British food as seen from afar

Oh yes it’s always yellow Lipton tea bags with tepid water in a cup and the inevitable jug of boiling milk. Yuk.
I learm the words for hot water/cold milk wherever we go. They are genuinely surprised.

We drank Lipton’s Yellow Label for many years in the Middle East - I don’t see what’s wrong with it. Mind you I like mine not too strong - let alone stewed in a pot - and without milk.

We were visiting someone in the wilds in USA during a snow storm. He said he had some nice hot tea ready, complete with boiling milk, ‘just like I was taught to make it in PARIS”!

I have often wondered why mainland European's have found it so difficult to understand how to make an English style cup of tea.

My uncle was a catholic priest and used to lead a lot of pilgrimages to Lourdes. He 'adopted' a cafe, and went into their kitchen and carefully taught them how to make tea 'Style Anglais' and always directed his fellow pilgrims there, because it was the only place in Lourdes, where you could get a proper cup of tea.

Recently, in France, DH and I had to stop a waitress from boiling the milk to be served with our pot of tea.

grandmajet You are in good company, DD likes pineapple on pizza and treats us with scorn because we do not, but I have never liked sweet and savoury on the same plate.

I’m a bit scared to publicly admit, but I quite like pineapple on pizza.

Apparently when my mother in law was first married she had no idea how to cook. Her husband showed her how to make boiled egg soup. Boil the egg and at the end take out the egg and leave it on the side, enjoy.

I am loving this thread - but can I correct something? It was Americans who put pineapple on pizza not the British. We get blamed for so many things but please not that abomination

Sago, I’m still giggling! I never thought of using garlic salt as a boy repellent for my daughters, but my granddaughter eats quite a lot of curry, so maybe my daughter is of a like mind to your mother!
JackyB, I’m reading this just before going to prepare my breakfast on Saturday morning, and I must admit it has not inspired me to change my menu to cornflakes topped with a fried egg! In fact, not sure I can face eating at all with that thought in my head.
I, too, loved vesta packet meals as a student in the sixties, especially the paella as it only involved one pan - even less washing up!

My husband, a Latin teacher, went once a year with a couple of the best pupils to Arpino in Southern Italy, where they took part in a competition with participants from all over the world, dedicated to Cicero whose birthplace it is. . The students spent three or four days doing their papers while the accompanying teachers were taken on outings to the many famous places in the area. At one, they were served a proper Italian meal:

Antipasti course
Pasta course
Fish course
Meat course
Dessert

(I think it was like that, but anyway, it was several courses.)

He said you could always tell the newbies, as they stuffed themselves with salami and bread from the antipasti platter and then they didn't have room for the other delicious main dishes.

I like this idea, as you get to savour the individual tastes. I couldn't serve it to my mother like that though. She always asked to have everything on her plate at once. Perhaps she preferred the combination of tastes.

I do agree about tea, though. I can't think why I didn't mention it in the OP. Tea in a glass? With he teabag separate? Here on the continent, in hotels I always ask for an extra teabag or., if it's a buffet, just put 2 in the cup or pot. And there is very rarely a tray of small jugs for you to have milk on the table with you. I have now come to the conclusion that it's best to put the milk in the pot, put the teabags in, then fill up the pot (there's usually a samovar-type thing with almost boiling water somewhere) with boiling water, like the Indians do for chai.

Severnsider I so recognise your story.

When I was about 12, I was up in London with my aunt and we went to a little Italian cafe for lunch. On the menu was 'Spaghetti with butter and cheese'. Knowing only tinned spaghetti with tomato sauce, I thought it would be great with extra butter and cheese (actually it is), but of course, along came a plate of plain spaghetti with butter and lots of parmesan.

At 12, one's pride is very fragile, so I showed no surprise and simply went ahead and ate it - actually I quite enjoyed it, once I had got over the shock.

Many years ago, probably in the 50s ,Woolworths used to serve a small amount of food.
They sold pate by weight, cut from a slab or a bowl.
I was walking by that counter one day when I heard one woman say to her friend, “what is pate.”
Her friend replied in a sneery voice, “ just high- falutin potted meat”

Sago ???

I loved that post although I'm sorry to say I loathed sago and tapioca puddings at school! We never had to endure them at home, thank goodness.

Sago
That was laugh out loud funny ?????

LauraNorder So pleased I made you smile.
It’s all true!

At one point she purchased a square egg maker....really

www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjllIiA7N_vAhV58LsIHTbWDBsQFjAPegQIBxAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.worthpoint.com%2Fworthopedia%2Foriginal-vintage-1970s-square-boiled-796262459&usg=AOvVaw3RpDol3IQ_pFWCNVoMh_3O

She thought it was the height of sophistication to open a tin of Oakleaf ham and serve with slices of square egg and iceberg lettuce.

We had a neighbouring family who I was desperate to get to know but they were deemed common because my Mother had seen their Mother buying Lifebuoy soap in the Coop.
Imagine if Mrs P had put Imperial Leather in her basket, my life may have taken a different course.

I adore cooking and food, sharing food with family and friends is one of my greatest pleasures.

When my Mother would come and stay if we were entertaining and someone complimented me then she would pipe up with
“well you do as you saw done”
I used to want to blend her fingers.

On holiday in Italy my DH ordered spaghetti and when it came it was just a dish of plain spaghetti, he called the waiter and asked for the sauce, and the waiter brought him a bottle of tomato ketchup!

