Food Unwrapped (2012) s07e04 Episode Script
Almond Butter, Fortified Wine, Onions
1 'We Brits are a nation of food lovers.
' Oh, my goodness! Hello.
'Our supermarkets are jam-packed with products 'from every corner of the globe.
' Konnichiwa! 'But how much do we really know 'about the journey our food makes to our plates?' Wow! I've never seen anything like it in all my life.
Oh! 'The Food Unwrapped travel all over world 'and beyond' This is like stepping into the future.
'.
.
to reveal the trade secrets behind the food we eat.
' 'Coming up, I go Stateside 'to get my nut round the high price of almond butter.
' How much is this huge pile worth? ¤1.
5 million.
'I head to Spain and Portugal to seek out the differences 'between sherry and port.
' That's already tasting better.
'And I make real men cry, 'trying to find an onion that won't bring us to tears.
' Anyone crying? Are you? Look at that, you big girl.
First -- almond butter.
I love the stuff.
But at around £4 for a small jar, I don't love the price.
Would you like a try? My favourite spread is considerably more expensive than cashew nut butter, even though almonds tend to be cheaper than cashews.
- Good? - Mm.
It just doesn't add up to me.
How come, if these nuts are cheaper than those nuts, why is this almond butter more expensive than the cashew nut butter? Is it something to do with the process? - I don't know.
- No idea, it doesn't make any sense.
Are we shelling out too much? To get to the bottom of the baffling price of almonds, I'm heading to California, as that's where 80% of the world's almonds are grown.
As soon as I arrive, I can see The Golden State is looking decidedly brown, thanks to the worst drought in 500 years.
I'm standing on a dry reservoir bed.
Apparently, this lake has got only about 40% of the water that it usually has in it, and that water should kind of usually come right up to about there, over my head.
There's no denying that all of this has got to have some impact on the farmers in this area.
As I continue my journey across northern California to the almond ranch, I pass whole fields of dead nut trees.
But, as I get closer to my destination, the drought just seems to disappear.
There are an awful lot of almonds around here.
So many almonds.
I'm meeting almond grower David Phippen.
Farming has been in his family for three generations.
- Hi! - How ya doing? - David? Glad to meet you.
'On first look, it seems his trees aren't affected by the drought.
' So how hard is it for you as an almond farmer when the state has been in drought? So, where we're standing is probably one of the most water-rich areas in this state, but there are some orchards in California that have died because there wasn't adequate water for them.
- Really, the whole orchard? - Yep.
- Wiped out? They, they just wiped it out.
'But David is lucky -- unlike some Californian farmers, 'he's able to pump water straight out of the ground.
' You've got so many almond trees.
'And access to ground water is the key to his success, 'as every single kilo of almonds 'needs a staggering 5,000 kilos of water.
' OK, this is the machine that shakes the nuts off the tree.
It's raining almonds.
You kind of feel the, er, ground shake a little bit when he goes.
I may be in almond heaven, but I'm here to get to the bottom of the perplexing price of nuts.
I want to know why your almonds are so expensive.
Almonds are a deciduous fruit tree, so they need to be chilled in the winter time, and because we haven't had a lot of snow and rainy weather, unfortunately, just due to the forces of nature, we're producing less of a crop, not more.
So, the climate is affecting almond yields, and when there's a limited amount of nuts and lots of buyers, prices rocket.
Is that an almond mountain? Yeah.
'Across the globe, we're eating ten times more Californian almonds 'than we were a decade ago.
'And David has a pretty sizeable nut store ready for market.
' Look at this! Gosh! It goes all the way back there! It is colossal.
A lot of truckloads.
So, how much is this huge pile worth? ¤1.
5 million, possibly.
David, this is a gold mine you're sitting on! Later, I find out that David's luck may have run out, as the almond market takes a tumble.
Does this mean that you've got a lot of almonds on your hands right now? Yes, it does.
Next, fortified wine.
Could you tell me, um, what fortified wine is? I'm looking at a bottle of sherry here -- what makes it so strong? 'It's the fermentation, 'double fermentation or something like that, I can't remember.
' And what's the difference between port and sherry? 'I'm not quite sure.
' These fortified wines are like 17%, 18% - 'There's no actual anything added to 'em' - Yeah.
