This post is about one of the great myths of British cuisine.
Once derided around around the world, British food is now a haven for ‘thinking’ food. Food that has been created with love and skill.
This what they used to say:
“Somerset Maugham once wrote that “to eat well in England, you should have breakfast three times a day.”
Often you need to loose something to appreciate what you have – in Britain, we are more famous for cynicism than enthusiasm, we are surprisingly good at Great food and it’s mainly because we don’t know what’s happening elsewhere in the world.
This why it is a mystery to me as to why there is not more British Food exported outside of the UK?
SOLUTION:
This is a call to arms, UK food producers, book yourself to go to the next Fancy Food Show in USA, as a visitor, and find out what you are up against. I can assure you, you will be pleasantly surprised:
I’ll be there, scouting out their latest ideas – hey it’s January when the shows on, could be worse, could be in the middle of an English winter!
http://www.specialtyfood.com/do/fancyFoodShow/LocationsAndDates
Want more evidence read this…
Below is a post by James Mellgren, new converted lover of Great British Food:
“While I am altogether in agreement about the quality of English breakfasts, I must respectfully disagree with the general sentiment; but then my experience is several decades removed from that of Maugham’s. Although it is still entirely possible to get bad food in any number of places in the British Isles, the United Kingdom today is also home to many great markets and food stores, an exciting array of food products, not the least of which is their stellar collection of world-class cheeses and other dairy products, and some of the most inventive and delicious food in all the world. Just back from a three-week holiday in Britain, I’m still reeling from all the great food I ate (some of which admittedly we cooked ourselves, but from great ingredients bought at inspired marketplaces), and although I still hold an English breakfast in the highest regard, I am counting the months until I can return for lunch and dinner, too.
The United Kingdom (comprised of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) and the United States have been closely aligned since the founding of the original 13 colonies, and except for that little skirmish around 1776 that resulted in our independence, we have been friends and allies for nearly two-and-a-half centuries. In more recent decades, the re-emergence in the United Kingdom of a thriving artisanal food scene has closely paralleled our own, while classic English foods also continues to be made according to the same traditional methods as they have been for, in some cases, centuries. One need only visit the British stands at the Fancy Food Show and other trade fairs to see how passionate the English are about their traditional foodways, but a recent trip to the United Kingdom made this even clearer to me as I tasted and feasted my way through London and the English countryside.
Britain at Retail
Nowhere is Britain’s culinary rebirth more in evidence than at the fabulous Borough Market, London’s oldest food market, located on the south bank of the Thames behind the Southwark cathedral. Although it has been at the current site for over 250 years (since 1756), the market itself has been in operation since Roman times. In the beginning, it was little more than vendors plying their wares on the original London Bridge, at the time the only span across the Thames and, therefore, virtually the only connection between southern England and London. It still functions as a wholesale market at night from 2 a.m. to 8 a.m., but on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, it is open to the public, a tradition that extends back to the time of Edward III. Although covered, it is extremely open and airy with the roof supported by huge green iron trellises. The market is a combination of fresh foods — including meats, fish, produce, spices and tea — and prepared foods like bread, cakes, pastries, juices, Spanish tapas, and hot and cold foods to take away. Just outside the market proper are several complementary businesses, including a few pubs and restaurants, Vinopolis Wine Wharf (a huge, well-stocked wine shop), Monmouth Coffee Company (who source and roast all their excellent coffees), and the second location of the great Neal’s Yard Dairy.
We tried to start each day at Borough Market, a short walk across London Bridge from our hotel. Navigating through the groups of uniformed school children who were often touring the always-bustling market, we would get our bacon-wrapped prunes, followed by sausages wrapped in puff pastry, and washed down by steaming mugs of black tea at Maria’s Café where we jostled with the teenage school boys who were ordering their bacon/cheese buns and chips. The feeling in the market is electric, comparable to some of our own old city markets like Baltimore’s Lexington Market and Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia. The market was formally registered as a charity in 1999, and its charitable contributions are managed by a board of trustees. If you find yourself in London, it should not be missed, and in fact, it’s worth the trip by itself. You can find out more at www.boroughmarket.org.uk.
