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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2017 6:42:16 GMT
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Post by mickthecactus on Feb 1, 2017 8:40:50 GMT
I would be happy with quite a few of those. Sugar and butter sandwiches was a regular Sunday tea treat when I was a lad.
Mrs Cactus always had tomato sauce on roast beef when we first met.
And I'm a huge Marmite fan.
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Post by lugg on Feb 4, 2017 19:04:28 GMT
Marmite Chips and gravy Chip butty - fish fingers /custard not ever just so wrong .
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 4, 2017 22:47:10 GMT
I haven't had all of those things, but most of them sound just fine.
But the fish fingers with custard -- is that custard as it's usually meant, the sweetened egg & milk dessert concoction?! If so, is that a standard British combo, or just something eccentric that got thrown into the article?
Pizza in Mexico is always served with ketchup on the side. That doesn't make it right, though.
At the risk of alienating some lovely people here ~ those beans y'all have for breakfast? *gaaaaackkk*
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Post by onlyMark on Feb 5, 2017 8:32:33 GMT
I'd never eat the baked bean baguette or the peanut butter and cheese. My daughters put ketchup on pizza and have done so since being influenced by friends in Jordan and then continued by friends in Germany. It isn't a British weird thing. Fish finger and custard (yes Bixa, wot u sed) I've never heard of and I doubt many have at all. I bet maybe just three people may do it out of every ten million. A pie bap would be unusual but do-able. I can see that happening.
Apple and cheese? Weird? Never on your life. If we can eat grapes and cheese over on the continent, and banana and cheese then apple and cheese is good. It is also a staple in my house. A tart granny smith paired with aged cheddar makes also a good sandwich. Fish finger and custard, no, but small cubes of cheese in custard, certainly. I was also fed butter and sugar sandwiches as a kid. And the classic bread and dripping.
Lastly, virtually anything with bacon is good. Not though the appalling stuff generally eaten in Trumpland. Proper back or streaky bacon in thick white sliced bread with a touch of HP sauce or ketchup - a world beater. And when you were a kid your mother would dip one slice in the fat made from frying the stuff and tell you it'd make you big and strong and put hairs on your chest.
It worked.
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Post by lagatta on Feb 5, 2017 12:09:03 GMT
I've never thought of apples, or pears and cheese as anything but delicious. Most of the foods described that seem problematic incorporate too much starch (the pie bap - the pie itself might be very good) or sugar. I know, where I live many people eat a culinary horror called poutine - which isn't really traditional; it was probably invented in a small town on the South Shore between Québec and Montréal in the 1960s - so I'm not lecturing anyone. In general, I don't like white (or brown) sliced bread; though somewhat crustier white bread is probably no more nutritious - the only reason is might be a bit better is lack of sugar and odd fats. The back bacon has me jonesing... There is a Slovenian place nearby that makes very good back bacon, but they aren't open yet.
Many people here were sad when Marks and Spencer shut down across Canada, especially in terms of the food - they were actually profitable here, but it was the era when one shut down profitable concerns in hopes of making MORE profit elsewhere, in a speculative vortex.
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Post by onlyMark on Feb 5, 2017 13:26:26 GMT
My theory is that historically Britain, as well though as many nations, had a heavy manual way of working and the workers were poorly paid. Thus carbs were a cheap way of obtaining the energy needed for back breaking work. Only the rich could afford meat and good food. Ask a manual worker in the UK even now if he'd prefer a chip butty or kale and heirloom tomato salad, chia seeds and dolphin friendly tuna, with a free hug from a tree and a baby seal, and I'm sure you know the answer.
My experience of American and Canadian sliced bread is that it is in a league all of its own. Unfortunately the league is several below that of the standard UK sliced loaf - which isn't saying too much in itself, but it is far better than the sweet cardboard monstrosity our cousins seem to have a taste for. Bread was ruined by the invention of the Chorleywood bread process but there is bread and bread and bread depending on personal preference. When in the UK I don't eat Hovis thick white sliced all the time, but boy, for some things like toast, it is the dogs bollocks.
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Post by lagatta on Feb 5, 2017 14:06:31 GMT
Hovis is much nicer than what we call "Weston bread" (from a major Canadian producer)! I never ate the latter at home, and no, I don't come from a wealthy family, far from it. My mother was fussy about nutritious food, for someone of her generation.
Obviously the worker needs energy; the rather caricatural meal you are counterposing to the chip butty would be eaten by a person not involved in manual labour who needs nutrition but not too many calories. And more than a bit of an element of food snobbery. Though country people grow what would be considered heirloom tomatoes and could well eat them beside fish fingers and white bread.
