, today more people, one in four to be exact, are having eating occasions that can be described as “savoring,” a description that conveys a new upscale eating experience defined by freshness, distinctive flavors, foodie narratives, and more (Hartman, 2011). One in 10 shoppers now choose higher-end cuts of meat in order to recreate a restaurant dining experience (FMI, 2013). In addition, consumers are interested in more bold flavors such as tangy, smoky, salty, herbal, sour, and bitter, which is nearly double from three years ago (Technomic, 2011).

Redefining Health: Date shows that consumers relate the word “fresh” with “healthy”. Nine in ten people think fresh foods are healthier, and 80 percent look for the descriptor “fresh” when it comes to retail and 58 percent in restaurants (Technomic, 2012). Healthy foods are also linked to the phrases “house-made” or “home-made,” as well as keywords like, “from scratch,” “artisan,” “authentic,” “seasonal,” “real,” and “never frozen” (Technomic, 2012). Consumers also have renewed interest in animal-welfare when it comes to their foods. “Farm-raised,” “grass-fed,” “free-range” and “cage-free” are perceived as conveying healthfulness.

Generational Cooking: Millennials are continuing to cut back on restaurant visits for the fifth year in a row, which means the market for the food industry to develop at-home meal products that appeal to the newest generation of cooks is on the rise. With limited cooking skills, millenials are the most likely to consume pre-cooked fresh retail meals and frozen dinners (Packaged Facts, 2012). While 44 percent of younger cooks say that preparing dinner with fresh foods is very important (MSI, 2011), they are also more inclined to use meal helpers such as ready-made sauces or meat, but have a lower preference for complete kits (Hartman, 2008).

Eating Alone: Recently there has been a dramatic increase in the number of adults who are eating solo, regardless of family dynamics. A 2011 Hartman survey Surprisingly, when eating dinner alone (Hartman, 2011) observed that those adults were more likely to choose fresh/refrigerated meals over frozen dinners creating a new market for producers, (Hartman, 2011). In addition to adults, children are also eating alone more often opening the market for new fresh/refrigerated meals for kids (Technomic, 2012). People also have been eating breakfast in different ways often having something at home, stopping for coffee, and snacking mid-morning (MSI, 2010).

Seeking True Transparency: With all of today’s food hot topics, most adults have given some thought to food safety in the past year, while up to 17 percent have stopped buying a certain food or brand due to certain safety concerns (IFIC, 2012). Many shoppers (27 percent) think that antibiotics/hormones in meat are a “serious health hazard,” (FMI, 2011); and nearly three-quarters of consumers say humane treatment of animals is important when shopping for foods (MSI, 2011). Consumers were also glad to see posted calorie count information at restaurants, and 22 percent of consumers surveyed (Technomic, 2012) said that those numbers had an impact on their order decision.

Global Look-Alikes: In the past consumers were more interested in trying ethnic flavors in general, but recently it’s been about how ethnic cuisine’s specific food items, flavors and ingredients can be integrated into American foods and forms. For example, Mexican griddle sandwiches or tortas along with pressed Cubano sandwiches may soon upstage paninis. Sriracha, chimichurri, aioli, yuzu, queso fresco, Thai chili and more are among the fastest-growing ethnic flavors on non-ethnic menus (Datasesential, 2013). Four in 10 ACF chefs cite children’s sushi as a hot trend for 2013 (NRA, 2012).

Farmstead Formulations: Hyper-local sourcing, like restaurant gardens, farm/estate brands, small-producer suppliers, and the mainstreaming of farmers’ markets all attest to consumers’ fascination and appreciation for all things agricultural related. Consumers have become interested in the cut and breed of meat they are buying (Technomic, 2011). Fish like arctic char, branzino, barramundi, mackerel, bluefish, and redfish are also becoming more popular (NRA, 2012).

Craveable Finger Foods: Last year one in five best-selling new foods were either bite-sized or handheld; 45 percent of consumers want snacks that can be eaten on the go (IRI 2012; Wyatt, 2013). It’s noted that the mini-foods introduced were not only sweet, but also savory. Even restaurants have added bite-sized food to their menus and 67 percent of consumers find it “extremely appealing” to get their flavor through dips/condiments, up 8 percent vs. 2009 (Technomic, 2011).