'.
.
to create the alcohol, - 'it's just a fermentation and a brewing process' - Process.
'.
.
that creates it.
' No actual anything added to create the alcohol? That's odd.
A quick look online suggests sherry and port are made by adding brandy to wine.
Can it really be as simple as that? Matt's down the local seeing if he can create his own fortified wine, starting with port.
OK, so we've got brandy.
Brandy, right.
So, no luck with port.
What about its Spanish rival, sherry? Now, this is white wine.
Let's put a dark spirit in there.
Excuse me, gents, this is this is my version of sherry.
Does that take you to, er, Spain? - No, not quite.
- Do you feel transported? That's disgusting.
I mean, how many shades of disgusting do you want? I wouldn't give up the day job just yet, Matt.
Clearly, there's more to fortified wine than meets the eye.
To find out how the experts do it, I'm heading to the Spanish town of Jerez, the home of sherry.
And, as I've arrived at night, there's only one place to start my quest.
And, happily, it's sherry o'clock.
There seem to be so many, can I have one of each? All of them? - OK.
- Gracias.
'Back home, sherry's generally seen 'as a sweet drink your granny brings out every Christmas time, 'but that doesn't seem to be the case over here.
' Cheers.
'This bar serves up no fewer than seven distinctive types of sherry, 'from the ultra-dry Fino' Yeah.
That's great, isn't it? '.
.
to the darker super-sweet Pedro Ximenez.
' It tastes like raisins.
Wow! Cheers, everyone.
Here's to your health.
But I still don't know how they mix brandy and wine to make it taste so good.
So, the next morning, I'm off to the place that produces Spain's favourite sherry.
Oh, that's true.
'Wise words from my driver, 'but I'm here to meet the master of wine -- Antonio Flores.
' Ah, Jimmy.
Nice to see you.
'The wine he first shows me has not yet become sherry.
' So, this is the young wine before it's been fortified? 'Only 12%?! So, how do they make it stronger?' I've looked on the internet and, to make sherry, it says that you add brandy, so you just put brandy in? So, step one of fortification -- Antonio adds very pure high proof grape spirit -- brandy to you and I -- to an equal amount of young sherry.
So, you can't pour the alcohol straight in because the pure alcohol will stress the natural yeast in here, so you have to water it down.
'The young sherry tempers the effect of the highly alcoholic brandy, 'ready for step two, 'where this 50-50 blend is added to the wine in very precise amounts.
' So, how much of this do you put in here to fortify it? - So, this is fortified? - Exactly.
That's already tasting better.
Later, I'm in Portugal, uncovering the unique process that makes port distinct from sherry.
Yeah, that cleans the palate! Next, onions.
It's not a cold, it's all these onions.
Have you got any onions that won't make me cry? Are red ones better or? Do you know? So, I can't choose a particular onion that's going to help with the tear? I'm going to take on the mighty onion with some mixed martial arts fighters and road-test some of the most popular anti-tear tricks.
- All right? How you doing? - Nice to meet you.
Now, Steve, listen, I want to make some tough guys cry.
Sounds good to me.
Introducing.
.
.
the three contenders.
Extreme cage fighters They may be adept in boxing, jujitsu and all that, but can they remain dry-eyed when they enter the cage to take on the onion? In each round, these hard men will chop an onion using supposedly well-known techniques to combat the waterworks.
Stick a spoon in your mouth.
Stick the bread in your mouth, and the matchstick.
Get chopping.
Anyone crying? - Are you? Let's have a look.
- Hmm.
Look at that, you big girl.
Total knockout by the onion.
Round 2.
It's the old wives' tales -- suck a lemon, submerse the onion and light a candle.
- OK.
How was that, Jake? - Terrible.
- Yeah? - It was very uncomfortable.
None of them have worked! Time to deploy the big guns.
- Presumably, you're all right, apart from steaming up? - Great.
- What about you? - That was great, easy.
- Really? - No problem at all.
OK.
So the glasses -- they work.
Jake? Fantastic idea.
So, apart from when they're either in the machine or you've got goggles on, onions make you cry -- fact? Fact.
'Coming up, I find out exactly why onions turn on the tears.
'And could this farmer have the ultimate solution?' So, these won't make me cry? - No.