Two years ago when I last wrote about shops in London, I had visited Fortnum & Mason (F&M), one of the city’s oldest food emporiums, and reported that the middle of the store was walled off due to construction of a new “fresh market,” as the sign said. I was anxious to see what they had been up to, and I wasn’t disappointed. What I thought was going to be a small prepared foods department turned out to be a broad central staircase that led down to a whole new floor that is home to a butcher, a charcuterie counter, cheese, deli and produce departments, as well as its large selection of jarred sauces and condiments. In the charcuterie, it even had a fine array of dried meats — jerky essentially — including venison, ostrich, and ostrich spiced with beri beri. A world away from the working-class simplicity of Borough Market, Fortnum & Mason is the epitome of elegance and opulence, with the focus clearly on traditional English foodstuff, from sumptuous puddings, hams, roast beef and Cumberland sauce to its huge selection of teas, biscuits, coffee, and sweets that occupy the main floor. F&M also houses a fine wine cellar, complete with a wine bar in which one can sip Champagne after the rigors of shopping, a tea salon and a restaurant, and a lovely housewares department featuring tabletop items, stationery, linens, cooking gadgets and a very thoughtful cookbook assortment that highlighted several well-known English authors such as Elizabeth David and Jane Grigson, and contemporary stars like Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson. The place was extremely busy, looking more like late December than mid-October, and encumbered as I was with my own purchases, it was indeed a rigorous shopping experience, albeit a delightful one.
If Borough Market is the working-class, no-nonsense food destination and F&M is the height of elegance, then Harrods Food Hall is a culinary wonderland. Encompassing several large rooms, all ornately decorated from floor to ceiling with intricate tile mosaics of game and fish, and with every conceivable kind of food from around Britain and the rest of the world, Harrods is a food lover’s dream come true. Founded by tea merchant Henry Charles Harrod in 1849, Harrods has grown to be a London landmark and is usually included in any travel guide as a must-see. One room is dedicated to seafood, with a large central counter featuring its assortment of smoked fish and caviar, while the perimeter has the fresh fish counter, an oyster bar (where my wife and I shared a couple of dozen oysters, an English version of shrimp cocktail and a bottle of Sancerre to bolster us after a long walk to get there) and a sushi bar. Another room has meat — fresh meat, sausages, cured meats, dried meats and bacon, the last consisting of at least two dozen varieties. The room with cheese and packaged goods had a cheese counter about 40 feet long with a brilliant display of cheeses from the British Isles as well as from around Europe. The “sweet room” had, in addition to an amazing selection of candies, cookies, puddings, chocolates (including a counter by the wonderful Parisian master chocolate-maker Maison du Chocolat) and assorted other vehicles of sugar, a brightly colored, horseshoe-shaped counter where one could order up an untold number of ice cream sundaes, soda fountain treats, and other childhood delights. Of course, Harrods is also a department store, and the rest of the main floor and the upper floors are full of marvelous things (including a fabulous gaming department); but for everyone who loves food and likes to eat, the Food Halls are the thing. Everyone should see them at least once in their lives.
Lest you think that the aforementioned markets are the only place in London to buy food, I hasten to point out that, like in Paris, there are wonderful food shops tucked away in just about every neighborhood, ranging from simple greengrocers to innovative specialty shops, tea salons, coffeehouses, bakeries, fishmongers, butchers and much, much more; some very unassuming and traditional, others very chic and trendy, but most of them interesting, and they make one desirous of having an apartment rather than a hotel room. I was also struck by the commitment to sustainable and local foods. Sainsbury, for example, had a series of signs in its windows at various locations we passed that had to do with that idea. One said in bold letters, “We’re off the junk.” It went on underneath to explain that Sainsbury now eschews the use of hydrogenated fats, artificial coloring and other undesirable ingredients in its house-made foods. Another sign in the series said that all its chickens are free-range raised in Britain so they can support British agriculture. Another talked about the high quality of the meats. We found this to be a trend throughout the London retail scene as well as in many of the restaurants.
