Time travelling tins and pongy pilchards

Last week saw the start of a new series on BBC Two called Back in Time for Dinner, in which an ordinary modern family embarked "on an extraordinary time-travelling adventure, to discover how a post-war revolution in what we eat has transformed the way we live", as presenter Giles Coren told us in the intro to the episode, uncharacteristically expletive-free for once. The Robshaw family spent a week 'living' in each decade from the fifties to the 'naughties', having to "shop, cook and eat their way through history" and experiencing "the culinary fads, fashions and gadgets of each age", with not just the kitchen but the entire ground floor of their house remodelled to reflect how a typical home would have looked in that decade.

The Robshaws in 1950s attire. Plus Mary Berry and cake, as is mandatory for all BBC food programmes

Because nothing says "I love you Mum" quite like tinned meat...

A nice bit of tongue-in-cheek seasonal marketing from SPAM, featured today on their official Facebook page:

Presumably it's SPAM Original that is the mother of all meats - so does that make the SPAM with Bacon, which I tried recently, its child? Who was the father - a tin of Bacon Grill? Perhaps some other product can lay claim to be The Daddy of Meats. Or maybe I'm thinking too much into this...

Welshman's Caviar

I've always felt a certain affinity for Wales, despite not having (to my knowledge) even the slightest hint of Welsh heritage in my family history whatsoever. We did however spend a few very enjoyable holidays in a cottage in North Wales many years ago, so perhaps that's it. Or the fact that my name's David. Or that I really like leeks. Whatever the reason, I had been keen to mark St. David's Day in some way last year, just as I had tried the tin of Irish stew for St. Patrick's Day, and several Scottish delicacies too, but at that time I had yet to find any tinned Welsh products with which to do so.

All the tins in China

In my last post I told you all about the tinned sandwich I had picked up in Helsinki back in the summer of 2013 - a very brief visit to the city, as it was in fact just a stop-off on a journey elsewhere. Not, as you might guess, to see the Northern Lights, or somewhere nearby in Scandinavia or the Baltic states, but rather to China, to visit a very dear friend and former flatmate of mine who was teaching English in the city of Xi'an at the time. Given that we've recently moved into the Chinese New Year of the Sheep, this seems like the ideal time to tell you about my trip there. Is it really a year since we welcomed in the Year of the Horse though? Time doesn't half gallop by, does it?

Can this tin opener Finnish the job?

My trusty tin opener had given me many years of service in its time, but as you may recall, it met its maker a few months back when the huge circumference of a tinned Fray Bentos pie proved too much for its ageing parts. Most tins these days have ring-pull lids, so my efforts for this blog have not been too hampered by its loss, but nevertheless the search for a replacement started soon afterwards.

Searching on eBay had me considering all sorts of devices, some as practical, long-term contenders, and others as more fun, whimsical purchases (isn't that what eBay is for, after all?). As a tin cannoisseur, I feel that having a collection of tin openers would be no bad thing. Falling rather more into the category of whimsy was this little number - "The '57' pocket can opener", produced "with the compliments of H.J.Heinz Co. Ltd." I'm not entirely sure when it dates from, but it proclaims itself to be "sturdy", "easy to use" and "perfect for picnics", which intrigued me greatly. What use would a tin opener ever have had at a picnic?

How to be an impoverished artist

Sit shivering in your cold, drafty studio
Buy tin of soup
Heat contents
Eat
Rinse out tin
Use as a pot to clean your brushes in

Channel your inner Andy Warhol (doesn't matter if it's a different brand of soup)
Paint some pictures
Sell one for more than it is actually worth, but still less than you would like to make ends meet
Repeat

 (picture taken at an 'Open Studios' event at Bow Road Studios, London E3)

Surely this should be in Tower Hamlets...?

A couple of weeks back it was reported on the excellent Londonist website that the City of London will soon be gaining another high-rise office block. This wouldn't be particularly news-worthy anywhere, let alone on this blog, were it not for the current fad for giving new London buildings a nickname based on their shape. We already have the Gherkin, the Cheesegrater and the Walkie-Talkie, and this new building will give us the "Can of Ham".

Although officially to be known as 60-70 St Mary Axe, the designs by Foggo Architects do indeed bear an uncanny (sorry) resemblance to a tin of ham standing on its end, which as Londonist points out is perhaps a little unfortunate given its proximity to the Bevis Marks Synagogue just across the street. But luckily the nearest tube station will be Aldgate - on the Hammersmith and City Line (sorry again).