Food for Fort: On ancient home brew and food dehydrators

A friend's dad has given us some recent and some not-so-recent home brew wine. A 10- to 30-year-old bottle (he's not sure when he made it) was carbonated somehow, had a colour drifting towards rosé and a taste of cider. It was so pressurised, it took a scalpel to cut the cork. Can such a drink be safe, regardless of taste? And how long could it keep for? The oldest wine I've ever drunk was a madeira bottled in 1813, two years before the Battle of Waterloo, and it was as lively as a cricket. And an 1895 Perrier-Jouët champagne was found to be perfectly quaffable when it was opened a while back, as was the champagne rescued from the Baltic seabed last year that was made, apparently, between 1782 and 1788 – it was found to be very sweet, with a pronounced oakiness and the smell of tobacco. But the prize for the oldest drinkable wine probably goes to the Judas cask in the Ratskellar of Bremen , the vast bulk of which's 3,000-plus litres of Rudesheim dates back to 1727 (it's topped up from time to time with young Rudesheim). By those standards, your friend's dad's home brew is a mere stripling. I am visiting family in the UK from Canada and we were discussing food preservation. My family tell me that you can't buy a food dehydrator in the UK. Can this be true? I can't believe that we're behind Canada when it comes to kitchen gadgetry. And I'm proud to say that food dehydrators are available here. Not only that, but you can take your choice of models and suppliers, from the My Kitchen Food Dehydrator at Lakeland for £49.99, to Stockli, L'Equipe and Excalibur dehydrators at Juiceland , from £99 to £229. Or try eBay , where you can choose from a startling array of these kitchen essentials, at prices ranging from £39.99 to £240. I'm afraid I can't say which is the best in my view as I've never used one. • Got a culinary dilemma for Matthew? Email [email protected]