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

It's quite a challop from Orwell putting haggis in there.

What, no mushy peas?

combo my first 2 choices for toad in the hole

The patron for centrist dads defends English 'food', what a surprise.

Everyone should read his books 'Animal Farm' and '1984'

Isn't apple sauce more of an American thing?

you have apple sauce with pork

"Oceanland has always been at war with Eureka", fucking headfuck man

in the absence of BREAD PUDDING (wtf orwell), treacle tart

wat if winton smith greatest fear not rats but bukkake

not centrist: haggis, bramble jelly

(probably don't go together though)

depending which kind of marrow sounds either bland or heston blumenthal: marrow jam

"No! do it to Julia, do it to Julia!!" lol

Americans have applause not apple sauce

Crumpets are a wonderful thing and nothing quite like them, especially texturally, appears to exist anywhere else in the world, so I'm going for that.

stilton, roast potatoes, sausages, horseradish all great

big eyebrow raise at absence of black pudding, Orwell clearly to posh to understand mushy peas

Crumpets are a wonderful thing and nothing quite like them, especially texturally, appears to exist anywhere else in the world, so I'm going for that.

― Matt DC, Thursday, August 31, 2017 9:21 AM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

someone's not been to the blue nile and tried their injera bread lol

There are no vegetables anywhere in this list (justifiably, the English worked out how to cook vegetables well maybe 10 years ago?)

two unexpected things i learnt from the actual essay: the french do not cook with mint (is this true?) and packets of crisps were already sold in pubs in the 1940s

the "english cuisine is of course terrible" cliche held full sway roughly from the early 1800s to the 1970s, and while you do still encounter it (often from americans, lol), it's false enough now that it's hard to remember that it was once a truism with a very strong and long-lasting element of truth to it (british cookbooks between mrs beeton in the 1840s and elizabeth david in the 1950s are some weird shit let me tell you) (and elizabeth david was all about continental non-UK cuisine)

ppl usually explain this via the industrial revolution (though that's also what caused fish and chips so eh?)

fish and chips shd probably be on this list?

potatoes are on this list and were proven the best vegetable only very recently in a poll on ilxor dot com

all the recipes i can find for marrow jam use a fvckton of ginger, which i guess takes care of the taste (marrow tastes of nothing, it's just ultra-diluted courgette)

until that post i just assumed it was bone marrow for some reason haha

noted paleo diet enthusiast george orwell

he was all about those lean gains

Voted haggis because, even though it's not English, it is the yummiest thing on that list.

Missing, apart from the already mentioned fish & chips and black pudding: Sunday roast! Or at least Yorkshire pudding if we're going ingredient-only. Porridge not really a contender tastewise but it does help a whole lot to regulate the stomach, should get an honourable mention.

In re: the cliché of English food being terrible, I think that while there is no doubt lots of great English meals you guys do have a weird talent for coming up with stuff that would strike most other European nations at least as non-euclidean, i.e. jellied eels, bangers & chips w/ curry sauce.

haggis is really nice yes

love haggis

this list reminded me how much i hate everything about mint sauce

I have found myself in plenty of places around the country * through work and I struggle to find decent restaurants that would serve English food.

One pub in Sheffield so far is all I have.

* not counting London

dude chips w/ curry sauce is the most belgian thing ever

xp hand & flowers my man

i once went to a wedding where the proud essex dad had front-loaded the buffet with his favourite food to honour his beloved daughter's best-ever day, so that table after table groaned with jellied eel piled high

i quite like jellied eel -- and don't see it often -- so i dug in but by the end of the evening nearly no one else had touched it :(

at the risk of stereotyping myself, i think i'm probably gonna have to go haggis on this one

this list reminded me how much i hate everything about mint sauce

otm - mint is the flavour of toothpaste, keep it the fuck away from my food

feeling very attacked right now

Hand & flowers is Michelin star but what I mean is nice places where you could get something good and British for about 15-20 quid no fuss.

Real lack of places.

Lol if Haggis wins

haggis won't win. the american shift will all roll in and vote for stilton or something

BLOOD SAUSAGE

never forget

this thread replicating an argument I had with my son the other day i.e. mint flavour does not belong in food

but I don't consider fresh mint to count so mint sauce and mojitos are fine by me

course, with both of those the alcohol is doing most of the heavy lifting

Missing, apart from the already mentioned fish & chips and black pudding: Sunday roast!

Potatoes roasted under the joint, though. Btw if you didn't vote for that, you've never done it (and you should).

haggis won't win. the american shift will all roll in and vote for stilton or something

stilton is rad tbf

There's alcohol in mint sauce??

can't wait for the us muffins vs uk muffins arguments to kick off

xp

vinegar is just spoiled alcohol innit?

