A man was driving late at night into Wales from London and was speeding, just a bit, and was stopped in Wales by a policeman (now image a very strong Welsh accent):
"You were travelling a bit fast there weren't you sir?"
"If you say so, officer." replied the motorist cautiously.
"Well, sir, what would you do if Mr. Fog came down?" he heard the policeman say.
"I'd put my foot on Mr. Brake." replied the driver (who was actually a comic returning from a gig).
"I'll say that again," said the patient policeman, " what would you do if mist or fog came down?"

The reason I relate this story is that while the Welsh policeman may make the distinction between mist and fog, few motorists appear to be that discriminating. The Eskimos may have 50 or more words for snow and though they cannot match that, the Brits still have quite a few for mist or fog; pea-souper, smog, fog, mist, miasma (bad air, Malpas in Cornwall).

The last pea-souper I ever experienced, they seem to be a thing of the past with the passing of the clean air act, was when I was nowt but a lad being driven by my Grandpa. I recall that vsibility was so bad we had to drive at only 2-3mph and as the most ambitious we had (presumably) a long line of cars behind us playing follow my leader. At Guildford the AA HQ used to be located on one of the roundabouts with bot an entrance and an exit onto the roundabout. My Grandfather, reaching what appeared to be the roundabout, forgot about the AA HQ when counting exits and turned in at their entrance, re-emerging onto the roundabout moments later and finding the right exit at last. Every single car following us took the same route. We literally couldn't see much beyond the end of the bonnet (hood) and not even that sometimes. How welcome it was to follow a set of rear lights everywhere... or so thought all those behind us.

However, since then anything more than an occassional spotty mist is a rare event.

The Highway Code says:
"201. You MUST use headlights when visibility is seriously reduced, generally when you cannot see for more than 100 metres (328 feet). You may also use front or rear fog lights but you MUST switch them off when visibility improves (see Rule 211)."

"211. You MUST NOT use front or rear fog lights unless visibility is seriously reduced (see Rule 201) as they dazzle other road users and can obscure your brake lights. You MUST switch them off when visibility improves."

In the UK, having cars fitted with fog lights most motorists must live their entire lives for the opportunity to use them; the least impairment of visibility and they switch them on and then leave them on for the next 4 months.

Certainly, for some of them, the distinction between "mist" and "fog" must be a difficult philosophical concept to grasp but some of them find that, by using their imagination, they can make the definition stretch to include rain, 9/10ths cloud cover and hangovers and, it would seem, night time (a lack of sun).

Peasants.

Being such a rare event many car manufacturers have hedged their bets but fitting not two fog lights but just one. This really is a nuisance because, when approaching a single bright red rear view light it is sometimes a problem to determine if the are just a bit slower than you, a lot slower or stationary (it doesn't matter with motor cycles, they are usually receding lights) and, without two equal intensity lights to observe for separation; increasing separation means they are getting closer or you are to them.

Of course, there is nothing more exciting in the genuine article than driving along at 30mph with ones face pressed to the windscreen and to be overtaken by some damn great Mercedes with full frontal and rear foglights blazing and travelling at about 120mph.

So there we are, has the distinction between mist and fog been lost or what?
What other words are now redundant and why?








 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

I sometimes experience a thick cloud floating above the trees.  I don't know whether that is mist or fog but it looks like there is a tunnel through the trees which is completely clear.

Somehow that only happens when I'm in a car.  I've never experienced it on a bicycle.

The East coast (certainly anywhere from the Mouth of the Tyne to Fife Ness, and probably well beyond in either direction) can still throw up a very exciting fog - the Scots even have a word for it:  "haar".

I was out in a small boat a couple of years back when the fog came down.  Getting back in to Seahouses was quite interesting, as it wasn't possible to see from one side of the harbour entrance to he other (I guess that's less than 20m).

The official distinction between fog and mist always comes as a bit of a surprise to people - it's actually drawn at 1000m.  This is probably why Part three of the Road Vehicle Lighting Regulations (1989) (The Highway Code is for Amateurs) had to resort to the convoluted phrase "conditions of severely reduced visibility"

A.

I thought "fog lights" were simply a fashion accessory these days.  Like furry dice used to be.

More seriously, if I'm behind a car with rear fog lights needlessly on, I make sure my headlights are needlessly dazzling.

- Steve

Where I live (San Francisco Bay area), there is nothing more frightening than Tule Fog.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tule_fog
 

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

jmw, not sure what part of the country you're in but out in the rolling hills of eastern Hampshire (at least to the east of Winchester) it got genuinely foggy sometimes in the morning.