Guaranteed.
- Guaranteed? Back to onions.
No matter how tough you are, we all end up in tears.
Look at that, you big girl! 'So why do onions turn on the waterworks? 'I've come to meet farmer, and oracle of the onion, 'Alastair Findlay.
' Alastair.
Matt, nice to meet you.
- Hi.
Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.
- Yeah.
- Are these your onions? - Yes, that's right.
- That's pretty impressive.
'Alastair grows over 4,000 tonnes a year, 'storing them in these temperature-controlled hangars, 'so we can have British onions all year round.
' So, why does an onion make you cry? It's the self-defence mechanism the onion's got.
It wants to prevent you from eating it and by causing you to cry, you're not going to be quite so keen on it.
'So, how do these pesky onions do it?' Now, I was always told that, if you cut through the root that's the bit that makes you cry.
- It makes you cry.
- Really? - Every single - So, that's rubbish? - Every single cell is packed with sulphur compounds.
- OK.
'Cutting the onion breaks the cells, a chemical reaction is triggered 'and sulphur dioxide is created.
' - As you break cells - Yeah.
.
.
micro-droplets are coming up and, because they're acidic, the eye responds by creating tears, to try and wash the irritant away.
'Which is why the goggles worked in my earlier experiments.
' Micro-droplets are coming up just like this.
- Hmm.
Yeah.
- Do you see the effect? - Yeah, I can.
Well, I can't, cos I can't see! Alastair has devoted two decades of his life to the quest for a tear-free onion.
If one irritated me, I threw it out and after 20 years and ten generations, yeah, I've got rid of it.
So, 20 years' work and you think you've created this onion - that doesn't make you cry? - Correct.
'So, through clever cross-breeding, Alastair has created an onion 'without this troublesome enzyme.
' - So, these won't make me cry? - No.
Guaranteed.
Guaranteed.
Really? Big claim.
- That's what they look like.
- Right.
- It's not having the same effect.
- I would hope not.
20 years' work and I come along and tell you, "Actually, do you know what? It's the same thing.
" 'It may be tear-free, but does that mean it's also flavour free?' It's still got that onion kick.
- It wants to have an onion flavour.
- Yeah.
And it's not going to give you the problem with onion breath, - either, because - Why's that? .
.
it's the same enzyme that causes both problems.
Beautiful.
Like a meadow! Like an onion meadow! 'I've been trying to work out why almond butter costs 'considerably more than its nutty cousins.
'I met a Californian farmer, to learn why the price of almonds 'was at an all-time high.
' So, how much is this huge pile worth? £1.
5 million, possibly.
David, this is a gold mine you're sitting on! 'But a few months later, I'm back at FUHQ and there's some breaking news.
'The almond market has crashed.
With prices down by around 40%, 'I'm calling farmer David.
' When I came to see you, the price of almonds was really high.
Yeah, since then, we saw that consumers demand less of our crop when we have it at record high prices and so shipments were down.
On top of this drop in demand, the weather in California finally changed, with an unusually cold and wet winter, making for a bumper almond harvest.
Does this mean that you've got a lot of almonds on your hands right now? Yes, we have more in the buildings right now than I'd like to have and I'd like to be shipping.
You can see behind me there are lots and lots of bins of almonds.
If you pan down the warehouse.
Oh, my word! Are those all full of almonds? Yeah, every one of those bins holds about 2,200lbs of almonds.
This really goes to show just how volatile food prices can be.
But I'm wondering if what's bad news for David's wallet could be better news for almond butter lovers? So, I've headed to Cornwall, to meet the owner of one of the UK's largest almond butter manufacturers, John Carley.
- Good morning.
- Hi, John! - Hi, hi, nice to see you.
- Kate.
- Come on in, come on in.
- We're going to butter some nuts? - We are, indeed, yeah.
- Brilliant! A-ha, you made it.
Well done.
'This factory makes various seed and nut butters, but it's almonds 'I'm most interested in.
' - Very good.
- It's a good ten kilos of nuts, I reckon.
'Making almond butter couldn't be simpler.
'Almonds are the one and only ingredient.
'They get milled' - They're like breadcrumbs.
- Yeah.
'.
.
until they turn into a butter that I can spread on my toast.
