You don't have to walk many supermarket isles to get in a cultural appropriation huff if you are that way inclined, so it's surprising and unfair he get's this much heat. I think some people really need to chill a bit.

But if you disagree feel free to sue me for putting moose in a pastitsio, reindeer in a biryani and generally doing things to rice that should never be done to rice. Ask husband and he will testify. "Prison food" he will say brandishing his rice cooker. (He doesn't understand the concept of risotto, but only recognises middle-eastern style fluffy rice. He can be such a ricist sometimes.) Or how about the Mexican moose lasagne or Greek moose burgers. Did I manage to appropriate several cultures in one swift culinary move. How about smoked reindeer gnocchi anyone. Or is that more about just food murder than appropriation.

As a representative of a very small and historically continuously oppressed nation I might not be qualified to appropriate anyway. But let's go with this.

Coconut rice with spring onion and crayfish

I have called my lamb kleftiko "authentic" which of course it is not. I put a bit of lime and coriander in something and call it Mexican. Never even been to Mexico. A few weeks ago I made "jerk chicken" using a ready spice mix and cooked the meat in the oven instead of a fire pit or oil drum. I won't even mention the rasta pasta which probably thoroughly offended an entire religion let alone a food culture.

Which makes me think, is it cultural appropriation for a white girl to have rasta hair? Or how much cultural appropriation is at this very moment happening in Notting Hill. But I will stick to food - otherwise this will get too complicated.

And there are more more Jerk related sins I need to get off my chest. Last weekend I made jerk salmon. If there had been a labour MP around they would have been able to tell me that salmon is a cold water fish and not acceptable to combine with the word jerk. I'm lucky that our guest with Jamaican roots, a very dear friend and a wonderful person, understood my good intentions of making him feel welcome and appreciated by using tastes and spices that might appeal to him. We all often like smells and tastes that we have grown up with, was my thinking. To gild my cultural appropriation lily I served the jerk salmon with coconut and crayfish rice and a green salad with mango.
The difference here is of course, I am not making money from my food experiments and enjoyment of tastes and inspiration from around our wonderful world. Sadly envy and resentment enter when a boy from Essex gets a bit too successful for the general liking.

Mango green salad with a lime dressing

I wish all the best to poor Jamie, who seems to just rub some people the wrong way whatever he does. As for me, I will continue with my scandalous ways, I will cook the jerk salmon again, because it was really good, I will put reindeer and moose wherever the hell I like and will continue to experiment with ideas and flavours from around our beautiful world which none of us own.

So here is the recipe with a self made totally unauthentic jerk mix, but feel free to use a ready made one, some of them are really good. And of course barbecuing the salmon will only make it more lovely.


Culturally inappropriate appropriated jerk salmon with love and respect to the wonderful Caribbean inspiration on the flavours of the culinary world


Side of salmon
3 tbsp jerk spice mix
1-2 tsp dried thyme
Zest of a lime or lemon
Vegetable oil
Salt

Debone the fish and pat dry with a paper kitchen towel. Season with the jerk seasoning, dried thyme and a little bit of salt, be careful as there is some salt in the jerk mix. Zest a lemon or a lime on top of the fillet and drizzle with some oil. Bake for 25-30 minute or until the salmon is done. Serve with anything you think appropriate and don't worry about people who are ready to judge you.

Jerk seasoning mix (as per Jo Cooks):

1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp garlic powder
2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp ground allspice
2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tbsp dried parsley

First I thought I’d do duck legs – I had four big fat juicy ones and with proper amount of side dishes that would have fed the two of us and husband nicely. I could have done my lovely Puy lentil and purple sprouting broccoli side. But alas, I decided on a Jamie Oliver recipe.

I do love Jamie, I like his easy going way of cooking and presenting. And he means well with all his “let me save the poor and the fat of the world” for which he mostly gets his ass whooped. Remember the time he came back home in tears from his American fat-fighting crusade. Or the “Let them eat stale bread” scandal here at home when he was saving the poor and suggested they take heed from the Sicilian street cleaner, who buys 25 mussels, 10 cherry tomatoes and a packet of pasta for 60p and makes an amazing dish out of it. Maybe in the Sicilian street cleaning circles that happens all the time, but I’m not sure how realistic it is in Peckham or Barking.

