San Diego, and question for Brits

The American author of '84 Charing Cross Road', Helene Hanff, described yorkshire pudding as 'A sort of tall, crisp, golden, totally empty waffle – and a taste of heaven’. Having never had a waffle, I don't know if that's true!

Honey.

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon
- The Dalai Llama

It's supposed to be like popovers, though I haven't had popovers!

Or, hm, a non-sweet version of a puffy oven pancake.

The Better Homes and Gardens (red plaid) cookbook has a very authentic recipe, if you want to confirm what it should really be like. It is pretty cheap to make so no great loss if you don't like it and throw it out.

Hmm, OK. That doesn't sound at all like what I had, which was more like a greasy, leaden dumpling. I actually didn't eat the pastry part of it (it was sitting on top of some mashed potatoes with a pile of roast beef and gravy sitting on top of that). I'm guessing I had a poor rendition of it. Thanks!

It sounds as though it may originally have been cooked right, but sitting around on/ under gravy and stuff made it soggy.

is kind of the point of the whole thing. It's just a plain batter really - not pastry or dumpling at all. I believe Becky's description of it being like your popovers is accurate, though I haven't had them either - I've heard them likened to popovers.

you can probably get frozen versions in a larger supermarket - I cheat and use those, but I know I'm going to have to have a go at the real thing eventually. Hot oven and minimal drafts is the knack I believe. My mother's great at them - they're also the basis for the English dish 'toad-in-the-hole' which is sausages baked in the batter. Even my mother uses the frozen ones sometimes though.

Have a go at your own, but they aren't as straightforward as the ingredients suggest.

Kerri.

...between drowned in gravy then immediately eaten, and sitting in gravy to become leaden! I'd heard it was difficult to make but never once had a problem with the BHG version. It always turns out the way it should.

I've never seen frozen Yorkshire pudding in an American supermarket, even a huge supermarket. It's conceivable that you might be able to find it at a specialty place like Trader Joe's, or at one of those gourmet supermarkets where they sell a lot of ethnic foods.

I've never had popovers, so I can't vouch for the similarity to yorkshire pudding. I have however had horrible yorkshire pudding that sounded pretty much like yours, Sparrow!

Personally, I haven't had a lot of success with making it myself, I buy the frozen ones too.

Honey.

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon
- The Dalai Llama

Thanks, guys. Mostly I was just curious what it was, so I tried it. I guess now I know more, but still haven't eaten a good Yorkshire pudding! I did suspect that wasn't quite what it was supposed to be like.

rolling on the floor in hysterics at the idea of British food being categorised as 'ethnic'. There's gotta be some other word which describes the absolute lack of the exotic, characteristic of most British food!!! Maybe it's time to add a new word to the dictionary. I'll work on that.

I would suggest Sparrow, that a good Yorkshire pudding is still worth having, though it may still not be what you expect. I've come across Americans who look on British cookery with a sort of weird nostalgia (it goes with describing anything English as 'quaint') and then get badly disappointed by the real thing. If I were to look at a 'yorkie' I really would struggle to tell any non-Brit why we bother, but I love them!

Thanks for the giggle Becky!

Kerri.

My brother-in-law (Scotish originally) went to England for a vacation and came back with Turkish Delights. From the way they are described in the C.S. Lewis book they sounded awsome. I had one and it literally made me sick. One was lemon and one rosehips. The second one tasted like old bathroom soap covered in powdered sugar. The lemon wasn't vomit worthy but still kinda gross. Thats my limited experience with British food.

... From a Turkish restaurant, however!

Maybe that's what the White Witch gave Edmund, and that's why he thought it was so much better than any he'd had before.

I'm still arguing in favor of British food being "ethnic." Compared to the rest of the world, even including the US and Canada and Australia and New Zealand (the four countries where the food is the closest to British food), what could be more exotic and unusual than a cooking which is entirely free of any seasonings?

the Chinese are more likely to self-destruct than the English!

Marmite is a brand name people - you have brand names too, and if you think scouse sounds odd, think what a popover sounds like to us! You have an odd mix of 'exotic sounding' foods too, and more so because it comes from such a strange mix of cultures. Plus Marmite is anything but bland.

I finally opened one of my boxes of Turkish Delight from Christmas last night. I love the stuff, but I agree with Becky that the best stuff is Turkish - the original brand is Hazer Baba and I have a funny feeling that Turkish Delight is actually quite a recent creation, contrary to expectation. I think I read that on the back of a box of Hazer Baba. It's rosewater that flavours the pink pieces, not rosehip by the way. There are other flavours too, and pistachio is a popular addition.