' Ooh! Now, we're talking.
Mmm! - Oh, it's like marzipan butter.
- Yep.
I love that.
'It may be delicious, but as far as I'm concerned, 'still expensive, despite the plummeting price of almonds.
' - In California - Yeah.
.
.
I spoke to my mate David over there, who's sat on a warehouse full of nuts and he's just having to sell them at, you know, rock-bottom prices.
So, are we gonna see that, kind of, trickle-down effect, when it comes to buying a jar of nut butter from you? Inevitably, in the end, we will.
We would bring our price down, but when that will happen, I couldn't really say.
'So, for us almond butter lovers, it remains to be seen 'exactly when prices will drop and by how much.
'Cashew nut butter is another of John's products, 'so if anyone can help me get to the bottom of the difference 'in price between almond and cashew butter, it's him.
' One thing I don't understand is the fact that, when I buy almonds, they're usually cheaper than cashew nuts.
However, almond butter is always more expensive than cashew nut butter.
Why is that? People have often noticed that and asked me the same question.
With cashew nuts, it's a nasty process shelling cashew nuts.
- They aim to get the whole nuts.
- When they fail to do so and these get broken, they're ideal for us, - because they're that much cheaper.
- That's the difference? That's the difference, yeah.
'So, whole cashews are harder to come by, meaning we pay top dollar, 'but cashew butter can be made using the cheaper broken nuts.
'It seems nut economics do add up, after all.
' 'Earlier, I learnt they DO add 'a special type of brandy to white wine, to make sherry.
' So how much of this do you put in here, to fortify it? - OK.
- That's it? 'But it's not just the local grapes and brandy 'that makes this drink unique.
Antonio shows me the complex 'ageing process sherry goes through.
' 'The Solera system is a blending process used to age sherry, 'so that the finished product is a mixture of different ages.
' So, the bottom barrel, that's the oldest sherry.
You take a quarter of that, put it here and that goes to bottling? - Exactly.
- That leaves a gap, then you fill it with that one and it goes on and on.
And then, the fresh stuff goes at the top.
That is incredible.
'So, that's why sherry doesn't have a year on its label, 'because every bottle is a mixture of many different vintages.
'Knowing some drops are centuries old, I'd better not waste any.
'I think that's my cue to leave.
' I now know the secrets of sherry, but what about its greatest rival? I hop into the Food Unwrapped Mobile and drive to the Douro Valley in Portugal, a lush paradise where all the grapes for port are grown.
But what I really want to know is, how does it differ from sherry? Hello, you must be David.
Good morning.
Welcome to the Douro Valley.
'I'm with head winemaker David Guimaraens.
'Like sherry, port is made from wine but, unlike sherry, 'it's usually made with red grapes.
So, how do they boost 'the alcohol content here?' The big difference is that, halfway through the fermentation, when half of the sugar has been converted into alcohol, and that is when we add a neutral grape spirit.
- Stop it halfway through? - Stop the fermentation.
- And that keeps the sweetness? - And that keeps the sweetness.
'And that's the key difference.
Instead of waiting till the wine 'is completely fermented, as with sherry, the Portuguese add 'their brandy halfway through.
' So, here we have a glass of the neutral grape spirit.
This is at 77%.
Yeah, that cleans the palate(!) 'Adding the high-proof brandy direct into the fermenting wine 'kills the yeast.
This means not all the sugar's converted to alcohol, 'resulting in a sweeter taste.
' Yeah, that's great, isn't it? 'But David tells me there's another distinction between sherry and port.
'I need to visit one of the region's oldest port houses, 'in the city of Porto, to find out more.
' - Hi, I'm Jimmy.
- Good afternoon, Jimmy.
Welcome to Taylor's Port.
Great, I can't wait to taste it.
'Managing Director Adrian Bridge leads me straight 'to the good stuff.
' This is the very top selection, if you like, which we decide after the harvest that we're going to bottle.
'Unlike sherry, the very best years are selected to be vintage ports, 'with the year on the label, just like wine.
'In the other non-vintage years, port is, well, just port.
' Vintage port is made by ageing in a bottle.
This particular one, for example, is from 2008.
This will actually probably end up in the supermarket.
'So, while you can count on consistency with sherry, 'for port, you can choose to splash out on something a bit special.
