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I cannot stand fish and chips usually... All the grease and the batter :sick:Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
However, last month I had fish and chips at a tiny restaurant and it was very delicious so probably it depends on how it is made but I still think it is one of those dishes that sound simple but very difficult to get right.
I love the Sunday roast with Yorkshire puddings, though.
Hi all--Thanks to everyone for their advice and well wishes. I'm all prepared now to subsit on fish 'n chips, curry and warm beer, and encounter nothing but people, pale from dearth of sun, who call their pants trousers but are otherwise prone to monosyllables. Hmm...Manichean's story from France has me thinking that the customs that worked so well during my time in Italy may not be quite as welcome in the cold north. Better forget the impulsive embrace/double kiss greeting and get my tut tutting and stiff handshaking into shape. Luckily I'm a rather reserved little academic type, so this shouldn't be too difficult, and I already pronounce the word "route" like "root" (it can be either in the states), so there may be hope for me. :P
Sher--Thanks for the reading recommendation. Maybe I'll look for it to take with me on the plane.
If you venture north Petrarch you can call pants 'pants'. 'Trousers' is a posh southern word (ergo, presumed as being 'correct' albeit that no southerner I've encountered has ever been able to explain the 'underpants paradox!).Quote:
Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love
Ah, the old British food is rubbish cliche. Tut tut, not very polite now is it. Let's take this thought further. Yes chicken tikka masala and balti are tasteless slop. The sandwich - no potential. Cheddar, Stilton, Double Gloucester, Wensleydale, Cheshire cheese, like eating chewy rubber. Cornish pastie - vomit in pastry. Scones, victoria sponge cake, Bakewell tart, Chelsea buns, Eccles cakes, parkin cake, mince pies, hot cross buns, treacle tart, bread and butter pudding, rhubarb crumble, summer fruit pudding, trifle, banoffee pie, jam roly poly, knickerbocker glory, biscuits - vile. Lancashire hotpot, Steak and Ale pie, pork pie, cheese and onion pie, shepherds pie, cottage pie, apple pie, any pie, bangers n' mash, toad in the hole, fish n' chips (real chips), Beef Wellington, the traditional Sunday roast beef with yorkshire pudding and English mustard, or if you prefer roast lamb with mint sauce or roast pork with apple sauce - yukky! Then there's the sauces: worcestershire sauce, HP sauce, tomato sauce, horseradish. Branston pickle, piccalilli, pickled onions, chutney. Chuck-upney, more like. Arbroath smokies, haggis, rarebit, neaps n' tatties. Disgusting. Then there's the confectionery - kitkats, smarties, aeros, fruit pastilles, rolos, dairy milk, crunchie, wispa, boost, picnic, flake, fudge and chocolate buttons...that'd be everything by Cadbury's, Rowntree MacIntosh (now Nestle) - filth. Not forgetting the English breakfast - the least flavoursome way to start your day, unless you prefer the toasted crumpet. Yep, loads of examples of really rubbish food. The list is endless.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
Petrarch - if you can, try and get to the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford upon Avon. It's a really atmospheric way to see Shakespeare, they have fantastic actors and a lovely place to boot. Details of what's on: http://www.rsc.org.uk/whatson/WhatsOn.aspx
Read Kate Frost's, Watching the English (the hidden rules of English behavior) before you go.
http://www.jscampus.co.uk/shop/produ...=9780340818862
It could save you from many a faux-pas.
Since people are recommending books to you Petrarch, here's one I think you would enjoy that I just finished. Credit goes to PrinceMyshkin for recommending it to me. It's called Lavinia by Ursula Le Guin and it takes up The Aeneid from the perspective of Aeneas' second wife Lavinia. It has nothing to do with England but I just know you will enjoy this. Here's the Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Lavinia-Ursula.../dp/0151014248.
