Musings on British & Canadian Food
Inspired by Robert Bush
Well, Robert, when I saw your subtitle "British food through the centuries", I began yawning. I should have known better. My favorite British storyteller - you - can make anything boring, even British food, a romp in a playground!
I am still tee-heeing. Simply fabulous!
Never been across the pond to our Motherland, but I've visited Canada a few times, once staying in a B&B. I didn't realize what we were being fed was a "Full English" but perhaps it wasn't since there was - THANK GOD! - no black pudding. But I was perplexed by the baked beans and tomatoes for breakfast. Now, I know it is your fault - well, the fault of the British.
Disclosure: I was raised in Virginia where black pudding, which was more appropriately and more grossly called blood pudding there, was served by locals. We were not locals. We moved from Baltimore and my father was originally from Chicago. We did NOT eat the like locals in rural Virginia.
For that, I am eternally grateful.
As a vegetarian and not an enthusiast of eggs, I was pleased that our B&B hosts also served freshly-baked sweet breads (not to be confused with the disgusting sweetbreads that are the pancreas of a lamb or calf), and - this is important - PANCAKES. Don't know about you Brits, but your Canadian cousins do pancakes better than anyone I know. And, have the best butter to put atop those pancakes. Scrumptious!
I ate a lot of pancakes in Canada. I would travel to Canada just for pancakes dripping in their butter and drizzled with their out-of-the-world real maple syrup. Why is Canadian butter so much better than ours?? I mean, it’s so good you don’t need the syrup.
My husband is from Argentina where breakfast consisted of bread in some form or another or some sweet something baked by an aproned mother or a bakery. He and his aproned mother became quite fond of what we call an American Breakfast — eggs, sausage and/or bacon, toast, and potatoes of some sort — mostly, hash browns or skillet/home fries. Sometimes, they throw in pancakes but American pancakes are kinda soggy and mostly tasteless but for what is poured over them. Certainly, nothing compared to Canadian pancakes!
Here in the South, grits are often substituted for the potatoes but my husband will not eat grits. Hmm, I have a grits story that I should write . . .
Robert, our American Breakfast could compete with your Full English in the “Quickest Heart Attack Before Noon” category!
And, lastly, marmite — really? I have nothing to say about that.