' Wow! - How about that? - That is delicious.
' Oh, my goodness! Hello.
'Our supermarkets are jam-packed with products 'from every corner of the globe.
' Konnichiwa! 'But how much do we really know 'about the journey our food makes to our plates?' Wow! I've never seen anything like it in all my life.
Oh! 'The Food Unwrapped travel all over world 'and beyond' This is like stepping into the future.
'.
.
to reveal the trade secrets behind the food we eat.
' 'Coming up, I go Stateside 'to get my nut round the high price of almond butter.
' How much is this huge pile worth? ¤1.
5 million.
'I head to Spain and Portugal to seek out the differences 'between sherry and port.
' That's already tasting better.
'And I make real men cry, 'trying to find an onion that won't bring us to tears.
' Anyone crying? Are you? Look at that, you big girl.
First -- almond butter.
I love the stuff.
But at around £4 for a small jar, I don't love the price.
Would you like a try? My favourite spread is considerably more expensive than cashew nut butter, even though almonds tend to be cheaper than cashews.
- Good? - Mm.
It just doesn't add up to me.
How come, if these nuts are cheaper than those nuts, why is this almond butter more expensive than the cashew nut butter? Is it something to do with the process? - I don't know.
- No idea, it doesn't make any sense.
Are we shelling out too much? To get to the bottom of the baffling price of almonds, I'm heading to California, as that's where 80% of the world's almonds are grown.
As soon as I arrive, I can see The Golden State is looking decidedly brown, thanks to the worst drought in 500 years.
I'm standing on a dry reservoir bed.
Apparently, this lake has got only about 40% of the water that it usually has in it, and that water should kind of usually come right up to about there, over my head.
There's no denying that all of this has got to have some impact on the farmers in this area.
As I continue my journey across northern California to the almond ranch, I pass whole fields of dead nut trees.
But, as I get closer to my destination, the drought just seems to disappear.
There are an awful lot of almonds around here.
So many almonds.
I'm meeting almond grower David Phippen.
Farming has been in his family for three generations.
- Hi! - How ya doing? - David? Glad to meet you.
'On first look, it seems his trees aren't affected by the drought.
' So how hard is it for you as an almond farmer when the state has been in drought? So, where we're standing is probably one of the most water-rich areas in this state, but there are some orchards in California that have died because there wasn't adequate water for them.
- Really, the whole orchard? - Yep.
- Wiped out? They, they just wiped it out.
'But David is lucky -- unlike some Californian farmers, 'he's able to pump water straight out of the ground.
' You've got so many almond trees.
'And access to ground water is the key to his success, 'as every single kilo of almonds 'needs a staggering 5,000 kilos of water.
' OK, this is the machine that shakes the nuts off the tree.
It's raining almonds.
You kind of feel the, er, ground shake a little bit when he goes.
I may be in almond heaven, but I'm here to get to the bottom of the perplexing price of nuts.
I want to know why your almonds are so expensive.
Almonds are a deciduous fruit tree, so they need to be chilled in the winter time, and because we haven't had a lot of snow and rainy weather, unfortunately, just due to the forces of nature, we're producing less of a crop, not more.
So, the climate is affecting almond yields, and when there's a limited amount of nuts and lots of buyers, prices rocket.
Is that an almond mountain? Yeah.
'Across the globe, we're eating ten times more Californian almonds 'than we were a decade ago.
'And David has a pretty sizeable nut store ready for market.
' Look at this! Gosh! It goes all the way back there! It is colossal.
A lot of truckloads.
So, how much is this huge pile worth? ¤1.
5 million, possibly.
David, this is a gold mine you're sitting on! Later, I find out that David's luck may have run out, as the almond market takes a tumble.
Does this mean that you've got a lot of almonds on your hands right now? Yes, it does.
Next, fortified wine.
Could you tell me, um, what fortified wine is? I'm looking at a bottle of sherry here -- what makes it so strong? 'It's the fermentation, 'double fermentation or something like that, I can't remember.
' And what's the difference between port and sherry? 'I'm not quite sure.
' These fortified wines are like 17%, 18% - 'There's no actual anything added to 'em' - Yeah.
'.
.
to create the alcohol, - 'it's just a fermentation and a brewing process' - Process.
