Video: Jack Monroe on cheap substitutes for fancy-pants ingredients

[KateMumsnet]

On Wednesday cook, poverty campaigner and MN blogger Jack Monroe came into the Towers for a rather cracking webchat. While she was here, she shared a few tips on how to cut costs by replacing expensive ingredients with less pricey ones. Have a look at the video (and share far and wide if you like it!) - and do leave your own frugal food tips on this thread.

@ AskBasil

I brought her book after reading the web chat. My shopping list for next week seems to be mainly herbs

You actually cannot make a proper risotto with long grain rice.

You can make a nice pilau type dish, but a proper risotto relies on the short grain rice which breaks down starches while cooking to give it it's unique texture.

I remain unconvinced about swapping carrots for sweet potatoes as well, nutritionally. But thats maybe because of how we use sweet potatoes.

RhondaJean these are things that when you have literally no money mean you can use some of your old fav recipes or at least still feel like you are not eat 'cheap' food.

I get that love. I'm somewhat unsure of the tone of all of this though - I think it's very important to make sure people have access to information on healthy and affordable food when they're really hard up but, and I find this quite hard to articulat so bear with me, but I find the rationalisation of it being okay to swap things and it doesn't change anything almost justifies that it is okay to let people exist on tiny incomes.

No it isn't the same, let's not pretend it is.

Have you tried pudding rice instead of risotto rice rhondajean?

I agree, long grain rice will not make risotto. But pudding rice is much cheaper than risotto and has the same starchy consistency, I reckon that would make a much better exchange.

Another pov Rhonda is that we in the UK make fetishes of other people's 'poor food' - Jamie Oliver in particular, I'm looking at you - which actually then turns it into an expensive food because we're not using local ingredients.

Risotto in Italy is a cheap, filling food. Sweet potatoes are a cheap, starchy staple in Central American (I think, hopefully my lack of food geography doesn't negate my point ). But neither of them are native to this country and therefore they are expensive, imported foods. Eating what's local would cut food bills for everyone.

Although I don't think Jack is saying it's OK to be skint. She's saying one of the most grinding things about being skint is eating cheap, boring food and presenting some alternatives.

she should have just drink gin instead of eating

AskBasil, I have tried pudding rice - it does work!

I keep meaning to Katherina - but then I end up making rice pudding instead.

Brilliant post Wilson

Thanks plenty. On the JO webchat there was a very articulate poster whose GGPs had come from terrible poverty in Italy pointing out that grinding up chestnuts to make flour hadn't been done because it was chi-chi, it had been done because there was literally nothing left to eat (and it actually tasted bogging, but it was filling). It really made me think about food fashion, for want of a better word, and it's impact on food systems.

Not for a moment suggesting if someone is poor they shouldn't aspire to eat risotto of course. But that maybe (I'm Scottish) we should be celebrating pearl barley and other grains that cost pennies too.

interesting.thanks