Bagatelles
- rosemary
- Oct 27, 2025
- 8 min read
Bagatelle: "a thing regarded as too unimportant or easy to be worth much consideration." Oxford Languages
So yes 'bagatelle' is a French word for a trifle:
"The French word bagatelle, from the Italian word bagatella, means a trifle or little decorative nothing." Wikipedia
And this is an oddments post - full of trifles. A bagatelle trifle is also a specific French Canadian dish of which the magazine Saveur says
"The typical bagatelle in La Beauce is a child's delight of Jell-O, white cake, and strawberry jam. We prefer this grown-up version, with fresh fruit, custard (instead of Jell-O), and a drizzle of marsala." Saveur
And that's it on the left above - in a faintly out of focus shot which just goes to show that even professionals can stuff up a photograph. La Beauce by the way is a region in the French-Canadian part of Canada. I tried to find a better photograph of this typical French-Canadian dish as described above but the closest I could get to it was the one on the right which is French.
So what bagatelles have I got for you this time?
Setting Sun. Sardine Fishing. Adagio. Opus 221 from the series The Sea, The Boats, Concarneau1891
I'm not sure how I came across this painting now, but I just loved it for its calm and simplicity. It made me realise how much I have come to love the paintings of Paul Signac.
And there is a slight connection to food in that all of those boats - dozens of them - are fishing for sardines. One of my favourite everyday treats. Alas these days most of our sardines come from Asian waters, and may be ethically compromised. The other day I tried some Brunswick sardines in olive oil - which come from Poland, and I have to say, never again. They were almost soapy, not like the rather more expensive Sole Maria ones from Portugal which taste of the sea. I can't quite bring myself to pay the exorbitant prices of the other more highly prized ones.
Banana peel gin
I confess to being a bit confused by all the different flavoured gins that one sees around these days. Now I haven't tried any of them, so they may well be brilliant, but I confess I have obviously misunderstood the meaning of gin - whose name as far as I knew comes from ginèvre - juniper, and that is what gives it its distinctive taste.
So when I saw this particular version of a flavoured gin being spruiked by the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival I just had to at least say a few words because - well, just because.
The maker is one Ralph Libo-On a Filipino bar professional from New-Zealand who combined with the Dutch Rules Distilling Co. to produce this particular gin:
"a dry style gin inspired by Filipino flavours and infused with tropical fruits including pandan, coconut, banana peel and tamarind. A grain-based, copper-pot distilled gin that offers depth and texture, setting it apart from the more common grape-based or column-distilled styles often found in Australia."
I mean banana peel - ugh. But as I said. What do I know?
Lancashire cheese and onion pie
Specifically Simon Hopkinson's mother's Lancashire cheese and onion pie.
It caught my eye on the Happy Foodie website, because I remembered a tiny experiment I had in the past of comparing Nigel's and Elizabeth's versions of cheese and onion pies - Elizabeth vs Nigel, pastry, cheese, onions, only to realise that was tarts not pies, which, at least to the British, are a different thing. And then, as I was looking I realised that I had actually featured this particular pie in a more general post that I had written about Northern cheese and onion pies called Solving a dilemma with cheese and onions. So maybe I should set up a similar experiment with other versions. Another look at that post will probably give me some ideas. It won't be an exact copy of Simon Hopkinson's recipe though, because you can't easily get Lancashire cheese here - nor Cheshire cheese either, which is often suggested as a substitute. But it looks yummy - if beige - lots of the best food is beige - and it's authentic:
"adapted from her old and slightly battered recipe book, handwritten by Mother. This favourite is one among many others, some having been already handed down by her mother. Well, as it always was, in their day." Simon Hopkinson
Which made me remember a book group meeting - it was my book and I suggested we talk about cookbooks, and that everyone should bring along a favourite cookbook and a couple of my friends brought along such a cookbook, which was very touching. I don't think my mother had one.
This is the title of a rather wonderful article on department store cafés - do they exist any more? The writer is Lauren J. Joseph, and the magazine is Vittles, to which I now subscribe - well to the free edition. It's British and it has lots of interesting articles, and lots of restaurant reviews which are obviously rather less interesting to me. They just get deleted.
But back to this particular article, which should really be a stimulus for me to write my own on the same subject, but why would I when she has done it so much better than I?
Enjoy.
Leftover polenta
I'm not sure any of us would ever have any leftover polenta. I cook polenta very rarely, although I should do it more often because I really rather like it.
