Tagliatelle Alla Bolognese And The Co$t Of Food
Labels: home life, pasta, she cooks
Thursday, September 11, 2008
I made a rich, meaty ragù early this week. Bolognese to be exact, served with tagliatelle like they traditionally do in Bologna.
Tagliatelle alla Bolognese
All very mundane and unremarkable, I'm sure you'll agree.
However, the extremely remarkable point to this entry is the ingredients for said ragù cost a whopping 30 euros (S$60). Heavens to Murgatroyd! It's not like I used Kobe beef or flew in fresh herbs that grow only in certain regions in the Alps which only spring up specific times of the year and one has to risk life and limb to get at them. You know, stunts like that.
The reason for it is this: except for the 600g of ground beef, everything else was an import product. For a certain housewife - me - this means having to pay up to three or four more times for the same item found back home. Rest assured I strongly encouraged the two men to finish up every bit of pasta and if they wanted to lick the plates, I wouldn't be stopping them either. Whatever leftover sauce was sent packing to the freezer to be resurrected another day.
On a side note, I find myself gawking at prices regardless of which side of the pond I'm in. Back in Europe, I would lament about the prices at the asian specialty store, but still cough up all the same. A girl's got to have her belachan and pandan leaves, you know. Over here in Beijing, I cringe when the exact same brand of sausages at the Plus cost 2.85 euros (a bottle of 6) can be had for a small price of 7.50 euros.
On the flip side, eating out is cheap (for us) and we now have a legitimate reason to do so and we have - with a vengeance.
So really, it's not too bad if (western) ingredients are crazy expensive here. Unless you're like me, where cooking's a hobby but the prices have somewhat killed the joy a bit. I still cook, albeit more conservatively with my choices nowadays.
In any case, where are we headed off to again this evening?
The Dutchess of Cookalot whipped this up at 9:46 pm
SIG: And which little bird told you we are returning home this month? LOL. If there are no glitches, we are flying back to the Dutch nest for a visit. I will be buying pandan leaves and a couple of dry ingredients required for Malay and Peranakan dishes.
