So what's this blog for?

Why 52 Ingredients?
I'm aiming to buy, photograph and cook with one ingredient a week for a year. After that, we'll see.

Why London?
That's where I live: London, England. I hope there will be occasional postcards from other places.

Where do the ingredients come from?
The blog was originally conceived as a tribute to local 'ethnic' shops, which in my part of north London are very good and incredibly varied. Gradually, I hope to explore further afield, and also to explore specialist shops, farmers' markets and street markets, community gardens, and sources of wild food. I want the focus to stay, however, not on the specialist 'foodie' shops - which are already well-documented - but on what you might do with that enigmatic vegetable or monolingually-labelled packet of stuff you brought back from the Turkish/Vietnamese/Colombian/Polish/Mauritian/wherever shop at the end of the road.

Why haven't you mentioned my favourite shop/ingredient/recipe?
I do this for fun. I have a full-time day job, totally unconnected to food. Please email me and tell me about these shops/ingredients/recipes, though. I'd love to hear about them, and I'll do my best to explore them, money and time permitting. If I use the information you send me, I'll happily credit you.

What about the environmental implications of all this food from abroad?
I'm interested in locally-sourced food, and minimising the food miles of what I eat: but it's not the main focus of this blog. Wherever possible, I will try to discuss the provenance of the ingredients I find. A surprising amount of it - apart from spices, obviously - is, or can be, produced in the UK. Or at least within reasonable striking distance of it. They're growing bitter gourds at Spitalfields City Farm and tea in Cornwall, so who knows what's possible? Besides, spices and seasonings have been traded for millennia. The history and politics of how they reach the British Isles is fascinating. Ginger, for instance, imported from China or India, has been used in Britain since Roman times. Food isn't just about nutrition: it's also about tradition, familiarity, celebration, nostalgia. Unusual ingredients have also always been a way of adding flavour and distinctiveness to a frequently limited diet. It's safe to assume that when I'm not buying one weird thing a week to cook I'm eating from a very ordinary range of common British fruit, vegetables and meat.

Why are you writing about an ingredient I consider to be incredibly common and ordinary?
Fortunately, the world is not yet homogenised out of existence. Just because you can buy taro, ortaniques, or roc's eggs on every street corner where you live doesn't mean I can. If you have suggestions for how to cook the things I buy, please email me: I'm always glad of recipes or suggestions.

Don't you have any nice ordinary recipes?
Most of the things I plan to cook are ordinary for somebody, somewhere, including an awful lot of Londoners. However, if you're looking for roasting times for lamb or the best macaroni cheese recipe ever, you've come to the wrong place.