British Food - Translation, Please...

Toad in the Hole = a dish with sausages covered in a batter that is not unlike Yorkshire pudding (kind of a doughy dumpling thing)

Bangers and Mash = Sausages and mashed potato

I've never had a mixed grill but I think it's kind of like a cooked breakfast with lots of different meats (e.g. sausages and chops and stuff)

1. Are what we in the U.S. call chips (thin slices of potatoes, deep fried until crisp and then seasoned) your "crisps"?
2. And are British "chips" what the U.S. calls french fries? That is, thick(er) wedges of of potatoes, deepfried, and then served with salt, ketchup (in the States) and/or malt vinegar? (And do you have different words for different sizes of chips, such as "shoestring," "home-fries," "Texas-fries," etc?)
3. In the U.S. we have something called "French Toast" - it's sliced bread that is soaked in beaten milk, egg, vanilla, and then pan fried or baked and served with butter and syrup or jam. Is this "eggy bread"?
And in reference to Penny Lane's explanation of "Toad in the Hole" - about Yorkshire Puddings - are these boiled in broth, like dumplings/slickers, or are they cooked in oil? I know that they're somehow associated with Sunday roasts (thanks to a childhood reading of James Herriot, I think).
Many thanks for all of this - I do keep hoping that someone will produce a directory of such things!

Wow, I've never heard of those! I do wonder if the Brits have trouble with U.S. food names, or has the hideous U.S. culture polluted the world so much that everyone knows what we eat?

I think Yorkshire pudding is baked in the oven. You eat it with roast beef.

Oh and spotted dick is actually really nice. It's kind of like Christmas pudding but lighter in colour and probably not quite as much fruit. You eat it with custard.

As far as "Frog in the Pond" is concerned, all it makes me think of was that food movement in the U.S. with "jello" molds - everyone added the oddest things - horseradish, mayonnaise, meat, etc. *shuddering* But your description is really cute.

When you say "green jelly," Penny, do you mean Jello/gelatin or jelly like jam (er, jam with seeds removed and clarified) and is it flavored?

Oh, and here's one that's thanks to my S/O - I was raised being served applesauce as a side to pork dishes (roasts, chops, etc.) He (being Canadian) was raised where it was served as a dessert, with a cookie on the side. Is this just his family, or a more wide-spread tradition?

And what are mushy peas? Are they as, um, unappetizing as they sound? (Makes me think of babyfood, from those little jars, with all of the unattractive colors.)

as for mushy peas, it's what it sounds like, but worse. it depends on the kind you get, but some of the stuff is just unnatural and is this eerie deep green. impossible to find over here (canada) too.

Chips - Often referred to as "hot chips" - hot potato type things, can be crinkle cut, shoe string or normal but no-one ever specifies (except the bags of frozen ones at the supermarket), you just get what you're given. Eaten with tomato sauce and/or white vinegar and often salt too.
ALSO
Chips - Often referred to as "cold chips" or crisps - thin, cold slices of fried potato covered in msg and other flavourings.

Christmas Pudding = Plum Pudding

Jelly - fruit flavoured dessert made with gelatine
but there are also some pure fruit ones that are used like jams or preserves e.g. quince jelly - transparent jelly made from quinces (& lemon for extra pectin?) used like jam.

Stuff that accompanies roasts:

Pork - apple sauce & peas
Lamb - mint sauce/jelly & peas
Beef - mustard or horseradish and beans & pumpkin
Corned Beef - mustard and broad beans

I can't remember which ones have boiled new potatos and which have baked. All have carrots.

What are Twinkies?

What are broad beans? Green beans?
How is the pumpkin (served with beef) cooked?
And the same for the carrots - steamed/baked, whole/sliced, and are they sauced?

And about the cold chips or crisps, what flavorings are typical? Here we have salt; salt and vinegar; bar-b-que (in different styles, such as mesquite and firecracker); sour cream and onion; and then some that are cheese flavored (usually a cheddar cheese). I know that in Canada they have a wider variety (All Dressed = ketchup, mustard, pickles - Pill Pickle - Ketchup, etc.) And is your tomato sauce a thick liquid, very red, made from tomatoes that have been boiled down and then seasonings such as salt and vinegar are added?

On a different note, when I was in Barcelona, a friend ordered a "hamburder" in a restaurant. I expected a patty of ground beef, pan-friend, grilled, or broiled, served on a round bun/roll with items such as leaf lettuce, sliced tomatoes, ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, and pickles piled on top. What he received was literally "ground ham", on a hard roll. And he had to request both the ketchup and mayonnaise. The waited didn't believe him about wanting both condiments - apparently they are not normally eaten together. I guess it's like some people eating French fries/chips/hot chips dipped in mayonnaise or ketchup or salt and vinegar.

Twinkies are a pre-packaged snack food. They consist of a yellow sponge-cake batter that has been shaped like a submarine (oval, long, and flat on the bottom). Once baked, they're filled with a - hmmm - it's supposed to be similar to a stabilized whippied cream filling. However, it tastes like very sweet, sticky, gooey, plastic. There are many preservatives in Twinkies and many jokes about their long shelf-life. However, the manufactures say that they last only a couple of months. Most kids love these things, but at some point out-grow the taste.

Here's an entertaining website all about the little devils. http://www.twinkiesproject.com/

And on a slightly related subject, is the food prepared on "Two Fat Ladies" reasonably representative of British Home Cooking? Or is Delia Smith closer? Or is Delia Smith like Martha Stewart and widely hated by those who don't have the time and/or money and/or staff to be perfectionists?

