Off to England

[kilted exile]

Over this side of the atlantic I have noticed HP referred to as "steak sauce"

[LitNetIsGreat]

Over this side of the atlantic I have noticed HP referred to as "steak sauce"

Oh really? Well that has got a manly sound it, just at the sauce deserves.

I think I read that in the price hike in the last year HP is the one single food item that has gone up more than anything else, (I'm 90% sure it was HP) and it has almost doubled in price in the last year. There are plenty of cheaper brands, but it is just not the same, it never is.

Like just now, I have just opened a supermarket home brand of Camembert cheese, to eat with some crusty bread for supper, and it is, predictably, like rubber, I just can't, and won't eat it, it is going in the bin. You just can't get away with cheap in this country in the taste standards. I really should have known better but the best brand of Camembert was out of stock, so there you have it, not happy with sub-standard stuff. Still the Stilton rescued the night, so panic over.

Oh, I really should be reading something, not waffling on about sauce and cheese, sorry to be a bother...

[MarkBastable]

Over this side of the atlantic I have noticed HP referred to as "steak sauce"

You're thinking of A1, which is similar but not really the same

[Petrarch's Love]

Dear Petrarch
The French have sauces: bearnaise, bechamel, hollandaise, remoulade, roux & veloute, just to mention the most well known ones.
The British have two:
1. Tomato Ketchup (if you count it as a sauce) &
2. HP Sauce. A brown sauce condiment produced now by Heinz with 71% of the UK market. Originally known as "Harry Palmers Famous Epsom Sauce" with a picture of The Houses of Parliament on the bottle. Later known in the 1960s & 70s as "Wilsons Gravy" after the wife of the Labour Prime Minister claimed that "if Harold has a fault, it is that he will drown everything in HP sauce".
Mind you in those days we Brits were a bit more stroppy. The first British Minister for the European Common Market when visiting his French counterpart used to take his own sandwiches with him!

Ah! I see now. All is explained. Sounds as though I shall almost inevitably soon sample some of this "HP" concoction and be able to draw my own conclusions.

No, it is not like Worchershire sauce, don't expect a Yorkshireman to have that stuff anyway when we have Henderson's relish: http://www.hendersonsrelish.com/, HP is much thicker, like red sauce ("ketchup") but with more of a kick, bit of pepper and garlic in there. (Incidentally, you simply must have Henderson's on a pie on your visit PL, back me up prendrelemick.)

Hmm...Yet more exotic sauces to discover. Glad I'll have an additional Yorkshire option in case I want to broaden my British sauce taste horizons beyond the two staples described by Manichaean above.

Yes HP really is the only thing to have with a traditional English breakfast, tomato sauce if you are a bit weak. I find it impossible to have any bacon or sausage product without the said sauce (or even beans), though I don't eat fry-ups that often at all, no, no I either go for the continental (always with fresh French bread) or skip breakfast entirely, I'm much too much of a Bohemian to clog up my arteries with all that oil, though you have to have a few traditional breakfasts when you are over here; it's the law.

I must warn you about the sausage though, it is a fair chance that it won't be of quality unless you are staying in a really good place, (and probably not even then) I won't eat sausage myself unless I am on first name terms with the butcher. You'll probably end up with a little shrivelled grey lump on your plate, but when in Rome and all that..., yum, yum, yes, that's what HP sauce if for!!!

But yes, the average sausage will contain about 40% poor grade pig fat, and will look, quite, quite, grey, you better eat it though PL! But, it can be wonderful if go to the right places, (it is about who you know, not what you know, as my granddad always said, and he was right). The place I go to, when I do, which is not that often, has beautiful herb sausages, an absolute joy, filled with the best meat and chives, but you have to know, you have to live here and endure, and suffer, and then you can eat well.

Goodness, you lot seem very serious about your breakfasts over there for all your aparent honesty regarding the grey quality of the sausage. Glad I know about the HP sauce now since apparently "It's the law" to try this grey sausage adorned matin meal and I've been warned that I'd "better eat it"! Given that a full English breakfast is supposed to be included with both my Oxford and London accommodations it seems likely that I will indeed consume many of them during my weeks there. Seems doubtful that the Oxford Theological college will be dishing up the high quality sausage for yours truly, though, so perhaps I will have to venture out for finer fare on the occasional morning. Otherwise it sounds like HP to the rescue. Not sure about all this enduring and suffering in order to eat well, though. That makes it sound rather like my culinary experience on this trip may not bear much resemblance to my time in Italy.

Just when I think that I have the sauces all straight, however, this whole new controversy springs up:

prendrelemick: If you are going for the mature Chedder you will need Branston Pickle! Remember the name.

