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Hotrodder 14 years, 3 months ago.
I like the looks of most of this food – but the British do have vegetables, right? I saw the ‘Wallace & Grommit’ movie, so I know they exhibit them at least…
TOFFEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sticky Toffee Pudding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Like I said above, I lived there on and off for over 20 years. And, I truly love those people. But, to this day, I still can’t get over the way they eat a ‘burger’.
Fork and knife in hand, meat, bun, lettuce and tomato all separate on the plate
cutting a piece of each and putting it all together on the fork to eat.
Comments from memories of a visit to the ‘Rainy Isles" (even though Plattsburgh isn’t much drier!!) from a number of years ago.
Breakfast was by far the best meal of the day.
The Indian-style restaurants weren’t too bad.
Mickey D’s was Mickey D’s
Bubble and squeak was awful
Roast beef wasn’t cooked too much more than my departed Mother used to make; even though that too was a lot!
My most memorable food experience though was in a small cafe in Windermere. We had eaten our evening meal and I decided to have a piece of chocolate cake with a scoop of ice cream on the side for dessert. Well, they had never heard of such a thing. A stupid Yank wants cake and ice cream on the same plate! The middle aged owner and the two teeny bopper females who worked there just could not get enough of watching me eat my cake and ice cream!
Wally
quote:
Originally posted by Rick F.
British food featured "the good, the bad, and the ugly." No major surprises, just a reminder that the world was not custom-designed for my tastes. Maybe we should all remember that.
Nicely put Rick F. One of the great joys of travel is discovering new and wonderful tastes (and being able to come home and share stories of surviving culinary disasters [;)])
As for haggis – all I can remember in the one persistent neuron that won’t allow the memory to be expunged is offal mixed with oatmeal, and it tasted to me as appetising as it sounds [xx(] ! That said, I have Scottish friends who pipe in the haggis & venerate it with poetry on Robbie Burns Day – and we remain friends, lol.
Cyrano, I’m glad you had a positive experience. I have fond memories of British icecream (liquorice flavour at Brighton pier – yummo).
Lastly, it is really pleasant to participate in a lively & civil forum. Thanks all!
In defense of Brit cuisine, you have got to love the fact they have a desert called "Spotted Dick"!
(Gotta get my Brit friend to speak up for her home grocers…..)
With the above reference made about instant coffee, The Brits love the stuff.
But, we have only ourselves (Americans) to blame. It seems we got them hooked on the stuff during the war.
I lived in London on and off for over 20 years beginning in the late sixties.
In the beginning, I found the food to be absolutely horrible. Breakfast and tea time excluded. I can tell you that, now their food is worlds better.
After all, they had no place to go but up.
Speaking from greatly limited experience (c. 10 days on a bus tour, 10 years ago), I can say that my experience with British food was mixed. Very few things I loathed (I’m sorry, but haggis and bangers are not my friends!), many I liked, more simply "okay"–much like American food! The one truly outstanding memory is breakfast: grilled tomatoes, bacon, mushrooms, and more. . . . I could have lived on those breakfasts, save for the omnipresent instant coffee!
Overall: Once again, like American (and, I suspect, most national and even regional) food, British food featured "the good, the bad, and the ugly." No major surprises, just a reminder that the world was not custom-designed for my tastes. Maybe we should all remember that.
quote:
cyrano & Jimeats – I hope you were being flippant and didn’t mean what came across as an ignorant premise and xenophobic responses
Nope, just reporting on my experiences there. My English ex was just as appalled by Tex-Mex as I was by chip butties and mushy peas, so your point about one person’s comfort food being profoundly discomfiting to someone else is well taken. But the mushy peas I was exposed to were (was?) nothing more than an unappetizing slurry that simply tasted strange as well as looking even stranger, the meat was done to death (as were the parsnips), and I hope never to have to eat steak and kidney pie or pickled eggs again. Keep in mind, this was the Blackpool area, which in the mid-90s was *not* a hotbed of culinary excellence or adventure. What was on the menu there, both in the homes and at the caffs, was the English comfort food that had prevailed since at least WWII.
I’ve had better-quality British cooking in other places (and there WERE some places in Blackpool that served fresh, not overdone fried cod), but the website with the pictures took me back to some bad memories.
How about I end on a positive note? I had my favorite ice cream EVER outside Birmingham (ginger, pretty heavy on the main flavor), I loved the full-cream fresh milk we got from a local dairy, and my mother in law did a wonderful, airy and light Yorkshire pudding.
quote:
Originally posted by willo
As for spam fritters, people in Scrapple houses shouldn’t throw livermush!
This is my new favorite Roadfood quote!! [8D]
Well said,Willo!
cyrano & Jimeats – I hope you were being flippant and didn’t mean what came across as an ignorant premise and xenophobic responses [;)].
British food can have some notoriously sad examples. I’m sure you can also, if you are honest, think of some very poorly executed examples of American cuisine that are hardly "haute". But well prepared, trad British cuisine can be satisfying and comforting to those for whom it is familiar ( and less than apetising to those that didn’t grow up with it – much like some US regional specialties don’t cross regional boundaries).
Whatsmore, contemporary British cuisine can be vibrant, interesting and fresh produce driven (e.g "mushy peas" made of garden fresh peas/herbs/creme fraiche, with a piece of grilled cod is a wonderful variation of the chippy’s fish & peas).
As for spam fritters, people in Scrapple houses shouldn’t throw livermush!
Respectfully,
Willo
British food, the cause of that little skirmish we had with them at Breeds Hill. Chow Jim
Ah, the north of England. I married a "sandgrown’un" (a Blackpool native) once upon a time many years ago (she is very much part of my past, not my present), and I’ve experienced the full panoply of their "cuisine;" mushy peas, chip butties, Marmite, pickled eggs, bangers and mash, kidney pudding, boiled parsnips, done-to-death roast beef.
It takes me back…much against my will. Terrible, terrible excuse for food.
After reading the first three in the list, you’re tempted to TRY some? Are you nuts?
Just kidding. I’d love to have a full breakfast fryup right now.
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