Early Risers.

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. SEERS went well tonight, my friend was there early as his lad turned 16 last Sunday and he bought a lot of cakes only to be trounced when another member came in with bread pudding. I partook of the bread pudding but didn't have a cake in case it upped my BG.  

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

Fish, chips and mushy peas for tea washed down with some Old Speckled Hen, very nice.

Pies, always mushy peas and chips.

Sausage roll, on it’s own or with baked beans but alway warm, not bothered about cold sausage rolls.

Pork pies, always cold with pickle and perhaps salad.

Goodnight.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

2 minutes ago, Erichill16 said:

 

Fish, chips and mushy peas for tea washed down with some Old Speckled Hen, very nice.

 

No, no, no, no, no. 

Fish, chips and mushy peas; yes, yes, yes. But washed down with a mug of Yorkshire tea - milk, no sugar please. Also don't forget the essential round of white bread and butter.

[Ozexpatriate]

All this talk of mushy peas is enough to put me off my dinner - merely a figure of speech - I already ate.

 

Dad was a fan of pie 'n peas. He also liked tinned peas (yuk) doubtless a result of wartime austerities in his formative days. I don't like either. Peas are quite delicious - I'm less inclined to chunky mush. But I don't like oatmeal porridge or runny polenta either - toasted oatmeal and other presentations of polenta are delicious. Avocado in any form is great, though it is elevated on a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich - the BLTA. There was some avocado in my dinner.

 

Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold,

Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old;

Some like it hot, some like it cold,

Some like it in the pot, nine days old.

 

Beggars the mind, honestly.

 

Cleaving to such foods reminds me of the menu of the Georgian Navy and it's weekly rotations. Even the plucky Yorkshire navigator thought to journal on it:

Quote

‘Every innovation … to the advantage of seamen is sure to meet with their highest disapprobation. Both portable soup and sauerkraut were at first condemned as stuff unfit for human beings … It has been in great measure owing to various little deviations from established practice that I have been able to preserve my people from that dreadful distemper, scurvy’.

Some things never change, apparently.

[iL Dottore]

6 hours ago, Erichill16 said:

Looks a bit like my uncle’s breakfast but the layers of bread and mushy peas were much thicker and he definitely didn’t have the ‘red stuff’ on the top or the side salad

It’s supposed to be lasagna!

 

Unfortunately, the AI Art Studio involved in imaging has about as much clue as what constitutes a “proper” lasagna as the average British supermarket.

 

Horse, fortunately, was not involved!

[jamie92208]

11 hours ago, pH said:

Lots of sympathy to Emily! I broke my collarbone when a bit older than Emily (3 or 4), also doing gymnastics on furniture.

 

I still remember something about the episode - going to hospital on a Glasgow Corporation bus, and going home on another bus with the same conductress.

 

My wife, my sons and their partners accuse me of worrying too much when seeing grandkids clambering about on chairs, sofas etc. but I broke my collarbone doing that - they didn’t!

Thanks..  Emily is nearly 5 and hopefully will be allowed to stay at school. However a risk assessment has to be done by the school.  Strangely enough my very earliest memory is of sitting in a tiled hospital corridor with brown tiles and light green paint above waiting to be seen by a doctor.  I was three and my brother, 4 years older, had made one of several attempts to dispose of me by pushing me into a wall in a cart rather fast.  That broke my collar bone. A very good friend who had been a juniorborthopod at the hospital at the time confirmed, many years later that the clinic waiting room was indeed a corridor like I described with a bench along it. Emily has been informed that she's copying grandpa. 

 

Anyway good moaning to one and all.  It's going to be sunny again today. I'm off to the GP this morning to see her about what is probably gout in my left big toe.  Then some work in the shed before a meal ot this evening at our favourite restaurant. 

 

Oon the subject of pie and mushy peas, I've never been a particular fan of either, but together with a liberal coating of mint sauce they go very well with a pint. 

 

Jamie

 

 

Edited March 15 by jamie92208

[iL Dottore]

4 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

….Avocado in any form is great….

It’s not my favourite fruit (biologically it is a fruit - they contain seeds and develop from the ovary of a flowering plant), though Mrs iD loves them.

