Surviving COVID in The Falklands and the horror of Domestic Science lessons with Detective Constable Helen Taylor.

After growing up in Devon and a career in the MET Police, my guest travelled nearly 13,000km across the world to live and work in The Falklands Islands. What was it like to live, work (and eat) on this remote island during the COVID pandemic? Did school-days Domestic Science lessons help her survive? Or did a life of shift work and it's associated poor eating habits leave Detective Constable Helen Taylor playing 'chicken' to see who in the household was going to cook the next meal?

Michael and I then discuss and applaud the humble chickpea in Nugget of Knowledge and we also taste test some chickpea snacks... are they really an alternative to a bag of crisps?

Guest: Detective Constable Helen Taylor, Stanley, The Falkland Islands
Host: Lynne O'Halloran

Episode Links
www.bravefoods.co.uk

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Transcript

Lynne O'Halloran  0:11  
Hello and welcome to the what's for dinner show. My name is Lynne and my aim along with my guests is to explore how our food experiences have influenced our lives as well as our waste lines. I'm also joined on the show by Michael O'Halloran for our regular feature the nugget of knowledge, where we focus on a particular food topic. It could be a deep dive into a particular item of food or a trawl through the latest food news or discussion about a food trend 

And as well as discussing the delights of the humble chickpea, this episode, Michael and are also taste testing some yummy chickpea snacks, so hang around to the end and you can hear what we think of them. My guest for this episode is an ex metropolitan police officer who spent much of her career investigating Child Exploitation crime and working to improve the safety of young people in our communities. She retired a few years ago, but was quickly enticed back into employment by an opportunity to live and work in the Falkland Islands. Yes, you heard me correctly, the Falkland Islands, where she would work with the local police and community to review and improve child safeguarding procedures. She's living there now and is joining me direct from her home in Stanley. Helen Taylor,  welcome to the what's for dinner show. Hello. After three years of living in the Falkland Islands, what is it you miss most about the UK?

Helen Taylor  2:30  
I think I miss driving faster than 40 miles an hour, which is the highest speed limit here. So I like driving but I miss driving properly! I like it down here that there's not crowds of people it's nice and quiet here. Yeah, I miss you know, not fighting for a parking space because you can park very easily here. I miss a the sunshine though and sitting outside eating. You can't really do that here very much, its a bit too windy.

Lynne O'Halloran  2:59  
So what's the population at the Falkland Islands?

Helen Taylor  3:01  
it fluctuates massively, because you get a lot of contract workers coming down. So that obviously swells the population. And when the tourists are here, there's a lot of people stay on the island then to assist with all of that. But in the winter, you know, a lot of people sort of head off to the UK for either work or sunshine. So so it really fluctuates. But I think in the Falklands at the minute, there's just over 3000 people about 3200. Most of them resident in Stanley, with several 100 living out in camp, which is the sort of remote farms that are outside of Stanley.

Lynne O'Halloran  3:37  
Well, yeah, that is a small population, isn't it? 

Helen Taylor  3:40  
Yeah it's really, really small, especially when you come down from the UK with I don't know, what is it now? 70 million people? And then you come here and it's like, yeah, it's really, really different.

Lynne O'Halloran  3:50  
So if you've been there for three years, then obviously you were there during the COVID pandemic, how did that affect your life in the Falkland Islands and your ability to sort of settle down and, and settle into the local community?

Helen Taylor  4:04  
Yeah, it's a bit crazy, really, because obviously, we could see the news and see this sort of developing worldwide, which was quite scary. But because there's only flights in from either South America or on the RAF flight, there's not, you know, it's not really open to tourism any other way or getting hear any other way. We were quite cut off. So we managed to keep it out of the community, if anybody came down from the UK they would have to go into quarantine. And obviously being a police officer, we had to police that and just make sure people weren't breaking the quarantine rules. And then when it kind of got to its height, they did sort of have a bit of a lockdown. But the good thing is here  they let people exercise and because there's so few people and so much space, so you know people kind of could still go about your business and not really sort of bump into anybody or sort of cause any problems. So yeah, they worked really hard here the medical department to keep COVID out. But yeah, it was a bit of an odd experience. 

Lynne O'Halloran  5:03  
Social distancing wasn't really an issue, then! Everyone is fairly distanced, most of the time anyway!

Helen Taylor  5:11  
Over a couple of days they did suddenly, everywhere had to have screens up. And, you know, there were signs up saying to keep your distance, and all that and it was really alien, I think, for the population here, because everyone is so friendly. And, you know, everybody knows one another. And the crime rates really low. So you don't have like the screens in the bank and the supermarket and, you know, they didn't really have all of that in place. So it was kind of really, you know, a bit alien to suddenly have all these screens and distancing. And it was yeah, a little bit crazy really.

Lynne O'Halloran  5:42  
So did you experience any sort of shortages of food or provisions during that time? 

