Writer’s Choice

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.