Nutritional Insiders: In 2012, 78 percent of consumers made a strong effort to get more vitamins and 57 percent tried to consume more products with specialty nutritional ingredients. Among the top vitamins were vitamin D, vitamin C, B vitamins and omega-3s, antioxidants, vitamin E, and vitamin A, along with more protein (MSI, 2011). Muscle strength is also now among the top 10 health concerns in the US and Canada and quickly becoming a profitable food market (Packaged Facts, 2013).

Mother Hens: Moms are more likely than shoppers overall to buy nutritionally enhanced food/drinks and to actively seek out nutritional information. Words like “organic,” and “GMOs” affect buying experiences (Packaged Facts, 2013). Moms also want healthier kids’ food away from home, and children’s portions of adult menu items.

Source: www.newswise.com

The Del Paso Boulevard monthly market with the positive name is back.

“Good: Street Food + Design Market,” a series of events that launched last year, returns this Sunday — with some changes — for a run from May through December.

The event series also is expanding to Emeryville in June based on last year’s success in Sacramento, Roshaun Davis, one of the organizers, said this week in an email.

Last year, the Del Paso Boulevard Partnership, a property and business improvement district, invested in the series of events to prep people for a proposed permanent open-air market. The market showcases local street food and the work of artists and artisans. The goal is to support those artisans and vendors, boost the corridor’s image and give Sacramentans a different kind of venue for hanging out.

Organizers acknowledged last year that one challenge the event faces is the neighborhood’s tough image. But for the first event last year, more than 2,500 attended.

As for this year’s Sacramento market, one big change is that the monthly first Sunday event, which runs from 1 to 5 p.m. in a warehouse at 1409 Del Paso Blvd., will be free. For all but one of the events last year, attendees paid $3 for admission.

“We tested the free model in December with our holiday market, and it did extremely well,” Davis said. “It was the worst storm of the season and we still had people come in droves.”

His Sacramento events marketing firm Unseen Heroes is orchestrating the Good market.

In other changes, Good will be more interactive. A DIY workshop area will feature well-known local artists, chefs, and bartenders, Davis said. Also, the outdoor area will gain Ping-Pong tables and other activities, including a solar charging station.

The series of events wasn’t profitable for organizers last year.

“But it was profitable for the vendors that sold their goods there, and that is why we created the market in the first place,” Davis said.

“When we developed the concept, we knew getting to a place where the market became a profitable entity would be a long ways away, if ever,” he added. “For us, it was about helping local small businesses have an creative platform to engage with the public, as well as allowing the consumers to learn about the creative class in their community.”

Organizers learned a lot from putting on the market last year, and that has shaped their plans for this year.

“Last year we learned that this event was more impactful than we thought,” Davis said. “Initially we just wanted to bring something cool to Sacramento. But, after winning the Local Vision Award from the American Planning Association, we found that this concept is a solution to a bigger problem in the local economy. With the GOOD: Street Food + Design Market, we have developed a creative ecosystem that is helping sustain local small businesses, and shape the development of an area in a non-traditional way at the same time.”

Over in the Bay Area, the Emeryville events will begin in June. That Good series will run once a month at night. That “will give local vendors here in Sacramento an opportunity to sell their product in the Bay Area market as well,” he said.

Source: www.bizjournals.com

You can now buy 100% cocoa chocolate on the High Street and sales are said to be on the rise. It’s a rather acquired taste, so why is it becoming more popular and does real chocolate have to be high in cocoa to be good?

A “demanding and very powerful experience” is one description of eating chocolate with 100% cocoa content. “Pretty gruesome” is another.

The people who make it say it has flavour hints of anything from leather and tobacco to olive oil and oak. If that’s what you want from a chocolate bar then you’re in luck .

Chocolate with a very high cocoa content is increasingly being stocked in High Street shops, having largely been sold by specialist or artisan chocolatiers in the past.

Hotel Chocolat sells four different bars with 100% cocoa content in its branches, while Swiss company Lindt has 99% cocoa bars in UK shops and supermarkets.