However, the M3, while sometimes getting rather misty, occasionally light fog, never got really bad the times I was driving it, I don't think I ever went below about 55 -60 mph.  Made it exciting when you came up on someone without their foglights on doing about 35 - 40.

You didnt' mention drizzle, or the vehicle imposed 'fog' (actually spray) created on the concrete motorways.

I always found it amusing that they claimed the ridges across the road improved drainage/traction to improve safety/speed.  Only problem was they also so reduced visability that you had to go slower than on the asphalt roads unless you were the only driver for at least a mile.

 

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies recently, or taken a look at http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

I nearly posted this in the pub but maybe this is more relevant here.

http://www.delish.com/recipefinder/upside-down-shepherds-pie-748

IF YOU USE BEEF IT'S NOT SHEPARDS PIE

Shepard's pie, as in pie made by/for a Shepard, as in a sheep herder, as in someone that cares for sheep, is made from sheep, often lamb but potentially mutton.

If it's made from Beef it's Cottage Pie

wikepedia isn't much better than the original link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottage_pie

At least the Engineer Chef below got it right, some of the respondents haven't a clue though.

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/127/Shepherds-Pie-Cottage-Pie

I don't care what you grew up with or what your local dialect calls it...

On this one I stand firm.  
 

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies recently, or taken a look at http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

Hear, hear.
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

I never knew there was a difference.  I made Shepard's Pie (OK, I guess it was a Cottage Pie) once for an Italian boyfriend who did not like it and called it, 'German Shepard Pie'.  

I've never made it since.

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

He was Italian, what would he know about good food.

The secret of good Shepards or Cottage Pie is do not, under any circumstances, strictly follow a recipe.  Just cause it turned out well that way last time doesn't mean it will this time.  By all means reference one but to make it good make it 'your own'.

(Also never put sweet corn in it, it looks very unapetizing, like something fido may leave behind).

One bad type is if the ground meat filling is too runny and the gravy is too weak.  Even worse is the above but the topping made separately or, the ulimate worst is runny/weak filling served separate from runny instant mashed potatoes.

KENAT,

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Can nobody spell "Shepherd's pie"?

- Steve

ooops, my bad (the spelling error.  I usually check that stuff)

So KENAT, what is your opinion of peas in Shepherd's Pie?  You need something for a bit of color.  BTW, I'll refrain from calling them English peas, even though that's what they call them at the Farmer's Market.

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

I can't.  Word let me have it, I thought it looked odd but didn't check.  So mea culpa.

I'm fond of peas in it.

The last one I made (shepherds not cottage as I had mince to use up from last years lamb) had, in addition to meat & gravy, peas, carrots, mushrooms & celery as well as the usual flavoring ingredients:

It's not particularly traditional but makes it a one dish meal which has advantages.

KENAT,

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Shepherd's pie, cottage pie, Cornish pasties.  The foods I missed most during my tour of duty.  Peas in the pies, yes.  Making pasties was interesting though.  Try buying swede or turnips in the USA.

- Steve

They have both at my local grocery store and we're in the middle of nowhere, or at least as I've said before you can see it from the edge of town.

Swedes seem to be called Rutabagas though.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutabaga

One thing that makes it tricky is that quantities are given as mass in the UK (most of the time) where as they're given as volume in the US.  This confounds my wife's attempts to make my English favorites.  My sister even sent her a small kitchen scale when I moved out but to no avail.

I miss steak & kidney pie.
 

KENAT,

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I never worked out how many cups there were in a litre.  Sorry, a liter (we're only going to use your units if we can spell them our way).

I found turnips in the "exotic vegetables" section of my local.

Fray Bentos pies travel well.  To be found in any Englishe/Irishe/Scottishe shoppe.
  

- Steve

Melton Mowbrey appears to have won its case in the EU courts to protect their pork pies (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article4881370.ece) which were originally made to allow huntsmen to have some food in their pockets (http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/a-bit-of-local-flavour-please-661746.html) and, as we all know, the Cornish Pasty (we've had this discussion before, including explaining to Americans that Cornish Pasties have nothing to do with "exotic dancers") but I can't say that I approve of curry flavoured pasties I'm more of a traditionalist.

Work and leisure seems to have played quite a part in some of the UK's food specialities beginning not forgetting the "sandwich".

Many have a regional flavour and many, despite probably being very bad for you are very appetising such as bacon butties and chip butties.