Helen Taylor  5:48  
Yeah., because they have a flight which is called the Latan flight which comes in from South America, mainly Chili, that brings in sort of fresh fruit and vegetables. We do have a market here it's called Stanley Growers, which is a an institution, you know, they provide all the fruit and veg normally, but they were really stretched obviously, because suddenly all the fresh fruit and veg that was supplemented and that came in on the aeroplane, that dropped off because the plane wasnt allowed in. So suddenly, there was a real dearth of fresh fruit and vegetables.

Lynne O'Halloran  6:22  
So during that period snyway, did you cook a lot at home? Or, I mean, were the sort of restaurants and cafes still operating in Stanley?

Helen Taylor  6:31  
No, because a lot of them had to shut down because of the restrictions. I mean, there aren't a great many restaurants and cafes here, there are are a few, but most of them took the opportunity, I think, to shut down and like refurbish or something like that, you know, because people weren't going out socialising. It wasn't worth their while sort of staying open. Yeah, it had an impact on that. But no, I didn't take the opportunity to, I'm not a great cook at home. So it didn't really change much.

Lynne O'Halloran  7:02  
So what were your pandemic meals? You know, what did they consist of?

Helen Taylor  7:07  
Oh, Lord. Just the usual I suppose. I'm quite limited in my repertoire. So I can't blame it all on the lack of supplies. To be honest, I can make a leek risotto. And yeah, that's it. That's it. Stop the interview. Now. Where I go from that? Spaghetti bolognese? I can do a chilli. Just to be honest, I'm not a very good cook. So it's kind of just the staples. You've got the wrong person on the show if you were hoping I'd list of a load of recipes I'd knocked up!

Lynne O'Halloran  7:42  
I was intrigued really as to the sorts of things that you might be cooking! So you live with your partner, is it their responsibility then, the cooking, or do you just sort of muddle along together?

Helen Taylor  7:56  
We muddle along together, we kind of play chicken I think ,whoever's hungriest has to do it. Because neither of us are in to it. We can cook, but we don't really enjoy it. We're not foodies. Yeah. I like food. I like eating it, but I like being served it. I'm not a great cook, I find it a bit of a fuss. But no,  I'm not blessed with that, being able to throw everything in a pan and something come out, you know. My house, it's like it's been burgled if I have to do any cooking, there's bits everywhere and every pan is out the cupboard. So no, we both sort of look at one another and you know, sort of hope that the other one comes up with some inspiration for the night's dinner.

Lynne O'Halloran  8:36  
So now we have to eat otherwise we might die! 

As promised, I'm gonna give a shout out, a big hello, to a few people who shared my podcast or my social media posts. So hello to Maggie Woodbridge to Sophie Layzell and also to my previous guests, Michelle Beck, Becky Wright for continuing to support the podcast. 

So I was gonna ask you, whether you use cookbooks or cooking shows to sort of give you any inspiration. Do any of those sorts of things help you along the way?

Helen Taylor  9:12  
No, to be honest, I've got some nice cookbooks but purely because they look nice in my kitchen. For no other reason. Some of them are well thumbed, but only on certain recipes. You know, you can sort of like hold the spine and the book will open at, you know, sort of certain recipes that are just staples. And the only cooking show I ever watched is the Great British Bake Off and that's purely because we have a wonderful sweepstake here where everyone draws a name out. This wasn't my idea, by the way, but one of the women I worked with came up with this. We all draw a name out and the week that your person goes out of the Great British Bake Off you then have to bake something for everyone else in the sweepstake  and it has to be in the theme of that week, so you just hope you go out on biscuit or bread week. Yeah, not something like Japanese week. You know, or the the showstopper week 

Lynne O'Halloran  10:11  
Or something to be made out of jelly! Oh my goodness. Well that's an excellent idea. Excellent idea. So which ones have you had to deliver on?

Helen Taylor  10:23  
The last one was bread week and I made a sweet bread,  I made sticky fingers you know iced buns. Yeah, lovely. Yeah, yeah. Well, they're supposed to be lovely, aren't they? But everyone's still alive who had one. So that's a win for me yet. I can't remember what the first year was. I've put it out and of my mind.

Lynne O'Halloran  10:44  
Aaybe everybody else has as well? But still an iced bun, I mean, perfect. Because as long as you put a sufficient thickness of icing on the top, you can kind of get away with anything cant you? 

Helen Taylor  10:57  
That was my experience. Yeah. 

Lynne O'Halloran  10:59  
So you mentioned earlier that there's not that many places to eat in Stanley. I did do a little Google. I hope this place actually exists but it mentioned somewhere called the Waterfront Kitchen Cafe. Is that somewhere that's familiar? Well, that's rated number one on TripAdvisor.

Helen Taylor  11:16  
Okay, interesting. Yeah, to be honest, there's a few little places and yeah I can recommend the Waterfront it is lovely, but there are other places available in Stanley.

Lynne O'Halloran  11:28  
So you've probably eaten in them all? 

