Food bites 0804

PILI, PIRI, PERI

The Portuguese, Angolans and Mozambicans call it piri piri. In East Africa it is pili pili, meaning pepper pepper (as opposed to pili, which is just pepper, and not nearly so hot). In SA, we tend to call it peri peri, following the Americans, Malawians and Nando's. Pili, piri and peri are all vernacular terms for the African bird's eye chilli, which grows all over the continent in wild and domestic form - the wild ones, as you'd expect, are hotter. These chillies are used to give peri-peri sauce its toothsome bite. The other things that go into it, depending on the recipe, are citrus peel, onion, garlic, pepper, salt, lemon juice, bay leaves, paprika, pimento, basil, oregano and tarragon. Or you could just buy it.

GM HEATS UP

The latest development in the field of genetically modified foods is a type of wheat bred to exude a pheromone that scares aphids away. Professor Maurice Moloney of Rothamsted Research in the UK, where the first seeds were planted last month, says: "Generally GM has been used in a mode whereby you have got to kill something. In this case what we are really doing is putting a no-parking zone on the leaf of the plant saying 'don't come here'." The good thing is that it may reduce the need for pesticides. The bad thing, possibly, is that the aphids may be forced to develop a taste for maize, or tea, or buffalo.

Meanwhile, Canada's genetically modified "enviropigs" - which sound like Jo'burg 4x4 drivers but are in fact pigs that digest food more efficiently, thus making less waste - have had their fitness for human consumption questioned. So they might live to digest another day.

BIG IN ALBERTA

If you're left with no Easter eggs at the end of the hunt, here's an easy one to find. The Vegreville egg in Canada (where the enviropigs come from), holds the record for the world's largest Ukrainian-style Easter egg (yes, there are other big Ukrainian-style Easter eggs). It is three-and-a-half storeys high and weighs 2.5 tons. You can't miss it.