On What's For Dinner part 1

Many of you know this already, but I love food.  I love to cook, I love to eat, and I love to try new things.  I especially love to learn about new foods, and my time over here is giving me ample opportunity to do this.  Part 1 of this post is entirely about British food (and there will probably be more on this topic later in the semester).  Part 2 is about other foods I’ve experienced while here.

Note the menu items on the marquee.

For starters, some words on Fish n’ Chips*.  Yes, they are a ubiquitous part of British fare, just as they are caricatured to be.  Fish n’ Chips are sold everywhere.  You can get them at any pub no problem, and you can also get them at takeaway shops, which are little lunch counters sprinkled all over the city.  They usually open for lunch and dinner, or sometimes just dinner and late-night, and they always have a kitschy cultural menu theme, choosing between Chinese, Indian, classic British, and American food.  All of them serve Fish n’ Chips.  It’s a little funny to see shops that sell hamburgers, pizza, fried chicken, and Fish n’ Chips, but I suppose that’s what British people think American food is.  And let’s face it, they’re not entirely wrong.  I’ve had Fish n’ Chips a number of times since arriving here, and I really do like it.  I definitely recommend it, assuming you go to a pub.  Do not get Fish n’ Chips from a Chinese takeaway shop.  Trust me.

Continuing with the theme of sampling all that the UK has to offer, I took it upon myself to test the selection of candy available here, which is vastly different that what’s available at home.  It seems that, in general, American candy is specific to the US.  Everywhere else has a global selection of candy.   I can’t get Butterfinger, Reese’s, Skittles, Mike and Ike, Twizzlers, Baby Ruth, or any kind of Hershey’s bar over here or in any other part of Europe.  Instead, they have an array of both British and European candy bars, my favorites being Boost bars, Double Deckers, MAOM, and Crunchies.  Tastes are different over here, as well.  In the US, we are obsessed with peanuts; over here, everything has hazelnuts in it.  We also like cheap, crappy chocolate at home (ie. Hershey’s, with love), but candy in general is of a higher quality over here.  Chocolate most especially.  There’s a lot of talk online about how the UK has the best candy in the world, and frankly, I gotta hand it to them -- they’re right.

It's a bar of soft chocolate cream studded with biscuit bits (tiny chunks of shortbread),
wrapped in a layer of caramel, then covered in chocolate.  It's tres delicious.

One hurdle that I am still trying to clear is grocery shopping.  I know I’m six thousand miles from home and everything here is different, but I am still surprised each time a grocery store item turns out to be different from the American equivalent.  They’re little things, like dark brown sugar is about 50% darker here, and sour cream isn’t smooth like at home (it’s a little grainy and slightly thicker), and milk is sold at 1.5 and 3.5 percent milk fat (where’s my 2%?).  Plus the names for things are different.  Single cream = half and half, while double cream = heavy whipping cream.  Sultanas = golden raisins.  Coriander = fresh cilantro.  Oh, and a shopping cart is called a trolley.  I was actually laughed at for describing a trolley as a public transport vehicle.

Some surprises have been good surprises.  Cheese over here is fantastic.  Even the cheap, grocery store brand of cheese is better than the stuff we have at home.  I could basically survive on extra mature cheddar (maybe with some bread or crackers) -- it’s that good.  Clotted cream is a common spread for scones and cakes at teatime, and I so wish it were readily available at home.  Imagine heavy whipping cream so think you could spread it on toast and you’ve got a good idea of what it’s like.  They also sell a sugar syrup here called golden syrup that is fantastic.  It’s like corn syrup but thicker and with a mild butterscotchy flavor.  It’s lovely in baked goods.  I get all of this at Sainsbury’s, my favorite grocery store of the ones I’ve visited.  The employees there wear burgundy and orange uniforms, which remind me invariably of Dudley and his Smeltings stick.  

Pubs are really the place to go for real British food.  There are two kinds of pubs in the UK - regular bars and free houses** -- and the free houses are the ones to hit.  They serve beer from small or local breweries, meaning better beer.  Classic British food is generally very meaty, but also very much like American comfort food.  Beef stews, steak, chicken pot pie… that sort of thing.  I tried a steak-and-kidney pudding the other day, my first true foray into offal, and I thought it was pretty good.  It came with chips (everything here does, honestly) and a side of mushy peas, which is simply a scoop of peas mashed into a sloppy, bright green gloop.  Also surprisingly pleasant.  And it is an indisputable fact that good British food should be washed down with good British beer.  It’s a perfect pair.

When it comes to food, I want to try everything here.  Seriously, everything I see is more enticing than it would have been at home.  Economists would call this increased demand due to scarcity (because these opportunities are only available for a short time), but I think my attitude has a lot to do with it.  Just being abroad makes me open to anything and interested by everything.  I want to do it all, to see it all.  I’m here!  I’m ready!  What has this place got to show me?

* In case you don’t know, Fish n’ Chips is a classic British dish consisting of a mound of french fries (called chips) topped by a piece of battered and fried fish.  It’s served with ketchup, mayo, salt & vinegar, or HP brown sauce for dipping the chips.

** The term ‘free house’ is synonymous with ‘public house', from which the nickname pub is derived.  Free houses are owned independently of the breweries that produce their beer, so they serve unique beers from a wide range of breweries.