Helen Taylor  11:30  
Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. 

Lynne O'Halloran  11:33  
Any particularly memorable meals?

Helen Taylor  11:35  
I must admit that the Waterfront does a marvellous New York strip steak where you get steak and randomly an egg on it, but oh, yeah, it works. It works for me. So that's, yeah, that's really lovely. And I have to mention the Malvina Hotel that does, I'm not a great fish eater, but they do Patagonian toothfish fillets and I had a nice meal there once at the Malvina so that was nice. And I've got to put it out there that the Stanley Arms, The Stanley Arms does the best pizza in the world! In the world, yes, I'm saying that.

Lynne O'Halloran  13:03  
So am I right in thinking that you're returning to the UK this coming autumn?

Helen Taylor  13:07  
Yes, not long now and I shall be heading back to the UK. Yeah.

Lynne O'Halloran  13:12  
Okay, so in terms of food then what will be the first thing you reach for on the supermarket shelves that you've missed out on?

Helen Taylor  13:19  
I think probably an avocado. You play a bit of a lottery here with the avocados you know it's a bit hit and miss. Just to get a fresh one of those would be be very nice. Stanley Growers here do a wonderful job really, you know, keeping everyone you know, topped up with fruit and veg through the year in some really trying conditions, weather conditions. It's amazing. But I think the thing I'm missing most is a good old Devon pasty.

Lynne O'Halloran  13:47  
Devon pasty or a Cornish pasty?

Helen Taylor  13:51  
Well, it's controversial, but I'm from Devon. So yeah, I have to say Devin pasty, but I know what you mean. Absolutely. Some credit for them. Yeah.

Lynne O'Halloran  14:01  
So I think now Helen is probably a good time to reveal that we both grew up in the same town, which is the lovely Brixham in South Devon, 

Helen Taylor  14:11  
We did. 

Lynne O'Halloran  14:12  
I've got quite a strong memory of sitting in your bedroom surrounded by football posters. And you telling me about various players! Am I right in thinking it was Liverpool that was your team?

Helen Taylor  14:24  
Well, obviously Torquay Untited were first.

Lynne O'Halloran  14:27  
They came first everyone's head!

Helen Taylor  14:30  
So yeah, Torquay United and Liverpool. And yeah, they both sort of stuck with me throughout thick and thin. 

Lynne O'Halloran  14:37  
So I was I was looking at Liverpool's Cup winning history and trying to sort of search out when Kevin Keegan was playing for them. So I think we're talking sort of 1975, that kind of era when Liverpool was sort of, you know, at their peak. 

Helen Taylor  14:53  
I think so. 75 certainly 77 wasn't it? 75 76 77 Yeah, would have been around then. Yeah. Your're gonna reveal our age?

Lynne O'Halloran  15:01  
No, I'm not going to. We were tiny, then we were like Babes in Arms. Yeah, I was also remembering that you were allowed to play football with the boys during PE lessons. And in the light of the kind of recent, you know, successes of the women's football team, it made me think how, if my memory is correct, that was actually quite a radical move by the school at the time.

Helen Taylor  15:28  
Yeah, it was actually at the primary school and yeah, it's funny, I was having this conversation with my parents just recently, because I kind of thanked, well, I did thank them, because I still treasure that they bought me a Liverpool football shirt, which was, which was a big thing, you know, back then for girls to you know, have a proper football shirt. Yeah, I did play it at primary school. So, you know, when I did sort of play, they accepted it and so yes, probably a shout out that, you know, the school did did help me, you know, because I've played for many years. I've retired now gracefully. But yeah, I played for many years. And the school did support me in that, you know, in those times, so yeah. In fact, I played in the 5 a side here a couple of months ago, actually, for the police team here in Stanley. I scored a goal, so I haven't met my standards drop..

Lynne O'Halloran  16:18  
So how would you describe the food that you ate growing up? 

Helen Taylor  16:22  
Oh, it was really, you know, I was blessed. Really my mum and dad, you know, they gave us really good home cooki., My mum and dad had a bed and breakfast so there was always plenty of food at all times to feed the guests and you know, feed me if I was hungry. So Friday night was the one night we were allowed a sort of TV dinner, as mum would call it. We were allowed crispy pancakes and things like that, which you know, was what I saw it as a treat, but my mum just thought they were, you know, laden with salt. And they weren't good for us. But they were a treat and it wouldn't kill us. So we were allowed to have it.

Lynne O'Halloran  16:55  
Absolutely. So you're talking about the Findus crispy pancake?

Helen Taylor  17:00  
 Is there any other? 

Lynne O'Halloran  17:03  
A little image has popped up in my mind of like something that's sort of a half circle shaped kind of crimped around the edges? Bit like a pasty! It's a throwback!

Helen Taylor  17:17  
Yeah. That's it. Yeah, they were they were entirely that, weren't they? Yeah, they were just like a pancake, you know, sort of in half covered with bread crumbs, and then a filling, maybe chicken? Yeah, you're making me feel hungry now just talking about it.

