This week, I want to take you along on a vacation that I
took in 2004 to England (and inadvertently got stuck there for 21 days as I had
misplaced my green card), and my experiences with British cuisine. Needless to say, I was able to discover a lot
of dining and gained a few pounds in the process. Like other imperialist countries, Great
Britain has absorbed the cultural influence of the people who live there,
producing many hybrid dishes. The Norman
Conquest brought exotic spices like cinnamon, saffron, mace, nutmeg, pepper, and
ginger into England during the Middle Ages.
From East Asia (China) the British adopted tea (and exported the habit
to India). From India, the British adopted
their food tradition of "strong, penetrating spices and herbs", and
they developed a line of spicy sauces including ketchup, mint sauce, and
Worcestershire sauce.
In my experience during my vacation, I found that British
cuisine could be best described as unfussy dishes, made from quality local
ingredients, and matched with simple sauces which accentuate flavor rather than
disguise it. Of course while I was
there, I had the opportunity to taste most of their well-known dishes like fish
& chips, Sunday roast, steak & kidney pie, shepherd's pie, and bangers
& mash. While I traveled around
Great Britain, I found the there are many regional varieties within the broader
categories of English, Scottish, and Welsh cuisine such as Cornish pasties, Yorkshire
pudding, Arbroath Smokie, and Welsh cakes.
By far, fish and chips is the classic English take-away
(fast) food, and traditional national food of the country. The dish became popular in the 1860's when
railways began to bring fresh fish (cod, haddock, huss, plaice) straight from
the east coast, and into the cities overnight.
The fish is dredged in a flour batter and deep fried along with “chips”
(potato slices) until they are golden, brown, and delicious! Once out of the fryer, the fish and chips are
covered with salt, and malt vinegar, and eaten with your fingers, straight out
of the newspaper which they were wrapped in.
In keeping with the “regional varieties” in the northern parts of
England, fish & chips is often served with "mushy peas" (mashed
processed peas)!
With the rich history of Britain and the many influences
on their cuisine, when dining one can not only taste the best of the famous
British dishes, but the best of the many distinct ethnic cuisines to sample,
Chinese, Indian, Italian and Greek just to name a few.