Actually, the least healthy breakfast ever had was when i was working on a project for Ryvita (they make those crispbreads).
My colleague joined me from Warrington where such delights are normal fare and he was overjoyed with the canteen breakfast as everything from eggs, sausages, black pudding, mushrooms, and bread appeared to have been fried in and presented in fat.

This was the site where later in the day we were working on a coriolis meter's electronics and discovered the Ammerican manufacturers had located live and neutral connections rather unsafely together on the PCB.
When we accidentally shorted them out there was a flash and a pop and then the sound of the whole production line slowing down to a halt.

The diminishing sounds of dying machinery contrasted with the increasingly loud and frantic sounds of running feet as the plant manager and his acolytes appeared to see what had gone wrong.

The next morning we discovered a new circuit breaker had been fitted by the site electrician to protect them from us.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

And why again is Yorkshire Pudding more of a bread bowl than any type of pudding I grew up with in Ohio?

Needless to say, I cannot find Yorkshire Pudding in any grocery store here in Iowa.

schnipp, this confusion is because most Americans (as in inhabitants of US of A) have no idea about how to correctly use the term pudding.

I was going to write a diatribe but I see wikidpedia has already done it for me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pudding

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies recently, or taken a look at http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

I take my daughter out for a Sunday roast most weekends these days (since the "amicable separation").  Her favourite is always the yorkshire pudding - often gets mine too.  It's a kind of bucket for gravy, much like the mash mountain that's called "mash potatoes" (sic) in yank-land.

- Steve

You don't buy yorkshire puddings, you make them - it is a batter of some form (whatever a batter is).

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

Same batter as real pancakes are made from.

(That should confuse a few)

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies recently, or taken a look at http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

Many of the UK's celebrity chefs have their own websites that include recipes for such delights as Yorkshire puddings amongst other, equally delightful and tasty items.  The chef (if you will allow me a little latitude!) I'm really thinking of here is our very own Delia Smith.

I was always receptive to Fanny.

- Steve

really liked the swedish "rutabaga" for meat pie ... probably derives from the suspected source of the meat ?

fortunately, the "batter" comment didn't spin us into a discussion about cricket ...

oops, now i've let the cat out of the bag ...

ah cricket...

Now there is a pointless game...


 

... like a broken pencil.

Golf is in the same box for me.

At least there are no penalty bat-outs in cricket.

- Steve

Is there a single characteristic that lies across all the varieties of pudding described in the wikipedia article?  I'm not seeing one.

Hg

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All theoretically edible?

bought Yorkshire puddings may resemble a bucket for gravy and are (in my opinion) almost inedible.
I was brought up on home made Yorkshire puddings where, because of using one oven for all those competing goodies, the batter is soft and you gt a slice, not an individual portion( I hate that food manufacturer's "individual portion" concept; one mans portion is another's famine).

Still, my niece who is borderline vegetarian (She was born and brought up in LA) will come to the dinner table and eat all the Yorkshire puddings in sight and pass on the meat Though she'll have gravy). Sadly, this is an addiction to Tesco's ghastly concoctions and not the real thing.

By the way, Somptingguy, I always felt sorry for Johnny, poor henpecked b***ard especially when shoe would make vast amounts of spun sugar to decorate "angel cakes" or something. Of coarse, VFanny was only to be seen in black and white (colour challenged?) TV, or at least for most of the population.

TV has come a long way from that little 6" square screen in the midddle of a vast great wooden carcase and TV chefs most of all. Ah, Floyd, with his craving for booze all the time. Sorry, but Deliah is too much the school teacher (coking was euphemistically called "Domestic Science").

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

HgTX,

CARBS, in massive quantities

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

Ah, TV chefs.  We do them well here in Blighty.

Floyd (on fish) appeared first in the Plymouth area, where (I think) his father ran a chippy.  Brilliant TV.

Jamie's earlier shows were always entertaining, because they  always included the missing bit from other cooking progs.  The food was eaten and enjoyed by real people.  Each show was effectively a dinner party.  Plus that sliding down the bannister stuff.

My only issue with Ramsay is that he's younger than me.

- Steve

I would totally agree with kenat "The secret of good Shepperd's or Cottage Pie is do not, under any circumstances, strictly follow a recipe." Although I would seriously doubt there was any one original recipe.

Most of what we now consider wholesome foods originated as ways of making essentially extra meals from scraps and seasonally available foods. This is true of most pies, pasties, pancakes, sausages, stews, casseroles, soups, etc, so the ingredients would vary not only by region or what was left over but also by season.

