Since 1942 or thereabouts, the quip, “The
United States and Great Britain are two countries
separated by a common language,” has been
attributed to George Bernard Shaw, though
it does not appear in any of his known writings.
Another, from Oscar Wilde’s The Canterville
Ghost, claims, “We have really everything
in common with America nowadays, except, of
course, language.”
Both gentlemen overlooked another distinct
gap between Americans and their British cousins.
That gap is in cuisine.
Some foods both popular and common in the
United Kingdom are viewed with dismay in America.
In fairness, some of the foods are merely
hung with monikers which render them strange
to American ears, and thus absent from American
plates.
Others, however, are considered less than
palatable, due to the ingredients used and
the preparation of same.
Most meat-eating Americans share with the
British a love of roast beef and Yorkshire
Pudding, similar to popovers.
The same Americans view other popular British
foods and dishes with rolled eyes and wrinkled
noses, astonished that anyone would consider
eating such concoctions.
Here are 10 popular British foods considered
weird by Americans.
10.
Spotted Dick
The obvious double entendre of its name raises
American eyebrows, and a secondary name for
the dessert, Spotted Dog, does little to whet
the appetite as well.
The references to both dick and dog are from
early dialects in Britain, and refer to pudding.
The dessert is not a pudding in the American
sense, but rather a cake, once made with plums,
but more commonly found today with dried raisins,
currants, or other fruit.
The fruit accounted for the “spots” of
its name, the cake for the pudding, or dick.
Traditionally, the fat used to make Spotted
Dick came from suet, the hard fat surrounding
the kidneys from beef or mature sheep.
Recipes for the dessert have been traced to
the mid-19th century in British cookbooks
and guides for housewives, though it never
appeared to have achieved popularity in the
United States.
Though modern recipes often substitute other
fats for the suet, such as butter, traditional
recipes for the dish can be found readily
online.
By the way, in recognition of the somewhat
bawdy interpretation of its name, in 2009
Flintshire County Council in Wales renamed
the dish Spotted Richard.
9.
Black Pudding
Black Pudding appears to the eye as a type
of sausage, traditionally made from the blood
of slaughtered animals.
The blood from slaughtered beef, pork, and
sheep was mixed with ground fat or suet and
cereals such as oatmeal or groats.
Herbs and spices were added, including mint,
thyme, and pennyroyal.
The modern day version available in British
markets is made entirely from pork blood,
and usually the cereal used is oats or barley.
Records of the sausages called Black Puddings
date it to the mid-15th century, and there
is evidence a similar dish, made in an earthenware
pot rather than a sausage casing preceded
them.
The sausages in Britain’s stores and shops
are pre-cooked, and are popular eaten cold,
grilled, fried, boiled, or baked.
Often it is sliced, fried, and served for
breakfast, though it is also served whole
as part of a meal, particularly in the Black
Country, the Midlands, and in Scotland and
Ireland.
Similar sausages are also popular in Australia.
They are also sometimes used to make Scotch
Eggs.
For those objecting to blood sausage, British
shops offer White Pudding, a similar sausage
made without using the processed blood of
slaughtered hogs.
8.
Jellied Eels
Eels long served as a staple in the British
diet, particularly in London, where the Thames
teemed with them.
In the early 18th century anyone could fish
for eels in the Thames, provided they had
a net with which to catch them.
Other British streams produced eels as well.
Shops featuring Eel Pies and Mash appeared
in the 1700s, and another dish made from the
fish – jellied eels – soon followed.
They remained popular through the 20th century,
though in recent years jellied eels have acquired
the panache of a delicacy, rather than a popular
cheap food for the urban poor.
Jellied eels are made by chopping the cleaned
fish into pieces (rounds), which are boiled
in water flavored with vinegar, nutmeg, and
lemon juice.
The eels release gelatin into the water during
the boiling.
The eel is then cooled in the water, which
solidifies into a jelly, and the entire gelatinous
goo is packaged for consumption.
Today there are fewer eel houses in London,
and jellied eel fans find their delicacy in
supermarkets and delicatessens.
Or, they can resort to making their own.
7.
Periwinkles
Periwinkles have long been popular in the
United Kingdom, especially so along the coasts
and in seaside towns.
They are small shellfish, similar to snails,
which the French across the Channel eat with
Gallic aplomb.
The British call periwinkles simply winkles,
and though they are somewhat challenging to
eat, since they must be extracted from the
shell, they remain a widely ingested food
item in the United Kingdom.
In British coastal shops they are served in
paper bags, with a pin with which to extract
the little beast from the shell attached.
To be fair, they are also popular in New England
and in the American Northwest.
It is widely believed, though unproven, that
periwinkles came to America by being attached
to the rock ballast once carried in sailing
ships.
When the ballast was dumped into the sea off
the American coast, the tiny snails found
their new environment to their liking, and
flourished.
They are fished by towed dredges or by simply
wading through the water, picked by hand,
and deposited in a bucket or creel.
6.
Stargazy Pie
Sardines and pilchards are interchangeable
names for a variety of small fish of the herring
family.
Under either name they are definitely an acquired
taste.
People generally love them or loathe them
for their oily texture, fishy taste, and smell.
Fishing for pilchards was once a thriving
industry in Cornwall, where for over 130 years
the fish were caught with seines, packed in
hogsheads, and exported to Europe.
The industry died out in the late 19th century,
but a uniquely Cornish dish, Stargazy pie,
survived.
It is especially popular on Tom Bawcock’s
Eve, a festival local to Mousehole, in Cornwall.