MarkBastable: Just to introduce a note of caution - and I speak here as a great fan of Cheddar - I would advise that you should not under any circumstances touch Branston Pickle. It is caramelised cat crap.

MANICHAEAN: Heresy !
What do you put on your cheddar sandwich?

MarkBastable: Piccalilli.

TheFifthElement: Not so, for there be also Baxters Tomato Chutney. Mmmm, delicious

It's surprisingly nice on a cheese & ham toastie too (as is Branston Pickle!)

prendrelemick: Picalilli! Thats just WRONG in so many ways. Ok, it is accepable with boiled ham, just.

But for cheese, there is only Branston.

MANICHAEAN: Picalilli !!!!!!!!!!!
You will be telling us next you drink Camp coffee.

kasie: And Baxters Cranberry and Caramelised Red Onion Chutney is pretty good, too. I find Branston too vinegary for my taste.

Is some form of pickle or chutney considered required for the consumption of a cheddar sandwich? Would simply eating bread and cheese be considered taboo? Will my choice of chutney immediately cause people to leap to judgments concerning my character? I shall have to sample some of those mentioned above and see what I think.

I'm green with envy that you will be able to see so many Shakespeare plays Petrarch.

Ditto, so am I. I can't wait to hear all about them and the Globe, when you get back.

I can only say that I would be green with envy of me too. Seriously, though, wish you guys could come with, as it would be such fun to have a litnet group Shakespeare watch. In any case, I will be sure to post all about the performances after my trip!

[prendrelemick]

That is beautiful. I will be like that in France and Italy.



No, it is not like Worchershire sauce, don't expect a Yorkshireman to have that stuff anyway when we have Henderson's relish: http://www.hendersonsrelish.com/, HP is much thicker, like red sauce ("ketchup") but with more of a kick, bit of pepper and garlic in there. (Incidentally, you simply must have Henderson's on a pie on your visit PL, back me up prendrelemick.) Worchershire? Bit of a faux paux there for those with Bronte(ish) blood, but I will let you off this time...

A relish fit for the gods, from God's own county. Obviously designed to compliment a Waite's meat and potato pie.

[MANICHAEAN]

If you do go to the Globe Theatre in London keep in mind the current Lit Net captivating interest with the foodie angle, but put it in a 16th century context. Food in those days was regulated for the common good and thus restrictions were placed on how many courses one might eat, depending on status. A cardinal was permitted nine dishes at a meal while those earning less than 40 pounds a year were allowed only two courses, plus soup. Of some relief was the fact that since Henry VIII's break with Rome, eating meat on Friday was no longer a hanging offence.
Among the more prosperous there were foods uneaten now: crane, bustard, swan & stork. For poorer people, dark bread and cheese ( no HP or Branston pickle) with a little occasional meat. Vegetables were eaten by those who could afford nothing better. Tea & coffee unknown. There was a penchant for sweetness and even wine was sometimes given an addition of sugar, along with fish, eggs & meats.
Beer was drunk copiously, even at breakfast and even by the pleasure wary Puritans (the ship that took the Puritan leader John Winthrop to New England carried 10,000 gallons of beer and not much else). A gallon a day was the traditional ration for monks. The affluent drank wine by the pint.

[MarkBastable]

It's worth saying, though, that there were two sorts of beer about: what we might call 'real' beer, with a significant alcohol content; and the practically alcohol-free stuff, which was drunk like water, and was known as 'small beer'.

It was drunk like water because you couldn't drink the water. And that led, indirectly, to Dr John Snow discovering the cause of cholera, in Soho, not far from a brewery - for which they named a pub after him on Broadwick Street.

[Janine]

Manichaean, your mention of bread reminds me of these lines from Henry V....

Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave
Who with a body filled and vacant mind
Gets him to rest, crammed with distressful bread;

distressful bread...ummmm.....

[Petrarch's Love]

Ah yes. The modern Englishman may yet be an enigma to me, but 16th century England I know a fair amount about (enough to know I definitely wouldn't want to be eating there then unless I was a very high end aristocrat). Harking back to an earlier comment about welcoming treacle tarts in the damp, I was thinking that the English have long regarded their eating habits and their climate as closely linked, as evidenced by the 16th century William Harrison's opening to his lengthy description of English food in his time:

The situation of our region, lying near unto the north, doth cause the heat of our stomachs to be of somewhat greater force: therefore our bodies do crave a little more ample nourishment than the inhabitants of the hotter regions are accustomed withal, whose digestive force is not altogether so vehement, because their internal heat is not so strong as ours, which is kept in by the coldness of the air that from time to time (especially in winter) doth environ our bodies.