In the area I live there is a great local dish wonderfully named the Beds or Bucks clanger. Basically it is a suet roll with a savoury filling one end and jam the other, as to what went in the savoury end no one can agree, but meat and mixed veg, or just cabbage and bacon seem the favourites. What is agreed is it was the lunch time meal for people who worked outside, usually farmers. As with most of these "recipes" I am sure it was just whatever was left over.
 

Monday pie.  A pie made from Sunday's leftovers.

My local boozer has a pie & pint night every Monday.

- Steve

Back to mist and fog -  I'd say mist is a bit "lighter" than fog - but here in South Sulawesi, driving through the mountains, we call it "clouds".

Bubble and Squeak!

A classic example of a fry up of left overs from a previous meal.

Incidentally, the origin of the Cockney rhyming slang term for a person of Greek extraction e.g.
"Phil the Greek, a well known bubble."

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

A plate of hot and greasy bubble and squeak to any non-Poms who know who Phil the Greek is. Clue, he's married to Brenda, and has a son known as Jug Ears.

 

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

Cass--but that would put bread & pasta in the same category.  What set of characteristics would belong to all puddings but, as a set, not to any other food substance?

Hg

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Hg, there's always bread pudding and kugel.  But you are right.  The word 'pudding' has been rather loosely applied to numerous food items that really should be reclassified as something else.

After much consideration, I decided on MY OWN interpretation that a pudding is a congealed mass of ingredients, something like a solid casserole.  The 'common' element is that the sparse ingredients (sparse because they are, or were scarce food items) are  held together by a much less expensive and more plentiful binder such as grain/grain meal and water, lentils or a milk and egg custard.  In the case of some puddings (polenta), the ingredients were so scarce, that the pudding is nothing but a congealed binder, unless you are so 'wealthy' as to be able to add a bit of pecorino cheese and cracked pink peppercorns to the dish (my version of polenta).

My opinion is that some of the 'puddings' are actually sausages that through some misuse of the language, have been classified as pudding, e.g. black pudding, boudin, haggis.  I suspect the word pudding has been used for some items so foul (black pudding) to deliberately disguise the origin of the main ingredient.  I say if it comes in an intestine, or other digestive organ, it's a sausage.  

I'm also in favor of classifying meat/fat based items without the casing, but shaped to resemble a sausage, a sausage, like Scottish red pudding and scrapple.  Pre-made polenta shaped like a sausage and sold in the grocery store should be eradicated from the planet.

And as far as Yorkshire pudding goes, that should be reclassified as a pastry, like popovers and Dutch babies (the pancake thingy served with powdered sugar and lemon juice).  I'd even go so far as to include beignets in that group.

If it contains beaten egg whites, is homogeneous throughout, and you have to put a collar on your baking dish to contain the food, it is a souffle.  But chocolate mousse is just a fancy, snootier version of chocolate pudding.

After reading through recipes, especially all those 'meat' puddings, one question remains for me.  Is there a part of an animal, especially sheep, that a Scotsman will NOT eat.  And do they also stuff the esophagus and rectum?

 

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

Er, Cass, if you have ever been to a food processing plant you will discover something called MRM or Mechanically recovered meat. This means they ;literally scrape the ones for anything that could possibly be disguised as edible in pies, sausages and any other "processed" meat products, at  least the Scots know what they are eating but the rest of us are probably better of in ignorance of what goes into many a food product besides rusk, water, salts, emulsifying agents etc.

I rather suspect pet food if safer and more nutritious (and less disgusting) than many a food product intended for human consumption.

So yes, many a popular dis, Lancashire hotpot, Shepherd's pie etc may have started life as being made from leftovers or scraps, moved into the luxury spectrum with prime ingredients and lapsed back to a quality of ingredients even a medieval peasant might blanch at.

That great Noth British Supermarket, Morrisons, when it acquired Safeways and a chain of outlets in the south of England, briefly showed on its shelves such delicacies as pigs trotters, scrag end of lamb and other such northern delights.

I didn't see tripe though and I remember that from my youth as rather tasty. The last time I had it though was Burn's Night and it was soused in whiskey and accompanied by neets and tatties.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Sheep?  Err, no.  That's allegedly what the Welsh do.

Pudding also has an older meaning in England.  A generic term for a dessert.  My father would annoy the hell out of my mother with this word.  Having served up some really nice meal (hours in the making), Dad would routinely say "That was a nice snack, what's for pudding".  He thought it was funny.

As far as sausages go, there was a rumour many years ago that the meat content of your average British banger was too low to call it a sausage.  Instead (from Euro gov) they had be renamed as "Intensified high fat offal tubes".  Yummy.  Most people here cringe when told that our banger might contain nasties such as eye lids, lips, that sort of thing.  If only!

