Aló Comidista returns to her menstrual appointment before taking a well-deserved vacation. In this office everything is worth: culinary doubts, gastronomic enigmas, psychological problems, metaphysical questions and dramas of contemporary life. You just have to send me an email to elcomidista [at] gmail.com. As I rest in September, I will respond again to your bullshit concerns on the first Thursday of October.
Elena: I have read that it is not recommended to give tuna to children under 11 years old. I have a boy of a year and a half, and my question is I can give him canned tuna (not the whole can but a little if it falls on the salad or tuna pie). And if you can eat nice.
Dear Elena, to answer yourself this question you could have entered the website of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, where they are explained very clearly. But being able to come to give the poop to the doctor's office, who thinks about such an effort? So that I do not give you a tabardillo for the effort to enter that page and try to understand what it says, I will leave you here briefly: the only species of tuna that, due to the presence of methyl mercury in its meat, you should not never give to children under 10 years of age or exceed 120 grams per month for children between 10 and 14 is red (Thunnus thynnus).
This kind of tuna is usually sold canned, but fresh or frozen: are the usual canned light tuna (Thunnus albacares), the list (Katsuwonas pelamis) or bonito (Thunnus alalunga). For these three fish there is no official recommendation that restricts their consumption, but there is the advice that you vary between blue and white fish (this applies to the entire population). Otherwise, don't panic about the mercury issue: with those few exceptions, eating fish is still healthy, as dietitian-nutritionist Juan Revenga explained in this article.
Alberto: I would like to know which is the best fish broth that they sell in supermarkets and also which is the best orange juice.
Dear Alberto, I do not consume orange juice because a) I like whole oranges much better and b) fruit juices, whether industrial or homemade, are not healthy, but rather an unnecessary free sugar shot equivalent to that produced by Coca-Cola, a Fanta or any other sugary drink. So in that field I can't help you much. As for the fish broth, I try to pull more-or-less-artisan fumets from small brands that are sometimes found in the refrigerated section of the supermarket. Of the great ones, the most honest seems to me that of Aneto; With the rest, I recommend you look at the ingredients and the nutritional information: if you come across "natural aromas", high percentages of salt and low fish, run away.
Souhalia: Hi soc la Souhaila and I would like to know how I can do what is necessary to see the state of the art.
Dear Souhalia, I do not know what drug you will have taken before sending this email, but it must be something powerful because my daughter, you do not even know what language you are writing in. To see the state of the art go to a museum, but above all stop placing yourself, that you are neither Baudelaire nor Frida Kahlo and in the end the only thing you get with drugs is to confuse El Comidista with the MACBA website.
Souhalia's head under the effect of the drug. / GIPHY
Ana María: Breaded chicken and fried fish are two of the most appreciated dishes in my house. A few days ago, while flouring the fish for frying, my son, who was collaborating in the kitchen, asked me why with flour and not with breadcrumbs like chicken or vice versa. After all, the basic product of both is wheat and it is a logical question from someone who sees the kitchen without routines.
Dear Ana María, my first recommendation is to send your son to a boarding school, to see if he learns not to ask you uncomfortable questions. I don't think there is any culinary law that prohibits flouring chicken and breading fish, but you're right that the opposite is usual. I imagine that if the goal is a crispy batter, it makes more sense to apply a thin layer of flour to the tender, somewhat watery meat of the fish, and a thick layer of breadcrumb to the firmer, stiffer chicken.
Paloma: I live in the US and this year because of the pandemic I have run out of my summer migration to Spain. Today I needed my dose of Spanish food and I have gone to dinner at a Spanish restaurant in Palo Alto, California. The special of the day was the “Tamahack paella” and the waiter (a Catalan boy) has sold it to us saying that it was the best paella we could eat in our lives, with meat from the Basque Country. When we have seen this atrocity we have become frightened. Half a kilo of beef steak, with bone included, on a minimal rice base, with half a dozen mushrooms and aioli. Can you call this paella?
Dear Paloma, thank you for sending us this copy of paleo paleo. It seems to me that it has little meat and too much rice: I would have put only one grain per diner and I would have added a leg of triceratops and half a pterodactyl breast to boost the amount of protein. What if you can call this paella? Publish the photo on social networks and ask Valencians what they think.
