YouGov recently conducted a survey into traditional British foods, to see which are likely to disappear in the near future. They had 24 on their list. I was fascinated...
There are five I have never eaten: tripe, giblets, cockles, purslane and medlars. [unless you count gravy made with giblets] I don't have a problem with any of the others, although I wouldn't go out of my way to eat turnip.
But some of these are regular favourites: sardines, tapioca, suet, semolina pudding, corned beef and treacle [aka Golden Syrup]
Those are foodstuffs usually found in my pantry. Bubble&squeak is a great leftovers dish, and Bob makes it beautifully.
Bob's Dad used to prepare a tongue each Christmas and my Mum regularly served liver with mashed potatoes. Jon has even made his own black pudding. I love making suet crust pastry, and any and all milk puddings [semolina, blancmange and tapioca]
It's a shame the weather is so warm, reading the list has made me yearn to produce a Treacle Suet Roly Poly Pudding. Perhaps I should just knock up some sardine fishcakes, coated in semolina and oven baked, accompanied by sauté potatoes fried in beef dripping.
Do you think these foods are disappearing from our menus because they are complicated to prepare? Or perceived to be high fat/high carb/less healthy?
Many are inexpensive carb/protein meals traditionally favoured by the working classes in earlier generations.
And what is winter purslane anyway? Bob and I have not heard of that one. We only know of Job's comment in chapter 6v6 where he says "Who can abide the slime of the purslane?"
Do you eat any of these, or do you avoid tripe like the plague?
Winter purslane is also known as miners' lettuce. It's a winter salad crop, quite mild and rather nice.
ReplyDeleteThank you FC. Do you grow your own, or buy it in the market or greengrocers?
ReplyDeletePurslane - referred to as a herb herewith and probably grows wild as a weed.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/herbs/purslane/edible-purslane-herb.htm
winter purslane also known as Claytonia is referred to in Johnsons seed catalogue as a lettuce. I have seed but have never tried it. Perhaps its one for me to try.
Tripe is orrible. Mum decided to give us all a treat one of her childhood favourites. Tripe and Onions. The onion sauce was lovely. Trouble is the family en masse tried it denounced it as orrible apart from the sauce and we all downed knives and forks. Its the only time we refused to eat what mum provided. Needless to say that mum had a tripe treat. Suet puddings regular here as OH likes them - I am not so keen.
Cockles we love. Not tried Medlars but have had giblet gravy. Do not think would like to eat the giblets! Eel is off the menu too since my brother caught some and brought them home - did not like them either.
Spam and Tapioca are also off the list. Mum used to make on a regular basis and I never was keen although make the Tapioca or frog spawn for OH.
The rest we generally use in day to day cooking especially during the winter months.
However I think a lot of the problem is to do with the fact people do not know how to cook them - as they do not really like doing it. I don#t think it helps when the boffins go on about the amount of fat in this and the amount of fat in that. I don't think that it takes much to put people off. When there was the who ha about butter and spreadable margarines I never switched over to the margarine spreads as we just do not like them and I stuck rigidly to butter. It would seem with hindsight I did the right thing.
Lovely post and thought provoking.
Kind regards.
Tricia
x
When I can find the giblets I will roast them with the bird and my husband will eat them for his supper. We love black pudding. I would be quite happy to see tripe disapear along with spam, rabbit and tongue (eeewww makes me cringe).
ReplyDeleteWhat is medlar? never heard of that
Carolx
I was about to say the same as Mary. You can get seeds from Sarah Raven.
ReplyDeleteMy mother used to make us tripe Nd onions with mashed potato as a child. White sauce, white tripe and white mash! I could still eat it at a pinch but it was a bit gelatinous as I remember. The other ‘treat’ was black tripe served cold with lots of vinegar, salt and pepper and a salad. Not so yum!
ReplyDeleteSpam and chips in the 1950s too. Thank goodness for all the variety of foodstuffs w can get today.
black pudding got a lot of buzz a couple of years ago as a 'superfood'; I think it'll have a resurgence. We had Spam when in california - hawaiians eat it so it's a bit trendier there - now we get it now and again to have with our breakfast!
ReplyDeleteNOT RABBIT THOUGH.
We are regular consumers of giblets, but then we grow and process our own poultry. Part of the problem is reliance on supermarkets. Try finding kidneys, for example. One item not on the list which I make from time to time is brawn.
ReplyDeleteI eat or have many of these items in my pantry so I'm quite surprised, especially when it comes to sardines, Spam or Corned Beef. Rabbit is VERY expensive here - to buy one in the supermarket would cost $25 - about 12 pounds in sterling. I have cooked it in a cream sauce with 40 cloves of garlic - it was delicious!
ReplyDeleteI have had tripe in Asian dishes but never cooked it. My mom decided to cook it once and the smell was so awful that we all refused to even try it and dad made her throw it out!
I don't like tapioca or semolina so not bothered by that. But I love black pudding and turnip. I've actually noticed that things like tongue and kidneys seem to be making a bit of a resurgence here in Toronto - I would have no problem finding them in my local grocery store.
Giblets are always included when you buy a turkey and that's what people use for making gravy.
I must say that I don't really eat any of the above except turnips very rarely!
ReplyDeleteA lot of them are meat-based which would explain why i don't really eat them.
Giblets I've used for gravy I think!