For those who've never tried black pudding, it's an essential part of the Great British fry up.  How better to start you day than to tuck into a nice chunk of pig scab?

- Steve

Blood Pudding?  My mom made that once while growing up.  I never forgave her!

As far as coking, Everyday Italian on the Food Network is the only one worth watching.  Wow!  I don't care what she's cooking, I'll taste it!

Oh, and since I can't find that inedible Yorkshire Pudding at a Tesco (I'm not sure there's a Tesco within 1000 miles of here), I'm forced to make it, from scratch, occasionally with a good Sunday Roast.  Now that the leaves have fallen and snow is certain to fly soon, it'll be that time again.  

Now, if I could only find Sam Smith's Imperial Stout here. .

Oh, we had fog yesterday.  For me, its the droplet size.  If you can actually see the drops, it is mist.  If not, fog.

Wow, it's a good job we aren't together in person, I'd have lost it by now.

Cricket is an art form as much as a sport, if you can't appreciate it that's your problem not the sports.  How anyone cannot appreciate a well bowled googly is beyond me.

As for pudding, we invented the word & we'll use it however we #### well please.  Cass, your attempted redefinition doesn't even begin to work, sorry.  (Though yorkshire pudding can be eaten for pudding with jam - think that one through.)

Sausage and to an extent ground meats generally are made of all the bits you wouldn't or perhaps couldn't eat served as is on a plate.  My mom used to make home made sausage meat from pigs heads while I 'helped', trust me, not a lot went to waste and it tasted better than anything you can get in a super market.

Sompting, being "receptive to Fanny" doesn't ring true, but I get the joke and will stop there.

I always find it amusing when Americans of all people make jokes about British food, but I'll leave it at that.

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies recently, or taken a look at http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

Head up north beyond the 49th.  M&S used to abound when I was there.

- Steve

Give em' hell, Cass!  Let them eat tapioca pudding.  What would the Brits know about the English language, anyway?

But I do agree with KENAT about cricket.  Pity the Poms are not much good at it.

Do you honestly think of "pudding" as a class of things, or are there just 3 separate if sometimes overlapping meanings?  (1) dessert (2) sweet or savory congealed stuff (custards on the one hand, sausage on the other) (3) Yorkshire pudding?

Hg

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Yes, I see the point, like a lot of other words that have many meanings.  We don't want to make it too easy to learn.

Pudding is a very overloaded English word.  Less so in some other places that speak the same-named lingo.

It can also be a derogatory term for a porker here.

- Steve

When you consider that many traditional types of food are derived from scraps (sausages) or left-overs (bubble ans squeak), consider this -
 
Sausages are now often more eexpensive than meat.

I once saw frozen Birdseye Bubble and Squeak in a supermarket.  I wondered whether the manufacturer collected all their ingredients from canteens and messes, or whether they were passing off fresh, once-only cooked vegetables as left-overs - imposters!

As far as the origin of the word pudding, here's what I found from Bill Casselman, a math professor at the University of British Columbia who has a very entertaining website about the origin of words....

http://www.billcasselman.com/canadian_food_words/cfw_seven_lunenburg.htm

"Scoffers, note that the original meaning of pudding in English was 'sausage,' which sense survives in terms like blood pudding, black pudding, white pudding. British English still uses a French borrowing, boudin, to name a black pudding. Remember what Robert Burns called that obscene Scottish nightmare-parody of sausage known as haggis: "great chieftain o' the puddin' race." Och!

Pudding is an English mangling of the Old French boudin, from Latin botellus 'pudding.' Or it may be that French boudin is of Gaulish provenance and is a diminutive form of the Celtic root bot 'penis,' which as bod is still the word for penis in Irish Gaelic or Erse.

The eventual association of sweet pudding and sausage occurred because early dessert puddings were stuffed in a bag and boiled or steamed, the stuffing in the bag reminding cooks of stuffing sausage meat in casings, often made of sheep or pig intestines. Elizabethan cooks began to adapt some of the sweet pudding recipes so that they did not have to be boiled or cooked in a cloth or bag. In 20th century British English, pudding evolved to mean any dessert: "What's for pudding, luv? Month-old treacle again?""


So apparently the use of the word pudding for sweet desserts comes more from a British English dearth of terms for food concoctions, or perhaps a reflection of the general habit of British cooks boil everything.  It still doesn't explain Yorkshire 'pudding' which is a baked pastry similar to a popover.

