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Any Port in a Storm :: Dockside Dining :: After Dinner :: British food
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AuthorTopic: British food (Read 5,183 times)
onlymark
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Re: British food
« Reply #210 on May 16, 2011, 9:38pm »		[Quote]
I had a strange experience this weekend. In Amman of all places. We had to visit a large shopping mall for something and as we had little time we grabbed a bite to eat there.
The 'Food Court' had a number of different outlets, one being a takeaway curry place. Biting the bullet I thought I'd try it.
It turned out to have the very best chicken dupiaza I've ever tasted, and chicken biryani.
I was stunned.

I shall certainly return.
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hwinpp
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Re: British food
« Reply #211 on May 17, 2011, 2:58am »		[Quote]
Had some really good black pudding with the English breakfast I had a couple of days ago.
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kerouac2
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Re: British food
« Reply #212 on May 17, 2011, 1:57pm »		[Quote]
I wonder how much British Empire influence is still in evidence in Jordan. Seems like it would have been one of the main stopover points on those endless transcontinental trips.
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Re: British food
« Reply #213 on May 17, 2011, 4:58pm »		[Quote]
Jordan (or Transjordan) was part of the empire between the wars, but I tend to feel there isn't much of a lasting legacy from it. I shall see in a few months.
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bixaorellana
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Re: British food
« Reply #214 on May 26, 2011, 4:19pm »		[Quote]
Here's a little serendipity ........ in trying to Google up something about British influence in Jordan, I came across a thesis about British food. It came up because someone named Jordan was thanked in the dedication. I find it too long to read online, but it's probably worth printing out for the history and the list of resources consulted, plus, it's an interesting read.
http://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/cgi/viewc....=etd_hon_theses

Here is a random sample:

The first major market for domestically produced molasses was actually
medicinal. The English inherited their taste and ideas about sugar from the Islamic
people who first introduced it to them. The idea that sugar and its byproducts had
medicinal qualities originated with them, in what is now the Middle East. To the
English at home, the liquid byproduct of sugar production was not called molasses at
all, but “treacle,” a word with roots in ancient Grecian medicine. The word comes
from the Greek theriaca antidotos, meaning, essentially, “antidote for the bites of
animals.” The Romans used the term to refer to mixtures of honey and spices that
they used as remedies for poison. By the Tudor period the phrase had been shortened
to theriaca, and then anglicized to “treacle,” and the medicines it identified were
increasingly based on molasses or sugar syrups. Treacle was sold in England in the
16th and early 17th centuries by apothecaries and a class of people who made selling
treacle-based medicines their specific business: treaclemongers.
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joanne28
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Re: British food
« Reply #215 on Jun 21, 2011, 11:43pm »		[Quote]
I worked my way through the whole thing and found it interesting.
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cheerypeabrain
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Re: British food
« Reply #216 on Aug 16, 2011, 6:53pm »		[Quote]
Has this been posted before?

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cheerypeabrain
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Re: British food
« Reply #217 on Aug 16, 2011, 7:09pm »		[Quote]
my favourite one is the Supersizers go 1970s...

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bixaorellana
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Re: British food
« Reply #218 on Aug 16, 2011, 8:10pm »		[Quote]
I have only watched the embedded video so far -- brilliant! Can't wait to see all of them.
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auntieannie
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Re: British food
« Reply #219 on Aug 20, 2011, 3:47pm »		[Quote]
yes, that series was quite witty!
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Dans les grandes choses, les hommes se montrent comme il leur convient de se montrer; dans les petites, ils se montrent comme ils sont.
bixaorellana
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Re: British food
« Reply #220 on Oct 20, 2011, 8:07pm »		[Quote]
Lord love a duck ~~ look at this!

click picture to access treasures
[image]
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onlymark
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Re: British food
« Reply #221 on Oct 21, 2011, 6:44am »		[Quote]
Just for clarity -
Top left - Ticklemore, Red Leicester, Shropshire Blue, Spenwood, Cheddar, Stichelton, Lincolnshire Poacher, Cheshire, Lancashire cheeses.
http://www.saveur.com/article/Techniques/English-Artisan-Cheeses

Middle top - Plum Bread made with currents and raisins soaked in tea -
http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Plum-Bread

Top right - Bubble and Squeak -
http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Bubble-and-Squeak

Bottom left - Steak and Stilton Pie -
http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Steak-and-Stilton-Pies

