Peameal Bacon is an Ontario Thing

Slices of fried peameal back bacon for breakfast today

Yesterday when we were wandering around St Lawrence Market, we were surprised to see in the butcher section something called "peameal bacon". 

I had never heard of it before, but it is basically wet-cured back bacon covered in cornmeal, and is usually done in Ontario.

Peameal bacon with fried eggs and potatoes

Historically in England back in the 1700s, boneless pork loin was trimmed and cured before it was rolled in dried and ground yellow peas to extend the meat's shelf life. Since the end of World War I, the pork loin has been rolled in cornmeal.

We were curious enough to try it this morning for breakfast. I had it with three small eggs over easy with potatoes and rye toast.

The slices of peameal bacon had the cornmeal on the edge and was fried to give it a slight crunch. The back bacon itself is salty, but tender, thanks to the wet brine.

Now we know!

Shoes Reveal the Human Condition

Colourful pairs of car-themed shoes in the museum

Who knew people would be so fascinated by shoes? Sonja Bata did. She married into the Bata shoe family business that has been around for 131 years. Her husband, Thomas J Bata was sent to Toronto after World War II to expand the company in Canada, and wherever they travelled, Sonja would collect shoes.

By the late 1970s she had collected over 1,500 pairs of shoes by the late 1970s, and a friend and anthropologist suggested she house them in a museum.

Silk shoes for Chinese women with bound feet

The Bata family set up the Bata Shoe Foundation in 1979, and then in 1995 opened the Bata Shoe Museum on Bloor Street West, near the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Today the collection has over 15,000 pairs of shoes!

I had visited over two decades ago and so it was fun to go check it out again. And here's a pro tip: if you have a Toronto Public Library card, you can visit the Bata Shoe Museum free by registering online!

After we went in, we were advised to start from the bottom and work our way up the building. In the basement is the permanent exhibition, showing an array of very old shoes, from depictions of sandals on Egyptian mummy cases, to tiny silk embroidered slippers worn by Chinese women with bound feet, to a French chestnut crushing clog with craggy spikes, and Nike sneakers designed by Pharrell Williams.

Perugia's patented shankless shoe

The next floor up had an exhibition about the Italian-French shoemaker Andre Perugia (1897-1977). He was the son and grandson of shoemakers, and Perugia went on to innovate when it came to fashion-forward designs that showed off women's feet in creative ways.

He made shoes that had a basket-like weave, or detailed button closures with a scalloped edge, and designed mules that had no heel so it looked like the woman was on tip toe.

Another intriguing design is a shankless shoe, where the middle part of the shoe that connects the sole and heel is missing. Perugia's design was first mentioned in 1934 and he patented it in 1940. One wonders if it is even comfortable to wear, but reports of the time claimed it was... if so, why aren't there more shankless shoes?

Perugia worked with fashion houses like Dior and Schiaparelli, and his place in fashion was immortalised in a painting that featured such giants as Christian Dior, Hermes, and Guerlain. 

Cactus-themed boots by Charlie Dunn

Another fun exhibition is called Rough & Ready: A History of the Cowboy Boot. It takes visitors on the history of the cowboy boot since the late 19th century to the present. Some are purely for practical use, others are decorative, like boots decorated with cactus plants complete with flowers designed by Charlie Dunn, who has been called the Michelangelo of cowboy boots, and there's also a beautiful pair featuring turquoise peacocks by Rocketbuster Boots.

And yes, there's even a pair of boots featuring Woody from the Toy Story animated franchise. 

The final exhibition room is about Vindolanda, a Roman auxiliary fort and settlement just south of Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland, England. The excavation site there has unearthed many pairs of Roman footwear.

Originally it was believed these military sites only housed men, but there were also women and children there, and they have also found socks, bowls, and cups. They have also unearthed messages like, "Please send me socks and underwear" to the price of beer, to "I'm getting kicked out of the social club house", which gives archeologists an even better picture of the lives of the people in Vindolanda. 

French boots worn to crush chestnuts

Really interesting, and as I said before, who isn't interested in footwear? It's a fantastic way to understand how people lived thousands of years ago.