I had no idea that the word or concept of pudding was so loaded with emotion!  I don't eat sausage and I don't care much for most sweet puddings, so what anyone wants to call a pudding doesn't really matter to me.  The 'sweet pudding' I really like included on the Wiki list is creme brulee which I can't eat without suffering for days. I still like my analysis and groupings of the various 'puddings', though.  

BTW, I found that the throat and rectum are, or have been used as casing for sausage.  Hey KENAT, how 'bout a little BBQ at my house.  I'll make some very special sausage and a southern bread pudding for dessert.

 

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

That makes me laugh - I can buy some very nasty looking pink sausages for $5-6 per kg, made from blood, fat and sawdust, or some nice sausages for $10 per kg, or a leg of lamb for roasting at $6/kg.



 

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

I suppose some might call liver mush a pudding.

Plum pudding, which of course has no plums, is still boiled in a bag.  Bread and butter pudding, yes, that goes down well.  But for those with a really sweet tooth, nothing like sticky date pudding.

Thanks Cass,
so we can blame the French again?
That's handy (OK, the Normans then, who weren't French but Norsemen, the French being Franks and beans Ghouls or is that Gauls? e.g. Asterix).

It wasn't so much a dearth of "English" words for food items so much as that the Norman French terms supplanted the Saxon English. That, for example, is why in we talk about beef and pork (from the Norman French and applied to foods) while the poor Saxon farmers still had Cattle and Pigs (the animals) but probably couldn't afford to eat them and made do with gruel instead (I'm guessing this last, and probably barely remembering the rest... I suppose I'll have to google if challenged).

 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

I'm carefull about eating anything 'special'.  Like 'special' brownies or 'special' sweet potatoe pie (Tyler Perry/Madea reference).  

However Cass, if I'm ever up your way I may take you up on that, I'll try and bring some Haggis & black pudding if I can get them in that states, I know Haggis is almost impossible as you aren't allowed to eat all the pluck in the US.  Maybe even Yorkshire pudding and some kind of steamed pudding.  I haven't had home made bread pudding since I left the UK (my wife can't stand it) so I'm game for that.

Traditionally most sausages are encased in intestine or digestive tract material of some description, I long ago accepted this.  Although perhaps oddly can't bring myself to eat tripe.

I like the list of ingredients of chorizo bought at our local supermarket, it included lymph nodes.  (You can eat lymph nodes but not lambs pluck????)

As for Brits boiling everything, ouch that's not fair.  The Scotts in particular like to deep fry most things.

Greg, similar is sometimes true for fish, you can get Salmon Cheaper than fish fingers on occasion!

(JMW, I believe Gauls were before Franks)

KENAT,

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KENAT, Where I live, you can practically buy magic brownies or psychedelic truffles from your local grocery store.  Never heard of 'special' sweet potato pie, though.  

I might try the haggis, just to say I did, but there is no way I could ever choke down black pudding.

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

"She either shoots or poisons by sweet-potato pie those for whose death she is unwilling to wait. " from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madea.

Not sure they actually call it 'special' pie but sounds pretty special to me.

KENAT,

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In all this discussion of puddings, we are ignoring the king of weird puddings - and it is almost good for you...

Summer pudding.

I recommend making it using thinly sliced stale white panne (Italian) bread.  

Cheers

Greg Locock

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Oh yes, a good summer pudding is delicious.  I think I've seen it made with Panettone though never eaten it made in this manner.

Don't forget rice pudding or semolina pudding.

 

KENAT,

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I did not know that plum pudding had no plums.  It appears to be a steamed fruitcake.

Maybe Yorkshire pudd used to be steamed once upon a time?

Hg

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I don't think you could steam a yorkshire pudding and get anything even vaguely resembling the usual version.

Yorkshire pud is toad in the hole without any toads.

KENAT,

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I found no reference indicating that Yorkshire puddings were ever boiled.


from the food timeline

The first recipe for Yorkshire pudding appears in Mrs. Hannah Glasse's Art of Cookery, printed in England... and widely circulated in America. The dish is now a traditional accompaniment to roast beef in this country as well."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Freidman:New York] 1999 (p. 356)

Hannah Glasse's recipe [1747]