Mother In Trouble: Thanks to you I know that sugar is poison and that I have to flee from the ultraprocessed. But I have a one-year-old baby and I don't know what the hell to give him for breakfast. Until now we have been throwing with porridge of cereals and toasts of soft bread in pieces, avocado ... but it begins to be to the nose and asks to innovate. The requirements are: soft things and / or that can be chopped to avoid choking, you must take a serving of milk or milk and it must be easy to get in a normal supermarket, do not send me to look for "tapioca from the Himalayas" that I have enough on top of.
Dear Mother in distress, I would never send you to look for tapioca from the Himalayas. Nor do you go out, that this year you cannot get into festivals. As the questions about babies make me sleepier than a cocktail of three orfidales, four trankimazines and 100 milliliters of vodka, I pass the brown to the dietitian-nutritionist Lidia Folgar. "First of all, saying that regular consumption of free sugars is not a healthy habit is not the same as saying that sugar is poison. If there are children at home, commenting by categorizing food into good or bad can begin to develop a bad relationship with food, and it is better in the long term to educate in good habits from the example and accessibility or not of some foods. or others ”.
After this deserved reprimand, let's go with the advice. “With regard to breakfasts, there are many options. Porridge: you just have to boil oat flakes in the milk for a few minutes without stopping stirring until it thickens. Then you can add cinnamon, chopped banana, applesauce, pure cocoa ... and make variations. Toast with fresh cheese or tomato. Yogurt plus toast with tomato and olive oil. Milk in white or with cinnamon plus toast with avocado. Toast with 100% peanut butter - now it is available in some supermarkets - and banana slices. In this post you have nothing more and nothing less than 60 more ideas ”.
Amelia: Every month I wait for your office like May water (June breeze, July ice cream, etc.). For this reason, I have paraphrased the refrain of Quererte a ti, by Ángela Carrasco. There it goes: "To read to you / is to want to touch the sky with humor / is to have lost the fear of the stove / is to fight against all the magufada / and to lower the fire that burns my pittance. / To read to you, to read to you is to laugh and wait ... (Recited) ... the next installment of 'Aló Comidista ". Thank you very much for your self-confidence and your scientific arguments, and also convey my thanks to the entire team and to your multidisciplinary advisers.
Dear Amelia, thank you for this beautiful poetic exercise, at the height of Lorca, Alberti or Leonardo Dantés. Thank you also for remembering Ángela Carrasco, memorable María Magdalena in the Jesus Christ Superstar of Camilo Sesto. With him he also sang the essential and very hot Callados, which I take this opportunity to remember.
"I look forward to your call, I hug the pillow tightly." / YOUTUBE
Luis: My question is about the new generation frying pans. In all of them as soon as the oil is put, it is concentrated on the perimeter of the pan, leaving the center without any oil. Result: when you try to grill something, the food is toasted rather than fried, and it's hard to get a good fry without continually messing around with the pan. Does this make any sense? There are always possible fixes (putting the oil in the food instead of in the pan) but I wonder why this should be done if the frying pans from before fry perfectly. It sounds to me like sartorial involution but perhaps something escapes me.
Dear Luis, before moving on to the technical explanations, let me recommend something to you: if you are going to fry - that is, soak a food in abundant hot oil so that it will brown everywhere - the best thing to do is change the pan for a low casserole. You stain less, and frying works better. I'm afraid you confuse this concept with those of “grilling” or “sautéing”, processes that require little oil and for which a frying pan is better.
Let's get into trouble: why are the surfaces of the pans bulging? As explained by Enrique Soriano, Marketing Director of BRA & Monix, this effect has to do with the way in which non-stick aluminum and stainless steel are manufactured, with or without non-stick. "These pans are produced with an 'impact technique' that makes them completely flat. But if they were left like this, when we applied heat to them at home the outer bottom of the frying pan would acquire a convex shape making it dance. So they are left a little concave, so that when we heat them up they return to an almost completely flat position. I say "almost totally flat" because sometimes that procedure can cause excess concavity. We are talking about micro-millimeter proportions: after thousands of pieces, a small deviation may generate the unwanted effect at the bottom of the pan whereby the oil drains sideways. Sometimes this effect is compensated when the pan reaches a temperature, but other times it may not disappear. "
Why doesn't this happen in “before” pans? Because they were made of carbon steel with a different procedure. However, even if they did not initially have that initial bulging effect, in the long run they were worse. "They were much weaker in the heat. They warped over time, and the effect of the oil drifting sideways was even more exaggerated. And besides, the non-stick coating deteriorated earlier. ” So you see, Luis: any past time was NOT better, not even in the pans.