The companies don’t release sales figures for commercial reasons, but say there is a growing demand for the stuff.

“It’s been a bit of a surprise success for us and at times we have found it difficult to keep up with demand,” says Angus Thirlwell, co-founder of Hotel Chocolat. “The bars are now the strongest selling part of our premium range.

“People often try the bars out of curiosity and stay with them, others gradually migrate up the cocoa scale to the nirvana that is 100%.”

Two of the nation’s most popular milk chocolate bars, Cadbury’s Dairy Milk and Mars Galaxy, have a minimum 26% cocoa and 25% respectively. Cadbury’s dark chocolate Bournville has a minimum of 36% cocoa. It’s what most people are used to eating, so what is with this growing obsession with 100% cocoa chocolate?

“People are waking up to the fact that chocolate is not a generic product,” says Willie Harcourt-Cooze, owner of Willie’s Cocoa, which also produces 100% cocoa chocolate.

“They are realising that different beans have different flavours, you can also use the same bean and change the way it tastes in the production process.

“You get wine connoisseurs, you get cheese connoisseurs, now there is a growing number of chocolate connoisseurs. A chocolate can be as complex and specialist as a fine wine.”

It’s helping boast the sales of most premium chocolate. Market analysts Mintel say “a notable pool of consumers are becoming more discerning when it comes to their choice of chocolate and are actively seeking out more top-end brands”.

And with chocolate sales reaching £4bn in the UK in 2011, according to Mintel, even a niche market can create big profits.

But does a high cocoa content mean high quality chocolate? Does the rise in chocolate purism all come down to superior taste? Absolutely not, say experts.

“The problem is people confuse the two things,” says Alasdair Garnsworthy, head chocolatier with the Chocolate Society.

“Chocolate with a high cocoa content can still be made using cheap beans. You can get chocolate with a lower cocoa content that is far better because it has been made with quality beans.”

Using the best ingredients is much more important than cocoa content, say chocolate makers.

The origin of beans plays a big part, with certain types having a better flavour than others. Then there’s how the beans are harvested and stored.

After that they are roasted and blended, then “conched”. This is a process when beans – and other ingredients if used – are kneaded. The longer you do it, the better the flavour, says Garnsworthy.

“With cheaper chocolate the beans are conched for about 24 hours, with better quality chocolate it is done for around three days.”

A lot of people are wrongly influenced by cocoa content because they don’t know enough about chocolate to judge if it actually tastes good or not, say connoisseurs. It was the same with wine in the 1980s and coffee in the 1990s.

Better quality cacao tends to grow in places like South America, says Dom Ramsey, editor of Chocablog.

“If you’re going for a high percentage chocolate bar, you should look for one that mentions the origin of the cocoa bean too. Single origin bars, from one country or even a single estate, have unique and distinctive flavour notes where bulk beans have very few.”

The lower quality bulk cocoa beans are usually grown in West Africa, adds Ramsey. The trees produce a high yield but the beans don’t have a lot of flavour.

Manufacturers add a lot of sugar to them in order to make them taste good. But the higher the cocoa content, the less sugar can be added to disguise bitterness.

“There is no place to hide when it comes to 100% cocoa chocolate,” says Hotel Chocolat’s Thirlwell.

“The recipe is cocoa beans, nothing else. No sugar, no vanilla. You can have different flavour profiles with different beans but they all have to be amazing quality to taste good.”

Even among high-end brands, 100% cocoa chocolate divides opinion. Green & Blacks is acknowledged by some chocolate makers as “opening people’s eyes to dark chocolate in the the UK”.

Its biggest selling product in Britain is a 70% cocoa dark chocolate bar. Again, it won’t release sales figures but says in the last year it has sold a bar every 10 seconds in the UK. You do the mathematics.

“We would never launch a 100% or 99% bar,” says James Holloman, business leader for Green & Blacks in the UK. “This is because there is no balance in terms of the taste profile.

“Balance is about that cocoa hit and then the smooth feeling after. You get this by adding some sugar, vanilla and other elements. We think any dark chocolate with over 85% cocoa loses that perfect balance.”

Others dismiss the increasing number of high-cocoa chocolates as “more of a gimmick” than anything else.