 

My father used to eat avocado on a fairly regular basis, but then he went to Mexico on a business trip and when he came back he stopped eating them. One day I asked him why; his reply was that once you’ve eaten an avocado in their country of origin and it’s been picked when perfectly ripe and then immediately served, then the avocados available at home are but tasteless mush n comparison.

 

Interestingly, I’ve heard something similar said about mangos.

4 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold,

Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old;

Some like it hot, some like it cold,

Some like it in the pot, nine days old.

Yum! “Pease Porridge” aka “Pease Pudding” I don’t like it cold, but “old” pease pudding can be used like “old” polenta. So can be very nice indeed.

 

One amazing native British dish is saveloys and pease pudding. Now neglected in favour of cheap ‘n’ nasty frozen pizza and other UPF. SPP (saveloys and pease pudding) was definitely cheap ‘n’ cheerful: consisting as it does of yellow split peas cooked in water with a few aromatics (and a ham bone if your budget allowed) and saveloy sausages - supposedly made from pigs brains (originally) in reality composed of pork odds and ends, heavily spiced and coloured bright red - and none the worse for it.

 

When I was a wee lad and my father’s peregrinations had us briefly reside in the East End of London (East Ham to be precise) there was a local butcher who - a few times a week - offered at lunchtime boiled saveloys and freshly made pease pudding. Eaten out of paper like fish and chips, it was (is) definitely comfort food of the highest order.
 

What I find odd about the British attitude to food is how your own “peasant food (SPP, fagg0ts and peas, lob scouse etc.) is neglected in favour of “foreign” (French, Spanish, Italian) peasant food (pizza, spaghetti alla carbonara, moules et frites, etc) which are either pimped up and sold at exorbitant prices at (so-called) “posh” restaurants or are thoroughly debased UPF travesties of the original (e.g. frozen, mass produced, pizza).

 

Edited March 15 by iL Dottore
Error

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

Saveloys..  food of the gods and very traditional in the North East as is pease pudding (even I can make that! Savoury Ducks, Brawn, pigs cheek, trotters, tongue..  yep! Black puffing.. definitely! Young people don't know how well we lived.. suet Puddings (snake and pygmy or leek) were nice in the winter along with spotted duck and custard.

 

Mushy peas (dried peas left with a blue bag in some water overnight were always better than marrowfats on theirvown.

Belly pork, roasted with crackling was a favourite too (belly pork is now quite trendy as "bites").

Sunday evening fry ups (and veg left from dinner would be mashed together then fried till crisp at the edgegs).. penachaty  (sliced potato and sliced onions and carrot simmered with some bacon and served with corned dog and a hint of tomato sauce) was good for the soul. When the spring cabbage and new potatoes were around my grandma would simmer these in a pan, fry up some bacon and then serve on a warmed plate. Bacon placed over the potatoes and cabbage then the bacon fat would be drizzled over the whole veg "pile".

 

Must be time for breakfast!

 

TTFN!

Baz

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl,

Not a good night's sleep, brain was going round in loops..

Why,

Because I got an email that the big lift in will be Saturday, that's two weeks earlier than normal.. so brain was running round jobs Todo today.

Remove cover from boat, ensure lifting brackets and other associated bits are in the landrover.

Put warning triangle on the front of the boat ( which is on the back when towed).

Get swmbo to finish repairing the afloat cover.

Put MRC tool boxes into car.

Hook landrover to trailer, wind up jockey wheel, remove blocks that stop the trailer moving.

Put mast on top of landrover,

Put boom and sails in landrover,

Repair mud guard on trailer, it's loose one side.

I'm sure I've forgotten something,

Ah connect up trailer light board.

 

 

I also have to collect a trophy back from engraving, that's for the winter SC., get some shopping in while I'm in town. We are out of brown bread, bacon, chicken, pork.. and a few other things.

 

Muggacoffee number one to finish , then time to get started.

[Gwiwer]

9 hours ago, Erichill16 said:

My uncle used to have cold mushy pea sandwiches for breakfast, thickly sliced I believe.