Chrysostom: O exalted Commissary! Cook guru, a gastrophile rabble-walker and the object of desire of all gaylors in the world universe! I cannot, Mikel exempt, refrain from making you know such a scorn of paella that paella with chorizo could go as orthodox and even canonical. I warn: images necessarily hurt the sensitivity of everyone who has it.
Dear Chrysostom, when you get gongorinos there is no one to stop you. I have had to go to the dictionary to see what “deblator” (winner) means, and that effort has left me so exhausted that I can hardly comment on what you send me. Kay must be recognized: he has recorded the brightest paella in history. The images of the rice floating in the tomato or the bag of frozen squid guarrindong rings falling on it will last for years in our memories. As an act of culinary terrorism, it strikes me as a masterpiece.
Mario: I love red pepper, but I have a problem when I use it in long-lasting cooking. I can not stand that the skin comes off and sticks to your palate, which for me is the paluego par excellence, impossible to remove for more twists of the tongue you do. For example, if I make a ratatouille, in the end the skin of the pepper ends up peeling off. Is there any way to avoid this? Is it that it is very fine? Is the raw pepper peeled?
Dear Mario, thank you for giving us the disgusting image of your mouth twisting to remove the paluego. I do not put red pepper on the ratatouille, so I have never faced this tragedy, but if your skin bothers you so much, I would suggest that you use that strange organ that usually fills the skull of some humans called the brain. You cook the pepper in large pieces. When you see the skin peel off, remove it, and then chop the bell pepper into smaller pieces. End of drama.
Carlos: Following Raquel Bernácer's advice, I have started having toast with hummus for breakfast. I don't prepare it myself, because at seven in the morning, putting on the mixer seems like a war crime to my neighbors, so I buy it done. I have noticed that in the list of ingredients it says "rapeseed oil". It all sounds very strange to me because I have never seen a “nabina” to begin with. It gives me in the nose that this is going to be like palm oil and that, in a few years, we will be at the top of articles demonstrating how pernicious it is. What is known about this oil?
Dear Carlos, I have indeed seen some nabina, in the days when I was around Grindr. But first of all, let me tell you a little thing: that you follow the advice of Raquel Bernácer speaks well of your intelligence; that it did not occur to you to prepare the hummus the day before to have it ready for breakfast, not so much.
Rapeseed oil is the rapeseed oil of all life, only with the name changed so that it does not remember the terrible intoxications suffered in Spain with this product in 1981, because of a band of unscrupulous people who sold it denatured. Nabina, nabiza, canola or rapeseed oil is perfectly healthy: rich in omega-3s, vitamins E and K and fatty acids, and (very unlike palm oil) low in saturated fats, so you can consume it with all tranquility.
Mikel López Iturriaga, when seeing a nabina. / GIPHY
Javier: Don't you miss the comments from the readers? I understand that getting rid of Mauro Sini and José José has a point, but the daily comments on each entry also gave the page a point, which it does not have now. The most absurd thing is that I am a subscribed user, but the truth, I do not want to comment with my real name and surname. Wouldn't there be some solution?
Pilar: You see that the comments have dropped a lot. It is, of course, because now you have to subscribe to EL PAÍS to do it. You should ask for an exception for El Comidista, which doesn't make it as fun and I don't have 10 euros.
Dear Javier and Pilar, thank you for explaining the drop in comments and your reasons: we had not noticed. The decision that only subscribed readers can comment corresponds to the management of the newspaper and affects all its sections, including El Comidista. I am not going to comment on the measure because I am not sure whether I agree or not; I only recommend that you subscribe or go to our Facebook, Twitter or Instagram accounts, where the chicken coop is still open and you can comment for free.
