Read­ing the New Yorker the other day, I came across the fol­low­ing line (sub­scrip­tion required) from chef Heston Blu­menthal (renowned for using the lab tech­niques of food sci­ence for lux­ury cater­ing rather than mass pro­duc­tion). Blu­menthal was writ­ing about grow­ing up in the gast­ro­nomic wil­der­ness of 1970s Britain:

…a time when olive oil was avail­able in Bri­tain only at the chemist’s — for put­ting in your ears rather than in a pan.

The phrase soun­ded rather famil­iar… Con­tinue read­ing →