Bottom right - how a good pork pie should be -
http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/English-Pork-Pie
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Re: British food
« Reply #222 on Oct 21, 2011, 9:06am »		[Quote]
Some of the lads on the Thorn Tree Get Stuffed Branch have revived the ancient Pasty Wars. I refuse to participate.
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Panza llena, corazón contento.
http://mexkitchen.blogspot.com/
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Re: British food
« Reply #223 on Oct 21, 2011, 12:13pm »		[Quote]
Some people just don't know when a joke has expired. It's like the people who still write chilllllis about six years later.
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Re: British food
« Reply #224 on Oct 21, 2011, 4:30pm »		[Quote]
Thanks for laying the links out, Mark. However, except for your comment above the pork pie link, neither you nor your compatriots have clarified whether or not the recipes are authentic.

They certainly look qualified to be called "good, honest food", with no silly modern touches. The two pies are absolute beauties.

Does anyone know if pork pie was a seasonal thing in the old days -- something that would be made in the Fall, at hog butchering time?

Also, if a person can't get mace or stilton, are there any substitutions for those two things?
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Re: British food
« Reply #225 on Oct 21, 2011, 5:49pm »		[Quote]
Authentic enough.
Mace can be substituted with nutmeg I think.
For Stilton try Roquefort or maybe American Maytag Blue.

The recipes have been adapted I should think for modern stuff, like frozen peas, frozen pastry and kosher salt, but something like bubble and squeak is not made from scratch, it is just leftovers dumped together, so it does depend on what leftovers you've got. There is no definitive recipe for it. Neither really is there for the other stuff, it becomes regional and what is available. That's why certain foodstuffs have become protected, like Stilton cheese, so that it is recognised as a standard and none other can be called it.

The pork pie as well can't be called a Melton Mowbray pork pie unless it comes from there. In any case pork pies are traditionally a central England thing and I think originally it was not used at a main meal but eaten when hunting or riding out. Also they weren't cooked as a pie in a container, they stood up by themselves, or at least that's how my mother used to make them and I think it wasn't because we didn't have a pie dish.

Is a pork pie seasonal? Wouldn't have a clue, but I would expect it would be as you don't normally slaughter pigs all year round.

I also just noticed on the same website Toad in the Hole -
http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Toad-in-the-Hole
But when I was a kid we didn't wrap prosciutto round the sausages, did we?
Maybe bacon if we were lucky.
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bixaorellana
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Re: British food
« Reply #226 on Oct 21, 2011, 6:16pm »		[Quote]
Thanks, Mark. You also answered a question I didn't ask -- about "raised pies". I did think I'd read about pork pies and some others as traditionally being cooked in a free-standing crust.

Oh, no prosciutto as a lad? How sad. Mater always draped some over our hothouse melon of a morning. ::)
I missed seeing that. It's surprising, as none of the other recipes feature such imports.
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Re: British food
« Reply #227 on Oct 28, 2011, 3:59pm »		[Quote]
Don't you think that nowadays there is no such thing as a British national cuisine? OK we have lots of old recipes that have been handed down that we all cook, but we have so many outside influences that it's just as likely that we will cook Italian, French or Indian (or even Mexican!) dishes of an evening....

On tv we have loads of 'celebrity chefs' demonstrating in entertaining theatrical or scientific ways how to cook this or that...but in my experience most people adapt recipes on the hoof...I'm a great believer in 'Bung-it-in' recipes...adaptations to suit what I have in the cupboard or freezer rather than rushing to the shops to by a difinitive ingredient. I make 'traditional' style loaves of bread, but I'm just as likely to make chapatis, brioche, foccia or similar. I make chili con carne...but no doubt my 'evolved' recipe is different to the classic dish...I cook to suit the family and my budget. ;D
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Re: British food
« Reply #228 on Oct 28, 2011, 4:39pm »		[Quote]
can I say I've always enjoyed British TV Cookery shows whilst I had a TV, but I really think there are a bit "too many chefs in the kitchen" for the country. Not sure people who really cook their meals regularly take the time to watch these shows. It seems to me they are sometimes watched by those who wouldn't cook themselves.
Otherwise, I like Mark's take on Jordanian food: (I'm in Jordan so what I eat is Jordanian) - maybe we can do the same with British food, CPB? ;D
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Dans les grandes choses, les hommes se montrent comme il leur convient de se montrer; dans les petites, ils se montrent comme ils sont.
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Re: British food
« Reply #229 on Oct 28, 2011, 7:08pm »		[Quote]
I am aware how British food had changed as I'm of the age where the majority of influences on it have been in my lifetime. Sure, it has been changed by the officials who returned from the Raj but my impression is there was little influence from other parts of our empire on the cuisine. But since the late sixties and especially from the seventies onwards there has been quite a change in what is not only cooked generally in homes but the range of ingredients available.
I doubt in the history of the UK there has been as much change in such a short space of time.

