Great British Grub

As you know, we popped back across the pond for a month, straddling July and August. Although the US boasts some culinary delights of its own, we were nevertheless hankering after some good ol' British grub that is hard to find here. We used our month in Britain well -- to get a fix for as many of our cravings as possible. Here's Mark's take on it:

One of the real pleasures of returning to the UK over the summer was to taste again all sorts of food and drink that we had been missing while in the USA. In the weeks and months ahead of our summer trip, we would often discuss what British foods we were most looking forward to, making a mental list. Emily would often ask if we could get some McVities Digestives when we were shopping in Kroger (@ $3.00 a packet in the UK import section) and I would always have to say, "Wait till we get to England".


Black PuddingThere was no question about what I was most looking forward to -- black pudding. You cannot get hold of black pudding in the States for love or money. Actually we once had a bit in an Irish pub in Cary, but that's the only time, and it was not great black pudding. For those who have not tried it, black pudding is a large, thick black sausage, made in part from pig's blood and fat (not terribly kosher). Happily, we found ourselves in the black pudding capital of the world for one week of our stay, when we went on holiday to Bishop's Castle in Shropshire. There was a local black pudding there which was absolutely superb and I think we must have bought four or five during the week we were there. In fact there was a nice (but expensive) family butcher there too that made the best local back bacon one could imagine. It's not possible to get back bacon where we live -- there are shelves and shelves of streaky, some even in odd flavours like maple, but no back bacon in sight. And, of course, there were some first class British sausages, thick, meaty, tasty and not the diddy, salty and fatty things we get here.

Emily did get her digestive biscuits and we all enjoyed some good Cadbury's chocolate (which is available here, but licensed to Hersheys, or imported from England at four times the price). One surprise treat was British squash -- orange squash, blackcurrant squash etc. -- we hadn't realized how much we had missed those. [Explanation for Americans: squash is fruit-flavoured drink concentrates that one dilutes before drinking. We especially missed Robinson's Lemon Barley Water. (Ed.)] I don't think I had realized either just how much I had been missing a good English hand-pulled pint of real ale. One real highlight was sitting outside an old pub called The Tinner's Arms in Zennor during our week in Cornwall, and then in Shropshire to pick up regular pitchers of the locally brewed ales from the local pub in Bishop's Castle.


Steak & Kidney PieI should also mention, of course, fish and chips. We had it twice during our month's visit, and each time the key thing -- for us -- was the curry sauce -- tops it off wonderfully. [Although sea-food restaurants around here tend to deep-fry everything -- from white fish to oysters and serve them with some variety or other of fried potato, we craved proper batter and chip-shop style chips (Ed.)] We had a great Chinese takeaway too when in Peterborough, a great Indian takeaway in Shropshire, a nice Indian meal out in Birmingham, where Balti is the local dish, and a great meal at Pizza Express in London with my brother Jonathan on Lauren's birthday. Come to think of it, we also had three pub meals and on all three occasions I had steak and kidney pie, one of my favourite dishes. [In the UK, pie can be almost anything that involves pastry and an oven. This means that pies can be savoury (eg. steak and gravy) or sweet (eg. apple). Hence the Geico gecko's love of "pie and chips", which translated is savoury pie with fries (Ed.)] And in Cornwall we had a cream tea, which was even more delicious than I had remembered.

On top of these, we had many fantastic meals made for us while touring the country. Viola and I are lucky in both having Mums who are brilliant cooks, and family and friends who are also great cooks. And happily, everyone we know enjoys a glass of wine (or two) as much as we do. It's amazing that we did not put any weight on while in the UK, not least given the huge amount of cheese we consumed too (a new favourite: Haloumi; an old favourite: Blue Dovedale). [Good, reasonably priced cheese is scarce in our part of NC (Ed.)] What is less surprising is that I had some serious indigestion problems while in England!


BBQ, Rice & Hush PuppiesI do not, of course, want to suggest that there are not wonderful things to be had here. Now back in America, there are many American treats to enjoy. I love what is called "barbecue", which in North Carolina means a kind of pulled pork [pulled off the bone -- has a shredded texture (Ed.)] in some delicious spices, and not what Brits and Aussies mean by barbecue [Here, barbecue is pulled pork, to grill is to barbecue and broiling is grilling (Ed.)]. Viola recently posted on our growing love of sushi. And it is great that we can get fresh fish and seafood locally. We have a seafood market locally with the extraordinary name "Jezebel's Salty Fare" and on our wedding anniversary, I cooked a dish with some local squid and prawns (the latter always called "shrimp" here, even if enormous). We are also big fans of Bojangles, which is a southern "chicken 'n' biscuit" place, but we can't go there too often because it is very, very fattening.