"Better forget the impulsive embrace/double kiss greeting "
Dear heart, if we happen to meet while you are over here, then the impulsive embrace/double kiss greeting will be essential, I assure you.
hahah...I am wondering what they do with the words clamdiggers, capris, peddle-pushers, flairs, etc. It would be interesting to know.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFifthElement
Given this run-down of the food, I am sure I would starve or at least come back 10lbs lighter! eeekkk.....are you serious? I did think maybe the pasteries were good, if nothing else. I did hear from my neighbors that mostly they stuck to the fish and chips; they said the other food was outrageously priced and it was mediocre, to say the least. They were far from thrilled with British food.Quote:
Ah, the old British food is rubbish cliche. Tut tut, not very polite now is it. Let's take this thought further. Yes chicken tikka masala and balti are tasteless slop. The sandwich - no potential. Cheddar, Stilton, Double Gloucester, Wensleydale, Cheshire cheese, like eating chewy rubber. Cornish pastie - vomit in pastry. Scones, victoria sponge cake,
..........flavoursome way to start your day, unless you prefer the toasted crumpet. Yep, loads of examples of really rubbish food. The list is endless.
Petrarch - if you can, try and get to the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford upon Avon. It's a really atmospheric way to see Shakespeare, they have fantastic actors and a lovely place to boot. Details of what's on: http://www.rsc.org.uk/whatson/WhatsOn.aspx
Petrarch, I just checked out the listings for the Shakespeare company. If you get a chance I would recommend seeing Greg Hicks; he's an amazing actor. He was in the earlier "Fortunes of War" miniseries and he left me with a great impression. Apparently he will be playing the lead roles in A Winter's Tale and Julius Ceasar. Both look amazing; the whole place looks amazing. Just to stand on the same ground that the Bard stood would give me chills. Just to be in Statford, I would feel like I stepped back in time.
I just might take you up on the postcard offer; that was sweet and generous of your to offer. I have had a postcard collection since I was a kid. Malwethian went to Holland and she send me a card from her trip. I really cherish that card; so sweet of her to think of me.
What, don't you like sandwiches? Hey, food for a cold climate, baby. Believe me, if you were constantly damp and cold you'd soon be reaching for the treacle tart ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Janine
Yikes! Just realised I omitted bubble & squeak. Tragic. Hey, maybe you've hit on something? Great Britain: diet nation. With obesity climbing at an astonishing rate, we could really clean up! (off to tell the PM...) While we're waiting, why don't you list your favourite national foods, so that I can pick fault too? Only fair now ;)
Very much depends where they chose to eat. If they ate in pubs then the food would, probably, be reasonably priced but not that good. But it's the same as anywhere, if you find the right places to eat the food will be fine, if you don't it isn't. My husband and I went to Italy a number of years ago and had, in the space of a week, our best and worst pizza ever. There are degrees of quality wherever you go. In my local city centre it's possible to eat very well for less than £10 per person, and there's masses of choice. Britain, as a culture, is a big amalgamation of other cultures, so much of our food is French/Roman/Scandinavian in origin, but there is also the influence of colonial culture as evidenced by the prevalence of the 'curry house' pretty much wherever you live, and we like to try other foods too so there's usually a range; anything from Mongolian to Brazilian, Thai to British!Quote:
Originally Posted by Janine
Also bear in mind that American food is, like chinese food, packed with artificial flavour enhancers, which British food is not due to the general high degree of suspicion over MSG in its many forms. Perhaps that has a lot to do with it.
That being said, UK still has the second best restaurant in the world ....http://www.theworlds50best.com/modul...ers?group_id=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fat_Duck
Well I don't know if she has been to Paris previously but it's certainly different now to the one I first visited in my own misspent youth. I don't think the French smoked anything other than Gauloise or Caporal back then. My hotel was in Montmartre in the Rue Fromentin and was called Hotel Mont Joli, which may have been named after the Mont du Martyr but given the number of ladies of the night in the Boulevarde de Clichy, who would stroll up, take you by the hand and whisper 'Viens avec moi Cherie', it may have had a more risque connotation.Quote:
Originally Posted by MANICHAEAN
The wine in the bars was mostly Algerian and I drank quite a lot of it during my stay but, luckily, I was able to smoke cigarettes that I had brought from England.
