Essential English food

Experiencing a nations food is a key part of any travelling experience. Here, therefore, is my guide to some things you will want to try out if you are wandering around England. This isn’t going to be a list of gastronomic delights, rather it’s an overview of your more classic (read: unhealthy) English dishes.

English food had a bit of a reputation, once upon a time, for being a bit, well, shit. Meat and two veg, generally seriously overcooked, with no real flavours or zest. This, I am pleased to report, is largely no longer the case, and usually wherever you go you can find decent food at reasonable prices.  What, therefore, are my top five foods to try out when in England?

#1. Fish and Chips.

This has to be one of my favourite English classics. A battered piece of white fish, usually cod, with accompanying pile of chips, smothered in salt and vinegar. Health food, this is not. Tasty, it is. Yoda, I have become.

Even Yoda would probably agree that the setting is absolutely key. For the full experience, you really need to be sitting somewhere near the sea, ideally with the sound of an amusement park nearby. Donkeys may parade in front of you. Seagulls will battle with you for errant chips. If you’re after the full experience, take the portion from the new fangled polystyrene container and let it stew in some old newspaper for a while, absorbing the inky goodness. A tough one to beat.

#2. Pie and Mash.

Well, I never claimed this was going to be a gourmet experience. I like a simple steak and ale pie, with creamy mashed potatoes, although the myriad flavours of pie on offer are quite endless. For an authentic English pie experience, I’d recommend finding a decent local pub in the countryside, and accompanying your pie with a tasty real ale, served in one of those pint glasses with a handle. A handlebar moustache is entirely optional.

#3. Roast Dinner.

Where would a list of English meals be without the classic roast dinner? There is a reason that the French nickname for the English is rosbif, a title dating back to the 18th century, and generally descriptive of the sort of food the English were known for even back then.

So, with over two hundred years of food roasting tradition behind them, you’d think that the English on the whole would be pretty good at roast meals.

And indeed, for the most part, they are. Head to most any pub or restaurant on a Sunday lunchtime, and you’ll be almost guaranteed to have your pick of a variety of roasted meats, ranging from chicken to beef to pork to my personal favourite, lamb. Nuts can also be roasted, if meat is not your particular cup of tea.

And of course, it’s not just about the meat. The trimmings are a necessity, and usually include a good portion of roast potatoes, some roast parsnips (honey drizzle optional), possibly some sausages wrapped in a blanket of bacon, a hint of stuffing and maybe some Yorkshire pudding (roasted batter from what I can tell).

All of this should be happily drowned in gravy, a brown sauce made from the meat juices and thickened with flour. Some people may attempt to foist sprouts upon you, an invention from Brussels that resembles a tiny cabbage. Vigorously resist.

#4. BBQ.

This isn’t a specific dish, as you can put pretty much whatever you want to on a grill over a smouldering pile of coals, but the BBQ is certainly an English summertime tradition. As unpredictable weather is also an English summertime tradition, one never quite knows how damp ones BBQ is going to be. Which adds to the fun.

There’s nothing quite like watching someone standing in the rain, furiously charcoaling some bits of chicken drumstick, whilst everyone else hides inside, bemoaning the lack of English summer, and wondering what this climate change thing is all about.

#5. Bread and butter pudding.

Ah, pudding. That sweet tasty thing you wait throughout the rest of the meal to eat, and then wonder if you are too full to get it down. Also known as dessert.

Bread and butter pudding is an absolute classic English dessert. I had a theory that it came about after the war as a means of using up left over and possibly slightly stale bits of bread, but a hint of research has brought to my attention the fact that is in fact over three hundred years old.

Not bad for what is essentially old bread baked with eggs, milk and cream. Oh and sugar. And raisins. To be served with either custard, cream, or if you are feeling particularly decadent, a heart attack inducing dollop of clotted cream. Lovely.

Those were my top five English dishes. Some dishes did not make the top five list. One that is worth mentioning is the English tradition of afternoon tea, scones and jam, served with Cornish clotted cream. Or, the same, minus the tea and served with Pimms. There’s nothing quite like sitting on a lovely bit of lawn, smothering a hapless bit of scone with a goopy blob of clotted cream and a dollop of strawberry jam.

I know I have missed out on a number of other classic dishes, (giant fried breakfast anyone?). I focused on English, rather than Irish, Scottish or Welsh cuisine. Haggis jumps straight to mind as something you really need to think about having a go at if you are up in Scotland, assuming the thought of sheep offal simmered in its own stomach is something you think you may like. It is, I assure you, far nicer than it sounds. Let me know if I’ve missed your favourite English food off the list!