Stargazy pie is a pie made with pilchards,
other fish, and various ingredients according
to the whims of the baker.
Boiled eggs, potatoes, vegetables, bacon,
mutton, and others foods are often found in
the pie.
What makes it unique is the heads of the fish
are arranged to protrude through the pastry
crust, as if they are stargazing.
Sometimes the tails are arranged to protrude
through the rim of the crust as well.
A stargazy pie contains baked sardines which
stare at the diner as he prepares to enjoy
his repast.
It’s hard to understand why it never gained
popularity
in America.
5.
Marmite
Marmite is a brand name for a food spread
invented as an offshoot of the brewing industry.
It is, in essence, concentrated brewer’s
yeast, high in B vitamins and almost overwhelmingly
salty in taste.
It is used as a flavoring in many dishes.
It is also stirred into boiling water to create
a hot beverage.
During World War I it was issued to British
troops, where it acquired its most popular
use, spread on crackers or toast, or any form
of bread, sometimes accompanied with butter.
During World War II it was fed to German prisoners
of war as a source of vitamins.
Marmite developed a solid base of fans who
appeared nearly addicted to the stuff, and
an equally devoted group who find it disgusting.
Unilever, which owns the brand, took advantage
of the dispute in an advertising campaign
in the 1990s, adopting the slogan, “Love
it or hate it.”
One wonders if Marmite improves the flavor
of one’s Stargazy pie, or if lovers of baked
sardines find the savor of the popular spread
distasteful.
4.
Laverbread
The first thing to consider about laverbread
is that it isn’t a bread at all, though
toasted bread is often served alongside it
at table.
Laverbread is traditionally served in Wales.
It consists of boiled seaweed, though not
just any seaweed.
The seaweed is harvested in the shallow coastal
waters of the Irish Sea, and is known to the
Welsh as slake.
The slake is first harvested, then washed
repeatedly, then boiled until it assumes the
texture of a mushy, somewhat gooey paste.
Then it’s ready for eating.
Although often eaten as is, with accompaniments
such as bread, it is also sometimes rolled
in oats and then pan-fried, to be eaten at
breakfast.
At other meals it is eaten as a cold salad,
or heated as a side dish.
The Welsh also enjoy laverbread as the main
course, sometimes supplemented with boiled
bacon.
Yes, boiled bacon.
The actor and famed diamond purchaser Richard
Burton extolled the virtues of laverbread
when he referred to it in an interview as
the “Welshman’s caviar.”
3.
Haggis
Scotland is credited (perhaps blamed is a
better word) for giving the world haggis,
though dishes prepared with similar ingredients
in the same manner appear throughout the world.
Cooking the offal of an animal using its stomach
as the cooking vessel was a common means of
eating during a hunt.
The Scot’s version consists of chopping
up the heart, lungs, and liver of a sheep,
known as the pluck.
It is then combined with onions, suet, oats,
and whatever spices are available, placed
in the sheep’s stomach, and boiled.
Supermarkets in Scotland offer prepared haggis,
often in artificial casings rather than a
sheep’s stomach.
It is popular in pubs, fast food restaurants,
and even in Indian restaurants throughout
Scotland.
Technically haggis is illegal in the United
States, due to its containing lung, and importing
haggis is not allowed.
Some American companies make their own versions,
which do not contain lung and which are always
offered in artificial casings.
They can be boiled, baked, or fried.
A large supply of another product of Scotland,
Scotch Whisky, may be of use when contemplating
its consumption.
2.
Scotch Eggs
Fortnum and Mason, a London department store,
has long claimed to have invented Scotch eggs
in 1738.
They were simple enough; hard or soft-boiled
eggs wrapped in ground meat or sausage, then
quickly fried.
They were intended to provide a quick meal
or snack for travelers or workingmen, though
few of the latter could afford the upscale
prices offered by the store.
The store included the eggs in some of the
various hampers they sold, containing several
prepared foods.
They were quickly popular, and have remained
so ever since.
What makes them slightly weird to some eyes
is the unlimited variety of sausage in which
the eggs were wrapped.
Scotch eggs can be made using Black Pudding,
haggis, and other sausages and puddings.
Sometimes pickled eggs are substituted, as
in the Worcester version, in which an egg
pickled in Worcestershire sauce is wrapped
in White Pudding.
The Manchester version uses a more traditionally
pickled egg and wraps it in Black Pudding.
How the snack came to be known as the Scotch
Egg, since it was supposedly invented in a
London store, has been the subject of debate
ever since they first appeared, with little
progress made toward a satisfactory answer.
1.
Bubble and Squeak
There is really very little weird about bubble
and squeak, other than its name, the source
of which remains in dispute.
The oldest known recipe for the dish appeared
in 1806.
In the late 19th century it became a popular
means of using the leftovers from a roast
dinner, and thus is comprised of potatoes
and cabbage, though other vegetables including
onions, carrots, and even peas, are often
added.
They are fried together until browned to a
crust, and often served as a side dish for
breakfast or brunch.
A Scottish version has the even stranger name
Rumbledethumps, while an Irish version is
called Colcannon.
There is a reference to a dish of beef and
cabbage fried together called Bubble and Squeak
in the Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar
Tongue’s 1785 edition.
The book, which was a collection of slang
terms, is the earliest known mention of the
name.
Bubble and Squeak is probably the strangest
name on this list for food, though it is also
probably the least weird of the dishes listed
here.
But, its all a matter of taste.
