I have heard that oxtail soup is wonderful. I have never bought oxtail because it's so expensive.
Assuming the tails are chopped into manageable pieces, sauté them in a little oil and butter to brown them and put into an oven-proof casserole dish. Saute chunks of onion, carrots, parsnips (if you like them) and celery plus 3 crushed garlic cloves (take care not to burn the garlic). Add to the casserole dish and de-glaze the sauté pan with red wine or stout (I prefer Mackeson to Guiness but use whatever you like). Add beef stock (Knorr jelly things do for me but use homemade if you’ve got it), a good slug of Worcester sauce, fresh or dried herbs of your choice, salt and black pepper, grated orange rind and a blob of tomato puree or even good tomato ketchup. The last two are optional but they do add to the dish without overpowering it.
To think that it was once the food of the poor! One thing about it is that as the meat is so rich you don't need too much of itI have heard that oxtail soup is wonderful. I have never bought oxtail because it's so expensive.
Lots of cuts that were once the food of the poor have become pricey. People found out just how tasty "poor people's foods" could be. I don't buy ribs. They cost more per kilo than boneless pork. Celery root (celeriac) is still over priced, but has come down to reasonable. Leeks, give me a break. One of my local supermarkets has them on special this week: $2.50 for three skinny, little leeks. Does anyone really believe that the Irish invented leek and potato soup because they were a gourmet vegi?
We can get it now, go into ridiculous debt, and pay the piper later, or so we think.
According to the chap I know that works at the local mushroom "factory", which supplies most of the supermarkets in the north west of England, portobellos are just grown up button mushrooms. The white buttons are just left for one or two days longer before picking. OK, so what we used to call "horse mushrooms" when we went mushrooming in the fields around the house and I don't think letting them mature for one or two days longer justifies the hike in price. Admittedly they taste better than tiny button mushrooms but...Brown mushrooms used to be the cheap ones, as they were common. Someone discovered the edible white variety in their mushroom cave, and started growing them. Because they were so clean looking, they gained instant popularity, and were the "gourmet" mushroom. Everyone else jumped on board for the money, and the white button mushroom became the standard. Now the portabellas, and cremini mushrooms are more expensive, and thought to be superior. They might have a little more flavor than their white cousins, but not much. I'd be that if you closed your eyes, and had someone give you a sample of both, you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference, either in flavor or texture.
We place value on things, or rather, the producer places value on the things they produce. They will always try to maximize their profits, no matter that they price so many things out of the reach of ordinary folks. There are always enough privileged people to support their pricing practices.
The only recourse we have to pricing is the boycott. Very few people boycott anything. We have credit cards.
We are a ridiculous society anymore, IMHO.
Don't even get me started on medical costs.
Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North
Hells teeth! I'd better star growing some before the price hikes up here. My local greengrocer doesn't seem to have caught on to this one yet.
