Comments on: Eden

By: Cornish pasties » Manolo's Food Blog

Cornish pasties » Manolo's Food Blog — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:31:09 +0000

[…] really appreciate English food, Twistie says “Have a hearty, flaky, utterly delectable Cornish […]

By: Mr Henry’s Eden « Baroque in Hackney

Mr Henry’s Eden « Baroque in Hackney — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:24:28 +0000

[…] the rest of his post here. Of course, I am exiting a Garden of Eden of sorts, the Garden of the Uncollected, the land where […]

By: mywhimsey

mywhimsey — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:13:12 +0000

Twistie, I had a former roommate who consumed vegetarian haggis fairly regularly. I beg of you, do not allow those cans to fall into irresponsible hands, hands that may wield a can opener. All I will say is that the smell is simply cannot be conceived of in the human imagination.

By: Twistie

Twistie — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:50:57 +0000

Oh Raincoaster! Oh, Leanne! Don’t fall for the French propaganda! Not that the French don’t know their way around a kitchen, but I feel quite certain that they are the ones who started the rumor that the Brits can’t cook for beans, and they’re dead wrong.

Try a couple bites of a proper shepherd’s pie with lamb and vegetables bubbling away under a golden topping of mashed potatoes. Have a hearty, flaky, utterly delectable Cornish pasty. Dig into proper roast beef and Yorkshire pudding with homemade gravy. The food isn’t fussy, but it’s solid and delicious. And if you’ve never tried a proper steamed suet pudding, well, you’ve missed yourself a great and grand treat.

British food has gotten a bum rap through much of history, but I think it was brought on by a combination of snobbishness and jealousy.

By: Leanne

Leanne — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:47:27 +0000

was it Somerset Maugham who said “England is the land that food forgot”?

By: Casey

Casey — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:22:22 +0000

peas in a muffin? of course it was vile!
but I love London with a deep and abiding passion and, like Twistie, admit to pea-green envy of your visit.

By: raincoaster

raincoaster — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:16:17 +0000

Tell Boris raincoaster says hi.

I have a friend who proudly displays “Breakfast in a can” complete with poached eggs. We all pray he never opens it.

Who was it who said “There are in England sixty different religious sects and only one sauce”? He had the gist of it right. Then again, if you drink as much as the English do, you wouldn’t care what you dinner tasted like either!

By: Twistie

Twistie — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:25:58 +0000

(is wickedly jealous)

I want to be in London. How I love and adore that city! It’s the only big city I’ve ever visited that felt like home to me. Some of my fondest memories are of being in London, eating samosas you could get for a pound on any street corner, it seemed. Delicious, fragrant, filling, massive, and very, very cheap.

The thing I loved about eating in London is that - as Mr. Henry has discovered - the food is generally either sublime or appalling and there’s very little in between. None of this namby-pamby, middle-of-the-road-not-terribly-exciting-but-okay stuff. No, London is an adventure for the taste buds as well as the eye and mind.

Coming home, Mr. Twistie and I took our chances smuggling back two cans of vegetarian haggis from Fortnum&Mason. Despite the fact they were both canned and labled vegetarian, we were warned that there might be trouble getting them home because of restrictions on importing meat products. We took our chances anyway. The joke was too horrible to leave behind. A very nice customs man at the San Francisco airport let us slip them through when we swore on our mothers’ souls that we would never, ever attempt to open and eat the contents of those cans.

In fact, he seemed just as amused as we were by the concept of canned vegetarian haggis.

And yes, we kept our word. We wanted proof. We had no interest in consuming the contents.