Hand on my heart, for about 15 years (until I read the label, then double-checked on Wikipedia), I thought Maggi was either Indonesian or Malaysian. Their sauces are huge out here (east Asia) and I’m told it’s like a cult “mom’s-little-secret” brand in some parts of India/Bangladesh, kind of like Sriracha was when…

Where I live (Shanghai), you can’t get it except at maybe three restaurants. Where I grew up (a maple-syrup-producing region of North America), it’s exactly as you described. But I don’t have much of a sweet tooth so, as a child, I started dipping un-sugared, un-syruped French toast into ketchup, or bbq sauce, or…

They don’t sell Maggi ketchup in the US? I thought Heinz was perfect for everything until I tried Maggi. Now I only pull the Heinz out (waaaaay more of a double entendre there than I intended) for bacon rolls and French toast.

Where were you when I reached confusion’s bottom drawer on this issue 20 years ago? I moved to NYC from an area with a huge West African population. I spent six months thinking “but that’s not a yam” until someone clued me in.

The stock cubes and gels that we get in Asia tend not to taste anything like the ones I’ve tried in the US. This might not make any difference at all to the final flavour but, if you want to use the same brands of stock cubes that a Japanese person probably would, look for Maggi or Ajinomoto cubes. I think Knorr is…

To be fair, it’s not a talkshow, it’s the radio station which occupies the place in British culture that NPR, PBS, the Met, the Boston Pops and the Harvard Alumni Association combined try to do for the NY-BOS corridor, if that makes any sense. If that channel’s not broadcasting, Britain - as it understood by the class…

Starred solely on the assumption that Gaby Moreno was sixth...

Feeling this! They have a top-of-the-range model that’s a rice-specialised induction pressure cooker. I had a mouthful from a cooking demonstration when it first came out and it’s the only thing on earth that makes rice better than a standard Zojirushi. Unfortunately, it costs about the same as a…

This a million times. I’m not Asian but, if I’m cooking where I’m going, my Zojirushi’s coming with me. And it’s not just for perfect white rice: I use it to make about 50 different things from congee to oatmeal. Definitely start with a cheap cooker if you’re not sure you’re going to use it much. When you reach the…

Can confirm that this also works wonders for duck, goose and pheasant stocks.

Exactly: it cost more to send them to Oz, which is why America came to be populated with Britain’s deplorables. One history-pedant solidarity star for you, Sir and/or Madam.

I’ve rotisseried 10kg suckling pigs and it is about the most satisfying thing to grill in the world. There’s just something about the way the skin gets crispy and glassy as it turns. It turned me (and may turn you) in the full-on, cliched “Honey, take a picture of me with my piglet.” grill guy and I just didn’t care.…

I cook rabbit with duck fat, pork fat or a bit of both. (Rabbit in Mangalitsa fat is what one of my Slovakian friends swears they eat every day in heaven.) Personally, I think it’s best slow-cooked European-style with a sweet-and-sour fruit (cherry, pear, apple, gooseberry etc) and a summer/autumn wood-stemmed herb…

Dong Po Rou - it’s a poet-inspired braised pork belly that, done correctly, produces an almost pudding-like pork gel comparable in texturelessness to super-slow-cooked veal cheeks. Don’t believe any online recipe that says it can be prepared in less than five hours. Do, if you’re ever visiting Shanghai, get on the…

Ehh. More black pudding for me. And it is nice to meet (however virtually) someone whose food views are as dismissive and arbitrary as my own.

I’m also not dealing with it at all well. I’ve done some shit but nothing that ever felt this wrong and unnatural.

I based it on this recipe:

Hating myself a little for starring this...

It does and appears to work correctly in the three hours I’ve been trying it.

Well, don’t tease! What are your top three? I’m taking Cumberland sausage, black pudding and duck hash for mine. (Now I’m wondering if bacon’s even going to make my top ten list, although I’ve probably started 1000+ work days with a street-fried bacon roll.)