Mouthful

What in the world are you eating?

The Modern Kitchen

29 July 2009 | 15:03 - By Phil Lees

 Our foods have changed, but why not the kitchen?


"Despite having a huge impact on other aspects of our lives, scientific advances have done little to change our cooking habits."

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The Locavore's Impact

27 July 2009 | 12:19 - By Phil Lees

 Eating locally has less of an impact on greenhouse gas emissions than you might think.


Once you've cut your greenhouse gas emissions by ditching the car and have stepped off the coal-fired electricity grid, how much does the transportation of food contribute to greenhouse gas emissions?

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Hoarding leftovers

15 July 2009 | 12:50 - By Phil Lees

The subject in food that  reveals our innermost food neuroses and individual idiosyncrasies is leftovers.


There is some kimchi of suspect provenance in my refrigerator at the moment. It has begun to take on the fizzy, carbonated taste sensation that suggests that its days as an appetizing Korean pickle are numbered and that its life indistinguishable from compost is about to begin.

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This is why we smoke.

07 July 2009 | 23:56 - By Phil Lees

I’m addicted to smoking. Not your run of the mill nicotine binge that can be satisfied at any corner store but smoking cuts of pork, as often as my health will allow.


The original intent of smoking food was to preserve as well as add flavour: wood smoke has a low pH and is full of chemicals that retard microbes including formaldehyde and acetic acid. To be sure, the preservative effects of smoking are not as pronounced as salt-curing food but both methods complement each other. Smoked and cured meats outlast fresh by months. Hickory-smoked bacon is a godsend.

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Michael Jackson: Beer Hunter

01 July 2009 | 22:35 - By Phil Lees

The other Jackson was concerned with beer.

The other Michael Jackson, unlike the singer, had a career that didn’t ostensibly end in 1993 when pop music fractured and collapsed upon itself nor did he become a constant and unwavering source of media spectacle. The other Michael Jackson was the Beer Hunter.

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About this Blog

A blog about what the world eats, when and where it eats it, and why it matters to us all. Only much less ambitious than that sounds and with more excruciating puns.

Phil Lees grew up in rural Victoria, the first generation in his family to not have lived on the farm and thereby not slaughter their own meat.

In 2005 he moved to Cambodia and started the nation’s first food blog, Phnomenon.com, named after the best pun that he has ever made. It turns out that Cambodian food is delicious and unlike the warnings in most guidebooks, is not likely to kill you with any immediacy. Gridskipper called him a “national treasure”. Lonely Planet’s Greater Mekong guide called him “the unofficial pimp of Cambodian cuisine”. The New York Times laughed at a funny hotdog he saw.

Phil makes a mean sausage, a hoppy pale ale, a modest laksa. He owns three barbecues and is in the market for a fourth.

 
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