One thing is for sure, you can’t stuff it down. Hotel Chocolat say it is best to eat two small pieces in succession, the first prepares your mouth and the second reveals the flavour.

Harcourt-Cooze, of Willie’s Cocoa, says it is best used as an ingredient in food. He sells to many of the UK’s top chefs who use it in dishes like venison with chocolate sauce.

But in general, the makers and lovers of fine chocolate are welcoming the move of high-cocoa chocolate from artisan chocolate shops to High Street ones.

“I think it’s positive that the likes of Lindt has a 99% chocolate bar being sold in the local corner shop,” says Ramsey.

“Not because this particular bar is great, but simply because it raises awareness and opens people’s eyes to the fact that there’s a world beyond Dairy Milk.”

Source: www.bbc.co.uk

Like many cities around the world, Buenos Aires has recently seen a rise in the art of mixology, with bars offering delicately engineered cocktails to a public whose demand for such creations grows each day.

As testament to the city’s emerging status as South America’s cocktail capital, starting 28 April Buenos Aires is hosting Tales of the Cocktail, a renowned New Orleans festival that is heading south of the equator for the first time to share its love for all things mixology with the Argentine city.

Following the success of cocktail bars such as the speakeasy-inspired newcomer Frank’s in Palermo Hollywood and veteran-on-the-scene 878in Villa Crespo, the Buenos Aires cocktail scene is moving towards international recognition. While the unofficial national drink of Coke and Fernet (a bitter, aromatic spirit) is not exactly complicated, many bars are stepping up their offerings. Guillermo Blumenkamp and Luis Miranda ofDoppelgänger, located in the bohemian neighbourhood of San Telmo, have given Fernet a creative twist in their signature cocktail, the Berghof, comprising Jägermeister, Viognier Tardío (a type of dessert wine), cherry liquor, Fernet Branca Menta (mint-flavoured Fernet), ginger, brown sugar and lime.

A combination of events and seminars – such as The Science of Cocktails and Tiki Drinks from A to Z – the three-day festival will feature presentations by some of the world’s top mixologists, tasting of new spirits, tours of the top cocktail bars and special events that fuse Argentine culture with cocktailing.

The festival kicks off with an all-day welcome party at Estancia La Alameda, a ranch 130km southeast of Buenos Aires. The event will combine a traditional Argentine asado (barbeque) with gaucho(Argentine cowboy) music and dancing, as well as a selection of cocktails prepared by expert mixologists.

The next night, head to the It Takes Two to Tango party at Palacio Alsina, a 19th-century building converted into a nightclub in the Monserrat/Downtown area, and drink inventive cocktails to a soundtrack of techno-tango mashups.

And each night can be a tour of Buenos Aires’ top cocktail bars, where bartenders have created an exclusive signature cocktail. Along with Frank’s and 878, other participating bars include sophisticated Gran Bar Danzon in Recoleta, new seafood restaurant Florería Atlántico in Retiro, where famous Argentine mixologist Tato Giovannoni is behind the bar; and Isabel, a trendy lounge in Palermo Soho.

Admission to all parties, events and seminars costs $135; drinks are not included for the nightly cocktail tours.

Source:http://www.bbc.com/travel/blog/20130412-carousing-in-the-cocktail-capital-of-south-america

The eclair – a tube of choux pastry filled with flavoured cream – is a French patisserie staple. But over the last couple of years, the macaroon, the cupcake and even cream puffs have each had their turn as the sugary trend of the moment. Now, with two new bakeries specialising in the oblong pastry, it seems time for the trusty eclair to shine.

The Atelier de l’Eclair, opened in November 2012, is a bakery and cafe in the 2nd arrondissement that’s turning the classic eclair on its head. Here you can sample a meal composed entirely of eclairs; start off with the mini savoury versions, stuffed with smoked salmon and dill or foie gras and fig jam, move on to a full-sized main course “club” eclair, featuring fillings such as ham and cheese, and finish your meal with a sweet version in either a classic (vanilla, coffee) or new (lemon meringue, mango and passion fruit) flavour.

