Peachy keen and delicious

There are so many ways to enjoy a basketful of fresh peaches. Homemade peach ice cream, cobblers, refrigerator pies and peach jam are some of my favorites.

So I had plenty of ideas last week for the peck of July Flame freestone peaches delivered to work by my cousin, straight from a South Carolina farm. What a treat!

Even before I got the peaches home last Monday, I was thinking of ways I could eat them and couldn't wait to peel one, slice it in an bowl and enjoy the juicy goodness.

I had plans for making my favorite peach cobbler later in the week, but on Tuesday, I wanted something sweet to go with our supper.

In the fall and winter, my husband and I enjoy baked apples. Why not try baked peaches, I thought? I searched around the internet and saw many people do the same. So why haven't I done this before, I wondered?

The preparation couldn't be easier. I did the same thing I do with apples: Cut the peach in half, starting at the stem, and remove the seed. I cut the peaches way I cut an avocado — cutting all the way around with a knife, then twisting the two halves in opposite directions to separate. (I did not peel the peaches.)

Place the peaches in a baking dish. Add a little butter and brown sugar to the top of the peach and a maybe a sprinkle of cinnamon. Then top with chopped pecans if desired. I desired. That's it for the preparation!

The first time I made these, I used three peaches and baked them for about 20 to 30 minutes at 350 degrees, until the peaches were fork tender. I scooped two peach halves into each of our bowls and then added the finishing touch: a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

That ice cream worked its magic, melting slightly and forming a delicious topping that made the peaches even sweeter. What a delicious ending to our dinner.

A few days later, I decided to make the dish again at lunchtime. I prepared them the same way in a microwave-safe baking dish but then cooked them for 3 minutes in the microwave, instead of the oven, with the same yummy results. We ate the peaches this time without ice cream. The peaches had sweetened more and were still delicious without the ice cream on top.

There was a bonus to my baked peach treat. I had two baked peach halves left after the first night's dinner and immediately knew what I wanted to do with them. That night, I prepared a jar of overnight oatmeal, placing 1⁄2 cup of old-fashioned oats and 1⁄2 cup of milk in a Mason jar. Then I cut up the baked peach halves and added them and the remaining pecans to the jar. Everything went into the refrigerator until the next morning.

I was very excited about my breakfast that next day. I opened the lid before heating the jar for about 45 seconds in the microwave. What a delicious breakfast! I did the same thing with the microwave peaches — using the leftover peach in my oats.

I am so pleased I have found two new ways to enjoy the season's peaches. I just wish I had more opportunities to purchase peaches, fresh from the farm.

Once peach season has ended, I'll be baking apples for overnight oatmeal!

Do kimchi and other fermented foods give you more fizz?

When something makes it into the everyday story of country folk that is The Archers, it's safe to say that it has gone mainstream. So, hearing Tom Archer's plans for a kefir empire was all the proof I needed that, as he said: "Fermented foods are the future!" As ever, where Gwyneth Paltrow leads, Ambridge follows.

The health and wellness brigade have been fizzing over ferments for almost a decade; indeed, way back in 2011, Lindsay Lohan was said to have blamed a positive alcohol test while on probation on her fondness for kombucha, a fermented-tea drink. More pertinently, perhaps, Australian journalist and bestselling sugar-avoider Sarah Wilson urges anyone "with auto-immune issues, irritable bowel syndrome, bloating, sugar cravings or any kind of digestive or allergy issue" to give fermenting a go. The Hemsley sisters have called sauerkraut "our ultimate condiment for health", while chef Gizzi Erskine loves kimchi – a punchy Korean speciality generally made from cabbage, chilli and garlic – so much that she named her cat after it. Not bad for what is, essentially, just some elderly cabbage.

What it does

As with so many fads, fermentation is nothing new. Humans have been harnessing the natural action of microorganisms to preserve food for thousands of years. In fact, as "fermentation revivalist" and pickle evangelist Sandor Katz put it on a recent edition of Radio 4's Food Programme: "Humans did not invent or create fermentation. It would be more accurate to state that fermentation created us."

