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More of the Tooth, and Not So Toothsome

 According to Vet Andy, Nell now appears to have her full complement of adult teeth. He gave her a check up after I found a baby back tooth she’d be clacking around the floor this morning. I swapped it for a piece of sausage, which I think she thought was a fair exchange. I now have three of her baby teeth which I shall probably keep for a while (in a fit of sentimentality) and then think, ‘Why on EARTH am I keeping these manky things?’ and bin them (because I am not a sentimental person). Yesterday evening, Nell was going absolutely berserk so perhaps a very wobbly tooth might have been the reason. Vet Andy says she now has no excuse for going berserk as her baby teeth have all popped out. And that is the tooth. 

Every now and again I buy something exotic from the supermarket. I then put it in the kitchen cupboards, forget about it, find it again when I give the kitchen cupboards a tidy out, and then decide to try it, usually whilst trying to remember what triggered me to buy it in the first place. Today, it was capers. These are capers…


They are the immature and unripened green flower buds of the caper bush ‘Capparis spinosa’ and are either dried or brined. You can create something similar using the seed pods of nasturtiums. The ones I had bought, probably to use in some interesting but long forgotten Mediterranean recipe I took a fancy to, were brined. I opened the jar. They looked like manky little pickled peas. I like peas. I tried one. I offered one to Andy, which he declined, probably because of the look on my face. 

‘How are they?’ said he.
‘Different,’ said I. ‘Very salty.’ 

I’m not a great fan of salty stuff. Still, I stirred some into the bowl of salad I had made myself for lunch and gamely ate the salad. All the while I was thinking, ‘These remind me of something,’ but I couldn’t think what. And ‘I’ll maybe have a bit of homemade ginger cake next, just to take away the taste.’ I put the opened jar of capers in the fridge along with other recently discovered treasures: harissa paste and sun-dried tomatoes in oil. It’s only a small jar, I thought. I’ll probably work my way through them eventually. Perhaps if I rinse them, they won’t be so salty. Perhaps I can disguise them with another ingredient, like I have to disguise all vegetables for Andy.

I’ve just realised what it is capers taste like. Green olives. 

I can’t stand olives. 


Comments

Anonymous said…
I can’t stand brined capers either, sadly Himself loves them. Until one day I was presented with a recipe that required the capers to be fried in butter. So, for the sake of harmony, I agreed to try it. And it is delicious. The texture of the capers changes to crunchy, making all the difference. You could I guess even strain out the offending solids and just have the flavoured melted butter. In our recipe it was drizzled over fish, but whatever. If you really feel compelled to finish the jar.. try it!
(Mrs Duck)
30 May 2023 at 21:23
Denise said…
Thank you for your handy caper tip, Mrs Duck! Frying anything in butter is sure to improve it. I shall most definitely try this out with the rest of the jar.
31 May 2023 at 07:32
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