Over in the Marais neighbourhood in the 4th arrondissement, Éclair de Génie, opened by revered baker Christophe Adam in December 2012, also specialises in the pastry. Traditional flavours are revisited to create superlative versions of the classic pastry, all made in the shop’s on-site kitchen. Try a vanilla eclair garnished with caramelised pecans or the incarnation with a salted caramel mascarpone filling. There are also more innovative versions, with lemon yuzu (a citrus fruit), chocolate, raspberry or black forest flavours. The beautifully decorated pastries have already proved to be such a success that a second shop – featuring a tea room – is scheduled to open in June, not far from the Eiffel Tower in 16th arrondissement.

Source:http://www.bbc.com/travel/blog/20130412-paris-newest-sugary-treat

Florence’s magnificent museums offer plenty of food for the soul. But battling through the crowds to see the city’s artistic treasures is not something to tackle on an empty stomach. Thankfully, from market food to Michelin-star restaurants, Florence is full of delicious eateries for every budget.

First, forgo the breakfast buffet and instead have an espresso at the bar. This northern Italian city has no shortage of cafes where you can soak up the atmosphere and fuel up on caffeine, but one of the most popular and authentic is Gilli in the Piazza della Repubblica, where you can sip your coffee underneath chandeliers and frescoes. Just remember: never sit down (it will cost more), pay for your coffee separately (then hand the receipt to the barista) and never have a cappuccino past 11 am (it is just not the way things are done).

Once you get a hunger, those hankering for an affordable taste of authentic local cuisine should head to the Piazza del Mercato Centrale, where merchants at the San Lorenzo Mercato Centrale sell the best of the region’s meats, cheese, fruits, vegetables and oils at reasonable prices from Monday to Saturday. Tucked in the far corner of the market is Da Nerbone, which offers one of the most inexpensive Tuscan meals you can have – a glass of chianti and a bowl of risotto will cost less than five euros. Their boiled beef sandwiches served on crusty rolls are popular with the hordes of international art students, but you are also likely to rub elbows with locals at one of the communal tables.

Another affordable place to grab a quick bite is La Boulangerie Il Rifrullo, a panini and espresso bar just a short walk from the Duomo that serves hearty salads for less than 10 euros. A slightly more expensive option isIno, located just around the corner from the Uffizi gallery. Smelling of truffles, the sandwich shop offers gourmet paninis made with locally-sourced Tuscan ingredients.

Of course, one of the greatest indulgences in Florence – especially as the weather gets warmer – is its abundance of gelatarias serving cups and cones of mouth-watering gelato. There is always a queue outside the well-known Italian chain GROM, but a less commercial option isPerche No!, a 70-year-old artisanal gelato shop located between the Duomo and the Piazza Dell Signoria. The seasonal flavours include lavender, rose and fresh mint alongside the Italian favourites of pistachio and stracciatella (the Italian version of chocolate chip). The best part? You can add a scoop of tiramisu to your gelato cup.

Come late afternoon, apertivo time begins. A great Italian tradition (and standard at most bars), the apertivo happy hour involves paying a slightly elevated price for your drink in exchange for a heaving buffet of chips, panini, pasta, snacks, olives and salad – almost negating the need to have dinner at all. Rifrulo, with two locations in Baretto or La Boulangerie, is a popular option for its generous offerings in a garden setting.

But if the apertivo does not fill you up, head over the Arno River to the Oltrarno. Traditionally a working class district, today students and young people can often be found consuming take away from Gusta Pizza on the steps of the church in the Piazza Santo Spirito. For something more sophisticated, Zoe, located along the marked path to the Piazza Michelangelo, serves modern Italian fare including fresh salads, Italian-style hamburgers and grilled vegetables to a local crowd.

For a proper Florentine steak, try All’antico Ristoro Di’Cambi in the San Frediano neighbourhood. An old wine shop, it also offers traditional dishes such as lambredotto (cow’s stomach) and tripe. A short walk away in the same neighbourhood, Osteria Personale is one of the area’s hottest new openings. Here, the chef serves up modern Italian cuisine, such as raw squid ribbons with chickpea cream flavoured with sage. And following in the tradition of Tuscan cuisine, there is no pasta on the menu.

