Reviews Take Two: Take One Tin

In my last post I tried out some of the recipes from Jack Monroe's Tin Can Cook, which was published last year but has come back to attention of late given the current situation. It is, however, not alone in that respect: there have been two other tin-based cookbooks published even more recently - but still before anyone could have dreamed how events would pan out in 2020 - whose profiles are also benefiting from the current surge in interest in, and need for, storecupboard-friendly recipes. This time I will be taking a look at Take One Tin by Lola Milne.

A Tin-dred Spirit: Tin Can Cook review

If you are the sort of person who watches lots of cooking programmes on television, reads the food pages in the weekend newspapers, or maybe even (whisper it) follows the bizarre flights of fancy of food bloggers now and again, you may have noticed a significant increase of late in articles focusing on the big theme of the moment. Features such as "Recipes to make the most of your storecupboards", "Use up all those unloved spices" and "No flour? No problem! Alternative baking recipes" are popping up left, right and centre, and there has been plenty specifically focusing on tinned foods too. In the same day, I read one website's "Top 10 Tinned Tomato Tips" - providing ideas for those who panic-bought in the lead-up to lockdown and now don't know what to do with all their tins - and another site's article on "The Best Pasta Sauces that Don't Use Tinned Tomatoes", for those who've been less lucky and found the supermarket shelves empty.

It's no surprise really; all writers, commissioning editors and broadcasters want to make their work relevant and up to date, but it does feel like a slight jumping on the bandwagon. Both the tinned tomato articles mentioned above featured fairly standard, not particularly exciting recipes that just happened to include (or not include) a fairly common storecupboard ingredient - and you suspect that pretty soon the writers will be returning to more normal territory, where tins and so on don't get much of a look in. I have a lot of time for Jamie Oliver, but I feel his recent TV series "Keep Cooking and Carry On" at the start of the lockdown was a similar case in point. In the four weeks' worth of daily programmes, he offered up "incredible recipes, tips and hacks, specifically tailored for the unique times we're living in, and how to make the most of kitchen staples", but it didn't seem all that different to his usual output, aside from giving suggestions of what to do with leftovers, and alternative ingredients if you couldn't find the ones he specified. Even that was quickly parodied online though: