Take One Can | Lola Milne
Take One Can: 80 Delicious Meals From The Cupboard
By Lola Milne
Intro: Welcome to the number one cookbook podcast, Cookery by the Book with Suzy Chase. She's just a home cook in New York City, sitting at her dining room table talking to cookbook authors.
Lola Milne: I'm Lola Milne and my latest cookook, which came out last week is called Take One Can.
Suzy Chase: Canned food seem really relevant right now. We have the Coronavirus making its way around the world, natural disasters, and God knows what else is coming down the pike, so I will weave some preparedness questions throughout this cookbook chat. Now on with the show.
Suzy Chase: The UK version of this cookbook is called Take One Tin and the US version is called Take One Can. I love that. Also, the brilliant thing about this cookbook is anyone can find canned goods anywhere, the grocery store, the convenience store or Target or Kmart, and even the rest stop off the highway; and they're inexpensive. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Lola Milne: When I was kind of coming to the idea of doing this book about cans or tins, I sort of realized that actually I cook with them all the time and probably most other people do too. The other great benefits about them, one of which being that they are super cheap and delicious, meaning that really anybody can cook something great from a can. You don't need to have a huge budget or a huge kitchen or anything like that.
Suzy Chase: There's not another cookbook out there like this. Did you research cookbooks about tins and cans?
Lola Milne: Well, I didn't even like see the whole book, but I've got this box of cookery book cover postcards and one of the cookery book covers is a book of canned cooking. I think it is an American book.
Suzy Chase: Oh, cool. From back in the day?
Lola Milne: Yeah, from back in the day. That's the only thing that I really saw that was really all about cans.
Suzy Chase: I know you say there's snobbery and silly perception around food that comes in a can. Why do you think that is?
Lola Milne: I feel like people see cans as quite an old-fashioned way of eating, kind of reminiscent of rationing or hard times where you couldn't afford to buy fresh. And I feel like there's a perception that because it is technically not fresh because it's cooked, it's not good, and there's a real focus now on like fresh eating, fresh food. Actually, a lot of the fresh food that we have now has traveled halfway across the world. It probably isn't actually that fresh. Canned food is picked and processed within an hour sometimes, and so in some ways it's kind of fresher than fresh, which I don't think people realize.
Suzy Chase: How can buying canned foods help out with a huge food waste problem?
Lola Milne: Well, a major factor is that they don't go off for ages. The supermarket isn't chucking out all of the cans at the end of every week because they've gone out of date and you're not going to do the same either. The classic bagged salads that you open and the next day it's wilting and smells really dodgy, you don't have that problem with cans. And then I feel like the way they're made is also quite a lot less wasteful because with fresh, a lot of vegetables or fruit that are grown are discarded because they don't meet the perfect image that the consumer expects or the supermarket thinks the consumer expects.
Lola Milne: Whereas with canned, I think they can use a kind of broad, visual range of vegetables. Like with a tomato you're going to peel it and chop it. You're not going to see what it looked like originally. And with canned tomatoes, specifically, I know that they use the slightly green ones to make tomato juice so I feel like it's just a less wasteful process in general.
Suzy Chase: I also liked that you didn't include canned meat. All canned meat is gross, right?
Lola Milne: Yeah, I mean, I did consider it briefly, but the scope for that isn't super broad. Yeah, I threw that by the wayside.
Suzy Chase: If we're looking to spend a little more on ingredients, what do you recommend as a splurge?
Lola Milne: I think that tin fish is, if you can afford it, worth spending a bit more on. Slightly more expensive tuna definitely has a better texture, a better flavor, and I love that it comes in nice olive oil so you can actually use that to maybe dress your salad or use as the oil to cook your onions or garlic in if it's going to be in a sauce. I mean, a good tin tuna, I think, is just so delicious.
Lola Milne: And then another thing that I kind of spend a bit more on is tin pulses. I normally buy organic if I can. I think they tend to be slightly tender, like they've been cooked a bit longer than like [bullet 00:04:59] chickpeas often, and the liquid they come in definitely is more flavorsome. And that might sound a bit odd, but I use the water they come in as a sort of stock replacement, so I just add the end if I'm making a soup or stew.
Suzy Chase: A surprising ingredient for me in this cookbook was canned figs, so interesting. Tell me about those.
Lola Milne: They're one of the tins that I was kind of bowled over by when I was developing the recipes. They are super, intensely figgy and juicy. I would say a hundred zillion times better than a fresh fig that's not at its best. I mean, sure if you're in Italy on holiday and go and buy figs from the market and they've just been picked that day. But in the UK when I get fresh figs, they're just always disappointing and a bit under ripe or dry or something. Canned figs are great alternative.
Suzy Chase: Right now, as we speak, the Coronavirus is spreading across the world and government officials warn that things may get worse before they get better. The virus went from 230 cases two days ago to 546 here in the US. Some of us will have to work at home. Some of us will have to go into isolation for a few days. And if we're asked to stay home for a period of time, I'd love to hear your suggestions for stockpiling canned goods.
