The Tracing Paper » food on the web

Introducing FeedReel

Nick Saltmarsh — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 15:52:20 +0000

FeedReel – finest quality food and drink writing on the web

The Tracing Paper has been a little neglected recently as I’ve been concentrating on developing a new site, FeedReel on Food and Drink, exploring the range of food and drink writing on the web.

Earlier posts here (particulary the UK Food Blog Search) have touched on this, but it’s really a subject that goes beyond The Tracing Paper’s professed interest in the origins of our food (on which more will follow soon, honest).

For anyone with an interest in food and drink (isn’t that everyone?), the web is an increasingly exciting source of ideas, stimulation and information.

Every day, over 30 fresh articles are posted on over 100 UK food blogs, with over a dozen more on 20-odd UK beer, wine and cider blogs. Numerous specialist websites are constantly adding new content and much of the old mainstream media’s writing on food is also available online.

The only problem is keeping up. It’s all too easy to miss an article on your favourite food and all too difficult tracking down the best information when you’re looking for a particular recipe or the low-down on a restaurant.

This is where FeedReel hopes to help, keeping a close eye on all the latest posts on UK food blogs and websites, collating constantly updated summaries of the latest food and drink writing and news.

And if you’re looking for something specific, FeedReel offers a thorough Food Search, indexing over 200 carefully chosen UK food blogs and websites.

Tagged for a blog meme: the Fantastic Four

Nick Saltmarsh — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 15:21:29 +0000

I’ve been tagged for the Fantastic Four blog meme by Richard at superfood. The idea is simply to provide four answers to each of five questions, and to tag four bloggers to continue the meme.

This meme is floating free of its source, but Richard was tagged by Trig, who was tagged by Scott at Real Epicurean … ifantabulous … hishgraphics … Planet Kambling … Hijack Queen … Simple America … It’s now spreading amongst UK food bloggers.

So here are my answers, mostly food related and with a few extra food connections (this is a food blog, after all):

4 jobs I’ve had

Goatherd
Organic veg box packer
Mushroom picker
Tour guide – an opportunity for good lunches all over Italy

4 places I’ve lived

Eye (Suffolk, England) – where Laurels Farm Butchers is shortlisted for the Best Butcher category in the 2007 Suffolk Food Awards
East Harling (Norfolk, England) – which also has a superb butcher, FL Edge & Sons, and the wonderful Jan’s Fruit & Veg
Esanatoglia (Le Marche, Italy) – where I first learned to identify wild mushrooms
Dolgellau (Gwynedd, Wales) – where I was temporarily distracted from food by rhododendrons

4 places I’ve holidayed

Loch Lomond (Scotland) – including a wonderful lunch at Monachyle Mhor, somewhere in the distance in the photo above
Burton Bradstock (Dorset, England) – eating at least twice a day at the Hive Beach Cafe
Agua Amarga (Almeria, Spain) – eating fresh fish on the beach
Cefalu (Sicily) – feasting on blood oranges, clams and marzipan

4 favourite foods

Good bread
Asparagus
Lambs’ kidneys
Crab

4 places I’d rather be

In the kitchen, cooking
In the garden, picking plums
In a wood, picking ceps
On Dunwich beach, lazing

4 bloggers to tag

Sophie at Mostly Eating – already tagged by Joanna’s Food!
Antonia at Food Glorious Food
Paul and Freya at Writing at the Kitchen Table
Kathryn at Something Yum…
Padmaja at Spciyandhra

Amazon gets fresh

Nick Saltmarsh — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 04:57:33 +0000

Amazon.com has today announced a new venture: AmazonFresh will be delivering fresh (and frozen and “shelf-stable”) foods, ordered online, to households in Seattle.

The foods available will include “highest-quality fresh fruits and vegetables” and a “leading assortment of natural, organic, and specialty brands”.

Some of the produce is described as “farm-fresh” but there’s no further information on its provenance, at least not to anyone without a by-invitation access code to start shopping. AmazonFresh follows Amazon’s rather quiet introduction of dry groceries to its product range last year.

This is a more innovative move in the US than it would have been in the UK, where most of the major supermarkets offer online shopping and delivery. PlanetRetail reports (citing the Food Marketing Institute) that just 6% of US shoppers have bought groceries online in the last year, whereas 80% have bought something online.

