best food from Orwell's "In Defense of English Cooking"

i avoided haggis for a long time cuz the ingredients sound pretty foul but it really is delicious - rich and spicy and warming

Brain's faggots don't taste half as good now as they did when I was a kid, I'm guessing there's less offal in them

this really is turning into blood sausage: the thread but i'm cool with it tbh

I will state for the record that I still enjoy a mouthful of faggots

You don't eat the haggis casing, it's usually served in a heap or, if you're somewhere posh, a kind of quenelle. The only time I really see haggis in England is around Burns Night (end of January) but a lot of my scottish acquaintances will have it for a quick midweek dinner, sometimes from a TIN. It microwaves pretty well.

i support u xp

madchen didn't u once happen on gizzards in a tin or did i dream that :(

yes i am upping the blood sausage ante here

i have eaten locust and scorpion and so shall you yea

i occasionally enjoy this innovative fusion cuisine

http://www.cosmospizzas.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/pizza-haggis.jpg

a friend of mine gave us chicken gizzards one time, wasn't a big fan tbh but her refusing to tell us what they were didn't help

this was in France tho so

xxp well if it's an authentic haggis pizza how can you go wrong?

there just doesn't look like there'd be much good eatin' on a gizzard

xp i'm v much about authentic culinary experiences, as u know

authentic gizzard pizza aka gizza

bizarro gizzara

Morrison's Gizzard King Pizza

i'd accept pizzaro gizzarda, no more no less

Am sceptical that haggis is really a British food at all tbh:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSkx2jK5XMDRFTF9Kg1e1d8PmItvWd1IaCpx28Ztb1WuXqnrG6y2A

PS veggie haggis is very tasty too

haggis pakora is also bizarro gazzara-endorsed fusion cuisine, thx for the reminder ward

Mark S, your memory is impressive. Gizzards in a tin are to be found in every French supermarket, but I can't in all honesty recommend them. Gizza pizza would be a step even beyond that for me.

out of the british-is-blandest pan and into dr. strongo's neuvo cuisine

"cooking apples often now quite hard to track down *inside* the UK also imo: the apple is going the way of the rubbery and tasteless mass-grown tomato"

sad! i live in apple country. so many great varieties. and great local baking options.

"i'd be interested to know how many ilxors have tried haggis tbh"

i don't think i've ever seen one in real life. the pictures are so frightening in a cronenbergian way but i imagine they taste fine.

i voted for short-bread because american and because yum.

Ah now shortbread, that shouldn't be on here

whit

Scottish innit

Orwell was writing at a time when it was ok to describe any part of the British Empire as "English".

if you were a git.

i'm sure someone will be along in a minute to shortbreadsplain that actually it was invented in luxembourg or some shit

nah I already checked Wikipedia or I would have done that already :D

my man

recipe for shortbread was actually included in the advanced knowledge cache aliens gave to the old kingdom egyptians

my man

erich von ramekin

idk about the mint but boiling new potatoes is the only way to do em so i am with georgie on that much

Charlottes of the Gods

Brain's faggots don't taste half as good now as they did when I was a kid, I'm guessing there's less offal in them

Yeah I had a somewhat similar experience, I still like them but something not quite right.

Nothing like when I bought some Findus Crispy Pancakes on a nostalgic whim a few years ago, they were almost inedible (the cheese ones were actually inedible, but the beef ones were gross but I managed to eat them).

yeah I made that mistake a while ago, maybe you have to deep fry them

erich von ramekin

― mark s, Thursday, 31 August 2017 13:49 (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Charlottes of the Gods

― a hulking and impenetrable dump (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 31 August 2017 13:52 (thirty-eight seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is my jam

bread fucking sauce

boughten bread sauce is always terrible -- home-made bread sauce made by me is amazing

(same applies to red cabbage)

(in both cases the secret ingredient is cloves)

lol i love the packet bread sauce and every xmas my mum makes a homemade one but always buys two/three packets of bread sauce and gets me to make it for myself. i know normally we're supposed to prefer the homemade thing over the packet but to me the packet bread sauce is what we had when i was a kid - it is the taste of christmas.

dublin prawns obv the winner here tho many things on the list are good. for new potatoes in the english way i'm assuming he means boiled and a bit of butter/parsley/salt? one of the nicest things.

That moreorless applies to everything in the list, and it's a point he makes in the essay, iirc (haven't read it for about 25 yrs) - the best English food is homemade rather than bought and is found in homes rather than in restaurants. Still largely true in most parts of the country, I'd say - average pub/restaurant/carvery Sunday roast will be disappointing.

the sunday roast at the pub thing is a fucking shitshow - i don't get it at all

homemade > restaurant is true in every culture, surely?

as the thread's unregenerate mint stan i shd step up and note that the english way of new potatoes is with mint not parsley

i love parsley, not a huge mint man

mint potatoes, for when you just can't do without that 'carb-loading right after a mouthful of polos' feeling

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Postgate

^^^trying to find a piece in the LRB on the Good Food Guide which had some very excellent horrible descriptions but may have misremembered where I read it: wikipedia biography of raymond postgate gives an quick idea of the overall story… the point was that eating out in the 1920s 30s 40s was (unless you were very lucky) just unremittingly terriblem, borderline uneatable, unless you paid a LOT of money (and dicey even then)… now on the whole the worst you get (unless very unlucky) is ordinary, general standards have shifted upwards unimagineably since the 50s and 60s

worth noting: the work to improve practical professional cooking was done from the left in this country (cf also CAMRA, which was at root a commie project)