If you think TD tastes like soap you should try the sweets I had the other day - 'floral gums'. When my poor Singaporean daughter asked what they tasted like I really could only ell her they were like soap. Which demanded a follow-on question... 'so why did you buy them if they taste like soap Mummy?'. And *then* there's Parma violets...

Not all British food is bland, but when there are several versions of cabbage and potatoes for each part of the British Isles it's sometimes hard to remember that many of these foods originated as peasant dishes, and bland wasn't really a matter of choice.

Kerri.

it's not like British food is at the top of the evolutionary/gastronomy scale. Most of it could come under the heading of 'comfort food' - I've had a craving for rice pudding recently, and chicken soup... both of which worried DH!

I love Hobnobs, hate marzipan (the Germans actually do it better, just for the record - my dad loves it), not sure whether "Eight O'Clock Mints" are perhaps "After Eights" - square black wax pouches, dark chocolate and a wet fondant filling?? And what on earth do you call aspic?? I love this kind of exchange of information.

My hopelessly Singaporean daughter spent much of her later years in Singapore absorbing the food details of Enid Blyton books, and thinking that all of England was like an Enid Blyton book. I had to explain that those books were mostly older than her grandmother before she understood that things had changed. She still wants to try DH's Spam though (BLECH!) because it was a feature of many 1950s picnics!

Some of the food descriptions still bring a smile to my face too, but England and English food has changed. Chicken Tikka is almost a national dish - certainly one of the most widely eaten foods in the UK at the moment. Of course we can try and put it down to the good old Empire and curry being something we Brits invented, but that's still pushing it a bit. Many immigrants came to the UK when India and Pakistan were partitioned in the early 50s and the sheer difference of the flavour must have been a huge shock. I think Brits are now beginning to realise that they've put up with some dreadful muck in the name of food for many years, and are demanding better quality ingredients and cooking styles. Not ALL vegetables in the UK are boiled to death any more, though most still get tortured in this cruel way!! Like many others Brits are travelling more and further, and since our own comfort foods/peasant dishes don't fit our current lifestyles or health preferences we're probably a little more outward looking than previously.

And then there was the competition to cook individual dishes for a gala lunch for the Queen's 80th birthday... The Great British menu!! Almost a contradiction in terms, and the chefs found it very hard to find dishes that did't have Italian, French or Asian influences I suspect. One of the dishes chosen was by an Indian chef though, if I recall rightly. I know the judges desperately wanted to include his food but couldn't decide if it was too Indian or whether it was British Indian!

Marmite is VERY salty and a bit meaty in flavour, but I can't be more specific than that. If you've ever tried the Australian version, Vegemite, I believe it's similar in taste. And less is usually more even for Marmite devotees like myself!

Kerri.

Anhata, I grew up buying those from American supermarkets and pharmacies. I've always just seen them in the candy aisle. (And still do.) Do they not sell them in the Pacific northwest?

Remembered the name wrong. We'd never had them until they were served with coffee to us in Scotland. I can find them occasionally in the grocery stores around here, they're not uncommon, I looked them up:

Rich in British heritage, After Eight Dark Chocolate is known as England's finest mint. Now available in more than 60 countries, it is also the world's best selling.

These delicate mint wafers are enrobed in rich dark chocolate. Whether you serve these mints to friends as an end to a good meal, share with close friends as a gift, or open a box for simple self-indulgence, After Eight Mints are sure to please.

"enrobed"...you gotta love it

This goes down in my book as a confection the Brits got really, really right. They're darn fine mints, can't think of any I like better, and I'm not even a huge fan of dark chocolate!

According to Wikipedia, "Aspic is a dish in which ingredients are set into a gelatine, jelly-like substance made from a meat stock or consommé." Also called "meat jelly", things like head cheese and pork jelly are aspics. If anyone reading this does not know what head cheese is you've not read Farmer Boy and you must instantly procure the entire Little House series and read it before you're another year older.

I've understood aspic to mean any thing with gelatin added to it that wasn't sweet, as opposed to Jello. My Grandma Alberta made an aspic dish with fresh cucumbers, celery, and cream that she'd serve in the summer using Knox Gelatin packets. I thought it was fantastic. Though now that I think on it, she might have called it a "mold".

Anhata
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