But I'm sure your worker wouldn't mind a nice chop or steak.
People across northern Europe eat much the same staples, but some say that the high amount of sugar in the working-class British diet comes from the trade with the Caribbean. And of course there was the tea trade...
People in southern Europe ate a lot of wheat as well, in the form of pasta or bread, but often even poor people had more access to vegetables, because of the warmer climate. You can grow tomatoes in a tiny patch of soil.
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Post by onlyMark on Feb 5, 2017 17:21:26 GMT
The sugar consumption is because of the links with the Caribbean? Never thought of that if it is correct. Mind you, I expect that of the USA for example is far higher and I wonder if the same link is true? I'm sure the worker would like a nice chop or a steak but it's only with the onset of modern farming techniques that he could ever have afforded a good cut most of the time. A lot of offal was probably normal (to make, for example, the ever popular faggots) - but fish like herring as well.
As for tomatoes, they are not easy to grow in the UK without some form of greenhouse or other protection as far as I know. Root vegetables do a lot better in northern Europe. Generally onions, leeks, carrots, turnips and potatoes did well. But also cabbage, broccoli, Jerusalem artichoke and funnily enough, watercress. I doubt if any small holder grew much cereal crop though I'm not a farmer so could be wrong. I'd expect the major farms would have done but anything smaller than that would have concentrated on something with more bang for the buck. Some things may well have been easier to grow in parts southern Europe but in my part there are no wheat fields or fruit trees or anything that takes more than a minimal amount of water to grow. Head east and there are acres of plastic greenhouses growing things like the lettuce that is now in shortage in the UK.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2017 17:38:11 GMT
The current vegetable shortages in the UK are indeed surprising. But I wonder if this sort of thing might become relatively common after Brexit. UK vegetable shortage
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 5, 2017 18:09:19 GMT
The price of salad in the winter has always been relatively high. I've not noticed any shortages in the shops recently, neither have I ever wanted to purchase more than one lettuce at a time. We get a lot of our veg from Europe but we also grow our own salad cropss in huge greenhouses. I try to get along to a local shop where I buy fresh, in season, locally grown vegetables all year. Adapt and survive Incidentally 'fish fingers and custard' is a Doctor Who reference...Matt Smith's Doctor famously ate fish fingers and custard in Amy Pond's kitchen in one of his early episodes.....(I apologise if this has already been mentioned) and a horrified (if delighted) shudder swept the country.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2017 18:15:21 GMT
Yes, I remember what he did in Amy Pond's house. I'm sure it is the inspiration for people wanting to try it.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 5, 2017 18:18:18 GMT
I haven't come across it on any pub or greasy spoon menu....yet....
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Post by whatagain on Feb 8, 2017 10:08:45 GMT
Lagatta the best poutines I had were close to Abraham plains - pouting a l Italienne. Fries then Bologna sauce + cheese then in the oven. Quite light too.
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Post by lagatta on Feb 9, 2017 0:58:24 GMT
Indeed that sounds better than most Poutine. The reason I don't care for it is that I LOVE frites - but rarely eat them for obvious reasons. And the rare times I do, I want them to be crisp. Yes, I do like the Belgian mayo-based sauces, especially the spicy ones. But Patatje Oorlog is simply too strange and why on earth is it called "war potatoes"? Is that dish specifically Dutch, because of the reference to spicy peanut sauces from the old Dutch East India colony? witness.theguardian.com/assignment/54638dbfe4b0c6f7ffe34c49/1247575
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 9, 2017 1:47:47 GMT
I would eat that!
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Post by onlyMark on Feb 9, 2017 5:13:34 GMT
I've never heard of chips with peanut butter. I wouldn't eat it but I can see the appeal. Does the USA know about this?
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Post by chexbres on Feb 11, 2017 17:40:23 GMT
They probably will now...
I sometimes enjoy a nice tuna fish sandwich on sliced bread with a few potato chips tucked inside.
The sugar industry was "birthed" by the Dutch, who brought sugar cane to the West Indies from Brazil. When various other crops failed - tobacco, cotton, etc - and the British came to favor the cheaper cane sugar over beetroot sugar, plantations sprang up all over the Caribbean.
Barbados, Jamaica and Santo Domingo were the main centers of production of cane sugar and its eventual by-products, rum and molasses, and remained rich under French, Dutch and British rule. This combined organization could not have prospered if not for slave-trading, which was finally abolished at the end of the 19th C. Sugar cane is still actively grown on plantations in Puerto Rico, contributing to the American economy.
The Slaves' revenge: Americans now consume more than 77 pounds of hidden sugar per year (added to catsup, convenience foods, etc) - this is in addition to the actual sugar they may consume by eating candy, cake and...pure sugar. British people consume around 46 pounds of hidden sugar per year - in addition to...