That makes it to me now difficult to say what is modern British cuisine. It's easy to say what it used to be - mainly what has been mentioned in this thread - but now?
I do wonder if any national cuisine from any other country appears to have changed as much as ours in the last thirty years.
I also think there is not only too many chefs but also the cult of celebrity makes them appear more important or influential than they are or should be.

I have great affection for 'traditional' (what ever that is) British food but I also acknowledge that we do have a reputation for really bad food, and often justified. But nowadays there is no excuse at all to serve crap.
Unless you are just a bad cook, then you are forgiven as it's your fault and not the ingredients.
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Re: British food
« Reply #230 on Oct 28, 2011, 7:13pm »		[Quote]
Frankly, just about everybody I know is anxiously awaiting the return of Marks & Spencer to Paris next month because of the food. I was also an avid customer for certain items.
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Re: British food
« Reply #231 on Oct 28, 2011, 8:33pm »		[Quote]
I will be visiting the Marks and Spencer next September when we return. We had one here when I was a child and have many happy memories of the store from buying little earings and makeup with my nana and, sitting like a big girl, on a stool at the lunch bar. :)

Cheers,
Mich
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Re: British food
« Reply #232 on Nov 14, 2011, 5:18pm »		[Quote]
Keroauc, has M and S opened yet?

World's first Cornish Pasty museum opens in Mexico -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8....-in-Mexico.html
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Re: British food
« Reply #233 on Nov 14, 2011, 5:46pm »		[Quote]

Oct 28, 2011, 7:13pm, kerouac2 wrote:
Frankly, just about everybody I know is anxiously awaiting the return of Marks & Spencer to Paris next month because of the food. I was also an avid customer for certain items.


I think that M&S food has gone downhill over the past few years..They seem to change their suppliers every few weeks, so no sooner have I found a product that I like they change it! I still shop there on special occasions...but am much more selective and more likely to make stuff myself than buy their ready meals these days. They've also started selling 'branded goods' as well....it's a slippery slope...

The clothes are dreadful now, shoddy workmanship and cheap materials. I've stopped buying them because the sizes seem to be guessed at (for ladies anyway).
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Re: British food
« Reply #234 on Nov 14, 2011, 6:00pm »		[Quote]
M&S is still not open but I still want to see what they will have available.

The clothes have always been horrid.
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Re: British food
« Reply #235 on Nov 14, 2011, 6:19pm »		[Quote]

Quote:
However, except for your comment above the pork pie link, neither you nor your compatriots have clarified whether or not the recipes are authentic.


Coming late to this, I can't help raising an eyebrow at the thought that a pork pie recipe seems to require kosher salt.
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Re: British food
« Reply #236 on Nov 14, 2011, 7:09pm »		[Quote]
My Mum used to make raised pies (pork pies) and she wasn't fussy about ingredients (we live in Leicester near Melton Mowbray, where they are supposed to come from). The problem she had was the amount of time it took to make it rather than any difficulty in getting ingredients. I've never eaten one in my life altho I buy them for my OH.
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Re: British food
« Reply #237 on Nov 19, 2011, 3:01pm »		[Quote]
M&S food these days seem to be all about meals that you kind of buy "in kit". Mostly pre-packaged stuff and you can construct a three or four course meal for two/four and only need one microwave and maybe one fridge for it. and they're high on the greenwash, but have forgotten all their pledges one by one as it suited them. (which we can't blame a business to do, but it doesn't really sit well with me.)
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Dans les grandes choses, les hommes se montrent comme il leur convient de se montrer; dans les petites, ils se montrent comme ils sont.
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Re: British food
« Reply #238 on Apr 1, 2012, 5:30am »		[Quote]
War is hell:

A Tax on Snacks Aggravates Austerity Tensions in Britain   <-- click
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Re: British food
« Reply #239 on Apr 1, 2012, 10:05am »		[Quote]
We had 19.6% VAT for ages on restaurants in France, and then it finally got dropped to 5.5%, but the new austerity measures have put it up to 7% now.
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