Francisca: I am in the process of assisted reproduction. My doctor has recommended that I not bathe excessively on the beaches of Barcelona, since the contamination of the waters could alter my vaginal flora. Well, to soften the tedium of a post-confinement without a beach I bought a blender. However, on the first day, my magufas friends began to bombard me with supposed advice for use: "don't mix different colored fruits or vegetables", "beware of diabetes, maximum, one juice every three days" or the very disturbing " if you take ginger, let it be before afternoon. " Are there any contraindications to the use of the blender during the preparation of an IVF? And already put, would you recommend some type of specific diet or specific habit in an urban environment that does not alter my vaginal flora?
Dear Francisca, it seems to me a very good idea that, instead of going to a specialist in the matter, you send these questions to me, who as everyone knows, I am a Doctor of Flora and Vaginal Fauna from Harvard University. However, my research in this field does not leave me much free time, so you are going to allow me to exploit the dietitian-nutritionist Lidia Folgar again to answer you.
"A lot of data is missing to resolve this question in a more precise way, such as whether there is overweight or not, insulin resistance, hypothyroidism ... In any case, the main question would be why do you drink these smoothies. Is it because you are thirsty? In that case, better quench your thirst with water, infusions or homemade flavored waters. Is it because you are hungry? Chewing those same fruits or vegetables will produce a much more satisfying effect than in the form of a smoothie or worse, a smoothie. Is it to eat more vegetables and fruits together and get extra vitamins and minerals? If you consume at least three servings of fruit a day and a vegetable portion at lunch and another at dinner, you do not need to make a potpourri to take as a syrup. They will satiate you more and raise your blood glucose less than if you take them in smoothie or worse in smoothie. You can consume any fruit and vegetable, at any time of the day, no matter the mixes you make with them, eating them with skin if it is edible and well washed. In short, those shakes or smoothies are not the devil, but there are better options to eat fruits and vegetables for frequent and long-term sustainable consumption. ”
Vaginal fauna. / GIPHY
Vicente: WE ARE RETIRED AND WE LIKE TO ENJOY WALKING THROUGH VILLAGES AND AFTER EATING SOMETHING HOME BUT OUR DISADVANTAGE IS THE COST, YOU COULD RECOMMEND US IN THE PROVINCE OF VALENCIA RESTURANT WITH A MENU OF UP TO € 15 PER PERSON (BABY).
DEAR VICENTE, THANKS FOR LEAVING ME DEAF WITH YOUR MAIL IN CAPITAL LETTERS. If you were any one of those who write to me asking for recommendations, I would not answer you, because I am sick of the kiwi that all pichichi consider me their personal Repsol Guide. But since you are retired, you have "inconvenience" with the cost and you drink water, I will make an exception. My gastronomic contacts in Valencia (the journalists Almudena Ortuño and Mariola Cubells) suggest El Yantar, in Venta del Moro, and Tonyna and Bodega La Pascuala in Valencia, the capital. "I follow Carlos Cervera in all his incidents, but it seems to me that the project with his mother, with the typical gastronomy of the interior of Valencia, is the one that best defines him," says Ortuño of El Yantar. “Local products and spoon dishes, with special mention for the deer stew. During the week they have a menu and, on weekends, they have also incorporated a tapas with three dishes and two glasses of wine ”. "Tonyna's wonderful 14-euro menu couldn't be more competitive, and Bodega La Pascuala is ideal," adds Cubells. "Then they can walk through El Cabanyal, approach the shore and live their love."
Teresa: I would like to offer you a suggestion. Could you talk about Peruvian ceviche one day? Or get a recipe?
Dear Teresa, thanks for the suggestion. From what I see, you live in a parallel reality in which our video Make ceviche like a Peruvian does not exist. Neither the article The perfect ceviche in 10 comfortable steps , nor the recipe for corvina ceviche, not even the false cockle ceviche. Or maybe you do not know that there is something called "search engine", or you are so drone that you have not bothered to use it before writing to claim? Nah, it sure is the parallel reality thing.
Documentation: Carlos Doncel and Álvaro Baldrich.