Wednesday Food Blogging

Polenta Cakes with Spinach and Sweetcorn

Polenta Cakes, a yummy summer side dish

We're eating a lot of fresh corn these days. My local grocer is carrying fresh ears in their produce section, which has improved vastly since the new Tesco is being built down the street. Yay for competition, is what I say, though many of my neighbors are furious about the new store—it's been the cause of much controversy since I arrived here six years ago.

But back to corn. I wanted to do something with polenta, which I seem to have collected a lot of, and my nice ears of corn, and maybe some of the spinach I'd bought too. The idea sprung from this recipe, but obviously without the bacon. And plus I made a lot more, which served as a main dish, alongside some black eyed peas and a salad. Sort of Southern, only dressed up for church. 

I think a spoonful of salsa would make a nice addition, if you're so inclined. (I hear Tesco carries it.)

For directions, read on: 

Pass the French Fries; Hold the Beverage Milk

I found this graph someone posted on Facebook interesting. Looks like much of the average American food consumption is food I don't even eat: dairy products, cheese, eggs, fish, poultry, red meat and corn syrup. I'm also older, taller, and thinner than the average female, so I guess I don't quite eat 1996.3 lbs of food each year, either.

(I like how, by eliminating half that circle, I'm able to eat much more than my fair share of all the other stuff, without feeling the least bit deprived. More cookies for me!) 

What surprised me is how many pounds of vegetables Americans eat. With all the talk about the SAD diet, I'd have thought it would be lower, but pound for pound, it's more than meat of any kind. (Maybe they eat a lot of butternut squash and potatoes.) Sadly, though, Americans eat more sugar than wheat flour—since many sweet products are baked goods, it's hard to imagine that. 

And what the heck are "beverage milks"? Whatever it is, Americans drink about 4 times as much of them as coffee. And who lied when they reported they only ate 23 lbs of pizza a year? Certainly this survey did not include college students, or, in my experience, campaign workers. 

If anyone can point me to a similar chart showing UK food consumption, I'd be interested to see the difference. It'd be great to see how much yeast extract the average Brit eats.