Back over the river and with three Michelin stars, Enoteca Capinchiorri is considered one of the best in Florence for modern Italian cuisine – but book ahead. Dishes include short paccheri pasta with chick peas, red shrimp and cardamom powder, alongside signature dishes like grilled, marinated partridge with cabbage, celeriac and herbs.

During the summer months, head to one of the city’s rooftop bars to drink in the view. Dress up for the Sky Lounge bar, which perches on the roof of the medieval Consorti Tower, overlooking the Ponte Vecchio to the Tuscan hills. The newly opened, glass-enclosed top-floor Se.Sto lounge bar and restaurant at the Westin Excelsior hotel sits right on the Arno River. With two outdoor terraces, it is the perfect option for a high-end night out.

Source: http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20130422-florence-for-foodies

Have you ever eaten nettles or chickweed? Thomas Buchi has. He started eating the plants in the forests behind his parents’ house in his early teens, and what most people call weeds, he calls food.

The Swiss national first picked wild garlic shoots in the Nidwalden canton near Lucerne, before discovering that he could eat berries and a variety of mushrooms. Years later, he found himself running a sustainable farm in South Africa’s Western Cape Province. Today, the 52-year-old has been drawn to the wild and natural landscapes of the mid-Welsh coast near Aberystwyth – and he still uses the foraging techniques that he learnt as a boy.

“It is about making people aware that there are wild foodstuffs that they can eat,” Buchi said, adding that Wales offers nature’s best larder. “It really is a passion I want to share. Why go into a local supermarket if you can eat in a safe and sustainable way with what nature provides?”

Food foraging in Wales is big business, and a number of bush explorer and plant-lore identification courses now run the length and breadth of the country. This is because the country is spoilt with a long coastline and an abundance of mountains, valleys, rivers and rolling farmlands, plus one of the lowest population densities in Europe. In the south at the annual Abergavenny Food Festival (this year from 21 to 22 September), foraging experts run fungi picking and recession-dining classes. Elsewhere, The Foxhunter, a Grade II-listed, stone-clad hotel set on the edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park, offers tailored foraging courses depending on the season, and Monmouthshire farm Humble By Nature offers summer classes where you can learn how to tap and drink from beech trees and make puddings, preserves and syrups from the leaves and buds picked from rowan and bramble bushes. Further south,Dryad Bushcraft, located on the rugged Gower peninsular in southwest Wales, offers a variety of foraging courses, while Wild About Pembrokeshire, specialists in beach foraging for seaweeds and shellfish, offers tours throughout the year.

For his part, Buchi runs regular food foraging excursions at Ynyshir Hall, a five-star country house hotel once owned by Queen Victoria, 40-miles south of Snowdonia National Park. The hotel has the good fortune to share its Dyfi  Estuary location with the golden sands of Ynyslas Beach at the estuary’s mouth and the low-lying foothills of the Cambrian Mountains. Indeed, it is also a Unesco Biosphere area, a site recognised for its promotion of sustainable development, the first in Wales and only the second in the UK – all of which helps to make it one of the best food foraging spots in the UK. Cardigan Bay, a short drive from Ynyshir, teems with sea beet, a wild relative of beetroot and Swiss chard used for salads and vegetable dishes, and crunchy samphire, an asparagus-flavoured seaweed. The seashore at the village of Borth, a 10-mile drive southwest from Ynyshir, throws up bountiful supplies of cockles, molluscs, winkles and whelks – often underutilised seafood. The rivers too, which fan out from the base of the valley, are home to plenty of wild salmon.

The foraging season in Wales runs from March to October, but, Buchi explained, good free food can be found at any time if you are willing to look hard enough. At the hotel, guests are encouraged to join him, owner Joan Reen or local chef Paul Croasdale as part of Ynyshir Hall’s award-winning restaurant project. The team takes turns to lead guests on nature rambles through the local woods and foothills to pick their own dinner. Back at the hotel, Croasdale then shares his cooking tips on how best to identify and use the edible plants, mushrooms and berries. You could find yourself dining on wild garlic with Welsh rarebit (toasted bread with a hot cheese sauce) or wild leaves with spring lamb.

Source: http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20130412-the-wild-taste-of-wales