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My reticence towards what I saw as unnecessary gadgetry and gimcrackery in the epsiode about digital food thermometers was real, and I’ve just worked out why. My day job is vaguely related to the catering trade, and in catering, thermometers are things that the Council forces you to have so that you can fill in reams of useless paperwork when you’ve got fourteen tables howling for bacon an’ eggs. The food’s cold by the time it’s got to the customer, but at least they can rest assured that it was thoroughly tested at some point, and that whether or not it tastes any good, it fulfils some bureaucrat’s narrow-minded, tickyboxed concept of what food is supposed to be like.

Readers of my regular non-food blog will probably know that I’m embroiled in a long-running, undeclared cold war with the local council. Part of the reason for this is that they have tried to kill me at least once (it’s a long story). Another part is that, every year, some twit with a clipboard shows up at work and tries to tell me how to cook sausages. After twenty minutes when I manage to get a word in I point out that I don’t work in the kitchen, and then I fetch the people who cook the sausages. They’ve been cooking sausages for twenty-odd years longer than the clipboard-toting officious wee besom has been alive, most of that in a professional context for a string of high-profile customers who have never once, to my knowledge, died as a result. And then she tries to tell them how to cook sausages.

And the overwrought battles over Council Tax and multiple-occupancy licensing. And the frivolous small-claims court summonseses. And the flagrant breaches of the Data Protection Act. And their horrendous website. But now I’m digressing.

Oh, yes: and they cancelled the Farmer’s Market this week. That bit’s even relevant to a food blog.

Thermometers, it would seem, are a tool of The Man, used to keep us down. We know how to cook food, right? Thermometers are only any use if you need to fill in forms to keep your job.

Not… exactly.

I’m a recent convert to thermometry. Being in the episode certainly helped, and in a later episode you’ll see the results of my half-assed attempt to buy a cheap one (spoiler: it didn’t work). I actually got around to buying a proper one just this week. It was five quid from Ikea. Predictably, just as I buy one Hugh buggers off to Singapore for a week, so I’ve been having to get by on my own without the use of his built-in temperature encyclopaedia.

Thus far, given the weather and the fact that I seem to have spent the last few weeks lying in cold mud being filmed for another project, I’ve been using it mainly to produce my newly-developed cure for the common cold. This involves raising a bunch of things to 83°C, but no higher, and holding them there for a while. Once Hugh gets back I’m going to borrow his copy of On Food and Cooking to make sure I’m doing the right things with volatiles and flavonoids and whatnot. In the meantime, it tastes nice, and it actually seems to work at curing colds.

My thermometer does everything Hugh’s does, is cheaper, has a nicer form factor, and comes in black (which is important). It’s also not melted along one side. Admittedly, when Hugh’s thermometer goes beep it plays the Archangel Network tune, whereas mine just goes beep, but this is something I can live with.

I still don’t think they’re necessary, but they certainly make some tasks a lot easier. One thing I’ve noticed is that instead of watching the pan constantly while you cook, you can leave it unattended while you slip off and do something else, as long as you remain within earshot. That’s worth a fiver all by itself.

I’ve yet to road-test the thing with a full Sunday roast, because the Farmer’s Market was cancelled this week. And once again we see the insidious Council conspiring to ruin my quality of life.

Anybody know anything else that thermometers are useful for?