And, while thinking about Mushy Peas - one of my favorite food/photographs book is Lilek's "Gallery of Regrettable Food". Basically, he took illustrations from U.S. magazines, cookbooks, advertisements, packaging, etc., all from the 40s, 50s and 60s, and then commented on the appearance - the photography, the colors, the lighting, the arrangements, the people, and so forth. It's a good way to kill an appetite (and it's also an excellent explanation about why Americans are now over-weight, looking at what they were supposed to consume). Here's the book's website http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/ And here's a link from the same site about other, um, questionable advertising tactics. http://www.lileks.com/institute/index.html

Oh, to heck with it. Here's the link to the index page - browse to your heart's content: http://www.lileks.com/ It's marvelously retro. Enjoy.

And, actually, because she only bought organic foods, it wasn't until I was in Elementary school that I leard most Cheddar cheese is orange - she always got the "un-colored" stuff (and yeah, Twinkies were forbidden, too. So I used to buy them off of friends who had more open-minded parents).

Pumpkin with beef = baked.
Carrots always chopped into little, round discs and boiled at home but I've met some that are sliced long-ways and baked since then. They never seen to have cooked properly. No sauce on carrots.

Gravy on meat, potatos & peas.

Cold chips have the good, old flavours: plain, bbq, salt & vinegar & chicken. Now there is also light & tangy, herbs & spice, tasty cheese, chilli, tomato salsa, sour cream & chives and a few others that I don't know.

Tomato sauce - thick red stuff. Looks the same as Campbells tomato soup straight out of the tin. Home made tomato sauce is much nicer and has onion and vinegar and funny little seeds and spices in it - very similar to tomato chutney.

Apple sauce on pancakes & waffles & toast? My god. We used lemon juice & sugar on pancakes, didn't eat waffles - but if we had it would have been with chocolate syrup and icecream.

I've never seen orange cheddar cheese and can't say I want to.

I have never heard fillet said other than how it is spelt - although the dictionary says americans spell it filet and I suppose I might pronouce that as filay, not unlike referring to Target as Tar-zhay.

Delia smith is bland and dull as far as cooking goes. She amuses by the dull ways she does 'foreign' food.

The Two fat ladies are exemplary of a very traditional british cookery, but they also do a good deal of continental classics as well. British cookery has never been entirely just that it has always been wide open to foreign influence in a way that french and italian cookery isn't. In my opinion the best british TV chefs at the moment are Hugh Fearnly Whittingstall and Nigel Slater. Both are great exponents of simple home cooking and take great joy from food. Nigella Lawson's recipes are good, especially here baking one but please god don't make me watch her on TV, its excruciating. Look through OFM

Now for some recipes:

Toad in the hole

Preheat Oven to 220
C

In a fairly deep roasting tin toss in a little olive oil and some sausages, 3 or more per person, nice big fat Licolnshires or Pork and Apple. Put in the oven. Whilst the sausages are in the oven. Make a batter with 4oz. flour, 1 egg, 1/2 pint(UK) of milk, salt and pepper. That should be enough batter for one tray of toad in the hole.

Make sure the sausages are spread out on the tray then pour in the batter and close the oven door. Cook for about 30 mins but don't open the oven door until the batter has got good and crispy round the edges. Serve with steamed savoy cabbage, Soy Greens, or other winter green veg.

but only the gods of tastebudlessness.

And Ed, for once I agree with you about cooking! Hugh and Nigel are indeed the kings of current British food.

Broad beans in a pod:
http://www.deliaonline.com/picturelibrary%5Cjpeg150/br/broad-beans.jpg

Mushy peas are a bit of a joke, but done properly they are very good indeed, and not in a 'junky' way. They got revived with the whole rebirth of trad British cookery that went on some time ago.

Ed, I'm english, so I suppose I'm supposed to know, but what the fuck *is* Pease Pudding?

I think Ed is being a bit sniffy above about Delia Smith by the way. And if any TV chef was to be representative of British cooking then she probably is (with regards to kind of kitchen, techniques and lack of OTT flamboyance about the relatively simple job of cooking).

Black Pudding = Blood Sausage = Bloody nummy.

Pease Pudding made from yellow split peas soaked overnight then cooked in ham stock with a little finely chopped onion, celery, carrot, salt and pepper. Cooked till soft, squashed through a sieve, mix in a little butter. Very good with game as well as pork or ham.

I love my beer book!

It also has a grebt recipe from 1932 for jugged hare!!!

The other extreme is Nigella Lawson which is just excruciating to watch, but her recipes are very good.

Ham in guiness, mmmmmmm. Is it rubbed all over in mustard powder first. (after clubbing naturally)

At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DWy2M-JW0AIbvIz.jpg

Finally, something worse than peas in macaroni cheese.

now hold on there

I like the one that went Asian fusion with it.

pinch of nom dot com

I often put borlotti beans in pasta dishes, didn't think it was a big deal tbh.

borlotti beans good, baked beans bad is i think the thrust of this beef

ah

OMG Spag Bog

I've got to admit to mixing baked beans with instant noodles sometimes while quite stoned, but that was a different me many years ago.

that sounds bad

prioritising lager and weed over food is always bad, but nevertheless I'm reminiscing about happier times!

fair