Hi Everyone
So sorry for the delay in posting this blog; it's been weeks since the last one and I have been so busy that I just couldn't allocate any time to it.
If anyone out there wants to help me with this blogging - maybe even write one for me- just call into Food Tech and volunteer. Prizes and house points available!
Well, it's half term week and I am going to work on this blog and publish it tonight.
The quiz at the end of this blog has a closing date of June 13th and the prize is a chance to come to Food Tech one lunchtime and cook something with Mrs P.  Hopefully that prize will encourage you to have a go at the quiz.
I subscribe to a Food magazine every month and this month's edition had quite a few interesting food facts amongst its pages.  Here are a few:
* In June 1958 brothers Dan and Frank Carey opened the world's first - guess what? Pizza Hut!
They had read about a teenage 'pizza fad' and so borrowed $600 from their Mom to start the business in Wichita, Kansas.  Spot prize here ... What is the link betwee this place and a famous country and Western singer? Chocolate bar if you bring me the answer.
*  In 1840, Queen Victoria was given a weird wedding present - a 550kg wheel of Somerset cheddar.
After being put on display it was, according to rumour, fed to pigs, as the royal family never got round to eating it! Another spot prize ... what happened to one of the contestants at last year's famous cheese rolling festival in Gloucestershire?
*  Helen Howard, a snail farmer says that snails like best to feed on cabbage, apples, cheries and plums!
You know they are ready to sell for food when the edge of their shell turns up like 'the rim of a hat'!
Spot prize - who introduced snail - eating to Britain 2,000 years ago?
*  It's become fashionable of late to cook with pink salt from the Himalayas or black lava salt from Hawaii.
Salt is essential to life and its preservative properties mean that, in the past,  man has been able to store food for the lean winter months.  Spot prize ... Where exactly is Halen Mon sea salt produced?
I have nearly finished teaching all of the year 8's - they come for a full day's Food Tech once a year and so we try to make the most of every minute of that day. Year 8's have, over the past few years produced some very unusual variations on the standard recipes they are asked to cook.
One pair put 20 fluid ounces of oil into their chocolate brownie mix instead of 8!  The brownies were bubbling away like Mount Vesuvius for 2 hours before Mrs P finally discovered what they had done wrong! Needless to say the brownies were binned and they made a successful batch the next day!
Another pair managed to cook a knife inside the brownies - it was only discovered when they tipped the block of brownies out of the tin!
This term another pair produced a very thin block of brownies that were chewy and oily and very inedible.
We are still not sure what was omitted from the mixture; one of the pair couldn't remember adding the 4 eggs whilst the other wasn't sure if they had added any flour!!!!
The same boy couldn't find his shepherd's pies at the end of the day. We looked everywhere for the 2 foil containers with their tasty cheesy mash topped lamb ragu inside, but to no avail. Later though, Mrs P found them in the oven where they had been cooking for ages!  The resultant bricks could have been used as door stops!
Have you ever tried to cook something which ended up as a disaster? Let me know!
Ok, so here's the quiz with the prize of a lunchtime's cooking session....
12 answers - which countries do these foods/dishes originate from?
1.   gazpacho
2.   poutine
3.   ackee and saltfish
4.   wiener schnitzel
5.   marzipan
6.   osso bucco
7.   bobotie
8.   colcannon
9.   bortsh
10.  pho
11.  fajitas
12.  ankimo

Bring your answers to me by the end of Monday 13th June.        JEP