In simple terms, fermentation involves the use of micro-organisms to transform food from one state to another – sort of like cooking, but without the application of heat. In the right conditions, bacteria and yeasts will start to convert the natural sugars in foods into other compounds, such as alcohol or lactic acid. This not only inhibits the growth of other potentially more harmful bacteria, but also changes the flavour of the food concerned – the distinctive tang of yoghurt, for example, is produced by microbes feeding on the lactose in milk. It also, helpfully, slows the spoiling process.

Beer and wine are fermented foods, as are bread, sauerkraut, olives, cured meats, chocolate, coffee, miso, many cheeses and various kinds of pickles – "all the really good stuff," as food writer Michael Pollan puts it. So, the good news is that you are probably eating a few already. They exist in what Katz describes as the "creative space between fresh and rotten food, where most of human culture's most prized delicacies and culinary achievements exist".

But, although interesting flavours are a handy side-effect, it is the microbial content that has got health types excited – because bacteria are big news these days. More specifically, the 39tn microbes, weighing about as much as your brain, that live happily in your gut, the makeup of which, some evidence suggests, may have a significant effect on everything from your long-term weight to your current mood.

How it helps us

Unfortunately, the typical modern western menu does little to nourish this "huge alien ecosystem", as Dr Michael Moseley puts it, under siege as it is from antibiotics and a deluge of cleaning products designed to sterilise every part of our existence. However much we may like junk food and chemical additives, our gut bacteria does not – and our increasingly narrow diet has led to a similar lack of diversity in our gut. Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King's College London and the author of The Diet Myth, explains that if we "wipe out our gut microbes, then our immune system goes into autodrive and starts attacking us with autoimmune diseases and allergies".

One way of boosting your natural gut flora is to eat more of the kind of foods they thrive on – which, according to the British Dietetic Association, include onions, garlic, asparagus, artichoke, chicory and banana. These prebiotics, as they are known, will encourage microbe growth. The other way, which is what concerns us here, is the use of so-called probiotics, foods or supplements containing beneficial bacteria that, if they make it as far as our guts, will take up residence there. Fermented foods, or at least live fermented foods (beware pasteurised pickles, for example), are generally considered to be an excellent source of these desirable microbes.

NHS Choices reckons there is good evidence probiotics can prevent children on antibiotics developing diarrhoea; and some evidence that they can shorten an episode caused by a stomach bug by up to a day; they may help relieve the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome and lactose intolerance, too. Nevertheless, "the current state of the evidence does not demonstrate that probiotics have any effect on gut bacteria in healthy people". However, they go on to concede that: "Given the limitations of these studies, that is not to say that all probiotics definitely have no effect. Further high-quality research in their use is needed."

Katz, who firmly rejects media suggestions that he has managed to cure his Aids with fermented foods, takes a similarly low-key attitude. "In general, when I hear people talk about fermented foods as a cure for particular diseases – you know, eat sauerkraut to cure cancer, drink kombucha to cure diabetes – that's kind of a trigger for me," he told Radio 4. "I just think it is not reasonable to expect eating a particular food is going to cure a particular disease … these foods can be very, very powerful and healing, they can potentially improve digestion and nutrient assimilation, immune function and mental health and more. Those are benefits that we all can enjoy and that's not the same as curing any particular disease – their place is in the context of a rich and very varied diet."

Fortunately, as microbes seem to be the current buzz topic within the scientific community, more such research is likely to be forthcoming: Spector has already been instrumental in the establishment of British Gut, the UK's largest open-source science project, which is investigating the microbial diversity of the human gut, running in tandem with a similar project in the US. For about £350, you get an expert interpretation of your microbiome – and scientists get the benefit of your data.

What to eat

In the meantime, there is certainly no harm in including fermented foods in your diet. Not only does it seem likely that the more varied your intake the better, but also they are easy to digest, as some of the work has already been done for you, and they tend to have a distinctive, complex and (sometimes) challenging flavour.

Live yoghurt is good, but kefir, a fermented milk drink that originated in the Caucasus, is better – according to Spector, it contains at least five times as many microbial varieties. Kombucha is another decent source, as are raw milk cheeses, sauerkraut, pickles or kimchi. Natto, Japanese fermented soya beans, may be an acquired taste, but nutty Indonesian tempeh is just like tofu, but nicer. Just make sure none of it has been heat-treated to increase its shelf life.