Lynne O'Halloran  17:32  
So did your mum try to encourage you to cook or teach you any of her cooking skills? Were you interested in that when you were younger?

Helen Taylor  17:41  
No. She has tried throughout her life and my mom is still going strong. And even now I will, you know, be talking to her and then I'll say like, oh, I had a really nice, you know, beef stroganoff in the restaurant the other day. And she'll go, oh, well, it's really easy to cook, and then she'll proceed to tell me how to cook it. And I'm like, Mom, don't waste your time. Yes, she still thinks I can make a pie and pastry at the drop of a hat. But I can't. Yeah, she's never she's never gonna give up. 

Lynne O'Halloran  18:10  
No, absolutely. So of course, this brings us to domestic science lessons. So I feel like you should know how to make pastry because we must have learned that in domestic science classes Helen.

Helen Taylor  18:23  
All I remember is that our teacher sat and watched Wimbledon. Do you remember that? Yeah, she would watch Wimbledon while we were given a task to make skirt or we were you know, had to do cooking, whetever it was because because one term was cooking and one term was sewing. I think I was still making a cake when everyone else was making the skirt. And I was still making the skirt when everyone else was making the cake! To this day, I wake up in a cold sweat thinking about kedgeree and things like that. So yeah, crazy times.

Lynne O'Halloran  18:57  
I was mortified when I didn't pass my domestic science O level, which is very annoying. I made some kind of ridiculous error, choosing the wrong ingredient or something that didn't fit the criteria of the question. But the sewing side of things for me was always an absolute disaster. And as you know, my father is a tailor. So I was always quite a big disappointment in that regard! Although, although he did get so annoyed with me all the time that he would just sew the skirt for me so I probably had top marks in the in the sewing side of things, but none of it was me!

Helen Taylor  19:37  
Is there an admission there then that none of that was you? And I always used to think, after all these years, that you were a genius at making things.

Lynne O'Halloran  19:46  
No.

You must have left home at 16 then to go and train as a police officer?

Helen Taylor  19:56  
Yeah, I'm doing the math now! Yeah, so I was 18. I joined the police cadets and then joinedpolice straight after that. So I did my A Levels locally at South Devon Technical College. And then I went from there I joined the Police Cadets. And that was up with the Metropolitan Police. And then I just joined the Metropolitan Police after that, to see if I liked it. And then yeah, stayed up there. 

Lynne O'Halloran  20:21  
And so how do you did you find combining that kind of training and work with with cooking your own meals for the first time and being away from home?

Helen Taylor  20:31  
So for the year I was a police cadet and you got given all your your meals. Then when I  started out at Hackney police station in East London, we lived in what was called a section house, which was kind of like a hotel or a sort of hostel for police officers. But they had a canteen there. So you just ate in the canteen, you didn't cook any of your own food. And there was a canteen at the police station, so you'd also eat at the police station. Good portions, I remember, you know, lots of chips, things like that. And they were really, you know, really lovely the cooks, they would, you know, if they knew you were coming back late to the section house, things like that, they'd leave a meal out for you to heat up and. So, you know, it probably wasn't the most balanced diet because you'd kind of eat it all at odd hours. When you're working shifts, that's the worst thing. You come back in and you'd eat a meal and then you'd be tired, like you'd go to sleep after just eating a big dinner or, you know, trying to get something to eat in the early hours of the morning. You know, there was never in those days there wasn't the 24 hour supermarkets available now where you can get something quite healthy. Only a few kebab shops, etc were open!

Lynne O'Halloran  21:41  
So it was a dodgy kebab shop on Hackney high street, on your way home?

Helen Taylor  21:46  
Yeah, some dodgy ones, you knew which ones to go to. But God, I dread to think you know what calories I ate and what, you know, rubbish I ate in those days.

Lynne O'Halloran  21:57  
Yeah, so in your experience then, that kind of working pattern isn't really conducive to a healthy diet.

Helen Taylor  22:05  
Certainly not back then. If you were organised, or you lived lived at home, you could bring a packed lunch in etc. But the rest of us we would have to you know, buy something, and yeah, it wasn't wasn't that healthy. And also you're just eating it all the wrong times, you know, and then you're going home and sleeping and you know, it's it's not a healthy lifestyle, to be honest,

Lynne O'Halloran  22:28  
It must have had an effect on on your attitude to food? Do you blame that on the fact that you're not that into cooking? 

Helen Taylor  22:36  
Now, I would love to blame that! But then I've worked with some people though who are genius cooks and absolutely love it. So I don't know, you know, they worked the same shifts and have done for a while. So I do feel that I can't actually lay the blame entirely on shift work. But looking back now I think I've eaten some rubbish, you know, during my those years.

Lynne O'Halloran  22:57  
Would you describe yourself as a dieter at any point in your in your life, you know, where you've sort of tried to lose weight or sort of change the way that you've been eating?