🤢

[Flanged Wheel]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

My father used to eat avocado on a fairly regular basis, but then he went to Mexico on a business trip and when he came back he stopped eating them. One day I asked him why; his reply was that once you’ve eaten an avocado in their country of origin and it’s been picked when perfectly ripe and then immediately served, then the avocados available at home are but tasteless mush n comparison.

 

Interestingly, I’ve heard something similar said about mangos.

 

 

 

This is definitely true. In fact, this very afternoon, I bought three luscious mangos for the princely sum of 60 pence from a Thai market stall. I know that when we return to the UK, I will never be able to eat imported tropical fruit as it will just not taste the same (I suspect that this will not generate any sympathy…).

 

On the flip side, I do miss blackberries (especially paired with apples and covered in crumble or turned into homemade wine).

 

I know that I’m likely to be burned as a heretic but I really don’t like mushy peas…

[Gwiwer]

6 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold,

Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old;

Some like it hot, some like it cold,

Some like it in the pot, bin nine days old.

To each their own of course. And when in Rome (or the NE of England) I might respectfully eat what’s offered 

 

On our fairly recent trip to Helsinki for example the hotel offered quite an extensive buffet-style breakfast. Almost all in the local style of meats (including “pressed reindeer”, cheeses, pickles, breads and eggs (scrambled only).  Not a Weetabix nor a Corn Flake in sight.  While tea and coffee were both offered the clear favourite seemed to be the juice selection. 
 

If you want me to enjoy something pea-derived then don’t leave it nine days in the pot but cook yellow split peas long and slow with chick peas, onions and spices and call it chana daal. 

 

 

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, Barry O said:

Ey up!

 

Saveloys..  food of the gods and very traditional in the North East as is pease pudding (even I can make that! Savoury Ducks, Brawn, pigs cheek, trotters, tongue..  yep! Black puffing.. definitely! Young people don't know how well we lived.. suet Puddings (snake and pygmy or leek) were nice in the winter along with spotted duck and custard.

 

Mushy peas (dried peas left with a blue bag in some water overnight were always better than marrowfats on theirvown.

Belly pork, roasted with crackling was a favourite too (belly pork is now quite trendy as "bites").

Sunday evening fry ups (and veg left from dinner would be mashed together then fried till crisp at the edgegs).. penachaty  (sliced potato and sliced onions and carrot simmered with some bacon and served with corned dog and a hint of tomato sauce) was good for the soul. When the spring cabbage and new potatoes were around my grandma would simmer these in a pan, fry up some bacon and then serve on a warmed plate. Bacon placed over the potatoes and cabbage then the bacon fat would be drizzled over the whole veg "pile".

 

Must be time for breakfast!

 

TTFN!

Baz

Whilst undeniably we sometimes do not see eye-to-eye on various topics, when it comes to food Baz, you are definitely a connoisseur and a man after my own heart. Your list is proof positive. The only thing from your list that doesn’t quite “click” with me are the mushy peas. I don’t dislike them, but I don’t like them enough to seek them out.

 

I’ve always maintained there’s no such thing as “posh” food or “poor peoples food”, food is either good or bad (which is very different to “I like it”/“I don’t like it”).

It always bemuses me how people will turn their noses up at good quality offal but will happily eat highly processed “meat” products (and under British law “meat” may include percentages of various animal “bits” that a traditional butcher wouldn’t recognise as meat). Take for example Pig’s Trotters: boned and stuffed they become the autumn/winter treat of Zampone (which is expensive as it’s labour intensive to make); I use pigs trotter to make the pork bone broth for Tonkatsu Ramen and Terry Pratchett in the Nanny Ogg Cookbook gives the recipe for a “knuckle sandwich” using twice-cooked pigs trotters. Yet most people will turn their noses up at the thought of eating pigs feet. But I’d take a homemade “knuckle sandwich” over a jar of “mystery meat spag bol sauce” any day.

It may seem “Cheffy” to some, but if you want to eat well at low cost, a sous-vide set up will allow you to take a piece of very tough meat (which is most of the inexpensive cuts) and turn it into meat as tender as the finest filet. The example I use is taking siedfleisch (“boiling beef” which is either brisket or thin rib) cooking it at 55°C (for medium rare) in the water bath for 12 hours, then finishing it in the griddle pan.
 

