Admittedly our dishes have often been blessed with peculiar names so here is a brief guide to our grub.
Bangers & Mash The term ‘banger’ referring to firecracker, colourfully describes a good sausage, served in this case with mashed potato usually great with lashings of gravy.
Black Pudding A small oatmeal mixed with blood and the liver of either sheep, calf or swine. In other words a rich blood cake. A rustic favourite which is cracking on a full English breaky.
Bubble & Squeak The economical Monday morning reuse of Sunday dinner’s leftovers all fried up until brown and crispy around the edges. Whilst cooking hissing and popping occurs which inspired the name.
Faggots These days political correctness makes people uneasy when using this word however in culinary terms it refers to a rustic meatball. Faggots are usually made with minced liver and other meats mixed with breadcrumbs or oatmeal, eggs, onion and spices shaped into fist shaped balls which are baked and served with gravy.
Scotch Egg Hard (or even soft) boiled eggs are peeled, covered in fresh sausage meat, coated in breadcrumbs and deep fried. A real popular dish in the local pub served with English mustard.
Spotted Dick (Sometimes even I struggle to understand where we got these names from!) This steamed pudding also referred to as ‘spotted dog’, gets its name from the slang term for a Dalmatian dog. (Why? I have no idea!) All i can understand is that the spots refer to the plentiful amounts of dried currants or raisin within the pudding.
Stargazy Pie An amazing name for a pie which refers to the fish (usually sardines) that gaze up at the night sky watching the stars. In their honour we put the fish in the pie with its head poking out the top looking at the sky...some say off putting, I say genius!
Toad-in-the-hole A personal favourite! Good quality English sausages cooked in Yorkshire pudding (See next description). Whoever thought of this dish needs knighting...end of!
Yorkshire Pudding Beat up a light batter or flour, eggs and milk then bake it in beef dripping and there you have a puffy, golden-brown treat. A traditional accompaniment to the Sunday roast and essential in a toad in the hole. As a kid ‘yorkies’ were always fought over during our Sunday roast as there was always an extra one up for grabs!
Just to name a few...Pigs in blanket...Shepherd’s pie...Trifle...Welsh rarebit...Champ...Butty...Sarnie...Crumpet...the list goes on!
George Bernard Shaw once said, “If the English can survive their food, they can survive anything.”
If only he was alive today...