In the UK, Tesco alone now has online sales of over £1 billion to 850,000 active customers (detailed in Tesco’s 2007 Annual Review).

(Tesco proudly trumpets the green credentials of its online delivery service, cutting car journey’s with more efficient van deliveries to several households. Fair enough, but is this a tacit admission that the out-of-town supermarket model, still Tesco’s core business, is inherently unsustainable?)

The US has a number of standalone and store-based online grocery services, such as FreshDirect and Albertsons, but nothing like the UK. And there are plenty of failed on-line grocers from the first dotcom boom, not least Webvan, which subsumed Amazon-funded homegrocer.com before going bankrupt. Ironically, Webvan was founded by Louis Borders, founder of Borders bookstore.

Of course, home grocery delivery is nothing new and is still a service quietly offered – in the UK and the US – by many an unfashionable independent grocer.

So is AmazonFresh anything more than another established business moving into an underdeveloped market on its home turf?

It might even be considered appropriate retaliation for the move of grocers’ into non-food shopping. PlanetRetail suggests that Amazon might be in danger of spreading itself too thin, asking “Can organic bananas be sold alongside Harry Potter books and Prada handbags?” Well, UK supermarkets have had no trouble selling Harry Potter alongside organic bananas and handbags, though perhaps not quite Prada.

Ensight.org offers an alternative explanation. This is Amazon’s first venture not to rely on third-party distribution. Could Amazon be using groceries to fund a distribution network that will ultimately carry its core products?

Search more UK food blogs

Nick Saltmarsh — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 18:09:10 +0000

Recommended searches: London restaurant, local food, broad beans, July recipes, blog news

Add UK Food Blogs Search to your Google homepage

6th September 2007 Update
For a bigger, better and more freshly maintained search, try the Food Search at food.feedreel.co.uk, searching more than just blogs but with a refinement to narrow any search to UK food blogs.

My list of UK food blogs (previously below) will now be maintained at FeedReel’s blog directory. And don’t miss the constantly updated listing of UK food blog posts!

The UK Food Blog Search now searches over 140 blogs, all looking at some aspect of food in the UK. Between them these blogs represent an enormous democratic wealth of information and opinion on ingredients, recipes, restaurants, shops and more.

There are some fairly primitive refinements available from the results page to narrow results to recipes, wine or restaurants. These refinements should become more refined shortly!

The blogs currently indexed are listed ~~below~~ now at FeedReel’s directory of UK food blogs. I’m adding to (and correcting) this list almost daily so please let me know of any omissions. Some of these blogs are clearly no longer live, but their archives are still online and worth searching.

Missing May

Nick Saltmarsh — Tue, 29 May 2007 13:26:32 +0000

May has almost passed without a single post to the Tracing Paper. The birth of our second daughter on April 28th has given me plenty to do besides. I’ll resume regular postings to the Tracing Paper once our expanded family finds a settled routine in a few weeks (or months?).

Meanwhile, other bloggers have been celebrating the seasonal joys of one of the most exciting months of the culinary year, with delicious foods in season from new carrots and elderflower to sardines and sea trout.

With English asparagus at its best, superfood has some interesting observations and tempting recipe ideas, while thepassionatecook sings the praises of the more continentally favoured white asparagus and the Real Epicurean proposes an intriguingly mouth watering recipe for chilled radish leaf and asparagus soup.

I’m particularly sorry to have missed my chance to post on the subject of hop shoots, a delicacy available free in hedgerows everywhere or at great expense from innovative retailers such as Booths. Next year!

No related posts.

UK Food Blog Search

Nick Saltmarsh — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 14:52:11 +0000

Recommended searches: London restaurant, local food, broad beans, July recipes, blog news

Add UK Food Blogs Search to your Google homepage

My list of UK food blogs (previously below) will now be maintained at FeedReel’s blog directory. And don’t miss the constantly updated listing of UK food blog posts!

Having just discovered Google Co-op, I’ve created a custom search of UK food blogs (using Trig‘s comprehensive list at the UK Food Bloggers’ Association). It’s useful for finding recipes, checking views on ingredients, restaurants etc, looking for local references and more.

Try it here or at the UK Food Blog Search homepage.