'.
.
that creates it.
' No actual anything added to create the alcohol? That's odd.
A quick look online suggests sherry and port are made by adding brandy to wine.
Can it really be as simple as that? Matt's down the local seeing if he can create his own fortified wine, starting with port.
OK, so we've got brandy.
Brandy, right.
So, no luck with port.
What about its Spanish rival, sherry? Now, this is white wine.
Let's put a dark spirit in there.
Excuse me, gents, this is this is my version of sherry.
Does that take you to, er, Spain? - No, not quite.
- Do you feel transported? That's disgusting.
I mean, how many shades of disgusting do you want? I wouldn't give up the day job just yet, Matt.
Clearly, there's more to fortified wine than meets the eye.
To find out how the experts do it, I'm heading to the Spanish town of Jerez, the home of sherry.
And, as I've arrived at night, there's only one place to start my quest.
And, happily, it's sherry o'clock.
There seem to be so many, can I have one of each? All of them? - OK.
- Gracias.
'Back home, sherry's generally seen 'as a sweet drink your granny brings out every Christmas time, 'but that doesn't seem to be the case over here.
' Cheers.
'This bar serves up no fewer than seven distinctive types of sherry, 'from the ultra-dry Fino' Yeah.
That's great, isn't it? '.
.
to the darker super-sweet Pedro Ximenez.
' It tastes like raisins.
Wow! Cheers, everyone.
Here's to your health.
But I still don't know how they mix brandy and wine to make it taste so good.
So, the next morning, I'm off to the place that produces Spain's favourite sherry.
Oh, that's true.
'Wise words from my driver, 'but I'm here to meet the master of wine -- Antonio Flores.
' Ah, Jimmy.
Nice to see you.
'The wine he first shows me has not yet become sherry.
' So, this is the young wine before it's been fortified? 'Only 12%?! So, how do they make it stronger?' I've looked on the internet and, to make sherry, it says that you add brandy, so you just put brandy in? So, step one of fortification -- Antonio adds very pure high proof grape spirit -- brandy to you and I -- to an equal amount of young sherry.
So, you can't pour the alcohol straight in because the pure alcohol will stress the natural yeast in here, so you have to water it down.
'The young sherry tempers the effect of the highly alcoholic brandy, 'ready for step two, 'where this 50-50 blend is added to the wine in very precise amounts.
' So, how much of this do you put in here to fortify it? - So, this is fortified? - Exactly.
That's already tasting better.
Later, I'm in Portugal, uncovering the unique process that makes port distinct from sherry.
Yeah, that cleans the palate! Next, onions.
It's not a cold, it's all these onions.
Have you got any onions that won't make me cry? Are red ones better or? Do you know? So, I can't choose a particular onion that's going to help with the tear? I'm going to take on the mighty onion with some mixed martial arts fighters and road-test some of the most popular anti-tear tricks.
- All right? How you doing? - Nice to meet you.
Now, Steve, listen, I want to make some tough guys cry.
Sounds good to me.
Introducing.
.
.
the three contenders.
Extreme cage fighters They may be adept in boxing, jujitsu and all that, but can they remain dry-eyed when they enter the cage to take on the onion? In each round, these hard men will chop an onion using supposedly well-known techniques to combat the waterworks.
Stick a spoon in your mouth.
Stick the bread in your mouth, and the matchstick.
Get chopping.
Anyone crying? - Are you? Let's have a look.
- Hmm.
Look at that, you big girl.
Total knockout by the onion.
Round 2.
It's the old wives' tales -- suck a lemon, submerse the onion and light a candle.
- OK.
How was that, Jake? - Terrible.
- Yeah? - It was very uncomfortable.
None of them have worked! Time to deploy the big guns.
- Presumably, you're all right, apart from steaming up? - Great.
- What about you? - That was great, easy.
- Really? - No problem at all.
OK.
So the glasses -- they work.
Jake? Fantastic idea.
So, apart from when they're either in the machine or you've got goggles on, onions make you cry -- fact? Fact.
'Coming up, I find out exactly why onions turn on the tears.
'And could this farmer have the ultimate solution?' So, these won't make me cry? - No.
Guaranteed.
- Guaranteed? Back to onions.
