This Week in Food Porn: Polenta and Puffball Mushrooms

The stuff of life is woven along the ribbon of euphoria and grief, of hunger and thirst, of laughter and tears, of spitting and swallowing. This January, as with every January, we have said goodbye to some greats. But we cannot live on memories alone: we must eat ever onwards and raise a glass to those we've loved and lost.

So, here is the very best of this week's food porn, delivered straight to your palm like a steaming box off the steaming back of a Deliveroo driver.

Seaweeds - one of the few untapped natural resources, we've yet to really start eating #nomaaustralia

A photo posted by Rene Redzepi (@reneredzepinoma) on Jan 12, 2016 at 4:39pm PST

And here, my friends, we have a delicious salted plate of cartoon cactus, a ragged-ass one-eyed fish, a twist of parcel tape, a necklace of bogies, an old man's cough, and a rejected Christmas tree. Delicious.

#Homemade #cauliflowerpizza base - first time! #cauliflower #instagood #instadaily #cooking #foodie #foodies #foodgasm #foodporn #foodphotography #instagood #instadaily #fblog #delish #delicious #foodstagram A photo posted by Joy Hopwood (@joyhouseproductions) on Jan 14, 2016 at 11:43pm PST

So, I suppose 2016 is going to be yet another year in which we replace that wheat-ground carbohydrate manna from heaven with yet more vegetables. Courgetti, beetroot cakes, cauliflower pizza—the list, like our life expectancy, goes on. Our present time is seed time, in the other world we shall reap as we sow now. Still, I quite miss bread tbh.

this beautiful naked cake styled by attendee @hayleysheldon at the #seesessions workshop at @winescene with @jessicalorren @jessicasloane @flowerandfringe @silkandwillow @honeyhoneycalligraphy #workshop #styling #film #cake #silk #themakersapron

A photo posted by Earth and Sugar (@earthandsugar) on Jan 14, 2016 at 5:44am PST

I think when you're describing a wedding cake as "naked," you might be ready to get back on Tinder, pal. Because that cake is no more naked than I am Harvey Keitel. I mean, it's wearing a fascinator made of berries and even that spade on the plate next to it is sporting some sort of mauve ribbon sari.

Got to love new produce to play with. This is the wing off a eagle ray, taste and behaved a lot like school shark. #thestag#thestagportfairy#fish#local#allfresh#fresh#warrnambool#portfairy#chef#cheflife#kitchen#ray#eagleray#seafood#coastlife#nomaAustralia#Victoria#kitchen#kitchenlife#beardedchef A photo posted by Sebastian Eales (@sebastianeales) on Jan 14, 2016 at 12:34am PST

OK, hold the phone. Hold the tannoy. Hold the Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons. Hold the Search and Rescue Transponders. That is a fucking shark fin. Call it an eagle ray wing if you want to be a pussy about it but that, my friends, is Jaws' waving tool and I for one, need to go hide in a barrel.

white winter melon compressed with #wildrose and #elderflower #pickled elderflower buds, pickled #rosepetals, dried rose, and fresh #figs made and #foraged by @adelasterfoodtextures #plating #pickling #edibleflowers #eatingflowers _______________________________ what do you make with the wild food that you find? share your creations. #wildfoodlove

A photo posted by wild food is indigenous food (@wildfoodlove) on Jan 11, 2016 at 6:17pm PST

Remember when the Snow Queen in Narnia tempts stupid, old, ginger Tory Edmund with a box of Turkish Delight, proffered from the gnarled and hairy hand of a half-hog, half-man? Dude should have held out for some compressed white winter melon with wild rose and elderflower buds, topped with some freshly-sliced figs. Silly Edmund. Silly.

Tune in to the Jonathan Ross Show on @itv tonight at 9.15 to find out what @elliegoulding , Steve Carell, Wossy and I got up to! A photo posted by Gordon Ramsay (@gordongram) on Jan 9, 2016 at 8:19am PST

OK. I … um. Right. OK. Right. Right … I … I have no words.

Filming #alotonherplate #youtube today with @pedrobarker - messicani with roasted cauliflower and preserved lemons. Video recipe coming soon… #foodphotography #foodstyling #f52grams

A photo posted by Rosie Birkett (@rosiefoodie) on Jan 12, 2016 at 6:40am PST

The opening 12 minutes of Once Upon A Time In The West are almost completely silent, save for the buzzing of Sergio Leone's fly, the whistle of the wind, and the rattle of the trigger being pulled back on a baking hot gun. I would listen to that soundtrack, eating this.

Cooking up my comforting Polenta with sjallots, mushrooms, kale and pancetta. On The Guardian website and in @guardian_cook today! A photo posted by Regula Ysewijn (@missfoodwise) on Jan 9, 2016 at 9:49am PST

The "rustics" in Shakespeare always had the best time: drinking, shagging, spitting, digging, "groping for trout in an unfamiliar river." No wonder we've been so busy for the intervening centuries trying to eat off boards and fill our mouths with soil-encrusted roots.

Baby Pear-shaped Puffballs getting started. #lycoperdon #pyriforme #forage #ediblewildmushroom #puffball #stumppuffs #yummy #naturesprovisions #growing #on #oak #log #wildfood #truefood #bydesign #naturesintention #eatsomethingwildeveryday #wildfoodlove

A photo posted by Farma Cee (@farma_cee) on Jan 13, 2016 at 12:42pm PST

A red giant is a luminous giant star of low or intermediate mass in a late phase of stellar evolution. The outer atmosphere is inflated and tenuous, making the radius immense and the surface temperature low. The appearance of the red giant is from yellow-orange to red, including the spectral types K and M, but also class S stars and most carbon stars. The most common red giants are stars nearing the end of the so-called red-giant-branch but are still fusing hydrogen into helium in a shell surrounding a degenerate helium core.

And sometimes, you can witness the whole of the universe on the underside of a log.

Seed Jersey royals ready to be planted #realfood #foodsafari A photo posted by Jimmy Doherty (@jimmysfarm) on Jan 14, 2016 at 5:25am PST

That he which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart; his passport shall be made and crowns for convoy put into his purse. Lift up a standard against our foe. For this day is called the feast of Crispian.

I mean crisps. This day is called the feast of crisps day. Once more unto the salt, dear friends.