Mampires

An interesting article about the rise of lactose tolerance:

The rise of civilization coincided with a strange twist in our evolutionary history. We became, in the coinage of one paleoanthropologist, “mampires” who feed on the fluids of other animals.

Rather perverted, was it not? You might even call it "against nature". This is why we humans develop such distinctive and unusual obsessions: every now and then, they change the world.

Random food notes

Got some nice yellow tomatoes on our way back home from the coast. Mashing, straining, and slowly reducing their juice till it's thick makes a really, really good sauce. If you avoid adding anything to discolor it, the color stays nice and bright. It's extremely sweet, much more so than the equivalent red sauce, and looks real good on a plate of spaghetti.

Been thinking about the use of subtle contrasts in foods. I had a soup a while back that really rocked my world - it was a smooth, fairly thick veloute made with slow-cooked onions, just barely stirred into chicken broth, in about a 50-50 mix. The difference in viscosity between the two components made for a remarkable sensation on the palate.

I got the same thing from eating yoghurt with ice cream. Specifically, it was some vanilla ice cream, topped with granola, then Greek yoghurt, and a drizzle of honey on top.

I am crazy for "Greek Gods" yoghurt. It's a standard thing in our fridge. One of the memories that sticks out from my travels was the incredible yoghurt they had in Greece, which I ate every day for breakfast. That was back in '92 or thereabouts. I pined for decades for this product, and would simulate it by straining yoghurt in a colander in order to thicken it up. That was OK for savory dishes, but not so much for sweets and fruits. Now, Greek Gods has brought us a pretty good version of that yoghurt, and it's available in the supermarket most of the time. It probably has about ten million calories per serving but I cannot say no to it. A frustrating thing, though - they'll often have fruit yoghurt, or low fat yoghurt, or this yoghurt or that yoghurt - but no REGULAR ORDINARY PLAIN yoghurt. That drives me nuts. Fortunately we have a very responsive supermarket and they take my carping about this very seriously, so it only rarely happens nowadays.