No matter how tough you are, we all end up in tears.
Look at that, you big girl! 'So why do onions turn on the waterworks? 'I've come to meet farmer, and oracle of the onion, 'Alastair Findlay.
' Alastair.
Matt, nice to meet you.
- Hi.
Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.
- Yeah.
- Are these your onions? - Yes, that's right.
- That's pretty impressive.
'Alastair grows over 4,000 tonnes a year, 'storing them in these temperature-controlled hangars, 'so we can have British onions all year round.
' So, why does an onion make you cry? It's the self-defence mechanism the onion's got.
It wants to prevent you from eating it and by causing you to cry, you're not going to be quite so keen on it.
'So, how do these pesky onions do it?' Now, I was always told that, if you cut through the root that's the bit that makes you cry.
- It makes you cry.
- Really? - Every single - So, that's rubbish? - Every single cell is packed with sulphur compounds.
- OK.
'Cutting the onion breaks the cells, a chemical reaction is triggered 'and sulphur dioxide is created.
' - As you break cells - Yeah.
.
.
micro-droplets are coming up and, because they're acidic, the eye responds by creating tears, to try and wash the irritant away.
'Which is why the goggles worked in my earlier experiments.
' Micro-droplets are coming up just like this.
- Hmm.
Yeah.
- Do you see the effect? - Yeah, I can.
Well, I can't, cos I can't see! Alastair has devoted two decades of his life to the quest for a tear-free onion.
If one irritated me, I threw it out and after 20 years and ten generations, yeah, I've got rid of it.
So, 20 years' work and you think you've created this onion - that doesn't make you cry? - Correct.
'So, through clever cross-breeding, Alastair has created an onion 'without this troublesome enzyme.
' - So, these won't make me cry? - No.
Guaranteed.
Guaranteed.
Really? Big claim.
- That's what they look like.
- Right.
- It's not having the same effect.
- I would hope not.
20 years' work and I come along and tell you, "Actually, do you know what? It's the same thing.
" 'It may be tear-free, but does that mean it's also flavour free?' It's still got that onion kick.
- It wants to have an onion flavour.
- Yeah.
And it's not going to give you the problem with onion breath, - either, because - Why's that? .
.
it's the same enzyme that causes both problems.
Beautiful.
Like a meadow! Like an onion meadow! 'I've been trying to work out why almond butter costs 'considerably more than its nutty cousins.
'I met a Californian farmer, to learn why the price of almonds 'was at an all-time high.
' So, how much is this huge pile worth? £1.
5 million, possibly.
David, this is a gold mine you're sitting on! 'But a few months later, I'm back at FUHQ and there's some breaking news.
'The almond market has crashed.
With prices down by around 40%, 'I'm calling farmer David.
' When I came to see you, the price of almonds was really high.
Yeah, since then, we saw that consumers demand less of our crop when we have it at record high prices and so shipments were down.
On top of this drop in demand, the weather in California finally changed, with an unusually cold and wet winter, making for a bumper almond harvest.
Does this mean that you've got a lot of almonds on your hands right now? Yes, we have more in the buildings right now than I'd like to have and I'd like to be shipping.
You can see behind me there are lots and lots of bins of almonds.
If you pan down the warehouse.
Oh, my word! Are those all full of almonds? Yeah, every one of those bins holds about 2,200lbs of almonds.
This really goes to show just how volatile food prices can be.
But I'm wondering if what's bad news for David's wallet could be better news for almond butter lovers? So, I've headed to Cornwall, to meet the owner of one of the UK's largest almond butter manufacturers, John Carley.
- Good morning.
- Hi, John! - Hi, hi, nice to see you.
- Kate.
- Come on in, come on in.
- We're going to butter some nuts? - We are, indeed, yeah.
- Brilliant! A-ha, you made it.
Well done.
'This factory makes various seed and nut butters, but it's almonds 'I'm most interested in.
' - Very good.
- It's a good ten kilos of nuts, I reckon.
'Making almond butter couldn't be simpler.
'Almonds are the one and only ingredient.
'They get milled' - They're like breadcrumbs.
- Yeah.
'.
.
until they turn into a butter that I can spread on my toast.
' Ooh! Now, we're talking.
Mmm! - Oh, it's like marzipan butter.
