Traditional British dishes facing extinction

Discussion Open Forum
1

The end of life as many know it…

[quote]Traditional British dishes facing extinction
Sun Jul 23, 2:56 PM ET

LONDON (AFP) - Traditional British delicacies such as bath chaps, jugged hare and brawn are under threat of extinction as youths in the kingdom haven’t even heard of them, a survey showed.

Just one percent of those surveyed under 25 recognised bath chaps – pigs’ cheeks covered in breadcrumbs – while only 1.6 percent had heard of jugged hare – hare meat served in a sauce of its blood mixed with port.

Brawn (jellied pig’s head) came third on the list, while squirrel casserole was fourth.

By contrast, the survey of 2,021 people carried out for British television channel UKTV Food showed that 40 percent of over-60s here were aware of bath chaps while a third of older respondents recognised jugged hare.

“While pigs’ cheeks and squirrel casserole are clearly not to everyone’s tastes, they are a powerful link to a bygone culinary era,” said Paul Moreton, the food channel’s head.

British politicians in the past have celebrated the seeming lack of a “national” cuisine as indicative of the country’s integration of different cultures.

Then-foreign secretary Robin Cook said in 2001 that chicken tikka masala, an adaptation of an Indian dish to suit the British palate, was Britain’s “true national dish”.
news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060723/wl … 0723185317[/quote]

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actually,in UK,it’s very rare to see a “useable” kitchen,
whenever a family will eat together they will buy take aways

but despite having some great classic dishes,i’d say the food culture in the UK is far from the one encountered in any other european countries.

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[quote=“dablindfrog”]actually,in UK,it’s very rare to see a “useable” kitchen,
whenever a family will eat together they will buy take aways

but despite having some great classic dishes,i’d say the food culture in the UK is far from the one encountered in any other European countries.[/quote]
Wow! You surely haven’t spent much time in the UK! The kitchen is the most important room in the house for most of my friends and all my sisters and their families. But you’re right – the food culture in the UK is different from the rest of Europe. In France, for instance, they eat pretty much only French food, while in Spain, Italy, Germany, etc., they eat pretty much their own food too. In Britain, though, we eat French, Italian, German, Scandinavian, Indian, etc. Great for us. Too bad for you. :wink:

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[quote=“dablindfrog”]actually,in UK,it’s very rare to see a “useable” kitchen,
whenever a family will eat together they will buy take aways

.[/quote]

Rubbish. Take-away food is too expensive to eat every night.

The kitchen is the most important room in the house.

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Where are all the British dishes I see at the Happy Hours??

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[quote=“sandman”][quote=“dablindfrog”]actually,in UK,it’s very rare to see a “useable” kitchen,
whenever a family will eat together they will buy take aways

but despite having some great classic dishes,i’d say the food culture in the UK is far from the one encountered in any other European countries.[/quote]
Wow! You surely haven’t spent much time in the UK! The kitchen is the most important room in the house for most of my friends and all my sisters and their families. But you’re right – the food culture in the UK is different from the rest of Europe. In France, for instance, they eat pretty much only French food, while in Spain, Italy, Germany, etc., they eat pretty much their own food too. In Britain, though, we eat French, Italian, German, Scandinavian, Indian, etc. Great for us. Too bad for you. :wink:[/quote]Right. I miss UK kitchens! Plenty of worktop space, and real ovens. I also miss food shopping in the UK. There’s a huge variety of different things available.

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I should add that perhaps DaBlindFrog is getting his/her opinion of British food from all those comic “exploding Christmas pudding in Britain” features they have on French TV news.

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[quote=“TainanCowboy”]Traditional British dishes facing extinction
Sun Jul 23, 2:56 PM ET

LONDON (AFP) - Traditional British delicacies such as bath chaps, jugged hare and brawn are under threat of extinction as youths in the kingdom haven’t even heard of them, a survey showed.

Just one percent of those surveyed under 25 recognised bath chaps – pigs’ cheeks covered in breadcrumbs – while only 1.6 percent had heard of jugged hare – hare meat served in a sauce of its blood mixed with port.

Brawn (jellied pig’s head) came third on the list, while squirrel casserole was fourth.

By contrast, the survey of 2,021 people carried out for British television channel UKTV Food showed that 40 percent of over-60s here were aware of bath chaps while a third of older respondents recognised jugged hare.

“While pigs’ cheeks and squirrel casserole are clearly not to everyone’s tastes, they are a powerful link to a bygone culinary era,” said Paul Moreton, the food channel’s head.

British politicians in the past have celebrated the seeming lack of a “national” cuisine as indicative of the country’s integration of different cultures.

Then-foreign secretary Robin Cook said in 2001 that chicken tikka masala, an adaptation of an Indian dish to suit the British palate, was Britain’s “true national dish”.
news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060723/wl … 0723185317[/quote]

Ha - I’ve never heard of any of those “dying favourites”. Sounds like they’re dying out for a good reason. When I was a kid no-one would go to the UK for the food. Now that we’ve invited everyone else in to cook for us (as Sandman points out), I think it’s one of the best places in the world to eat. Best thing about ‘traditional’ British food? We make the best cakes and puddings. I’d choose a slice of the carrot cake my Mum makes over any other dessert in the world.

And this is from an AFP story? Doesn’t that stand for Agence France-Presse or somesuch? Trust those snooty Frenchies to write demeaning stories about our food. :raspberry: :laughing:

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I’ve never heard of them either. There’s a probably a good reason why they’re dying out, they sound disgusting. There’s dozens of other dishes that are nice (that excludes black pudding and haggis) that are still thriving.