There are two advantages to using the sous-vide & water bath method: firstly, once prepped and in the water bath, you can basically forget about it until it’s ready to serve; and secondly: you can’t overcook the food as the temperature will never go above what you have set the cooking temperature to (so perfect for cooking things like turkey breast or thick fish cuts).

 

The sous-vide method has become pretty mainstream - you can even now get Sous-Vide “Sticks” (immersion water heater and circulator) and vacuum packing machines at Lidl. I have three sous-vide machines: a Betty Bossi and a Lidl sous-vide “stick” and a water bath. My Lidl machine is very reliable and very well used.

 

Definitely worth investigating.

 

Edited March 15 by iL Dottore
Typo

[jjb1970]

32 minutes ago, Flanged Wheel said:

 

This is definitely true. In fact, this very afternoon, I bought three luscious mangos for the princely sum of 60 pence from a Thai market stall. I know that when we return to the UK, I will never be able to eat imported tropical fruit as it will just not taste the same (I suspect that this will not generate any sympathy…).

 

 

The one that I find striking is pineapple. Pineapple in Britain tends to be sharp, pineapple in SE Asia is very sweet, it's a very different taste. 

[polybear]

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

One amazing native British dish is saveloys and pease pudding. Now neglected in favour of cheap ‘n’ nasty frozen pizza and other UPF.

 

Bear has just Googled Pease Pudding......

 

 

You seriously expect Bear to swap his Pizza n' CF's for a plate of Barf??

[Tony_S]

19 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

Pineapple in Britain tends to be sharp

When I was young, pineapple came  in tins, either chunks or slices in some sort of juice. 

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

My father used to eat avocado on a fairly regular basis, but then he went to Mexico on a business trip and when he came back he stopped eating them. One day I asked him why; his reply was that once you’ve eaten an avocado in their country of origin and it’s been picked when perfectly ripe and then immediately served, then the avocados available at home are but tasteless mush n comparison.

Interestingly, I’ve heard something similar said about mangos.

When I visited Barbados the hotel was a series of cabins set in a garden which included several mango trees. They were on the breakfast menu and when someone ordered one one of the chefs went out into the garden and picked one and prepared it for the guest, they don't come much fresher. And in Greece the olives were as big as plums and very juicy as well as being fresh.

[Hroth]

4 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

Bear has just Googled Pease Pudding......

 

 

You seriously expect Bear to swap his Pizza n' CF's for a plate of Barf??

 

Looks ok to me.

I'd want a few more slices of bread!

A bit of ham on the bread, a slathering of PP on top and yum!!!

 

[Hroth]

4 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

When I was young, pineapple came  in tins, either chunks or slices in some sort of juice. 

 

Juice?  That was the healthy option!

Tinned fruit usually swam in a thick sugar syrup...

 

[polybear]

Bear here.....

 

VSO'C (04.30) for an early morning paddle in the Pool; @PupCam Puppers was invited along but unsurprisingly was still curled up in his Basket, snuggled up in his Cuddly Blanket.....

 

Bear has some Washing Machine driving to do today, as well as the joys of a visit to the Quack as well (they still had appointments when I started the call @ 08-20 - I was number Ten in the queue, so had to wait awhile - number ten seemed to be hogging the line for quite a while....).

 

BG

[iL Dottore]

5 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

Bear has just Googled Pease Pudding......

 

 

You seriously expect Bear to swap his Pizza n' CF's for a plate of Barf??

Real food versus Ultra Processed Mass Produced Chemical Concoctions?

 

It should be a “no-brainer” - clearly not.

 

That pease pudding has a similar texture to unprocessed food like polenta and dhal that are enjoyed by millions.

 

Maybe it’s The Bear that’s eating the barf?

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. After being quiet for more than a week bladder control kept pressing the button. Not much sleep last night so a bit of eyelid inspection is called for.

[Tony_S]

7 minutes ago, polybear said:

a plate of Barf??

My mother used to buy tinned pease pudding. Opening the can revealed a sludge of lard and mystery solids. Not nice at all, tasted nasty. Now I will happily eat any lentil based dal. Some of them do look a bit like the sample in your image but they won’t contain pork fat. My favourite is green moong dal, which cooks up to a brown colour.