Table talk

Flipping marvellous

Those characters at industry charity Hospitality Action are a right bunch of tossers. They'll be getting out the frying pans at Hotelympia next month and encouraging everyone to test a wide range of non-stick kitchenware with their pancake-flipping dexterity. The event is being advertised as "the most exciting frying pan trial this century." Come on, it's for charity.

It's not in his nature

Shaun Hill, owner of the Michelin-starred Merchant House restaurant in Ludlow, Shropshire, was talking the other day about his recent holiday in the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean. He thoroughly enjoyed the experience but was quick to point out that he did not visit the remote volcanic archipelago to enjoy its stunning wildlife. "I'm not a nature freak, far from it," he said. "Oven-ready chickens are more my thing."

Thick or what?

Multi-national food firms are battling to protect their sauces from bizarre EU rules that discriminate against anything which fails to pass a little-known European lump test. Any tinned sauce containing more than 20% lumps is not classified as a sauce, but as a vegetable. The difference - determined by putting the sauce through a sieve - is crucial as vegetables face import and export tariffs that are up to 10 times higher than sauces. And with more and more consumers preferring sauces containing lumps - or "textural interest" in food trade jargon - producers say their costs are soaring. About half of the £140m-worth of sauces exported from the EU are attracting high "vegetable" tariffs instead of low "sauce" tariffs. The European Commission may be persuaded to extend its lump limit for sauces to 33%.

Here's a tongue twister for insurance firms

A Stockport food manufacturer wants to hear from insurance firms willing to safeguard the tongue of its star taster to the tune of £1m. Sanjay Sighat samples Indian dishes for the Authentic Food Company. Managing director Lak Basran said that insuring Sighat's prime tool - his taste-buds - was absolutely essential.

Those were the days

Gravetye Manor, the swish country house hotel in East Grinstead, West Sussex, has been pampering guests since 1958. Prices have naturally gone up since the early days, but the reality of the increase was underlined to proprietor Peter Herbert, who was recently shown a bill from that first year by an old guest visiting again. "He had a single room and full breakfast, but was dining with friends so didn't eat with us in the evening," said Herbert. And the bill in 1958? About £1.75 in decimal money. Or 100th of the £175 it would cost today.

Every dog has his dish of the day

Dog meat restaurant owners in South Korea are rallying around an academic they have dubbed "Doctor Dog meat", to counter foreign criticism of canine cuisine in the run-up to this year's football World Cup. Some 100 dog meat restaurant owners have set up a federation to promote the meat to foreign tourists. In a seminar "Doctor Dog meat", Chungchong university professor Ahn Yong-keun, presented strategies for opening dog meat restaurant franchises, developing recipes, and creating Web sites to promote dog meat during the World Cup. The doctor himself boasts 350 canine recipes.