For that we have Sonja Bata to thank!

Bata Shoe Museum

327 Bloor Street West

Toronto, ON

416 979 7799

All Hail the Best Restaurant in Asia

This modern French place the top restaurant in Asia

Last night was the Asia's 50 Best Restaurants awards held in Seoul and it was so great to see chef Daniel Calvert's restaurant Sezanne clinch the top spot this year.

He is a young British chef from Surrey, southeast England, who knew from the age of 13 he wanted to cook. And he's a damn fine cook. He has the talent, skills and finesse, and being in Tokyo suits him perfectly, where precision artistry is appreciated. 

In 2016 Calvert came to Hong Kong to help chef James Henry open a French bistro called Belon for Black Sheep Restaurants.

Calvert (second from left) with his team last night

He thought he'd only be there for six months, but in that time he fell in love with the city and became head chef the following year. However, the initial excitement of Belon had dissipated by then.

"When I took over Belon, it was not doing well. It was very hard to get people to change their minds and eat here again. So I would say going from this restaurant, which was empty, to turning it into what it is today, that's probably my biggest achievement," he said in August 2020 when he was leaving the city.

People were not used to the expensive items on the menu, like three pieces of asparagus and dots of caviar at HK$900 (US$115), and chicken wing stuffed with matsutake mushroom and foie gras at HK$348.

Instead of lowering prices or doing gimmicky dishes, Calvert persisted and in 2017 that year Belon earned a Michelin star. 

His attention to detail and taste are impeccable

After he moved to Tokyo, the Covid-19 pandemic postponed the opening for about a year in 2021. But Calvert was ready to show off his culinary talent. Six months after Sezanne opened, he earned the restaurant's first Michelin star, and its second in 2022.

Some dishes that diners have raved about are duck foie gras slow poached with chicken leg and soy sauce, Shanghai hairy crab marinated in yellow wine with rice, and mille crepes with Australian black truffles. 

When he was in Hong Kong he was curious to learn more about Chinese ingredients and condiments, and incorporated them into his dishes; same goes for what he has discovered in Japan.

Meanwhile on Asia's 50 Best Restaurants, Sezanne ranked second last March, and last night climbed to number one.

Now in his mid-30s, Calvert claims to have no secrets to his success. "I'm not the greatest chef in the world -- I can't attest to that. But I do think I work harder than most people. I think that was the key."

We're so pleased to see him do so well. Hard work rewarded in spades.

More Babies Born in UK than HK

Fewer people having babies in Hong Kong these days

In another sign that Hongkongers are leaving the city in droves is the birth rate... which has increased in England and Wales. Almost 2,000 babies were born in these two places as opposed to the parents' hometown, due to migration using BNO pathways.

"When the young people left, they also took their fertility to other places," said Paul Yip Siu-fai, a population expert at the University of Hong Kong. "We are very likely to fall into a low-fertility trap and have little chance of escaping it."

The red line shows birth rate, black death rate

Britain's Office for National Statistics revealed the number of newborn babies with at least one parent from Hong Kong rose from 1,568 in 2019, to 1,602 in 2020, 1,665 in 2021 and 1,953 last year.

The figures were for England and Wales, while Scotland and Northern Ireland record their own statistics.

The BNO migration pathway came into effect after the national security law was implemented in 2020. Successful applicants and their dependants can live, work and study in the UK for up to five years, and then are eligible to apply for citizenship. 

Between January 2021 and June this year, 176,407 Hong Kong applications were approved, a 97 percent success rate.

Meanwhile in Hong Kong, the number of births plunged from 52,900 in 2019 to 43,000 in 2020, 37,000 in 2021, and only 32,500 last year, a decline of almost 40 percent over four years.

Yip urges govt to help families

In addition the total fertility rate, the number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime, also fell to 0.8, the lowest in the world. The rate should be 2.1 for a population to replace itself.

Yip says Hong Kong's falling birthrate is due to "a basket of reasons."

He urged the government to give baby bonuses and provide families with more childcare support, and emphasised the need to improve the education system.

This is not news... Yip has been sounding the alarm for years, while Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu says he is looking into it...