- Yep.
I love that.
'It may be delicious, but as far as I'm concerned, 'still expensive, despite the plummeting price of almonds.
' - In California - Yeah.
.
.
I spoke to my mate David over there, who's sat on a warehouse full of nuts and he's just having to sell them at, you know, rock-bottom prices.
So, are we gonna see that, kind of, trickle-down effect, when it comes to buying a jar of nut butter from you? Inevitably, in the end, we will.
We would bring our price down, but when that will happen, I couldn't really say.
'So, for us almond butter lovers, it remains to be seen 'exactly when prices will drop and by how much.
'Cashew nut butter is another of John's products, 'so if anyone can help me get to the bottom of the difference 'in price between almond and cashew butter, it's him.
' One thing I don't understand is the fact that, when I buy almonds, they're usually cheaper than cashew nuts.
However, almond butter is always more expensive than cashew nut butter.
Why is that? People have often noticed that and asked me the same question.
With cashew nuts, it's a nasty process shelling cashew nuts.
- They aim to get the whole nuts.
- When they fail to do so and these get broken, they're ideal for us, - because they're that much cheaper.
- That's the difference? That's the difference, yeah.
'So, whole cashews are harder to come by, meaning we pay top dollar, 'but cashew butter can be made using the cheaper broken nuts.
'It seems nut economics do add up, after all.
' 'Earlier, I learnt they DO add 'a special type of brandy to white wine, to make sherry.
' So how much of this do you put in here, to fortify it? - OK.
- That's it? 'But it's not just the local grapes and brandy 'that makes this drink unique.
Antonio shows me the complex 'ageing process sherry goes through.
' 'The Solera system is a blending process used to age sherry, 'so that the finished product is a mixture of different ages.
' So, the bottom barrel, that's the oldest sherry.
You take a quarter of that, put it here and that goes to bottling? - Exactly.
- That leaves a gap, then you fill it with that one and it goes on and on.
And then, the fresh stuff goes at the top.
That is incredible.
'So, that's why sherry doesn't have a year on its label, 'because every bottle is a mixture of many different vintages.
'Knowing some drops are centuries old, I'd better not waste any.
'I think that's my cue to leave.
' I now know the secrets of sherry, but what about its greatest rival? I hop into the Food Unwrapped Mobile and drive to the Douro Valley in Portugal, a lush paradise where all the grapes for port are grown.
But what I really want to know is, how does it differ from sherry? Hello, you must be David.
Good morning.
Welcome to the Douro Valley.
'I'm with head winemaker David Guimaraens.
'Like sherry, port is made from wine but, unlike sherry, 'it's usually made with red grapes.
So, how do they boost 'the alcohol content here?' The big difference is that, halfway through the fermentation, when half of the sugar has been converted into alcohol, and that is when we add a neutral grape spirit.
- Stop it halfway through? - Stop the fermentation.
- And that keeps the sweetness? - And that keeps the sweetness.
'And that's the key difference.
Instead of waiting till the wine 'is completely fermented, as with sherry, the Portuguese add 'their brandy halfway through.
' So, here we have a glass of the neutral grape spirit.
This is at 77%.
Yeah, that cleans the palate(!) 'Adding the high-proof brandy direct into the fermenting wine 'kills the yeast.
This means not all the sugar's converted to alcohol, 'resulting in a sweeter taste.
' Yeah, that's great, isn't it? 'But David tells me there's another distinction between sherry and port.
'I need to visit one of the region's oldest port houses, 'in the city of Porto, to find out more.
' - Hi, I'm Jimmy.
- Good afternoon, Jimmy.
Welcome to Taylor's Port.
Great, I can't wait to taste it.
'Managing Director Adrian Bridge leads me straight 'to the good stuff.
' This is the very top selection, if you like, which we decide after the harvest that we're going to bottle.
'Unlike sherry, the very best years are selected to be vintage ports, 'with the year on the label, just like wine.
'In the other non-vintage years, port is, well, just port.
' Vintage port is made by ageing in a bottle.
This particular one, for example, is from 2008.
This will actually probably end up in the supermarket.
'So, while you can count on consistency with sherry, 'for port, you can choose to splash out on something a bit special.
' Wow! - How about that? - That is delicious.