    "A Yorkshire Pudding.
    Take a quart of milk, four eggs, and a little salt, make it up into a thick batter with flour, like pancake batter. You must have a good piece of meat at the fire; take a stew-pan and put some dripping in, set it on the fire; when it boils, pour in your pudding; let it bake on the fire till you think it is nigh enough, then turn a plate upside down in the dripping-pan, that the dripping may not be blacked; set your stew-pan on it under your meat, and let the dripping drop on the pudding, and the heat of the fire come to it, to make it of a fine brown. When your meat is done and sent to table, drain all the fat from your pudding, and set it on the fire again to dry a little; then slide it as dry as you can into a dish; melt some butter, and pour it into a cup, and set it in the middle of the pudding. It is an excellent good pudding; the gravy of athe meat eats well with it."
    ---The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy, Mrs. Glasse, facsimile 1805 edition, introduced by Karen Hess [Applewood Books:Massachusetts] 1997 (p. 101-2)

The article is a good read, if you aren't hungry.

http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodpuddings.html

 

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

Cass, does it say if I need to convert Imperial quart to US quart?

KENAT,

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Cholesterol on a plate with all that beef dripping methinks.  Wouldn't the milk be full fat in 1747 too?

In 1747 I doubt you had to worry about cholesterol too much.

Life expectancy was 33.  

Cheers

Greg Locock

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Cass,

Don't write black pudding off until you've tried it.

People don't eat it (again and again)just for the fun of knowing what's in it - it's tasty.

A.

"Life expectancy was 33"

With a diet like that I'm not surprised.

From the compact Oxford English Dictionary

pudding

  • noun 1 a dessert, especially a cooked one. 2 chiefly Brit. the dessert course of a meal. 3 a baked or steamed savoury dish made with suet and flour or batter. 4 the intestines of a pig or sheep stuffed with oatmeal, spices, and meat and boiled. 5 informal a fat person.

  — PHRASES in the pudding club Brit. informal pregnant.

  — DERIVATIVES puddingy adjective.

  — ORIGIN probably from Old French boudin 'black pudding', from Latin botellus 'sausage, small intestine'.

One can also get oneself into a pudding, a bit like getting ones self into a pickle.

 

KENAT,

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How  come no one here has raised the issue of "Being in the pudding club"  and I'm surprised that one of the non UK posters has not asked for elaboration on Phil the greek having a family member by the name of jug ears.


 

Theo Cupier

Philip, is that one of your friends?

- Steve

miningman,

Re; Pudding club ... check out the post immediately above yours.

Re; Phil the Greek (and Brenda and Jug Ears) ... Google (or a subscription to "Private Eye") can be a wonderful thing!

"Pudding faces", said Roger, "Probably going somewhere and we're not".  (Secret Water)

Quote:

"The Scotts in particular like to deep fry most things."

That includes Mars bars!!
 

And the English.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Quote:

The Eskimos may have 50 or more words for snow and though they cannot match that

Just as a point of correction, Eskimos do not actually have distinct words like European and Asian languages.  Also, when braking down the Eskimos language in a way to all a comparison to English, there are actually more words in English to describe snow than in the Eskimo language.    

Matt Lorono
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group
and Mechnical.Engineering Yahoo! Group

Quote:

And the English.

And also the Scots.

Man, I thought that was aimed at me until you said that!
  

----------------------------------
  
If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!
 

Speaking of the Scots and their love of the deep fat frier, is pizza generally baked before it's deep fried, or is it deep fried straight out of the freezer?

- Steve

Just when I thought Scottish food couldn't get worse than haggis and deep fried Mars bars.

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

Cass, don't forget the tripe... it is the lining of a sheep's stomach.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripe)
Though, to be honest, it is also eaten (or used to be) below the border too.

You can buy haggis in Santa Monica in one of those stores along 9th Avenue. (I think it's 9nth, maybe fifth... been a while since I was last there and, by the way, there is now, I am reliably informed, a "Whole Foods Store" in Kensington High Street London. That should upset my sister in LA, they have Farmers Market but not Whole Foods).

The Brits (i.e. inclusive of Scots) diet can also upset Americans; Steak and Kidney pie is said to be a bit upsetting for some of them.

But please, if we going to throw stones, let us not forget US cuisine.
Southern cooking has undergone a transformation since the advent of the liquidiser, jello and mini-marshmallows. Expecting grits and some unusual parts of the pig to eat at a church social I was surprised by the range of liquidised and jellified concoctions. I guess the green wobbly dishes were mostly greens and stuff but some remain a mystery. Breakfast at my cousins consisted of coke (in that part of Georgia, it is never Pepsi) Crispy Cream doughnuts, and pineapple and mayonnaise sandwiches (isn't American bread dreadful?).  