Helen Taylor  23:06  
No, not really, I do remember that the whole of the station I worked at at the time went on that, do you remember there was that cabbage soup and potato diet? Hideous! But the whole station, or certainly my shift did it for a week or so and apart from a dreadful smell around the station, I don't think anyone lost any weight. To be honest. I think that's probably the only diet I've ever been on. And that was because there was a group of us doing it. I'm not Yeah, I can't stick to diets.

Lynne O'Halloran  23:36  
So do you worry about your health?

Helen Taylor  23:37  
Well, touchwood I am healthy. I'm quite good at eating my fruit and vegetables. I am aware of the science behind it and what I should be eating. So there are occasions when I do try and keep to that, but you know, I am a snacker there's no no getting away from it, you know, I get a little bit of a salt craving and I'm like, Oh, I gotta have some peanuts. I know I should lose some weight but I'm kind of just fortunate that I don't have any sort of health issues. Yeah, you know, I'm a great believer in everything sort of in moderation. A little bit of what you fancy! Yeah. I'm just a stereotypical detective. I do have a drawer full of snacks, you know because you never know where you're gonna have to work through the night and there's nothing worse than not having any snacks about if you're stuck at the station, you know, so yeah, I've learned that.

Lynne O'Halloran  24:33  
Okay, well, thank you, Helen. It's been lovely chatting to you. Now it's time for nugget of knowledge. I'm joined by my co host, Michael O'Halloran, partner in crime so to speak. And for this episode, our topic is chickpeas. We talked in a previous episode, Michael, about how much we love to a chickpea. If you remember, they were part of Madeline's Meals Tuscan Artichoke Salad that I made and you taste tested on the show, where Maddie was the guest.

Michael  25:14  
Sure do. Yeah. tasted great.

Lynne O'Halloran  25:16  
So I thought we'd take a closer look at this humble ingredient.

Michael  25:22  
I've been eating chickpeas for longer than I care to remember now, so it'd be nice to learn a little bit more about them.

Lynne O'Halloran  25:28  
There's two main varieties of chickpeas. One is a larger round light coloured one called I think it's called a Kabuli.

Michael  25:37  
That's the one I think most people will be familiar with, I guess.

Lynne O'Halloran  25:40  
I think so. Yeah, it's common in America and in Europe, but there's also a smaller dark, irregularly shaped Deysi type, which is more common in India and the Middle East, apparently.

Michael  25:53  
Okay, I'm not sure I've had them then. 

Lynne O'Halloran  25:56  
We might have had them, maybe when we were in India? So yeah, two types Deysi and Kabuli. The Deysi one has more of a rough kind of coat. Whereas as you say the Kabuli is a smoother skinned item. Classic chickpea. It's a key ingredient in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine, of course, used probably most popularly in hummus and also in falafel, which I think is made from a chickpea flour. And in Spain. Do you know what they're called in Spain? 

Michael  26:31  
No, I have no idea. 

Lynne O'Halloran  26:32  
No, they're called garbanzo garbanzo bean in Spain. Okay, I do hope I'm pronouncing these things correctly. 

Michael  26:41  
You've probably got the Z wrong, no doubt.

Lynne O'Halloran  26:43  
Oh, do you think so? Does Z said differently in Spanish then? Who knows? I don't know. And obviously it's important in Indian cuisine, you know, you have Chana Masala and it's used in curries and soups. And when it's ground to flour in India, it's known as Gram flour. We've had that whenever I've made cauliflower pakoras or Indian bhajis. India is the biggest producer of chickpeas worldwide at 70%. It's one of the earliest cultivated legumes - and we'll come on to legumes in a minute - there's nine and a half 1000 year old chickpea remains found in the Middle East. 

Michael  27:31  
Remains of chickpeas?

Lynne O'Halloran  27:33  
Yeah, I guess probably in a jar or something like that.

Michael  27:35  
Huddled together...

Lynne O'Halloran  27:39  
And yeah, one of the oldest references to chickpeas appear in early recordings. I don't know what that means? Maybe it means wall paintings or whatever they call them...wall art, cave art. In Turkey, about three and a half 1000 BC, and in France, about 6000 BC. So they've been around a long time. 

Michael  28:01  
Yeah, I don't suppose they were, you know, excavating burial grounds for the chickpeas were they! But as you say,  there's probably evidence to suggest that they were a part of the society at that point. 

Lynne O'Halloran  28:14  
I'm not sure they were a member of the society, but people used to eat them!

Michael  28:20  
I don't know they might have been part of the local debates!

Lynne O'Halloran  28:24  
Yes, or running the council!. So obviously, they're called chickpeas. Some people might refer to them as a bean, and other people refer to them as legumes.

Michael  28:38  
I've never met anyone who refers to them as legumes.

