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Title: Yankee Doodles - Dairy 1 (English Food) View count: 147 Rating: 5.0 (2 ratings) Description: Where I come from, legend has it English cuisine is bland, dry, tasteless dross; that English people sit in their thatched cottages, eating their curds and whey; and maybe, if they're feeling especially bold, a dried up scone with a hint of strawberry jam. This insulting stereotype couldn't be farther from reality. England is an imaginative country and this does not stop short of the food. Perusing menus and grocery stores here, spotted dick, faggots, jellied eels, ploughman's lunch and bubble and squeak jump out at me. Not to mention those names of dishes that bear no resemblance to the actual things they are describing. For a while I was convinced toad-in-the-hole was some sort of amphibian-inspired dish made from the legs of a frog's close relative. Black pudding? I'm not sure what I thought it was, but I never would have guessed its key ingredient was dried pig's blood. Mouth-watering. I stuck out like a sore thumb when I arrived here a vegetarian. Lancashire is a county of carnivores, and people here will seriously tuck into any edible parts of an animal. Some popular dishes here are reminiscent of tasks on I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, including giblets, gizzard, liver and other visceral organs. And then there's tripe, made from the lining of various farm animals' stomachs. A snack of pork scratchings, or the fried skin of a pig (usually including some straggly piggy hairs coming out of it) is a real crowd-pleaser in the local pub. It may have been all the inspirational cooking shows on television, including Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall stuffing 20 birds into a large turkey for Christmas dinner; or Heston Blumenthal with his 'meat fruit' bowl, making plums out of bull's testicles, mandarins out of chicken livers, apples out of minced pork, and bunches of grapes out of Parma ham. Funny, but after a short time here, I began to eat meat again. I'm glad I did too, because I have fallen for the charms of the bacon butty, while fish and chips is one of my favourites and I'm also hooked on butter pies, parched peas and the spiciest varieties of your "national dish"- curry! While England has healthy five-a-day messages everywhere, American restaurants still lure customers with adverts stating things like, "Come on down and try one of our 5lb steaks!" Speaking of home, I'm still looking for the English equivalent to a slice of New York pizza. You just can't beat it! Tags: yankee, doodle, ex pat, travel, guide, diana, bradley, usa, england, lancashire, uk, united, kingdom, tripe, black, pudding, new, york, pizza, america, vlog, lep, Author: YankeeDoodlesLEP |