Technology – brilliant stuff

I am not a technology luddite by any means, in fact, I would say quite the opposite, but for various reasons, mostly involving living in a tent for a year like some sort of hermit, I have been away from changes, and in particular the rapid pace of Smartphone evolution.

I was, of course, aware of the iPhone - the book of Jobs is hard to ignore wherever you are - and certainly the technology has been available for longer than a year and a half. But quite how ubiquitous this device has become only became apparent when I got to London and met up with all my friends, where it turned out that everyone I know now seems to have one. And it was quite amazing really, a large group of people converging in London, and all it took for us to find each other was the Google maps location feature pinged between each other, and folks who weren’t so familiar with the intricacies of London parks were still able to locate us. No doubt the Google equivalent phone OS, Android, would have been just as good at this. Still, it was quite handy, and good to see that technology is moving beyond the gimmicky to the genuinely useful. The rest of the day, technology aside, progressed nicely, moving from park to bar, we even managed to take in a cocktail in one of my favourite London cocktail bars, the underground, and excessively warm Frevds. Worth checking out if you are ever in the area for the cheapest and deadliest Long Island Iced Teas known to man.

Whilst speaking of technology incidentally, I had some other encounters with its darker side. My brothers car, for example, vexed no doubt that he had left me in it whilst he went off on his final office based errand, severing his five year blackberry noose, decided to lock me inside and set the alarm off, convinced I must be up to no good. Phil returned and turned it off, naturally some time after some people had wandered past and given me odd looks. I was also nearly thrown out of Tesco's for using my camera, apparently capturing images in store is against store policy. Rock and roll folks.

The final piece of the technology update was a rapid fire walkthrough of some of the key Playstation 3 games that my friend Craig had acquired over the last year or so. I used to be an avid gamer, so it was nice to get a quick overview of what had come out. A quick blast through Heavy Rain, a game which is essentially an interactive film (and therefore hard to blast through, but we touched on some of the more interesting parts, such as where I had to hack my characters own finger off), some platforming fun with Nathan Drake in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and then a bit of a beat-em up in the massively huge scale God of War 3 (the scale really is quite dizzy in the game, as you battle the gods themselves. Also fairly violent it must be said, as I pounded Poseidon's Head into a bloody pulp.)

Finally we all settled down to some racing in the frenetically paced Split/Second, which seemed to involve less actual racing, and more blowing everything up around us. Tremendous fun.

This was all set to the backdrop of the hottest day of the year and the smells of gently barbequing meat, which we enjoyed at Craig’s new house, which was lovely. We sat outside for the rest of the day, and partook of some American beer to keep ourselves cool, before settling in for the evening to watch Germany defeat Uruguay in one of the better games of the tournament, keeping Paul safe in his tank to face another prediction day. He has tipped Spain to win tonight as I understand it, in a dramatic break from his usual role of only predicting Germany games. I expect a lottery prediction helpline to be set up shortly.

After this we had fun watching Zombieland, an enjoyable road trip movie with Woody Harrelson (and a brief cameo with Bill Murray which really made the film) and distressingly dark humour, before I hopped on the night bus back to my brothers house, and enjoyed listening to the leather capped Special Brew clutching passenger wax lyrical on a number of topics close to his heart. Night buses clearly have not evolved since I left.

Today will be a relaxing Sunday, watching the British Grand Prix, perhaps some scrambled eggs and then Phil plans to whip something up for dinner tonight. Should be good. Enjoy yours, whatever you are up to.

Village culture

Some serious cultural happenings are occurring in the village of Walberberg this weekend, which conveniently happens to be the village I am living in. As we live on the main street, not much effort is required to actually observe the culture, other than peering out of the window, as you can see from the photo. The housemates and I are reluctant to get any more involved than this in the goings on, but this does seem sufficient to draw suspicious stares from those actually taking part. I stood outside the house for a brief moment of time to observe the passing parade of people dressed up, flag bearers, band members and so on, but the looks I was given did not indicate that I was welcome to be doing so. Traditional German culture and half naked beach bum sporting camera do not perhaps mix too well.