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Oh I know all about Southern cooking.  My mother was born and raised in Springdale, Arkansas.  I credit my aversion to fried food to her cooking.  Pineapple and mayonnaise sounds like a step up from my mother's sugar and Miracle Whip sandwiches. Last time I was in Springdale, I actually saw a menu that listed Fried Salad on the menu!  And don't even get me started on Jello molds.....

Luckily, my father's mother lived in New Orleans, was half Italian and half Spanish, and married to a Frenchman.  I learned a great deal from her.

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

Americans in general seem to love putting excessively sweet food/sugar/cornsyrup in places it doesn't belong.

KENAT,

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I was discussing this with an American colleague once.  I said how it's not normal for us (i.e. Brits & possibly other Europeans) to mix sweet with savoury.  He didn't know what I meant by "savoury" in that context, he said that to him, "savoury" simply meant "nice tasting".

 

- Steve

KENAT,
I just cannot get my head around pancakes and maple syrup with bacon and eggs!

Never did it for me either, I still find donuts & the like for breakfast odd.  For elevensis fine, but for real breakfast?

The one that gets me is regular white bread in the US, it's so much sweeter.

I've brought it up before though, same with name brand cereals.  The same cereal in the US will be a lot sweeter than in the UK.

 

KENAT,

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"Chocolate frosted sugar bombs" spring to mind.

Bread - agreed.  Impossible to find common or garden sliced bread that was edible (not sweet).  I used to fork out for the expensive, exotic "foreign" loaves that tasted ok but then went soggy overnight.

Crowds of fatties stirring maple syrup into their eggs and bacon in Denny's.  Aarghh, it's all coming back.  Make it stop!

- Steve

I complained about the bread so much that we started buying first sourdough, which is OK but sometimes you just want regular bread, we then went to sheepherders (wouldn't it be shepherds?) which is pretty good but a tiny bit coarser or something and now we use one of two brands of sliced 'French Bread' which is basically similar to the real cheap supermarket own brand sliced white in the UK, but comparatively more expensive.

Can't be too quick with the fatty comments though, given the average fried breakfast in the UK and the size of some people I've seen eating it, including me.  Difference was that most people I knew in the UK only had full fried breakfast occasionally, where as the equivalent (or sweet version) in the US seems to be more common.

KENAT,

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Ah yes, Sheepherders bread, some sort of salvation there.

Of course, UK bread isn't what it used to be now that they no longer use yeast and it is gluten free (something to do with no longer using Canadian Wheat flour?) but do use a lot of chemicals and "flour improvers".

I suspect this is behind the rise of home baking (pardon the pun) though you really don't need to buy a home bread-maker to make bread.

We got hooked on home baked bread for a while till the significant other cut the bread ration to zero (and a few other things, at about the time the bathroom scales went out of calibration).
Of course, if it is a good bread (still warm and tasty) what it does over night doesn't matter 'cos it won't last that long.

Interesting story recently, a Yorkshire baker has won the contract to supply the French Railways with French Bread. This is likely to cause as much furore as when it was reported that Saint Deliah of Sainsburys and Norfolk Town FC was going to ghost a new cookery book for the French. (If her name actually appeared on the book the cobblestones would come up; you know, I think I'd help at the barricades).

It is, however, a backhanded compliment. French French Bread turns from a toothsome delight when first baked into chewable dense foam overnight. The Yorkshire bakers bread doesn't and so can be peddled to unsuspecting "clients" (there are no passengers in modern PR speak))for some days.

At times like this I know where my sympathies lie. It is a curious fact that the longer the Blair/brown dynasty persists, the more I regret my French Hugenot genes are not more dominant. Just as well perhaps as we have so few cobbled streets left and you can't have a decent day at the barricades throwing lumps of tarmac.

Now I think I am ready for for some cappuccino and oven finished bread rolls.

PS Unfortunately my Appalachian genes insist that the finest breakfast in the world is either cappuccino and croissants or, and as an occasional treat; eggs, crispy bacon (Waitrose have suitable thin cut bacon) pancakes and maple syrup. I have been severely tested during recent US visits by the horrible habit of hotel chains in providing a range of fossilised breads, muffins and a toaster washed down with fresh de-caffinated battery acid in polystyrene cups, in lieu of a proper breakfast.
No decent cobblestones in the US either. (I take US Hotel breakfast time as the opportunity to stock up on creamers to replace that ghastly powdered stuff they leave in the rooms).
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

"(I take US Hotel breakfast time as the opportunity to stock up on creamers to replace that ghastly powdered stuff they leave in the rooms)"

The last US hotel I stayed in had actual cartons of fresh milk on their breakfast bar and a fridge in my room.  Perfect.

- Steve