Lola Milne: I did given to the stockpiling slightly last week. I bought some different lentils, chickpeas, cannelloni beans. I got some black beans. I also got some tinned whole plum tomatoes, more flexible then the pre-chopped ones. You can use them in any recipe basically that calls for tomatoes. And then I think it's great to have a few different fish like anchovies are just an amazing one for adding extra savoriness to a multitude of things like pastas and sauces, and making it into addressing. Just always good to have on hand. Tuna is just one of my all time favorites to have, and then sardines are a wonder fish because you can just open the can and jazz them up a little bit with whatever you've got around, and sticking them some toast and got yourself a great supper.
Lola Milne: I don't know, based on the fact you want to be able to go out for a few days, few weeks, it's always good to have some fruit in there, so maybe some peaches, some figs, pineapple. Make sure you get all your vitamins and minerals. And then another thing, that is not a can but it's a jar, is sauerkraut. I like to put sauerkraut on everything and it's just really great to have as a kind of thing thrown into like salad if you haven't got anything fresh around. Especially on cheese on toast. Put it in like pasta sauce with lentils. It's just often a really good thing to add a bit of crunch and a bit of tart balance to things.
Suzy Chase: I feel like I have lots of cans sitting in my pantry, but I have no plan for recipes. I'd love to chat with you about two of the recipes that caught my eye. First, you have a super simple classic tomato soup recipe on page 62. In case you don't want to stock up on Campbell's tomato soup, you can use canned tomatoes instead. Can you describe this?
Lola Milne: It basically starts with sweating the classic trio of onion and celery and carrot, which are the building blocks to lots of sauces and soups and stews. Cooking the vegetables really slowly creates a delicious mellow sweetness and then you chuck in your tomatoes. You can use chopped or whole canned tomatoes with a little teensy bit of sugar, helps with the tomatoes acidity. And then it's a super quick one, you just cook it for 20 minutes or so, blend it and add just a touch of red wine vinegar, which just really helps the tomato's sweetness to pop.
Suzy Chase: I have about 15 cans of tuna at the moment. I can only think of maybe two things to do with a can of tuna. For your creative to cook with canned tuna, let's talk about the roasted potato and tuna niçoise on page 103. Can you tell us about that?
Lola Milne: That's actually one of my favorite recipes in the book. It's a cheeky to call it a niçoise because it's not very classic. But I hope I haven't offended any niçoise purest out there. I basically have a real love for potatoes. Roasting them just make some soft and creamy inside with a lovely crest outside. There's the crunchy gem lettuce and some beans that you've just taken the edge off. Those textures with the soft potato is delicious. And then the tuna, which is kind of boosted by a load of anchovies in the dressing, and it's got some tangy Dijon mustard and then salty capers and garlic. White wine vinegar, just add a bit out of acidity. You could you use red wine vinegar or cider vinegar as well, and it's just a super simple party solid.
Suzy Chase: I love the small size of this cookbook combined with the darling illustrations and the photographs. Talk a little bit about those.
Lola Milne: Me and my editor, we thought it would be really great if the book kind of echoed the format and size of the can, so that's why it's kind of like that short little book and I wanted it to be really usable. And so this format really feels like an accessible kind of size and shape.
Lola Milne: And then the illustrations, I'm in love with these illustrators. They're called We are Out of Office and they're based be out of office and they're based in Holland. And I just found them on Instagram basically, and I just loved what they do. I felt like the illustrations needed to be reminiscent of the kind of beautiful old illustrated cans like the beautiful Portuguese tins of fish and things like that but with a kind of more modern, more graphic style and color palette. I think they really nailed that in their design. They also needed to work well with the sort of pared back, colorful images inside.
Suzy Chase: And you can carry this book in your bag when you go to the grocery store to get your Coronavirus cans.
Lola Milne: Yeah, absolutely. You can take it anywhere. It's great.
Suzy Chase: Yesterday I made your recipe for crab fried rice on page 88. Can you describe this recipe and talk a little bit about canned crab?
Lola Milne: This recipe eventually came from my love of egg fried rice, which I always make when I'm sort of like using up bits that I've got around. You just need some leftover rice and then flavorings like chili oils, sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic, and then in this version I've added canned crab, which is delicious and so much cheaper than fresh crab.
Suzy Chase: Now for my segment called my favorite cookbook, aside from this cookbook, what is your all-time favorite cookbook and why?
Lola Milne: If I had to choose one, it's probably The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden. I just always go back to it and I love reading all of the stories and the history that is intertwined with the recipes and I'm always really fascinated by things about food which is bound up with identity and all of the stories that people have found out with food and memories and all of that. That cookbook is a really good one for that.
Suzy Chase: Where can we find you on the web and social media?
Lola Milne: Find me on Instagram, Lola_Milne; and on my website, which is lolamilne.com.
Suzy Chase: Cheap, long lasting and time saving, the humble can deserves it's place in your pantry. Thanks, Lola, for coming on Cookery by the Book Podcast.
Lola Milne: Thanks so much for having me.
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