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Post by mossie on Feb 11, 2017 20:09:13 GMT
Is that why, when I was at work I weighed about 150 lbs, whereas now it is about 180. I lack the willpower to do much about it.
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Post by onlyMark on Feb 11, 2017 21:14:33 GMT
I hovered around 180 pounds from the age of fourteen until the age of fifty. Then I started getting cuddly instead of 'muscily' as I stopped doing much physical stuff. I just eat broth and a glass of water once a day now.
I have pies, full English and treacle sponge for the other two meals though. Just to balance it out.
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Post by lagatta on Feb 11, 2017 22:32:24 GMT
Only Mark, it isn't exactly peanut butter - it is a spicy sauce containing peanut butter and other things. It usually involves mayonnaise. While it is certainly fatty enough to be a US junk food, aren't US-Americans more inclined to make travesties of Mexican food? This is a Dutch travesty of the satay and sambal sauces of its huge colony in Southeast Asia, and the spicing is very different.
I've never had patatje oorlog, but I've certainly had my share of Dutchified Indonesian food. Which can be very good. Think of the Balti triangle!
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Post by onlyMark on Feb 12, 2017 6:50:00 GMT
I am sure that each country tends to butcher the food from another. Chinese food is getting very popular in India as it can be made quickly and easily on the street. But their variations use local ingredients which begins to give the dish an Indian twist.
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Post by chexbres on Feb 12, 2017 21:23:46 GMT
I see that there is a proposal to tax people in Britain if they eat too much sugar. Prices will be passed on directly to the consumer: www.bbc.com/news/health-38212608It's too bad that the US hasn't followed suit, since NYC attempted to ban "super-sized sodas", but was rejected as un-Constitutional. Apparently, you are permitted to die a slow, painful death from several obesity-related diseases, though. Absolutely nobody needs a half-liter of sugared water (or probably several of them) per day - even if normally the cup is filled with crushed ice.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 20, 2017 18:34:33 GMT
I've patiently been waiting for Bixa to make her star studded gastronomic review in this thread.
After having been ill from some type of food type of issue, enough time has passed, I hope, that we might get her take on this ever so popular and intriguing thread in this section.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jun 20, 2017 18:57:42 GMT
It should be noted that during the meet-up, 3 of the 6 people ordered fish and chips, but two of the three requested no mushy peas.
Just for the record, I had a mutton burger.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 20, 2017 19:09:21 GMT
Yes, I've been looking forward to that as well.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 20, 2017 19:18:45 GMT
Those were pretty grim F&C there in the Serpentine Cafe. I was the one who had the mushy peas & they were awful, even though I've had nice versions elsewhere. I did not bounce back from the stomach thing quickly. The first real meal I ate was on the 8th, when Cheery took me out for an excellent steak dinner. I did it justice and could feel strength and intelligence flowing back into my protein starved body. Mostly, though, I haven't been able to eat anything close to a full meal, which means no outings to nice restaurants. The first true inkling I had that I might fully recover was day before yesterday, the 18th. After I went to the fun thing that I'll report on later, I was wandering around and wound up on Bond Street. I passed a Wasabi's and immediately entered and bought way too much stuff. Went home and ate half of it for supper. You know you're feeling better when you crave raw fish. But back to British food ~ except for the icky canned beans and the usually boring sausages, I really like most of it. The Sainsbury's near me has a deli counter with all kinds of raised pies and rare roast beef and other treats, so I'm able to sample foods that I only knew from literature before.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jun 20, 2017 19:23:06 GMT
I don't understand how anybody can find mushy peas awful. After all, they are by definition awful. Either you can choke them down or you can't.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 20, 2017 19:25:03 GMT
No. The name is admittedly awful, but I've had them in restaurants where they tasted fresh and bright and once even had a hint of mint.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jun 20, 2017 19:39:04 GMT
I've little experience of eating in restaurants abroad but there are many Indian, French, Italian, Greek and Chinese restaurants here. We have Lebonese, Caribbean, Nepalese, Turkish, Japanese and Latin American places to eat as well as the traditional Chip shops Burger bars and little sandwich bars here in Leicester. I've eaten at a few....the Indian restaurant we used to frequent was always full of Indian families...and there used to be an excellent Chinese restaurant (The Water Margin it was called) usually had Chinese families eating there....both closed down when the local coucil oiked up their rents. A new Indian restaurant opened a couple of years ago with a huge fanfare and big advertisments in the local rag..it was beautifully decorated and jolly expensive...we went. The food was crap.
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