Why the pictures of spotted dick and faggotts ? I think they’re as popular now as they ever were.

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Gives the Americans something to chuckle about. Still, they have fannypacks and grown men called Randy, so I think we’re probably even on that score.

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Jugged hare and squirrel are GOOD eatin’! I don’t know about pig’s cheeks, but I expect they’re pretty good too. But it’s really just a thinly disguised attack by a stupid Froggy reporter – name me a single country in the world that has pigs and doesn’t use every part but the oink. :wink:
And by the way, possibly the most foetid shite of a grease-soaked pile of sludge was served to me in that culinary bastion, France. Does that make French food disgusting? Of course it bloody doesn’t. It simply marks the person who thinks so to be an ignorant fool.

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In the world of ‘Hillbilly’ cuisine, pig’s cheeks are aka “hog jowls” and are very common.
I suspect it is a transplanted item from English, Irish and Scots immigrants.
A very common food amongst my kin.

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Guys, be honest. The UK may have great food these days, but traditional British food has never been up to much. That’s why we had to go out and colonize other countries. The driving force behind the early explorations was the quest for spices.

You think Clive of India would have stayed long if India had been all about yoga and elephants? Not bloody likely. After polishing off his first jalfrezi he announced “I have got to get some more of that,” and promptly raised an army hell bent on capturing the fabled Koh-i-Noor restaurant in Delhi. Imagine the decision facing the guy: Shall I return home and resign myself to a life sustained by boiled root vegetables and lard, or shall I declare war on another sovereign nation simply so that I can stuff my face with naan and vindaloo for the rest of my life? No contest really.

Britain’s history is one of endless questing for good nosh. Even the settlements in the new world owe their existence to the simple fact that the humble potato was a huge improvement over the typical fayre in Elizabethan England. World history would have been a lot different if Britain’s culinary heritage had included more than lumps hacked off animals and a few interestingly shaped turnips, but it didn’t and that’s what drove us to conquer the known universe.

We practised in Scotland first, with disappointing results. In fact, the situation there was even worse, except that few people were sophisticated enough to realise it. Samuel Johnson, in the first English dictionary mentions “Oats: a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.”

Under those circumstances, it’s hardly surprising that the English were compelled to go out and become the greatest nation on Earth, is it? Now we’re reaping the rewards, sitting back on our laurels and stuffing our faces with all the goodies we’ve claimed from the rest of the world. Except for haggis, that is. Disgusting stuff, and they’re endangered now anyways.

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Curry is our national dish.

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I could feed you on nothing BUT traditional British food for a year, never serve you the same thing twice and never serve you something you didn’t like. And boiled cabbage wouldn’t come into the equation.
I think its more accurate to say that people are ignorant about good British food.
I subscribe to a magazine called Good Food published by the BBC. I’ve been getting it for the last three years and each monthly issue contains at least 100 recipes. British food. Largely British produce. And I guarantee that not one of you would be able to look at one without drooling. Food isn’t a static thing. So a lot (but by no means all) of British (read Northern European) food was at one time bland and stodgy. It certainly isn’t the case any longer, and hasn’t been the case since well before most of you were even born. I’m as Scottish as Scottish can be, yet even growing up as far back as the 60s, I really cannot remember eating the kind of stuff that’s laughingly described as “traditional British food” – it had already largely receded by that time, replaced by all kinds of European influences, but British food nevertheless – as long as you count British food as being “food eaten in Britain by British people.”
And of course, the best of REAL traditional British food was still served and continues to be served today.

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Gives the Americans something to chuckle about. Still, they have fannypacks and grown men called Randy, so I think we’re probably even on that score.[/quote]

:laughing:

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:roflmao:

You are my hero. I won’t stop laughing for at least a month.

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[quote=“tmwc”]Guys, be honest. The UK may have great food these days, but traditional British food has never been up to much. That’s why we had to go out and colonize other countries. The driving force behind the early explorations was the quest for spices.

You think Clive of India would have stayed long if India had been all about yoga and elephants? Not bloody likely. After polishing off his first jalfrezi he announced “I have got to get some more of that,” and promptly raised an army hell bent on capturing the fabled Koh-i-Noor restaurant in Delhi. Imagine the decision facing the guy: Shall I return home and resign myself to a life sustained by boiled root vegetables and lard, or shall I declare war on another sovereign nation simply so that I can stuff my face with naan and vindaloo for the rest of my life? No contest really.

Britain’s history is one of endless questing for good nosh. Even the settlements in the new world owe their existence to the simple fact that the humble potato was a huge improvement over the typical fayre in Elizabethan England. World history would have been a lot different if Britain’s culinary heritage had included more than lumps hacked off animals and a few interestingly shaped turnips, but it didn’t and that’s what drove us to conquer the known universe.

We practised in Scotland first, with disappointing results. In fact, the situation there was even worse, except that few people were sophisticated enough to realise it. Samuel Johnson, in the first English dictionary mentions “Oats: a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.”

Under those circumstances, it’s hardly surprising that the English were compelled to go out and become the greatest nation on Earth, is it? Now we’re reaping the rewards, sitting back on our laurels and stuffing our faces with all the goodies we’ve claimed from the rest of the world. Except for haggis, that is. Disgusting stuff, and they’re endangered now anyways.[/quote]

I thought this was a fantastic post.
Informative, well written, and very funny.
I’d even nominated as one of those coveted classic posts but then someone would actually have to agree with me.
tmwc, keep posting! :bravo:

19

Oh, that’s what brawn is? It used to feature among the “scraps” (salami ends and other unsightly items) my mother bought from the cold meat counter at the supermarket.