Entries tagged with 'UK'
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Elderflowers. Photograph by Smoobs on Flickr English gardens may be world-renowned, but what most people around the world don't know, is that the English eat them! Well, not exactly. They eat elderflowers, which always remind me, when I taste them, of eating a perfect, fluffy, and white English flowerbed. The Elderflower Pressé is common place in England: elderflower syrup mixed with soda, and comes deliciously prepackaged. That was the first English secret garden flavor I discovered. Then I came across an Elderflower Collins: pressed elderflowers, green, green mint, lemon juice, gin, and soda. It is to date the greatest cocktail I have ever tasted. But the thing that positively shocked me was a dessert that I found first at...
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This year for Halloween in England, I was a peacock. The fun of Halloween in the UK is not the trick-or-treating, but the candy flavors as exotic as my costume. Black currant Starburst and Turkish delight chocolate are a beginning, but they are not my favorite. Everyone talks about the English rose, but beautiful though she may be, I could take her or leave her. For me, it's all about the English violet—the Parma Violet. Parma Violets are something like our chalky fruity discs rolled up and given out as generic candies, but they are purple and reek of delicious, sweet, perfuming flowers. Luckily, they don't seem to have a "please take only one" Halloween candy rule in Oxford....
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Those of you who listen to the radio will recognize the line: "Ribena, I know what you're drinking" from the "American Boy" duet between Kanye West and Estelle. Kanye, the American boy, seduces Estelle, the English girl, by buying her a Ribena. As a girl who has been separated from the sweet, condensed black currant "squash" by the Atlantic Ocean, that pick-up line just might work on me. Kanye may know what Ribena is, but I would venture that most Americans don't. It's a condensed black currant (the Concord grape of England) juice meant to be diluted with water that is shoved under kid's noses when they are young so that they will grow into sweet, black-currant adoring adults....
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Photograph from Svadilfari on Flickr There is something so frustratingly natural about the Cadbury Creme Egg. Nothing, of course, about its flavoring, but about its cycle. Like all other naturally occurring things, it is born in spring and then grows into something less adorable. One can only suspect it ends up as a peanut butter pumpkin around October and makes its final appearance as a gold foil-wrapped hard block of Christmas-tree-shaped chocolate at the end of the year. Such is life, and aging is difficult even for chocolate. Just when I thought I'd have to wait until April for the 2009 generation of Cadbury Creme Eggs, I was snatching up some Cadbury chocolate at Boots when I discovered what...
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Editor's note: Our intern Kerry Saretsky came back from a visit to England, where she'll be moving next year, with a lorryload of English-food blog posts. But before we continue with her Snapshots from the UK series, we thought a little English food glossary was in order. —Ed. When I first moved to England, the dollar rang in at 2.1 to the pound, and every time I ordered at a restaurant, something entirely unrelated to what I had said to the waiter would emerge from the kitchen. Having purchased the equivalent 2.1 American meals, and eaten exactly none of it, I was both famished and frustrated. It seems that we, the English and the Americans, do not really speak the...
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"Retailers believe the boom in haggis sales stems from the ever-tightening purse-strings of British shoppers. At around £1.50 [US$2.23] a serving, haggis is a cheap choice and its high fat content makes it filling." [The Independent]...
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"I went to the market to realize my soul" —The Clash Borough Market 8 Southwark Street, London, SE1 1TL; map); +44 (0) 20 7407 1002; http://www.boroughmarket.org.uk/ Getting There: National Rail/London Underground to London Bridge station; 381, RV1 bus routes; parking located on the corner of Southwark Street and Southwark Bridge Road and on Snowsfields Hours of Operation: Wholesale Sun.-Fri., 2 a.m. to 8 a.m.; retail Thur., 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Fri., 12 p.m. to 6 p.m., Sat., 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Borough Market is said to be older than the City of London itself. According to the Borough Market Trustees, it has been operating for more than two millennia, predating the Roman conquest of Britain in 43 AD....
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The Guardian's Word of Mouth blog reports that Jamie Oliver is launching his own food rag. Jamie Magazine hits WHSmith newsstands and stores in the UK on Thursday. "Oliver takes many of the magazine's photographs himself, and copy is packaged in Jamie's trademark 'alright geezer' style, a 'no bullshit' here, a comparison of a flavour to an 'acid-house party rave' there—although there are also more worthy pages on the politics of tipping."...
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Photograph from speechlessson on Flickr Recently at Bumpkin, I cringed to hear an American tourist ask the waiter for an iced tea. They may do tea well in England, but they sure don’t do it iced. But I found an even better replacement. London's extravagant and wonderful Italian corner Locanda Locatelli does Earl Grey sorbet. I would have taken a picture as proof, only they don't allow cameras in the restaurant. The bitter bergamot of the tea was pierced with a sweetness requisite to all sorbets, and the cold assuaged my American cravings for tea leaves brewed on ice. It was delicate, unexpected, tricultural, and a bit downright impertinent. For me, it was love at first bite. From a...
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What is the first thing you do when you get off the plane at Heathrow? If you are anything like me and usually opt for the red-eye, chances are you go straight to your hotel. If you are lucky enough to call that hotel Claridge's, leave your bags at the door, and stop in for a Rich Organic Dark Chocolate before dragging yourself to your room. Claridge's serves, hands down, the most delicious, and most lovely, hot chocolate that I've ever experienced. And I say experienced because that is what it is, an experience—particularly English in its refinement, and particularly European in its quality. It arrives in Wonderland tea party-style, with whimsical mint-striped cups and pitchers, one filled with...
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