Lynne O'Halloran  28:41  
Well, you're not mixing in the right circles of people. Well, I don't know, maybe legumes is a is a new word. Not a new word, but a word that's becoming more used nowadays. Well, I mean, I've always been a bit confused about the difference between legumes, pulses, beans and peas so I had a little dig around on the internet. So a legume is a plant which apparently has over 20,000 different species and they are a nutritious staple of diets around the world. So that's the plant form. They then tend to have pods and beans and peas and things like that. And that would be technically the pulse which is the edible seed of a legume plant.

Michael  29:28  
Okay, so in the case of chickpea, what is it, the pulse?

Lynne O'Halloran  29:32  
Yeah, so that would be the edible part of the chickpea plant. So the legume refers to the plant and will include its leaves, stems and pods. The plants produce edible seeds that are called pulses. Pulses include beans, lentils, and peas.

Michael  29:49  
Okay, that makes sense. 

Lynne O'Halloran  29:51  
Does that make sense now? So that's cleared that one up? They are a nutritious staple in diets, you know, everywhere around the world, an inexpensive source of protein, vitamins, complex carbohydrates and fibre. So they are a pretty good, all rounder for the diet. And I guess as we've started to eat more of these things, I guess that's where the word legume has come into play as we have become more sophisticated about what we understand about that type of plant.

Michael  30:25  
Or maybe it's just that restaurants prefer to describe them in a bit more eloquent language?

Lynne O'Halloran  30:30  
Maybe. So maybe it's elitism? Yes, possibly. The entire legume plants, I guess, minus the edible bits that they can sell, are often used in agricultural applications. So livestock feed, yeah, things like that. Or as cover crops, which I think must mean, you know, when they are, you know, growing something under cover. 

Michael  30:58  
Under cover?! 

Lynne O'Halloran  31:01  
I'm losing track of that, I just don't I don't know what I'm talking about now. So I'm gonna move on. One thing that I was intrigued by, and I thought you might be interested in is that you can use chickpeas as a coffee substitute. What do you think about that?

Michael  31:19  
I don't know. I'm not sure about that. Not convinced. No. There's a reason why coffee is so popular and not chickpeas as a drink

Lynne O'Halloran  31:28  
Yeah. Well, I mean, it's intriguing because if you don't want to have caffeine in your coffee, then obviously you can buy decaffeinated coffee nowadays, but you could also make decaffeinated coffee out of chickpeas and apparently it's very nice. There's a brand called Back To Nature, they do a chickpea coffee substitute powder. And they've apparently  been used as a caffeine free alternative to coffee for centuries. 

Michael  31:57  
Wow. 

Lynne O'Halloran  31:58  
Yeah, no, I've never heard it either. Generally, I think it's when a country or a community fall on hard times. And they can't afford or can't find coffee. Chickpea coffee is cut into coffee. To make it go further.

Michael  32:16  
There's a theme emerging here with chickpeas being cut into the coffee. Yeah, and  chickpea plants acting as a cover!

Lynne O'Halloran  32:22  
Well, coffee is a drug. So you know, I'm using the right terminology, I think. Yeah. And if they can't get hold of coffee at all, then it's a substance that can you know, scratch the itch of wanting to have a cup of coffee.

Michael  32:35  
But never quite. 

Lynne O'Halloran  32:36  
Yeah, yeah. Probably like having any decaf? I don't know. I've never had decaf and I've only recently got into coffee. So I'm not a good person to to be talking about that. There's an article from a few years ago now, in the Miami Times in May 2011, saying that one example of this happening is in Cuba. So the State-produced coffee was cut with roasted chickpea beans, ground down into a  powder, to make it last last longer and meet demand. And then apparently in 2005, you could pretty much only get pure chickpea coffee. So people mixed it with various kinds of milk, sugar, flavourings, you know, like cinnamon and so on and so forth to make it more more palatable. But yeah, so I thought that was pretty interesting.

Michael  33:26  
I might try it next time we fall on hard times. Yeah.

Lynne O'Halloran  33:32  
Yeah. Good luck. I'll just go back to cups of tea I think. The other intriguing thing about chickpeas is the liquid that you get chickpeas in,  so when you open the can of chickpeas and you put them in the sieve and rinsethem off, the liquid is actually a really good egg substitute. So people who are vegans, you know, they are probably very familiar with using it in cooking. It's called aquafaba. 

Michael  34:01  
It sounds like a pretty trendy sprouting microfiber sprouting bean or something. 

Lynne O'Halloran  34:10  
One of those future foods we've discussed before, but it's quite, it's quite a thick liquid containing a mix of starch, and just really trace amounts of protein, but it's got like a sort of binding and thickening property. Yeah, so you can use it instead of eggs in a cake, in cookies, and also in meringues and mayonnaise. So in the spirit of kind of not wanting to waste food, then it might be worth holding on to it and making a meringue. Although I'm rubbish at making meringues.

Michael  34:44  
So we'd find it probably tucked away in the fridge six months. 

