best food from Orwell's "In Defense of English Cooking"

Scottish innit

Orwell was writing at a time when it was ok to describe any part of the British Empire as "English".

if you were a git.

i'm sure someone will be along in a minute to shortbreadsplain that actually it was invented in luxembourg or some shit

nah I already checked Wikipedia or I would have done that already :D

my man

recipe for shortbread was actually included in the advanced knowledge cache aliens gave to the old kingdom egyptians

my man

erich von ramekin

idk about the mint but boiling new potatoes is the only way to do em so i am with georgie on that much

Charlottes of the Gods

Brain's faggots don't taste half as good now as they did when I was a kid, I'm guessing there's less offal in them

Yeah I had a somewhat similar experience, I still like them but something not quite right.

Nothing like when I bought some Findus Crispy Pancakes on a nostalgic whim a few years ago, they were almost inedible (the cheese ones were actually inedible, but the beef ones were gross but I managed to eat them).

yeah I made that mistake a while ago, maybe you have to deep fry them

erich von ramekin

― mark s, Thursday, 31 August 2017 13:49 (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Charlottes of the Gods

― a hulking and impenetrable dump (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 31 August 2017 13:52 (thirty-eight seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is my jam

bread fucking sauce

boughten bread sauce is always terrible -- home-made bread sauce made by me is amazing

(same applies to red cabbage)

(in both cases the secret ingredient is cloves)

lol i love the packet bread sauce and every xmas my mum makes a homemade one but always buys two/three packets of bread sauce and gets me to make it for myself. i know normally we're supposed to prefer the homemade thing over the packet but to me the packet bread sauce is what we had when i was a kid - it is the taste of christmas.

dublin prawns obv the winner here tho many things on the list are good. for new potatoes in the english way i'm assuming he means boiled and a bit of butter/parsley/salt? one of the nicest things.

That moreorless applies to everything in the list, and it's a point he makes in the essay, iirc (haven't read it for about 25 yrs) - the best English food is homemade rather than bought and is found in homes rather than in restaurants. Still largely true in most parts of the country, I'd say - average pub/restaurant/carvery Sunday roast will be disappointing.

the sunday roast at the pub thing is a fucking shitshow - i don't get it at all

homemade > restaurant is true in every culture, surely?

as the thread's unregenerate mint stan i shd step up and note that the english way of new potatoes is with mint not parsley

i love parsley, not a huge mint man

mint potatoes, for when you just can't do without that 'carb-loading right after a mouthful of polos' feeling

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Postgate

^^^trying to find a piece in the LRB on the Good Food Guide which had some very excellent horrible descriptions but may have misremembered where I read it: wikipedia biography of raymond postgate gives an quick idea of the overall story… the point was that eating out in the 1920s 30s 40s was (unless you were very lucky) just unremittingly terriblem, borderline uneatable, unless you paid a LOT of money (and dicey even then)… now on the whole the worst you get (unless very unlucky) is ordinary, general standards have shifted upwards unimagineably since the 50s and 60s

worth noting: the work to improve practical professional cooking was done from the left in this country (cf also CAMRA, which was at root a commie project)

also his son was oliver postgate of bagpuss fame

mint potatoes are bloody awful

they are correct and good

new potatoes are actually best eaten cold the next day

challops like a fucking firehose itt

this is england, where we eat what we want

I can see how it's theoretically possible for new potatoes to be nice, but I just associate them with disgusting school dinners/canteen food and undercooked/green/mouldy potatoes so would never choose to eat them if there was any other option available.

what i'm hearing here is that we need an 'ILX DECIDES THE BEST POTATO' poll

too hard, for example

good chips > good roasties

but mediocre roasties are way > than mediocre chips

what i'm hearing here is that we need a multi-stage, forensically detailed 'ILX DECIDES THE BEST POTATO' poll

yes we can do this

it's a feel bad topic for me because even tho potatoes are basically my favourite food and i celebrate them in all forms, as a vegetarian i can't claim full expertise due to necessarily limited experience of roasters

aw dude :(

I cook my roasties in olive oil more often than not and it works great

the key is parboiling first

yeah and shaking the pot to scuff them after the boil. you defo don't need animal fat to make great roast potatoes.

in my greengrocing days we had a prolonged quest trying to find the ideal potato for a fussy michelin star-toting chef. for weeks we brought him many varieties which were pooh-poohed but he was finally satisfied with yukon gold

saves us all having our own opinions

new potatoes are delicious served with green beans and shovels of butter

i am v happy with non-animal fat roast potatoes of course but most ppl are gonna say that animal fat ones are better

i mean, chips as well, but here we enter greyer territory in my personal approach to vegetarianism

Want to try that, thanks.
I voted for dark plum cake which I've never had, but sounds fab!
Good to know English cooking got better in the 70s; why then?
new potatoes in the English way Oh wtf does this mean? Sounds like something O'Brien would show to Winston.

i am holding off my various bids for worst potato on this thread as i don't wish to obscure the work the gizzard pizza has been doing

(they were all served at the school mentioned above: they were beyond belief)

"Want to try"parboiled potatoes in olive oil, I meant.

the great kathmandu in didsbury seems to roast potatoes in a marmite-coloured chilli sludge and they are incredible

what is a potato

can't believe i have never thought to combine potatoes and marmite. seems so obvious.

Gizzard pizza might be good depending on what cheese. Chicken gizzards are like chicken livers, but chewier. Even supermarket tomatoes taste better if I don't refrig.

roast sweet potato wedges with marmite are also delicious