Biblical portions

Ever wondered what our ancestors ate in ancient times?

This week, Giles Coren and Sue Perkins spent a week eating only wartime food in a new series of The Supersizers Go… on BBC2. They will also be sampling a Restoration, Regency, Victorian and a 1970s diet during this series. The pair say they were unimpressed by most of the food they were served during this series; but how would they have got on eating the food of our ancestors, by going on a biblical diet?

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The dip that took over

Relatively obscure a generation ago, hummus is now a global business.

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Dark day for kosher chocolate

Britain’s foremost kashrut authority has said that it will reconsider the certification of Green & Black’s organic dark chocolate after the confectioner announced that it will now label the product as containing milk.

Although there is no change to the recipe, a recent audit revealed that traces of milk residue could be found on the manufacturing equipment used to make it, because milk chocolates were made using the same production line.

The company will now list milk as one of the ingredients on the packing of its organic dark chocolate bars.

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Council chops and changes over kosher meat inquiry

The investigation of a complaint against a North-West London butcher by Barnet Council could take months to resolve, the JC has been told by the council .

The news was a blow to Albert Bendahan, owner of the Kosher Delicatessen chain in Golders Green, Temple Fortune and Edgware, who hoped it would have been resolved swiftly.

Mr Bendahan met a council environmental health officer on Monday but was given no clear indication of how long the investigation would take.

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Your hot topics

Judi Rose answers readers’ queries on stir-frying, utensils and cheesecake with no cheese

I am putting together my wedding-gift list and would like to include some kitchen utensils. There is so much choice and many new twists on traditional tools that I’m a bit bewildered. Which do you think are genuinely useful, and which are just gimmicks?

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Matzah do about matzah

It’s a problem that crops up at this time every year— what to do with all the matzah left over from Passover. A video posted on YouTube addresses this exact question. Called the Matzah Song, it gives 20 alternative uses for surplus unleavened bread: “Catch it like a frisbee with your friends in the park, or you could jump in the water and pretend you’re a shark. You can use it as a coaster when you’re drinking beer, or throw it as confetti for a happy new year.” Composers Michelle Citrin and William Levin even suggest — wait for it — eating it.

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How Israel sparked a kosher revolution

Forget the technological triumphs or making the desert bloom. The Jewish state’s greatest achievement in its 60-year history is gastronomic.

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Meet Israel’s Jamie

Gil Hovav is Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver and JK Rowling all rolled into one. We talk to the multi-talented chef known by Israelis as ‘Captain Cook’

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Kosher butcher shuts in Ilford

A Redbridge kosher butcher has closed after more than four decades of trading.

Ilford Kosher Meats, whose premises were opposite Ilford Synagogue in Beehive Lane, shut up shop just before Pesach, leaving customers looking to the area’s other two kosher butchers for their supplies.

The closure, following the retirement of owner Brian Brown, was a sad loss to the community, said Ilford Synagogue chairman Maurice Shear.

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This one's a cracker

Turkish Jews will have enough matzah for Pesach this year after the import quota of unleavened bread from Israel to the country was raised from 15 tons to 45 tons.

Until now, the community’s major supplier of unleavened bread was a bakery in Istanbul’s Sishane neighbourhood whose 50-year-old oven was constantly breaking down. So it turns out that you just can’t get the parts these days, but it may not matter as much as it used to.

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