Lynne O'Halloran  34:49  
Probably with a bit of mould on the top. Yeah, so basically, one tablespoon of aquafaba equals one egg yolk, two tablespoons equals one egg white and therefore three tablespoons equals

Michael  35:03  
Not a real egg?

Lynne O'Halloran  35:04  
Yes, a whole egg. The Vegan Society website also flags up chocolate mousse and ice cream as other things you could do with aquafaba. And my favourite little tip, which I will be trying is, you know if you make a cocktail, and it needs to have a sort of fluffy egg top on it, you can use aquafaba instead. Which is ideal because you only use the egg white when you do one of those cocktails and then you're left with the egg. 

Michael  35:32  
Yeah, that's a waste really

Lynne O'Halloran  35:33  
It can be a bit of a waste.

Michael  35:35  
Wow. aquafaba It'll change your life.

Lynne O'Halloran  35:37  
It will definitely. Should we run through the nutritional benefits just quickly again? So an excellent source of carbohydrate, protein, fibre, B vitamins, and minerals. They have a very low glycemic index, which means that they are very useful for people who are diabetic, they prevent sudden surges in blood sugar levels so help control blood sugar. Excellent for gut flora. They contain a soluble fibre which is fermented in the colon and becomes Bifidobacterium, that's an all round good thing, so that's good. And obesity.. chickpeas help to a promote feeling of fullness. So again, yeah, yeah, they can help with weight control and dieting.

Michael  36:34  
it's great. But they also just taste good.

Lynne O'Halloran  36:39  
They do taste good. And in a minute, we're going to taste test some chickpeas but first of all, let's just have a little...  No, let's do that now.

Michael  36:47  
Okay. Oh, I didn't know this, this a surprise actually.

Lynne O'Halloran  36:52  
So what we've got here Michael are four different types of, or four different varieties, of chickpea snack, they're made by a company called Brave and I bought them in a well known supermarket. 

Michael  37:04  
I haven't seen these before. Are they relatively new on the scene?

Lynne O'Halloran  37:08  
They might be, they were in the sort of vegan kind of corner of the supermarket.

Michael  37:16  
Vegan corner! That's a bit disparaging!

Lynne O'Halloran  37:18  
You know where they have all sorts of more innovative produces.

Michael  37:21  
It's been there for 9000 years!

Lynne O'Halloran  37:22  
Yeah, more innovative products. But they haven't been existing for 9000 years covered in dark chocolate.

Michael  37:28  
No, which looks interesting.

Lynne O'Halloran  37:30  
So we've got four taste test here. We're going to do sweet no we're going to do savoury first I think yeah, so first of all, have a taste of that one and tell me what you think. Well, you taste it and see if you can guess what it is

Michael  37:46  
it's kind of smoky, it doesn't it doesn't taste like a chickpea. It is more like a, not a crisp but that kind of product. It's a kind of nice snack with a chilled beer.

Lynne O'Halloran  38:03  
Yeah, it's a bit halfway between a crisp and a breadstick.

Michael  38:07  
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I can see myself tucking into them in this hot weather.

Lynne O'Halloran  38:15  
Give them back! You've got three different flavours to try. So that one is smoky barbecue 132 calories per portion.

Michael  38:23  
Whats a portion?

Lynne O'Halloran  38:24  
Well, it's probably not enough I'd imagine. 30 grammes I suspect I can't read it upside down on the pocket. Seven grammes of protein five grammes of fibre so yeah, pretty tasty. Try the next one. What's it taste like?

Michael  38:41  
Yeah, that's your classic kind of salted crisp.

Lynne O'Halloran  38:44  
Yeah, they're just plain sea salt. I think I prefer the barbecue.

Michael  38:47  
I like both. I think they would work a treat as a bar snack.

Lynne O'Halloran  38:51  
Out of those two, I prefer the smoky barbecue. That'd be my choice.

Michael  38:55  
I could go with either.

Lynne O'Halloran  38:56  
You go with either. Okay, so that's the savoury What about the sweet ones? Okay, so try try that one.

Michael  39:05  
So this is obviously chocolate.

Lynne O'Halloran  39:11  
No?

Michael  39:11  
I don't feel as if I'm very helpful. Because  it's a chocolate covered chickpea. And I could eat as well. 

Lynne O'Halloran  39:21  
This is all good. 

Michael  39:22  
It's nice and crunchy actually. Yeah, they're great, crunchier than the savoury alternative, I would say.

Lynne O'Halloran  39:33  
Good. You can also have those on ice cream.

Michael  39:35  
Yeah, that'd be nice.

Lynne O'Halloran  39:37  
Like a topping and we've got some ice cream. Yeah, so now I could eat those. They're lovely. Yeah. And weirdly, they've got less calories than the other two. 

Michael  39:44  
Really?

Lynne O'Halloran  39:45  
Not a lot. 129 calories per portion were as the other two were 132 and 136.

Michael  39:51  
You wouldn't think that wpuld you? And it's dark chocolate, of course. And we all know, dark chocolate is good for you.