Anyway here I share a couple of things you can do with it, if, like Rachel Roddy, you have leftover polenta from the night before that you forgot to carefully place in a greased or baking paper lined dish, because if you don't:
"Getting overnight polenta out of a pan requires mixed implements, if you want to get at every single bit. A spoon is best for scooping out the softer bits, or you can shave them off with a knife, while a spatula is best for scraping down the sides, and a flexible palette knife is ideal for the bits that seem to be soldered to the bottom." Rachel Roddy
She offers two different solutions to the problem, the first being the pictured Leftover polenta biscuits:
Another option also involves waiting until the morning and then, using your hands, digging and gouging out the yellow remnants, weighing them, and squashing them with more butter, dried fruit and nuts." Rachel Roddy
Her first option had been Fried polenta with cheese
"So, having stirred my polenta intermittently until it looked like a crossed with a boiling mud pool, I added butter and served most of it with fried mushrooms and slices of melty taleggio. We also had another glass of wine and I forgot the earlier good idea, meaning that several hours later I didn’t come back to a neatly set block of polenta, but a pan with a deep yellow crust. Not being the first time, I do have a solution for this oversight: ignore the pan until the morning, then lever out the bits and fry them with eggs."
Or just cheese:
"Once it was all out of the pan, the polenta looked like an enormous heap of uneven rubble, which is the key to its fried success. First, a good amount of butter and olive oil were heated in the biggest iron frying pan until they foamed. A loose layer of polenta was added and pressed down, so the bottom got a golden crust and sort of held together (although neatness is not the aim), before the whole thing was flipped. While the new bottom got a crust of its own, the top was covered thickly with grated parmesan, which melted and created a mesh in the gaps. The granular nature of polenta means that, when fried, it develops a great crust as well as a centre that is a little like custard. Eggs and bacon were fried in other pans and then piled on top of each serving of cheese-polenta rubble, which, at that moment, was one of the best breakfasts I had ever eaten."
Which I have to say does indeed sound like a perfect solution - especially for a group breakfast in some beautiful holiday house somewhere. Dare to dream.
As I said I don't make polenta very often but I do remember a particularly delicious Ottolenghi Cheesy baked polenta in a tomato sauce - sort of like Gnocchi alla Romana but with polenta rather than semolina and cooked in a sauce and also his Baked polenta with feta, béchamel and za'atar tomatoes - and for both of these you could deliberately make too much polenta. I have to say that having a vegetarian granddaughter has definitely expanded my repertoire - and introduced me to polenta.
Slow cookers
Earlier today I was going to write a whole post on the subject of slow cookers. I have always resisted such a thing, wondering why you couldn't do the same thing in an oven or on a cooktop. So I started my 'research' and found that I would be wasting my time because J. Kenji López-Alt of Serious Eats, had written such a long and detailed article on the subject - Why You (Maybe) Shouldn't Buy a Slow Cooker - full of carefully designed experiments comparing slow cookers to other methods - that it would have felt utterly stupid to write something of my own. He covers everything from the quality of the finished meal, through dangers, to cost of electricity, and so on. So if you are thinking about buying one - they regularly appear in Aldi for example - then I do suggest you read the article. It's so much better than anything else you would read - in Choice for example. And yes, he isn't really a fan - he thinks you should either just use a cast-iron casserole in an oven (I'm guessing any other kind of pot would do) or a pressure cooker. Which is an interesting thought. I've always been a bit scared of that idea. Anyway I haven't got room for either of them.
This a recipe from Tom Hunt - The Guardian's leftovers guru - well he was - he has now been replaced by Anna Berrill.
Anyway, if you like orzo, and corn and making good use of leftovers this is for you. You make a stock with the corn cobs that you have scraped for the corn for the soup, then you gently fry the corn kernels with onion and garlic - add Parmesan, Parmesan rind - another valuable leftover, the orzo and cream before topping with the corn stock and cook until done. If you don't like orzo - me - you could use a different small pasta.
Returning to my wishful thinking about holiday breakfasts, I'm finishing with another Ottolenghi recipe - the crisp omelette shown here. Filled with crisps and crisps scattered on top - "they soften into little pockets of flavour, while scattered on top they give a happy crunch" so indulgent and so pleasing, designed to please even the pickiest eater:
"Skip the cheese if you need to, use whatever herbs are lurking in the fridge. Cook it longer for those who like their eggs firm, less for those who prefer them creamy. Anchovies for the grown-ups, ketchup for the children, cherry tomatoes if you need something fresh on the plate." Yotam Ottolenghi - I would add ..... here. Whatever you fancy.
YEARS GONE BY
October 27
2024 - Nothing
2023 - Nothing
2022 - Biscoff for a rainy day
2020 - Missing
Life is just a mere bagatelle, a slow cooked story with or without a happy ending. 😘