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

you would think there would be more fish on that list. there should be a separate fish list. poached fish! i really want fish and chips now...

although for fishy fish dishes i'd probably rather travel to italy...or spain...or greece...or portugal...or sweden...

I only do cream in the mushy peas if I'm making industrial quantities, otherwise it's a couple of handfuls of heated freezer peas, a big pinch of mint, a knob of salted butter and quite a bit of white pepper, all blitzed.

there should be a poll thread for the best food that looks like baby vomit. mushy peas might win that.

I like that old WW2 story about the Whitehouse valet opening (Animal Farm hero) Molotov's suitcase and being surprised to see a chunk of black Russian bread, some large roll of sausage and a pistol being concealed, by the extremely paranoid guest.

there should be a poll thread for the best food that looks like baby vomit. mushy peas might win that.

― scott seward, Thursday, 31 August 2017 17:57 (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

spinnakers clam chowder is the correct answer to this

its hard to screw up applesauce

Scotch eggs should be a magnificent invention but I've only ever had crap ones that taste of sawdust. Even from Waitrose!

the sainsburys taste the difference ones are good - tho i prefer hot scotch eggs.

i get a pack of quorn 'picnic eggs' every time i am back. i also make my dad stop at newport pagnall services so i can get a 99p cheese and onion sandwich. i'm kind of a foodie.

jeez get a load of mr fuckin zagat over here

One of the delights of the awaken of British cookery of the last 30 years has been the black pudding scotch egg

also m&s did a nice black pudding sausage roll for a while

The best people to judge of English cooking would be the English, since they are the ones who are eating it. That is why I will refrain from voting in this poll. Have at it, you limeys!

you would think there would be more fish on that list

There's a quote from Will Self back in his restaurant reviewing days along the lines of "although nowhere in England is much more than an hour's drive from the sea, it's easier in most places to buy hard drugs than fresh fish".

I only do cream in the mushy peas if I'm making industrial quantities, otherwise it's a couple of handfuls of heated freezer peas, a big pinch of mint, a knob of salted butter and quite a bit of white pepper, all blitzed

Sounds delicious, but not mushy peas.

The emergence of the hot pub scotch egg over the last few years has been a glorious thing.

I find the idea of something with a hard-boiled egg in it that isn't for immediate consumption, completely disgusting. I used to work with someone who used to eat these foul stinking egg mayo sandwiches, that had been sat sweating away in a van all morning. Just visualising a scotch egg makes me seriously gag.

re mr self's observation: tbh if i want to know where to purchase hard drugs i would first ask a (former) junkie but if i want to know where to purchase fresh fish, i would ask a (former) junkie last

here are the fishmongers in leicestershire, for example: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/search/leicestershire+fishmonger/@52.615389,-1.8390637,9z

if you want to know where to purchase putrifying sharkmeat, ask an icelander

man now i want some pickled herring and schnapps

it seems like Will is one to never let the actual facts get in the way of a bad (me so dark ex-junkie) self-serving quip.

the thread of the pee shark

evolution gave us a shark made of pee that survives the icy depths of the arctic and eats bears, and we found a way to eat it

— um jammer trans g (@joffeorama) August 30, 2017

^^^centrist orwell runs, a mile, even bourdain couldn't even

(least fresh fish: it's 500 yrs old, it looks like mitch mconnell, it's made of pee, icelanders left it in a hole to rot)

https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/31/16235156/pee-shark-toxic-urea-greenland-twitter

pee story denied

I've been fascinated by Greenland Sharks since they appeared in one of my all-time favourite video games, Endless Ocean 2

non-denial denial in the view of this pee shark truther

If those are the places in Leicestershire where you can buy fresh fish then TBF to the Selfer it would be hard to find fresh fish in "most places" in Leicestershire.

it's true that you only find it in the shops that sell it

the pee shark also sometimes has glowing copepods eating its eyes in exchange for attracting more prey with their light

— um jammer trans g (@joffeorama) August 30, 2017

this is the future corbyn wants for the uk

WAKE UP PISS SHARKS

it's true that you only find it in the shops that sell it

Well if we're doing pedantry I insist it's not true that you can only find it in shops that sell it, but it is mostly true that you can only buy it in shops that sell it.

[My point was that most of the towns and villages in Leicestershire don't have a fishmonger, going by your map.]

I'd also argue that supermarkets have only raised their fish game in the last 5 years or so

most of the villages in Leicestershire don't have most kinds of shops, if any: this is what driving to town is for

self is probably correct that some of these villages do form the centre of the local drugs trade: just 50 yards from mum and dad's house in the very country a barn-full of heroin and hash was raided during operation bumblebee, but you couldn't just walk up to the barn and purchase a gramme or three

love that farm-to-bloodstream heroin, it's so in right now

too soon imo

Remember the old days when u could go straight to the barn and buy it by the gram

Europe changed all that of course

It's all sneakily state-subsidised Schengen skag these days. Our proud British horse farms have had to become horse farms.

I don't suppose I would find it easy to find hard drugs in most places, because happily that is not a skill I've ever acquired. But I do believe in most towns there'll be someone selling them, but not someone selling fresh fish which I think is the point?

enough smack talk

Remember the old days when u could go straight to the barn and buy it by the gram

Ounce

junkies: less bounce by the ounce

yes i am challenging the claim that "easy to buy something" in the country means "easy to buy it on your own doorstep" -- it wasn't "hard to buy shoes" in my village, bcz driving a few miles to get some things is very unthinkingly normal in rural areas

(it would take me a minimum hours round journey from where i'm meant to be working today to buy a pret sandwich -- nevertheless the pret sandwich is "easy to buy", if mildly annoying, wake up pret, a land borough in turmoil is crying out for a hero jambon beurre *loses thread*)

no jambon on the English cooking thread

I've just realised "Devonshire cream" probly means clotted cream in which case it is a real contender if these things were in contention

real talk: does clotted cream go on top of or underneath the jam on a scone

me: butter, jam, cream

let the arguments commence

"Easier" was the word used? Which doesn't necessarily mean "easy" but might mean "available in the next small town rather than having to drive far further to the next big town".

NV is right that many smallish towns (I'm thinking of places like Axminster or Ottery St Mary, places I know fairly well) will these days have a supermarket with some kind of fresh fish available, where 10 or 15 years ago there'd have been nowhere that sold the stuff.

xp Devonshire Cream contains multitudes, and is surely not just the clotted.

the us contingent are not gonna believe that 'ottery st mary' is a real place and not some kind of arcane slur

me: butter, jam, cream

butter and cream is a fuckin' baller move imo

xp That's not necessairly an either/or, as anyone from Fenny Bridges will tell you.

ok i think we're more or less in the same place bar some delicious micro-pedantry abt comparative adjectives but i'm still calling bullshit on the idea that you can actually lay yr hands on skag in any village in the UK w/o someone driving somewhere, even in leicestershire

for real cream you need to go to cornwall obviously

devonshire cream would have been my second choice