Staple foods: 4. Squash and pumpkins

So much more than a Jack O’Lantern in waiting, make the most of your pumpkin this Halloween

The symbol of a season on the turn, a tool to ward off evil spirits and the fodder of fairytales – pumpkins are probably the most famous of all the winter squash, but are they the most delicious?

Related to cucumbers, courgettes and melons – and technically a fruit – these hardy squash come in a spectrum of shapes, sizes and colours, from dusky blues and creamy yellows to egg-yolk orange and moss green.

Pumpkins, which are native to America, are best known for their part in the Thanksgiving tradition (puréed with warming winter spices, as the filling for a sweet pie) or disembowelled and carved for Halloween.

They can be brewed into beer, grated into cakes, or simply mashed with butter – even the leaves and seeds can be eaten. But would you recognise the right squash for the job?

Extracted from Taste: The Infographic Book of Food by Laura Rowe, illustrations by Vicki Turner (Aurum Press, £20)

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Staple foods: 3. Milk

An appreciation of milk in infographics

Words: LAURA ROWE Illustrations: VICKI TURNER

MORE THAN SIX BILLION of us around the world enjoy milk, whether in its purest form – drunk by the glass or softening our cereal – or transformed into cream, butter, cheese or yoghurt. Dairy is big business.

The majority of the milk we drink is derived from cattle but other animals can be successfully milked, too – from the more familiar sheep and goat to (perhaps surprisingly) horses and even camels. And while the nutritional content of each varies, fresh milk is undeniably a worthwhile addition to our diet. Cow’s milk, in particular, is a great source of protein, calcium and a whole host of vitamins. 

Extracted from Taste: The Infographic Book of Food by Laura Rowe, illustrated by Vicki Turner (Aurum Press)

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Staple foods: 2. Sugar

Quite literally the icing on the cake, sugar, in all its varied forms, is a tempting treat

Words: LAURA ROWE Illustrations: VICKI TURNER

For something with little flavour and no vitamins, minerals or proteins, it’s a wonder that sugar plays such an important part in our daily diets. But thanks to its effectiveness as a sweetener, flavour enhancer and energy source, and its relative cheapness, it’s hard to imagine living without it. Spooned into coffee, sprinkled on fruit or whipped into fluffy meringues, there are so many ways we consume it.

While historically we turned to honey, our main source of sugar now comes from sugar cane, which was originally grown in the East before commercial agriculture began in the tropics, fuelling a burgeoning slave trade.

Sugar cane and sugar beet compete as our top sources of sugar. Cane can be served at various stages of refinement, while beet can only produce refined white sugar.

The cane is filled with a sweet pulp – the liquid is extracted and refined in stages, finally producing white sugar. Sugar beet, a relative of beetroot, which can be grown in more temperate climates, is our second biggest source of the stuff.

Wherever its origins, though, highly refined sugar has become the new bad boy of the food world, with nutritionists in their masses calling for avoidance and substitution. It’s in part thanks to the rise in consumption of processed foods and fizzy soft drinks, packed with hidden sugars (such as corn syrup) and artificial sweeteners, that many are now turning to alternatives. But if you can’t resist a spoonful or two of the white stuff (and who of us can?), then make sure you look out for the Fairtrade symbol to ensure your sugar has been grown and harvested in an ethical way.

Extracted from Taste: The Infographic Book of Food by Laura Rowe, illustrated by Vicki Turner (Aurum Press)

 

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From the April issue

Taste infographics

Recipe: Rhubarb and rosewater tart

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Staple foods: 1. Eggs

Baked, boiled, poached, fried or scrambled, this healthy favourite is an everyday treasure, as sure as eggs is eggs

Words: LAURA ROWE 

The humble hen’s egg is one of the most readily available, cheap and endlessly versatile food stuffs around, but did you know that it is also one of the most ancient? Us humans have been eating all things ovoid since the Neolithic period, chomping our way through varieties of fowl egg from chickens, geese, quail, pheasant, plovers and guinea fowl, to ostriches, emu, pelican, pigeon and gull (the latter is without a fishy taste, apparently, contrary to rumour).

It’s little wonder, really. The egg is nature’s perfectly packaged hand-held, bite- size snack. It’s packed with vitamins (A, B, D and E) minerals (iodine, phosphorous, selenium, zinc and iron) and it’s a ‘complete’ protein, meaning that it has all of the essential amino acids that our bodies need. Eggs are also a cook’s friend – delicious in sweet or savoury dishes, whole or separated, on their own or as a component ingredient to bind, set, leaven, thicken, enrich, emulsify, glaze or clarify.

They can be boiled (older eggs are best here, as they are easier to peel), scrambled with butter (slow and low), poached (whisk the water to create a vortex before you crack in a fresh egg) or fried (butter and oil are good but bacon fat is better). They can also be baked (see page 43), or ‘shirred’, as the Americans call it, with cream and topped with cheese and breadcrumbs.

Whatever you do to them, they are best approached at room temperature, particularly in baking. You can check just how fresh they are, too, by placing them carefully in a glass of water. If they sink to the bottom they are good to go, while a floater can be discarded, that is unless you’re in China. Thousand-year-eggs are a delicacy here. Preserved in a combination of salt, lime and ashes, the egg is left for 45 to 100 days, whereupon the white turns yellow, firm and raw, presumably eaten with noses firmly pinched thanks to the strong smell of ammonia.

That’s far from the most unusual way to eat eggs, though. Head to South East Asia, specifically the Philippines or Vietnam, and you might stumble across a balut – a boiled, fertilised 17-20 day-old duck egg.

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From the March issue

Taste infographics

Recipe: Goose egg lemon curd

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Extract from Taste: The Infographic Book of Food by Laura Rowe, illustrations by Vicki Turner by Aurum Press, £20. Buy your copy here.