This week I saw Jamie do a fantastic looking crab meat pasta in his 15 minute meals. They are now also showing Jamie’s Naked Chef episodes in the honour of his 40th birthday and they’re really really bad (just a pun because Jamie says “really really good” about 20 times in a 15 minute meal episode after sticking his pinkie in the food to taste it). I like his more current programs a lot, but the Naked Chef episodes are just a bit painful to watch. They are so badly shot. I just want to scream ZOOM OUT to the cameraman. It is head-ache inducing, Blair Witch Project kind of shaky and bouncy. A style that for some inexplicable reason was considered cool at the time. It is not! Like sideburns, not cool! I’m still traumatised by Noddy Holder’s ginger ones I saw on the cover of one of my big brother's LPs in the late 70s.

Thank God for Gin and Tonic

The young peachy cheeked (I'm talking about his face) Jamie seems slightly nervous and dashes around the kitchen worrying about burning his food which he does a lot and then pretends he caught it just in time and that it’s supposed to look like that. In the new programs he still burns stuff a lot, but he has come up with the concept of gnarly food, which he pulls out of the bag when he’s burned his chops again.

I also think there are too many people in the Naked Chef. I don’t need to see all the random buddies of his bursting in through the doors and windows with stubby carrots and bad hair. And most annoyingly there is a weird woman asking inane questions off camera. Occasionally you see her hand bottom of the screen grabbing some of the food. WHO IS SHE??

If she’s the cameraman you just want to tell her to shut up, steady the blimmin' camera and ZOOM OUT!

Like to any question (apart from what to do when you have put too many fennel seeds in your food) Google gives the answer. She’s apparently some big shot Food TV director, so that's me neatly back in my box.

I got beautiful crab meat from Waitrose, a pack of white and a pack of brown plus two big bunches of fresh basil. The rest of the ingredients I had at home. The way you do the dish is you make a paste blitzing together fennel seeds (careful there), fennel stalks, chili, basil, garlic, anjovies, spring onions and carrot. So I did this, I didn’t have a fennel so put in some dill instead and maybe my fennel seed teaspoon was quite heaped. So when I tasted the paste that was all I could taste. I did add a couple of extra anjovies, because I thought apart from the fennel, it tasted bland. At this point I should have just chucked the paste and googled a better recipe for my lovely crab meat. But I soldiered on. In Finland we have a word for this kind of not giving up, persistence thingy. We call it Sisu. Other people call it Stupidity.

I think Jamie’s got really interesting ideas, but the food can sometimes be a bit bland. I once made a pesto following his recipe from one of his programs exactly. He made the pesto, stuck his pinkie in it and made a pirouette woop wooping how full of taste it was, BOOM! I did exactly the same pesto, tasted mine with a spoon in a civilized manner and it didn't taste of anything. Maybe my palate is just really underdeveloped compared to his. It probably is.

Back to the sauce. I finished it according to instructions apart from adding the white crab meat, which I was only going to do just before we were ready to eat. At this point the sauce tasted really bland but very aniseedy. I added some seasoning, and googled if there was a way to counteract fennel. Like when you put too much white pepper you can cancel it with lemon. But no – there was nothing. Add too much fennel and you’re fucked.

So now finally I should have chucked the sauce and done something with the lemon sole I had in the fridge. I don’t know why I didn’t. Stubbornness. Inability to admit defeat. Lack of care for my fellow humans who had to eat that shit? I have no explanation.

So then my neighbour arrived, announcing her arrival by throwing the gin bottle down the stairs. Luckily the bottle survived, but next time maybe less hand cream when planning to come down the stairs with bottles.

We fixed ourselves lovely G&Ts and had a little download of news. I had made Baba Ghanoush, which was really nice and pitta crisps with Za’atar. I will share the recipes later – it's a handy, simple little nibbley thing for any occasion.

Then I cooked some whole wheat spaghetti and heated the goddamn sauce adding the white crab meat. It tasted even worse than before. Neighbour sort of agreed that it maybe wasn't great, but thought it could be saved with Crème Fraiche, which we tried. We also added some lemon juice and water to thin it and hopefully dilute the fennel. And it kind of worked, it made it better, still not great, but instead of bad, now it was kinda ok, just quite weird.

My sides were nice at least. I had made an “Italian Guacamole” – a salad of chopped avocado, tomatoes, spring onions and basil, a rocket and parmesan salad and garlic bread.

With the pasta the sauce was kind of ok - in an unusual way. We ate quite a lot of it in the end. Husband said it was good, but he was dressing the truth up with a bit of kindness. Anyway everyone was fed and full in the end and we had a fun evening finishing the Gin.

The recipe is here. Another blogger has made it and is not complaining, so maybe it is to some people's taste. I won’t go anywhere near it again.