Still, it was interesting to watch. There is some reason for the parade, involving some weekend long festival occurring in the village, but we have not ventured further into understanding beyond that. It is sufficiently warm to just laze around feeling happily tickled by sun beams and ponder the delights of an afternoon swim in the lake, the culture is a nice bit of icing on a perfect cake, one doesn’t need to lick it to know that it tastes good. I have no idea where I was trying to go with that metaphor. If in doubt, change the subject.

We watched Germany trounce Argentina yesterday, a result which was somewhat unexpected, certainly with any of the German folk I know over here. Hopes are however starting to tentatively increase, the feeling is that Germany appearing in the final is no longer a distant dream. England being knocked out of the cup by the champions would somehow make that defeat feel slightly less tangy. Perhaps. Now that I am supporting Germany however they are doomed to failure. Ah well. We watched the game in the outside area whilst a tremendous lightning storm raged overhead, with accompanying torrential rain. Perfect BBQ weather you will no doubt agree. We then had a BBQ in the covered area, which resulted in a lot of smoke inhalation. So a classic BBQ all around, if lacking in sausage.

Finally, for now, I am popping over to London later this week to meet up with a whole swathe of people I have not seen in sometime, which I am really looking forward to. I expect there will be some drinking, some eating, and some merriment. Hopefully I’ll see some of you then :)

The realities of life

There are some things that are pretty much guaranteed, no matter where you are in the world, certain truths that are inescapable. Well, ok, this particular truth only usually applies to the UK, but I can now confirm that if one plans a BBQ in Germany, whatever the weather forecast may be divining, rain is going to appear sooner or later.

Today is Germany’s worldcup battle against Argentina in the world cup quarter final. I know, I said I wasn’t going to talk about football following the England departure, but it’s all around me here still, so it is almost impossible not to mention. The game is at four, on a Saturday, which means we planned to have a BBQ, enjoy the heat and watch the game over a few beers. A fine plan.

The day dawned rather beautifully at around 5.24am. I know this because it was far too hot too actually sleep, so instead I watched the sky turn to crimson out of the skylight. Yes, it is hot. Over thirty six degrees now, with some intense humidity to boot. People are wandering around perspiring gently. Unfortunately, it seems, the intense heat in leading towards some kind of huge thunderstorm. The humidity is oppressive, add a few crocodiles and we could be in the deep South of America, swatting mosquitoes and chewing on dead squirrels. Or whatever it is they do down there. My experiences are largely drawn from watching The Waterboy, and that episode of top gear.

So, intense heat, building thunderstorm, planned BBQ. A perfect combination. Luckily there is a large covered area so the BBQ can still go ahead, even if the rain comes (it has come, with accompanying giant rips of thunder, as I type). We popped to the shops to get supplies for the BBQ. I rather foolishly thought that doing this on blades would be a good idea. I can now reveal that exercise in this weather that doesn’t involve a large body of water is a serious error. Rivulets of sweat literally poured off me. I think I made a fine sight wandering around the thankfully air-conditioned supermarket.

Speaking of lakes, I went for a swim in the lake yesterday with Vera’s sister and one of the housemates (slight Big Brother moment there, my apologies), where we decided to swim across the lake and back. This is a little over 1000m total distance, which I can now confirm is a long long way to swim when there are no sides or bottom. We didn’t even get to have a break on the far shore as a swan family looked at us rather threateningly. And swans do seem somewhat more threatening when they loom over you. Anyway, lake swim complete, death by swan avoided.

I now sit under the covered area pondering the rain, chewing on water melon, pretending it is chunks of squirrel, and thinking that perhaps it may be about to cool down a bit, possibly even dropping below thirty five for a time, which would be ok by me.

Finally, I spent a while sorting out some of the videos from the Australia trip, and these are now on youtube for your viewing pleasure. Find them on my youtube channel, here.

Barbeques

We went over to a friends house for a barbeque, where I was able to observe the cultural differences inherent in this summertime ritual. Additionally, it was a birthday celebration, so I also learnt that happy birthday is sung in English, apart from the bit where they say dear X, which is said in German. I was nearly able to sing along.

Ok, so the barbeuque’ing ritual is largely the same across the world. More sausage and pork is featured, burgers did not make much of an appearance, but the overall theme of placing large amounts of meat over hot coals and charring it to within an inch of its life is the same. Oh, and beer was provided from kegs, which was particularly nice. There was also cake, and more varieties of pasta salad than you can imagine. All good therefore.

I am currently led to believe that some kind of worldwide sporting event is nearly upon us. I wonder what that will be like here.