Lynne O'Halloran  39:56  
Well, that's what they say. Okay, what about this one? Because it's the last one.

Michael  40:00  
What have we got here? That is a chocolatey one.

Lynne O'Halloran  40:03  
Yeah, two different colours. So try one of each.

Michael  40:07  
That feels like more of a milk chocolate. And then a white chocolate which was again a bit sweeter. These are all good.

Lynne O'Halloran  40:19  
Well, these are called cookies and cream. 

Michael  40:22  
Okay. They are really good snack foods. Let's face it they're probably not healthy. But they're less bad for you then a bag of crisps, perhaps?

Lynne O'Halloran  40:33  
Yeah, like I say, I think they'd be more filling than a bag of crisps. The only downside is that they weren't cheap. 

Michael  40:40  
Ah, Okay.

Lynne O'Halloran  40:42  
So I would say that they were about £2.40 for a pack

Michael  40:47  
That's alot. So they need to improve on that somehow.

Lynne O'Halloran  40:51  
But then maybe, you know, if more people ate them, then they would, er, the price would come down.

Michael  40:56  
Yeah. Yeah. So that feels like a bit of a luxury snack.

Lynne O'Halloran  40:59  
Yeah, definitely. I'm just looking at the back of the packet here. The chocolate one, so let's look at the dark chocolate 65% less sugar than a chocolate bar, 4 grammes of gut loving fibre and 'stay fuller for longer'. So they are you know, promoting it. So yeah. Only for the more well off amongst us.

Michael  41:20  
Yeah. And, you know, it's just not something that you'd be buying regularly is it really at that price?

Lynne O'Halloran  41:26  
No, because I think you could easily work your way through one bag.

Michael  41:29  
Year relatively quickly. 

Lynne O'Halloran  41:30  
Yeah. And even though crisps have gone up they're twice the price. So you need to eat half as many. Good. Okay, good. Thank you for tasting those, Michael. 

Michael  41:40  
I'll carry on. 

Lynne O'Halloran  41:41  
We're impressed. But they're a bit expensive. 

Michael  41:43  
Yep. 

Lynne O'Halloran  41:45  
So last but not least, I just was going to run through some other uses of hummus, not hummus, chickpeas which are obviously in hummus. Making your own hummus is so easy, I think more people should do it. It's got to be better than the stuff you buy in the supermarket ready made which can be a bit sloppy and a bit blurgh... And I also like Jamie Oliver's smashed chickpeas recipe, which doesn't need tahini. And I've also tried making Ottoleggie's hummus from a book that he has called The Test Kitchen, which was a bit of a faff although probably worth it. He wants you to remove the thin skin that surrounds the chickpea,

Michael  42:21  
I bet that's a good job. 

Lynne O'Halloran  42:23  
Yeah. But it does give you a much smoother humous. So it did taste lovely, but yeah, a bit of a faff. You had to sort of tip the chickpeas onto a dry tea towel and then put another tea towel on top and kind of rub them together. And then the skins kind of fall off but obviously you got to pick them all off really.

Michael  42:42  
Yeah, that's you gotta have a lot of time on your hands.

Lynne O'Halloran  42:45  
Yeah, and be a perfectionist. So other things we've had chickpeas with are chicken and chickpeas tagine. Falafels we've mentioned , chana dal we've mentioned, cauliflower and chickpea curry we've had before. The Italians use chickpeas in pasta dishes. So the Italian word for chickpea is 

Michael  43:07  
'ceci'

Lynne O'Halloran  43:07  
'ceci', thank you. And I did find in one of my cookbooks, a very interesting dish that involves ordinary you know, boiled pasta, so dried pasta cooked, and then combined with dry pasta that's been fried in olive oil. And then it's combined with a tomato sauce that uses aquafaba liquid and then has chickpeas on top. So my recommendation to the world in general is embrace the chickpea.

Michael  43:38  
Yeah. And my new word of the day is, guess?

Lynne O'Halloran  43:43  
Aquafaba.

Michael  43:43  
Aquafaba, embrace the future.

Lynne O'Halloran  43:46  
And ceci. 

Michael  43:48  
Ceci

Lynne O'Halloran  43:49  
Ceci

Michael  43:51  
Arivaderci.

Lynne O'Halloran  43:52  
My little ceci!  Okay, thank you, Michael. 

Michael  43:56  
Bye, 

Lynne O'Halloran  43:57  
Bye. Thanks for listening. Before I go, just a little reminder, if you enjoyed the show, please tell your friends. You can share an episode from your podcast player or from my website or you can easily share one of my social media posts on Instagram or Facebook. If youre kind enough to share an episod, I'll give you a personal shout out on the show to say thank you. What more could you ask for? Thanks in advance for helping me spread the word about my podcast Bye. Thank you to Rick Simmons from The Content Podcast podcast for his help and advice and thank you to www.pixelby for the music.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai