How do I make self-raising flour?

What is the difference between relish and chutney? L. Barnes

There is a product from England called the Gentleman's Relish that has been made to the same recipe since 1828. It is a mix of anchovies, butter, herbs and spices, and can be eaten with cucumber sandwiches, scrambled eggs, fish cakes, etc. Then a relish was "a highly flavoured item of food taken with plainer food to add flavour or interest to it", according to The Oxford Companion to Food. Relish could therefore be something like pickled onions served on a ploughman's platter or pickled cucumbers with a cheese board. The word "relish" in Australia has changed meaning through usage and now refers to preserved fruit and vegetables prepared as a savoury condiment. Go to any church fair in a country town and you'll find anything from the local gardens cooked with sugar, vinegar and spices and turned into a "relish". Tomato relish. Gooseberry relish. Bloody feijoa relish. Etymologically speaking, relish comes from the same Old French as relais or "the remainder", the old idea that "taste" was the remainder after eating. Chutney comes from the Hindi word chatni and in India refers to a side dish of spicy condiment of perhaps ground mint, ginger, garlic, tamarind, lime and coconut. So traditionally Indian chutney is a subset of relish. The British chutneys to which we have become accustomed are generally sweet and cooked and preserves yet containing vestiges of spiciness. This is perhaps now the only difference between chutney and relish in the modern Australian culinary landscape.

How do I convert plain flour into self-raising flour? M. Sigley

Simple. Add two teaspoons of baking powder to every cup (150 grams) of plain flour and sift together. Alternatively add one teaspoon each of bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar. Beware. While baking powder is activated by heat, so will only release the gas that makes the bubbles in the batter when the mix is heated, bicarb and cream of tartar react as soon as they are mixed with water. So once mixed a bicarb and cream of tartar batter should be put into the oven very soon after mixing.

Recently you mentioned FODMAP. Isn't this just another trendy allergy? L. Kirby

It seems one of things we are becoming intolerant of as a society is intolerance. At the beginning of this century, research was done into people suffering bloating and discomfort after eating certain foods. It was discovered that some molecules in fruit and veg are not broken down in people's guts. These short-chained carbohydrates drag water into the intestine – causing watery toilet time – and go down to the colon where they are fermented by bacteria into gases that cause pain. These carbohydrates are: fructo-oligosaccharides found in wheat, rye, onions and garlic; galacto-oligosaccharides in legumes and pulses; disaccharides such as lactose found in milk; mono-saccharides such as fructose found in honey and fruit, and polyols namely sorbitol and mannitol found in some fruit and artificial sweeteners. Together they are Fermentable Oligo, Di, Mono-saccharides and Polyols described by the catchy acronym FODMAP. Monash University has developed a low FODMAP diet and it can be found at: med.monash.edu/cecs/gastro/fodmap.​

Send questions to brainfood@richardcornish.com.au

Richard Cornish launches his first solo book, My Year Without Meat, at Phillippa's Bakery in Armadale on Tuesday August 16th 2016. Expect good chat and meat-free snacks; 6.30pm­-8pm; $20 a person.

UPDATE August 9th: The Phillippa's event has sold out but there are spaces left at the following Readings event