Dublin prawns surely more contentious than Haggis, which has been alleged to have been invented in England

xp yeah I guess, doesn't get you pissed though iirc

I do usually further dilute mint sauce with more vinegar come to think of it.

my fam did that, could make one jar go a year easily

so you don't like mint sauce at all, you just like vinegar with a dash of toothpaste?

next you'll be telling me you only enjoy homeopathic servings of mushy peas

burger with red sauce and gravy for some reason reminds me of the beef and tomato pot noodle. do they still make that one? abominable.

I don't know if I get the flower/egg/milk ratio wrong, but Yorkshire puddings do shrivel at room temp. and start to look quite unattractive, as opposed to delicious when smothered in gravy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4oAdIcQN4k

At first when he invoked P Stewart as a Yorkshire rep in the daft preamble i was groaning. But by jove, he had earned my respect by the end of that vid.

NV on some UK mirror-image of quincie's bad-trip assignment seems right tbh

hey guys I saw SOURDOUGH CRUMPETS in M&S today

i've had those! they're... okay

fucksake
http://i1.chroniclelive.co.uk/incoming/article13563507.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/JS129419837.jpg
http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/rub-smokehouse-yorkshire-pudding-pizza-13563470

"This is a Yorkshire Pudding Chicago Pot Pizza with a rich Italian Sausage and Tomato base, lining the bowl as you bake with tonnes of cheese the question is when it hits the menu? Do you want a traditional bread base or the giant Yorkie?#"

(Do not click if you hate terrible websites)

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Bh4xhP8LTSQ/maxresdefault.jpg

we are in hell

of course we all know the correct way to besmirch the noble tradition of yorkshires is in a multi-tier construction that aims at a sort of gravy fondue

I had some sort of not-really-fancy deconstructed breakfast thing while on vacation a few years back that was five little potatoes, smaller even than new potatoes typically are, served in a hot casserole dish with a blood sausage on the side

literally just a handful of little potatoes and a blood sausage. it was delicious! and semi-british. the purple potato should have been my favorite, but I think the little yukon gold one was the winner

Yukon Gold fingerlings are A+++

I used to get a bag of mixed fingerlings, throw a dozen or so in a bread pan after rubbing in olive oil and kosher salt, and bake them all together that way, this really belongs on the best vegetable poll thread

that's a good characterization

five little potatoes, smaller even than new potatoes typically are, served in a hot casserole dish with a blood sausage on the side

this is on the dinner/bar menu of at least two fancy Spanish-fusion restaurants in San Francisco. (I have only been to two of these restaurants, but it was on the menu of both of them)

lol it was in SF

So british

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Voted Yorkshire pudding

Crumpets came close but it had to be the roasties

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

these are good, defensible results imo

Roasties was robbed

imagosplaining on-point -- and to think we once mainly committed cultural imperialism on others

called it

oh, as you said haha

stilton's great! tho not in my top 5 blue cheeses tbf

i like it too but it didn't win bcz i voted for it

(i didn't vote, polls are bad and you should feel bad)

the phrase "top 5 blues cheese" reminds me there was a soft blue cheese invented by yuppie marketing men in the 80s -- forget name, it began with L i think -- which my dad luuuuurved, we were all v sad for him when it went off the market bcz no one else did

lymeswold!!

^^^top brainstormed name there

(it was basically mild cambozola except none more brexit) (dad was not brexit, probably)

i remember Lymeswold, pretty sure it became some sort of Private Eye meme at some point

I Remember Lymeswold is the title of my forthcoming bodice-ripper set in 18th century Bridlington btw

a young orphaned herring gutter is forced to choose between local smuggler and ruffian Blue Vinnie and the mysterious Italian shipwreck survivor Giuseppe Cambozola

I agree that the best food we can hope for from the English is some moldy cheese

lol america sonning europe on cheese

ts: head vs string

God I love bread sauce

since moving to canada i don't think i've ever had a good roast potato. you never get nice crispy ones, i think they don't bother with the parboiling or something

It's not like they'd be short on duck and goose fat, so what gives?

My idea of good roast potatoes prep is to boil them from cold for 3 mins from when the water starts bubbling, rough them up good in a colander with some flour. Then they are ready for roasting. It so easy!

boil them from cold for 3 mins from when the water starts bubbling

bit puzzled at the "from cold" combined with the "from when the water starts bubbling" here? what's the thing that's cold -- the raw potatoes?

the water!

Like there is a difference than if you just throw them straight into boiling water for 3 mins, which would make poorer roast potatoes, quite possibly.

"in defense of (bad) English posting (and cooking)"

so how is the water cold if it is also bubbling? do you use sparkling water?

(i think i am being dense but i can't work out how)

Put potatoes in cold salted water, bring to rolling boil, then 3 minutes later you drain. Just like making a three-minute boiled egg!

thanks, Suzy!

You just xp'ed me where I had described "rolling boil" as a "lively boil" then deleted it, thankfully!

lol ok i do understand it now and i was totally being dense, for some reason the two "froms" formulation just threw me

(i think i might still be quite tired post-op) (also argumentative)