How Dipping Sauce for Pizza Became Oddly Necessary

It was just a short time ago that dipping pizza in ranch was the Great Debate, with many claiming that the act was an abomination to pies everywhere. Now, the ranch-pizza combo is an integral part of the pizza experience — it's even found on the menus of many sophisticated restaurants.

But it's important to ask how something that elicits such an emotional response from diners became a mainstream option — so much so that before you hit the "place order" button in your delivery pizza app, you're probably adding a couple cups of dipping sauce to the list. America's four largest pizza chains — Papa John's, Pizza Hut, Little Caesars, and Domino's — all offer ranch along with a variety of dips on their menus, tiny upsells that contribute to the $45.15 billion in pizza restaurant sales in 2016. But how did we get here?

It Starts With Breadsticks

According to Saint Joseph's University professor of food marketing John Stanton, asking "Which came first, consumer demand or restaurant upsell?" is like saying "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" It's impossible to know, but in food marketing, products tend to become popular because of both consumer demand and restaurants looking to increase profits. "All companies are always looking for something new, a different edge," Stanton says. "If [the product] becomes something that people will pay for and expect, eventually you'll see it in more places."

This is how Pizza Hut, founded in 1958, came to offer dipping sauces: due to customer demand. The chain started as a dine-in restaurant in Wichita, Kansas, and has offered warm marinara with its breadsticks and garlic bread since opening. "Warm marinara is one of the most beloved and requested items at Pizza Hut," says director of public relations Doug Terfehr.

Although Pizza Hut was the first chain to serve breadsticks with sauce (which it would later add to dishes like cheese sticks and garlic knots), it was the Detroit-based Little Caesars, founded just one year after Pizza Hut, in 1959, that first succeeded in marketing dips as essential add-ons. The company introduced Crazy Bread, essentially garlic breadsticks, as a side dish in 1982. For three years, the sticks stood alone, but in 1985, the chain introduced the option of adding Crazy Sauce, a slightly altered marinara that's similar to what's on its standard pizza, for a small fee.

But it's Papa John's that gets credit for first creating and marketing a dip specifically for pizza, dislodging the dip from its usual place as a breadstick side.

According to "chief ingredient officer" Sean Muldoon, the brand's popular garlic dipping sauce is as old as Papa John's itself, and since Papa John's founder John Schnatter made it in 1984, it has been included with every pizza ever sold. The tangy dip has a consistency that is a little thicker than melted butter, but not as thick as buttermilk ranch, and it tastes like a mixture of equal parts butter, garlic, and salt.

Muldoon says the recipe has changed a little over time, and was recently updated to comply with the brand's new clean-label standard — meaning partially hydrogenated oils, artificial flavors, and synthetic colors have all been removed — but the bones of it have stayed the same. "The garlic butter sauce has proven to be a perfect complement to our pizza crust," Muldoon says. "Some people love dipping the crust so much, they'll do this first, before eating the pizza."

Escalation

After Papa John's launched its signature pizza dip and Little Caesars debuted Crazy Sauce the following year, dips proliferated. "Some people like to try new things and some people like to try what other people like," Stanton says; pizza dips appealed to both of those groups. Papa John's is still the only major chain that includes a custom sauce specifically made for its pizza, but Pizza Hut, Little Caesars, and Domino's all offer a slew of sauces, sold separately, that you can order with any of their menu items for a small upcharge.

Incremental Upsells

Although upsells are offered throughout all levels of cuisine (ever notice how a restaurant's specials are more expensive than what's on the menu?), online ordering has made small, incremental add-ons easier to sell. According to Stanton, the average basket size of online orders is always larger than what people buy in stores, and the same can be said for food. In 2014, Domino's spokesperson Chris Brandon told Fast Company that the chain's successful app increased add-on sales. In that same piece, a representative from online-delivery service Eat24 reported that online ordering helped diners "try stuff you never thought about ordering over the phone, and that's something we see across the board at all restaurants."

Dipping sauces are now sewn into the pizza-ordering experience. If you place an order online with most pizza chains, you'll get a prompt that asks if you want to add x sauce for x cents more. Eaters might feel like they are getting a good deal, because if you're already spending $20 on a pizza, what's the harm in trying a new 50-cent lemon pepper dip?