10 January 2010

Mysterious British Foods

Sadly, much of my knowledge about culture and customs comes from reading, and what I enjoy reading most is a good British novel. British novels are notorious for focusing on food. Just think about it: J.R.R. Tolkein's hobbits enjoying their "elevenses;" (?) or Edmund gobbling up Turkish Delight in C.S. Lewis's Narnia; Arthur Dent searching the universe for a good cup of tea in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe; so many of Bertie Wooster's plans involve stealing someone's cook or softening up a foe with high tea at the Ritz (in P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves series); and Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot famously drinks tisanes (herbal tea) and always judges an establishment by its cooking. Reading such books makes me hungry, but half the time I don't even know what I'm hungry for. So this post I'm not going to give you a recipe. You can give me one if you like! I'm just going to list some peculiar British foods that I've always wanted to try. And here are some more articles about the weirdness:

http://england-travel.suite101.com/article.cfm/english_names_for_common_foods
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_cuisine
http://www.thebritishshoppe.com/
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article5808143.ece
http://www.lingolex.com/cc/foods.htm
http://britishfood.about.com/od/regionalenglishrecipes/Regional_English_Recipes.htm

(Unfortunately, the one time I visited the U.K., most of what I was fed was curries, cheese sandwiches, Italian, or Mexican. I was very disappointed, to say the least.)

Vegetarian British Foods I would Like Someone to Cook for Me so I Don't Have to do the Math of Converting Measurements:

seed cake
Ploughman's lunch
figgy pudding
kedgeree (without the fish)
bubble and squeak (with a fried egg)
yorkshire pudding (vegetable oil)
blue cheese and pear tart
Pimm's No. 1
Eton Mess
sherry trifle
Christmas pudding without suet (yuck!)
treacle tart
apple and cheese pie
Bakewell tart
bilberry pie
cauliflower cheese
rock cakes
rumbledethumps
tattie scones
tipsy cream
Yorkshire parkin

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