Anna, quite rightly, extols the virtues of that quintessentially English dish, fish and chips, served (noblesse oblige) with mushy peas. But there’s more to English fare than F&C (even if washed down with G&T). England is famed for the curious and demotic cuisine found in pubs, dives, gin palaces and opium dens up and down the land, some of which has a distinctly regional flavour, so as a public service in advance of SciBlog08 I thought I’d list a few of the dishes you might meet.
Sussex Pond Pudding
This dessert confection is a particular favourite of my mother. Contrary to what you might imagine it does not contain frog spawn, newts, pond weed or abandoned supermarket trollies.
Cromer Crab Salad
A delicacy found round my parts in this neck of the woods, not to be confused with Brain Salad Surgery.
Yorkshire Pudding
A side-dish made of eggs, milk and flour, not to be confused with the bored, spotty and obese person bringing it to your table.
Lancashire Hot Pot
A dish made of stewed sheep, popular with animated inventors and their sentient dogs.
Scampi and Chips
If you come across any bones in your scampi, do not complain — in England, scampi is classed as a vertebrate.
Kendal Mint Cake
Less a pub meal, more an emergency restorative that calms mountaineers in distress by reminding them of sexy English TV actresses from 1970s TV sitcoms.
Chicken-In-A-Basket
This should never be confused with Lawnmowers-In-A-Basket
which features more in Peruvian than in English cuisine.
Deep-Fried Mars Bar
More Scottish than English, this is probably the single most important determinant of the low life expectancies enjoyed by the residents of Glasgow.
Doner Kebab With Chili
This is traditionally accompanied by public disorder, affray and grievous bodily harm, and is consumed after (but never alongside) ten pints of Ezekiel’s Old Scrotum, and before the serving of Pavement Pizza.
Mushy peas seemed to me to be the legume equivalent of hominy, which I loathe. And grits are only suitable for pouring onto fire ant mounds.
I was put off mushy peas for life by the disgusting version my primary school used to serve. Ditto pilchards – whoever thought of serving those to 7 year olds?
Henry, you missed chicken tikka masala…
Sticky toffee pudding…
I just became hyperglycemic AND developed a cavity in a bicuspid, merely by reading the words “Kendal Mint Cake”.
Something about a huge grayish lump of greasy mystery meat, which turns on a spit, and which is sliced by a hirsute man wearing a filthy undershirt, totally put me off doner kebabs. I can’t imagine why.
I once heard a story about “elephant leg” kebab meat that put me off for life – although I will eat the chicken version. (The story had nothing to do with elephants, that’s just what the gross rotating meat reminds me of)
Heh. The only thing on this list that fits my (not that weird) diet is the Yorkshire Pudding. (I don’t (want to) eat meat and I can’t eat fried food. Normally this leaves lots of options, but not in British cuisine apparently…)
I’d probably order the Cromer Crab Salad if this was a menu and I was hungry, though. I sometimes eat seafood in emergencies like that.
Hominy – now, I’d never heard of that. I did try grits, once, in the world’s best greasy spoon cafe, namely the Valois See-Your-Food Cafeteria close to the University of Chicago. Now, that really did look like frogspawn marinated in sawdust, and tasted of stale vomit mixed with wallpaper paste.
Doner Kebab, did you day Doner meat???
I have searched the web several times in an attempt to ascertain what this “meat” actually consists of but found out nowt.
I have been very reliably advised however that that chunk of “meat” that one sees revolving around in Kebab shops costs approx. £40 (at least here in Glasgow). Being an “n” of one, this is of course unreliable data and “more research is required”. NICE are looking into this issue – not.
—
“Reconstituated lamb” remains the word on the
streetpavement however.The secret me thinks might be in the sauce. Go check……
El link contains a link to the world’s best/only Kebab Game – ENJOY (Henry on Hammond at the end of the sound-track – allegedly)
@ Graham – I don’t know where you dig them up, I really don’t.
@ Cath – yes, whoever did have the brilliant idea of giving pilchards to 7-year-olds? Probably the same person who imagined that French schoolchildren have free school wine. In any case, prianhas work better than pilchards, but the other way round. And chicken tikka masala — the great one-pot solution from which all Indian restaurant meals flow.
Graham: the meat (loved the image of a leg of an elephant Cath!) is beef back in Sweden. (Lamb is too expensive ;) although it is traditionally lamb in the Med… and maybe in the UK too then?)
The whole idea with the Doner (or Döner) is the turkish word for chopped/grounded meat that is pushed together with lard and spices into the “rotating leg” and then slized thinly. This in contrast to Sish Kebab which is proper (whatever, unprocessed) meat on a skewer.
Kebab, as far as I remember, would mean “fried meat” but I’m not completely sure on that.
In Canada a doner kebab is known as a donair kabob. That’s what happens when you translate from a language with no written vowels – every region interprets the vowels differently!
Nothing, not even loads of cheese, can redeem grits. They are beyond redemption.
As are, I suspect, doner kebabs.
Cath> are you saying the the kebab would be a hebrew word from the beginning? Or Arabic?
I was thought that the kebab was an Iranian thing and farsi has vowels, in contrast to hebrew, but I might be wrong… maybe the vowels are pronounced and not written in farsi as well?
Döner is a Turkish word (gotta love it, they have the ö as well! ;) ) and they have lots of vowels.
But I guess it’s like translating the Russian (Kryllian) names. They turn up spelled in a variety of ways depending on if it’s in French, English or any other language. :)
(I was thought = I was thaught… or I thought. Not both in the same sentence. sorry.)
I thought it was Arabic?
Nothing, not even loads of cheese, can redeem grits
The very thought of cheese on grits makes my stomach churn.
I remember reading on the BBC a while back that Indian food (or at least the British interpretation of it) was the new national dish, replacing F&C!
A couple of weeks ago I was watching the awesomly wicked Anthony Bourdain show No Reservations and he was in Britain. Lots of offal, and fun things like Roasted Bone Marrow
Henry, you forgot my favourite soup in a basket.
Henry, you forgot my favourite soup in a basket.
Snort.
Actually, the best English Pub Food (EPF) I have ever had is at the Red Lion in Stiffkey, about 23 miles west along the coast from the M des Gs. This EPF was documented recently by one Dr B. Z. of North Carolina – however, that was Sunday lunch, which, while fine, isn’t a path on the steak and chips that the pub serves the rest of the week.
Red Lion in Stiffkey? I want to go there. Right. Now!
And I love grits, both in milk and with cheese.
grits are…. an acquired taste me thinks. It reminds me of “porridge made of semolina” and milk and that is, huuu, vile. I think it is the consistency?!
cheese on top just makes it worse imho. Mushy peas are lovely though. Had them on my trip to UK this summer and just loved it togeher with a perfectly fried piece of fish in a pub with an ale :)