I now know italians do eat plain spaghetti - with a knob of butter.

That made me laugh Sago and reminded me of that sitcom called "Sorry " with Ronnie Corbert as Timmy who had to endure his mothers culinary concoctions such as beetroot cake and all kinds of weird and wonderful menus

Sago

My mother was a dreadful cook and saw no pleasure in feeding us, she discovered those awful Colman’s mixes and used to make us Beef Bourguignon it tasted marginally better than most of her meals although a million miles from the real thing,when she served it she always lowered her voice a few octaves and announced the “Burf Berginon” Despite only being about 11 it made me want to kill her.

She had a box of congealed Lion curry powder in the pantry for about 10 years, it would be added to a tin of mixed veg and a pound of mince and boiled until grey.
I think rice was too exotic, we probably had it with chips.
It was a poor introduction to Indian cuisine.

In the late 70’s she got experimental with garlic salt, I think was a ploy to make sure my breath smelled so bad I would hang on to my virginity a bit longer.
It didn’t work.

She was a massive snob and had a long list of things that were common; Omo washing powder, C&A, over the knee socks, you get the drift, well there was a long list of common foods that we were not allowed!
They included ketchup,brown sauce, salad cream, baked beans,spaghetti in a tin and sausage in any form, really all the things that may have made her food taste better.

The permitted non common foods were, the awful medallion shaped tin of ham that was impossible to open with a silly key, M&S chunky chicken, M&S tinned mince beef and anything tha had an acute or grave accent, we ate a lot of pâté.

Sorry Sago I just had to use the quote facility so that we can all read it again. The funniest post ever, so witty.
Love the garlic salt to save your virginity!
Anything with an acute accent, ate a lot of pâté, priceless.

My dear MIL was an awful cook. I swear that’s the reason Dh and I have been married all these years - anything I cook is an improvement on his mother’s cooking!

She was raised in India and could produce a decent curry but that’s about it. I remember when stir fries became a thing. She bought a bag of prepared veg and bean sprouts and proceeded to boil it for twenty minutes before serving it up. It was like eating a dish cloth. Not that I’ve ever done that.

Anyway, after that, we always took her out to eat so that our kids didn’t fade away from starvation.

Flying to india the menu stated 'bland' as an option. I had a dinner of Boiled chicken, boiled potato and of course boiled veg. Cauliflower. It certainly was very bland and very white.

I am with you on tea Sago. I once showed a really lovely tiny Italian hotel how to make black tea "for British people". They had brought me the same warm water and hot milk thing as you describe. No one had shown them before so how could they really know.

They were sufficiently interested for the whole staff to watch. Subsequently tea there was good (if still Lipton's).

I had a risotto in a (supposedly) Italian restaurant here in the UK not that long ago where they seemed to have emptied a frozen packet of mixed veg into a white rice soup. It was inedible.

Sago, your mum’s cooking made me laugh ??

Sago

I can excuse any nation for screwing up British food, after all look at what we’ve done.... pineapple on pizza?.

The one thing I cannot deal with is tea abroad.
Firstly the usual preferred brands are cast aside in favour of Lipton’s or Hornimans tea.
These sales people must be extraordinarily good, the tea is awful.

Then the water is never boiling or you get a weird mug of water and a weak tea bag that takes so long to open and place in the water the tea is cold and undrinkable.

In Italy I once got the mug of water, tea bag in layers of paper and the HOT milk in a teapot.

I go on holiday armed with my fave Yorkshire tea or Barry’s tea, I’ve given up on any hotel tea.

Totally agree..pineapple on pizza , yuck

Re the tea in Italy....just have coffee instead, which they really know how to do !

sago- I think we must be related. Your mother sounds just like mine!

I can excuse any nation for screwing up British food, after all look at what we’ve done.... pineapple on pizza?.

The one thing I cannot deal with is tea abroad.
Firstly the usual preferred brands are cast aside in favour of Lipton’s or Hornimans tea.
These sales people must be extraordinarily good, the tea is awful.

Then the water is never boiling or you get a weird mug of water and a weak tea bag that takes so long to open and place in the water the tea is cold and undrinkable.

In Italy I once got the mug of water, tea bag in layers of paper and the HOT milk in a teapot.

I go on holiday armed with my fave Yorkshire tea or Barry’s tea, I’ve given up on any hotel tea.

My mother is in the running for the world’s worst cook. She once managed to burn boiled eggs. We lived abroad for much of my childhood, and used to get frozen mince in sausage shaped ‘chubbies’. She would defrost it and cook it in a pan with chopped onions. If she added tomato paste, it was bolognese; if curry powder, it was curry; if nothing added, it was stew, and with potato on top it was shepherd’s pie. The only ‘relief’ was fish in Fridays, boiled in water to the texture of rubber with no seasoning or sauce. We didn’t have any spices, seasoning or herbs in the house except for curry powder, just salt and ground white pepper and tomato ketchup.

Her pastry was so hard that if we had apple pie, we had to use the electric carving knife to cut it, and my brothers and I played cricket with her one foray into making bread rolls. In later life she discovered garlic, and roasted lamb with an equal weight of garlic cloves cut into the meat.

Fortunately, her sister, my aunt, was a brilliant cook, and taught me enough that I took over the family cooking when I was about 15. I bought the first jars of herbs and spices we ever used at that time.