I don't think anyone forgets their first trip to Paris which, for my money, is the greatest city in he world. I hope Petrarch's Love has a great time there.
Good luck with the trip Petrarch's Love, it sounds great, Oxford, London and Paris. It is good to see academics get a lucky break now and then too, well deserved.
I've always wanted to get to Oxford myself actually and have never quite got around to it, I'll get there next year though, and as for Paris, I think I'll quite die for it. I'm busy learning the language so I don't have to be a typical obnoxious Brit abroad when I finally visit the beautiful place, anyway, here is Wilde on Oxford, I thought you might appreciate it for some reason:
(From Hyde's Biography)Quote:
Oxford-the home of lost causes and impossible ideals; Matthew Arnold's Oxford-with its dreaming spires and grey colleges, set in velvet lawns and hidden away among the trees, and about it the beautiful fields, all starred with cowslips and fritillaries...Oxford was paradise to me...the enchanted valley, holding in its flowerlet cup all the idealism of the Middle Ages.
Though of course that was about 130 years ago, it has probably changed a little since then.
Some good comments I think about British food from TheFifthElement.:thumbs_up Really though it is hard to try and nail down just what "British food" actually is, as Fifth stated, it is such a mix, though I think the majority of the British public do eat to a mediocre standard compared to the French and the Italians, who surely eat the very best in the world anyway, but there is some good original stuff out there if you are lucky. Get your hands on some quality British mature cheddar, good mature cheddar mind, pay as much as you can for it, you want it to burn the mouth - good stuff, I will tell you.
Like I say though British food is such as mix of different cultures, just the other night I was enjoying some fine Italian food from a good Italian in Sheffield, though I could have eaten from almost any culture I wanted, such is always the choice, even up here in the overlooked north. :p
One word of warning though don't expect good service in any English establishment. I don't think we British have got the idea about service at all yet, it is very hit and miss, and more often miss than hit. If you want good service in England go to a foreign restaurant and you'll get looked after. It's not that the British are really bad, it is just that for me, those little details often go astray. Don't expect all smiles like you probably get in the US anyway, expect a small tut, if you ask for the sauce again, that you already asked for once which they didn't bring the first time. Also expect to have to look around the table for a pot of salt as it is almost guaranteed that the table you are sitting for some reason has as missing salt pot, when all the others haven't -little annoying things like that.
Away from food, I would also second the comment about trying to get down to Stratford upon Avon to see a play and also Shakespeare's house, which is a really weird experience. You are walking along a standard high street with the usual coffee shops, card shops etc, and then all of a sudden is this little Elizabethan house and rose garden just there bang in the middle of it all, it is a very strange sight. The first thing I did was to reach over and touch the house, like it was holy or something...:redface: By the same regards The Globe sounds great, though I have never been there myself as yet.
Anyway, enjoy the trip.
Edit: Oh, and for fish and chips you need to visit the coast, like Whitby for example, it is just not the same otherwise. The only time I eat fish and chips is at the coast, with the salt air and the seagulls and the freshness of it all...
