Tuesday 13 March 2012

25 foods we've forgotten

There's an interesting piece from the Beeb detailing 25 food stuffs that the Brits have forgotten about - see if you recognise any at www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17337689.

One thing I wish I could get here in Largs was something I used to eat as a boy in Carrickfergus in bag loads - dulse, a form of edible seaweed. I used to buy it in wee 10p bags each week, healthy stuff, packed with iodine and really tasty. Last time I tried it was when somebody bought me a small pre-packaged supermarket manufactured box of the stuff in Kilkenny - it was absolutely vile, God only knows how much salt and how many e-numbers they'd added to it!

I also note the desire for crubeens in the piece, basically pigs trotters. My father brought some home in Carrick one day for our dinner. "Right boys," says he, "pigs trotters for dinner tonight, and I want it all eaten." What he didn't know in his Carrick Masterchef mode was that it takes slightly longer to cook the things than one solitary hour. There's nothing worse as a nine year old than trying to eat a mostly raw, but slightly warmed up parboiled pig's foot - I mean just getting through the skin was a nightmare.

Spuds were nice though...! :)

Chris

British GENES on Facebook at www.facebook.com/BritishGENES and Twitter @chrismpaton

3 comments:

  1. Item number 10 on that list, pickled beef, is still regularly eaten in Australia, only we call it corned beef. It has no resemblance to what is call corned beef in the UK.

    In Australia until people had refrigerators keeping meat fresh was a big problem due to the heat. Therefore many beef and pork were regularly salted and kept in a brine as a fantastic method of preservation.

    My family still love having what we call "corned beef" and "pickled pork".

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  2. Gipsy tart! The best kind of pudding ever served up in the name of school dinners, but virtually unknown outside Kent.

    For the benefit of anyone who didn't have Kent school dinners, it's a sweet pastry case filled with a mixture of evaporated milk whisked together with muscovado sugar - it sets to the texture of a mousse.

    I saw it on a restaurant menu a while back (in Maidstone) so of course I had to order some. It was nice enough, but a delicate little individual tartlet garnished with a kumquat didn't quite do it for me, I wanted a SLAB, ideally shovelled out of a great big serving dish onto a melamine plate!

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  3. I love corned beef also, especially with cauliflower, peas and beans, carrots, potatoes and pumpkin... and the most important, white sauce! Though lots of fellow Aussies love the pickled pork, not a dish I would willingly eat. I still indulge the family with rice puddings, bread and butter pudding, baked custard, all dishes that my English friends love, maybe with slight variations. Not on other's menus too often these days, and only on ours in the cooler months, but comfort food always plays a part in childhood memories. Anyone else still make cottage pies?

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