At the aforementioned Monmouth Coffee Company at Borough Market, I picked up its newsletter one morning. In it, as I read over a delicious cup of coffee, toast and jam, I learned all about its mission, its history, how it roasts its coffees, and mostly about the various coffee farms throughout the world from which it procures the beans for its operation, all at fair trade prices. Mirroring the trend here in the States, many restaurants and pubs specified on their menus where their meat and produce came from. Rules, London’s oldest restaurant (established in 1798), actually owns an estate in Scotland from which it gets its extraordinary game. This is what its brochure says:
“Set in England’s last true wilderness, Lartington Hall Park … lies at the heart of the High Pennines near Barnard Castle in Teesdale. The idyllic countryside provides the perfect environment for the natural husbandry of wild game. Partridges, pheasants, wild duck, snipe, teal and roe deer are found in the woods and valleys. The River Tees, which flows through the estate, is home to both wild trout and salmon. Through its ownership of Lartington, Rules is able to source the highest quality game.”
It goes on to explain the healthfulness of eating game as opposed to domestic livestock. Having spanned nine monarchs and been owned by only three families, Rules is a bastion of traditional English cuisine at its best and highest quality, and its walls are covered with artifacts that reflect the history of the empire. All of this would be reason enough to dine at Rules, I suppose but, I confess, on my list it ranks second due to the fact that it makes the best sticky toffee pudding in all of England.
The Rise of the Modern Shop
London, of course, is a shopper’s Mecca, from Carnaby Street to Savile Row, from great department stores to the most charming boutiques imaginable. But I never realized the seminal role London played in the development of the modern concept of the shop until I stumbled upon a book called “England in Transition” by Dorothy George (Pelican, 1931). In it, she describes the rise of the “gaily decorated shop with glass windows in which pretty trifles were displayed … shops of an earlier date had been either warehouses piled up with the staple English manufactures — the cloth and kersies, for instance, of the drapers — or little more than stalls. The milliners and pamphlet sellers in particular kept stalls in Westminster Hall. The goldsmiths alone of the more dignified trades appear to have laid out goods for display, and even then only their less valuable goods. The increase of shops selling newfangled luxuries appeared to [novelist and chronicler Daniel Defoe] signs of degeneracy and impending ruin.”
This was apparently not the norm throughout the rest of Europe and Dr. George points out that despite the widespread poverty that remained in England in the 18th century, they were in many ways far better off than the people on the continent. “The foreign visitor,” she writes, “was almost invariably impressed with the well-being of the English farmer and labourer. In comparison with the Continent, standards of life were higher, work was less arduous, cottages and farm-houses were far cleaner and neater, women worked less hard, and farmers and working people were better dressed. Foreigners looked with pleased surprise at the gardens of farm-houses and cottages.”
Amused by this account, and suspecting a bit of skewed perspective, I was interested that even a visiting Frenchman in the 1740s was impressed when he wrote that “farmers’ wives and daughters … not only dress but adorn themselves … A young country girl in other countries is a mere peasant, but here by the neatness of her dress and the genteelness of her person you would take her for a shepardess in one of our romances.” I’m pleased to say that the charming nature and genteel carriage of English girls has not waned since that time.
And finally, Dr. George reports that a Swedish visitor in 1748 remarked on the easy-going life surrounding the village inn, or what today would be called the pub. “It’s not unusual,” he said, “to see many sit the whole day at the inn. But the custom of the country that friends and neighbors come together, sit and converse, the abundance of money in this country, the ease of which a man could in every case have his food if only he was somewhat industrious seem to have conduced to this result …”
Suffice to say that in terms of sustainability, artisanally produced foods, free-range, grass-fed livestock and the return to traditional methods of production, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, the United Kingdom has certainly been at the forefront and continues to do so. Encouraged in no small part by the Prince of Wales himself, who on his royal Duchy estate has practiced what he preaches, humanely raising livestock and growing organic grains, fruits and vegetables resulting in many fine products that are available here in the United States. As I said before, the English classics are very much alive and well, from Cornish pasties and Yorkshire pudding to fish and chips and the beloved roast beef. There is a whole new generation of cooks throughout England who are dedicated to creating delicious food based on traditional recipes as well as using an international array of spices and other ingredients. In general, I found the quality of food in England, both in London and in the countryside, to be fresh, well-prepared and of the highest quality. I like to think that even Voltaire and Somerset Maugham would be pleasantly surprised.