Ok, babe, toss me a tart! :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFifthElement
bubble & squeak - is that another eatery? or one of your tasty dishes? Hummm.... I came up with the idea first....it could be a big tourist magnet. My favorite national foods? I actually eat pretty plain myself since my poor stomach can't take on too much spice. I like herbal dishes best; those I can tolerate. I guess just plain American fare is my choice. No way could I come up with a list to compete with yours, Fifth! :lol:Quote:
Yikes! Just realised I omitted bubble & squeak. Tragic. Hey, maybe you've hit on something? Great Britain: diet nation. With obesity climbing at an astonishing rate, we could really clean up! (off to tell the PM...) While we're waiting, why don't you list your favourite national foods, so that I can pick fault too? Only fair now ;)
Those are good tips. I kind of thought it was where they ate and not the actually food of the entire country they hated. I did hear it was expensive if one did eat well. I would believe you more than my neighbors. They didn't seem to know where to go. They went to visit their son who was doing a few semesters there for college. Hey, maybe they ate on campus, for all I know!:goof:Quote:
Very much depends where they chose to eat. If they ate in pubs then the food would, probably, be reasonably priced but not that good. But it's the same as anywhere, if you find the right places to eat the food will be fine, if you don't it isn't. My husband and I went to Italy a number of years ago and had, in the space of a week, our best and worst pizza ever. There are degrees of quality wherever you go. In my local city centre it's possible to eat very well for less than £10 per person, and there's masses of choice. Britain, as a culture, is a big amalgamation of other cultures, so much of our food is French/Roman/Scandinavian in origin, but there is also the influence of colonial culture as evidenced by the prevalence of the 'curry house' pretty much wherever you live, and we like to try other foods too so there's usually a range; anything from Mongolian to Brazilian, Thai to British!
Quote:
Also bear in mind that American food is, like chinese food, packed with artificial flavour enhancers, which British food is not due to the general high degree of suspicion over MSG in its many forms. Perhaps that has a lot to do with it.
That being said, UK still has the second best restaurant in the world ....http://www.theworlds50best.com/modul...ers?group_id=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fat_Duck
This would actually be to my advantage since MSG makes me direly ill. Maybe I would improve my health moving to the UK and eating their food! I might lose that weight, to boot!
I will check out the link and that restaurant....hey, if people say Britian has such awful food, why is it one sees these period dramas with elaborate layouts of the dining table; they even have to measure the space for the plate and the silverware....the food always looks extraordinary and delicious. Is this just indicative in manions or estates?
Here's a tip.
Don't even try to pronounce,
Gloucestershire
Worcestershire
or Leicestershire.
If you do, remember the "ce" is silent as is the letter immediately infront of those two. Also there is no stress on "shire" which has only one syllable.
Bubble and Squeak, is a dish of leftover boiled (bubbled)vegetables, usually potatoes and cabbage, that are reheated by frying (Squeaked) It's an onamatopoeiac dish .:D
Oh halcyon days when Mum used to do an onamatopeiac spotted dick pudding.
The fried fish & chips every Friday in the chippie, wrapped in newspaper, topped with a picked onion.
Tripe cooked in milk, fried gizzards, pigs head soup, brawn, savaloy sausages, whale meat steaks, liver & bacon with brussel sprouts & Oxo gravy, deviled kidneys, stuffed hearts, pigs trotters,
Its all coming back to me.
Bliss it was that very dawn to be alive.
Not all at one sitting I trust.Quote:
Originally Posted by MANICHAEAN
No, if I remember correctly the average weekly menu in Fulham as a child was something like:
Sunday: Roast beef & Yorkshire Pudding,followed by Bread & Butter pudding.
Monday: Bubble & Squeak topped with HP Sauce.
Tuesday: Bangers & Mash with Colmans Mustard.
Wednesday: Liver & Bacon followed by Semolina.
Thursday: Toad in the Hole followed by Jam Roly Poly.
Friday: Fish & Chips.
Saturday:Welsh Rarebit or Stew.
And you know what Brian? Having just returned back from a trip to Brittany in Northern France where I indulged in such exotics as: Rabbit cooked in a wine sauce, Gigot a la Brettane, Pigeon & cabbage in a flaky pastry crust and a caramel dessert flambled in Grand Marnier, I still appreciate the above.
Presumably you know the story of how Sir Michael Caine requested Anton Mossman Head Chef of the Savoy to stop giving him all those "fancy" dishes and to try & make bread and butter pudding like his Mum used to make. Its so popular, its still on the menu today.
Petrarch. You started one hell of a thread. Sorry it diverted off onto a foodie tangent.All my fault.