Since clearly the contributors to this thread are fascinated by food, they may find the rest of Harrison's description interesting since he's attempting to do for his England what you've been doing for yours: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1...n-england.html You can click on the link for "Chapter VI: Of The Food And Diet Of The English" to read his take on 16th century English eats.

It's worth saying, though, that there were two sorts of beer about: what we might call 'real' beer, with a significant alcohol content; and the practically alcohol-free stuff, which was drunk like water, and was known as 'small beer'

.

I was afraid that sooner or later this thread would begin to "chronicle small beer." I am sure, however, that none of us would stoop to suckle fools. I hasten to add mead, cider and, in honor of Falstaff, sack to the list of things people drank to avoid dying from the water.

Manichaean, your mention of bread reminds me of these lines from Henry V....

Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave
Who with a body filled and vacant mind
Gets him to rest, crammed with distressful bread;

distressful bread...ummmm.....

Janine--The "distressful bread" of that line is likely to be Shakespeare's enlivening of the old latin phrase "panis gravis," used in English as "sad bread." It refers to a poor man's bread that is ill made or hasn't risen the way it should.

[Janine]

old latin phrase "panis gravis," used in English as "sad bread." It refers to a poor man's bread that is ill made or hasn't risen the way it should.

Petrarch, thanks for that tidbit of knowlege...gee, it sounds delicious...

Two thumbs up for Falstaff's sack! We are just discussing him now in the two Henry IV plays. Sack is mentioned quite liberally in both, as I am sure you are well aware of.
Maybe you will meet up with a fat Jack impersonator. That would be fun.

[MarkBastable]

I was afraid that sooner or later this thread would begin to "chronicle small beer." I am sure, however, that none of us would stoop to suckle fools.

Ah. Are you saying that that's a fallacy then? I'm happy to admit that it's one of those things that I seem to have known for so long that I have no iea where I learned it, and have no references to cite. I might well be wrong.

[Petrarch's Love]

Hi Mark--No. You're quite right about the small beer! Sorry, I was being a bad and absentminded Shakespeare scholar with a geeky sense of humor and not attributing the quote I was playing around with. Your allusion to small beer reminded me of a line in Othello when Iago (always a charmer) refers to women who "suckle fools and chronicle small beer." In the scene he's having a debate about the virtue of women with Desdemona and the point of the small beer line is to say that even if a virtuous woman did exist, she would be a boring person caught up in the little picky details of a fairly tame daily life: keeping track of the household's "small beer" and bringing up foolish children (it' also, as Desdemona points out, a rather weak attack that proves he's having a touch of trouble putting a good woman down). The line "chronicle small beer" just struck me as amusing in the context of our little discussion, since we've been talking about the little details of daily food and drink concerns but, as I said, I would certainly never venture to suggest that a litnetter would suckle fools. The pertinent lines for anyone interested:

Othello[/I] 2.1.164-77]IAGO
She that was ever fair and never proud,
Had tongue at will and yet was never loud,
Never lack'd gold and yet went never gay,
Fled from her wish and yet said 'Now I may,'
She that being anger'd, her revenge being nigh,
Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly,
She that in wisdom never was so frail
To change the cod's head for the salmon's tail;
She that could think and ne'er disclose her mind,
See suitors following and not look behind,
She was a wight, if ever such wight were,--

DESDEMONA
To do what?

IAGO
To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.

DESDEMONA
O most lame and impotent conclusion!

And clearly I have been guilty of making a most lame and impotent allusion.

[Janine]

Petrarch, best thing about you going away is, that in the last week, we have seen more of you then usual. It's been awhile and I missed your insightful posts.

That's an interesting quote from Othello, one of my all-time favorite plays; Iago being my favorite enigmatic villan.

[prendrelemick]

Read William Cobbett's "Cottage Economy" for a full account of ale, beer and small beer.
The ale is the proper stuff, the first brewed, for special occasions.

Then you add the more water to the left over malt ,hops etc (the mash) and boil it up, and that makes your beer for every day drinking.

Repeat the process again and you have small beer, fit only for children and women.

In the same chapter he has some interesting opinions on Tea - the ruination of the English working man.

[Janine]

Another book that liberally mentions the brew is Thomas Hardy's Under the Greenwood Tree. If I recall corectly, they had a secret receipe, which they all indulged in and there is a most humorous scene when they (having been the former choir, which has been replaced) sneak into the church and sabotage the new organ....it's an entertaining book.