Foodie Fun

One of the things that we like about visiting someplace new is the food.  Everywhere has it's signature foods and if you stick to the Pizza Huts or McDonald's ( and we know people who do that!) you're missing most of the fun of being someplace different.  I take pics of food so I will remember. Sometimes I try to recreate what I had.

 This is how we started our days.  This is called the English Breakfast.  If you are in a B & B you are automatically served this in the morning.  If you are at a hotel sometimes this is laid out as a buffet and sometimes it's a menu choice but it's always there.  Now, I'm not real thrilled with even being awake at 8 a.m. much less staring down a plate of food that consists of:  two sausages (large sausages), two pieces of English bacon (ham to us), two eggs, a crock of baked beans, mushrooms, two broiled tomatoes (not in this picture because PH already put them on my plate along with the beans) sometimes hash browns and two pieces of toast.  This is followed by a first course of yogurt, fruit and granola. We ate this and then didn't eat again until our evening meal. 

I had never had sticky toffee pudding so when I saw it on the menu at the first place Brian took us, I said I had to try it.  I'm not a 'pudding' person.  It's a texture thing, but when in Rome...
When I spooned into this I said to Brian, "this is cake!"  No, he said, it's pudding.  "But it's cake!" No, he said, it's pudding.  Here pudding is a custard, there it's this delicious warm little cake.  I was won over.

 

One evening we had a discussion about fruitcake being a staple at Christmas.  Apparently it's baked then soaked then covered and pushed to the back of a cupboard for A YEAR!  What??!!  I told Brian and his sister that here fruitcake is the butt of all jokes.  No one I know eats it. Some have been passed the same one back and forth between families for decades, but no one eats it.  It's a gooey, solid, strange looking brick.  They were very surprised.  For them it's a must at Christmas.  Well.  One day PH and I were walking down the street in a little town and I saw in a window of a pastry shop a variety of yummy looking things.  Yes, I brake for bakeries.  One of the featured goodies was this fruitcake.  I told PH it didn't look like any fruitcake I knew so I had to try it.  I immediately sent an email to Brian telling him it IS delicious.  Kind of like our gingerbread cake with fruits and nuts in it - more cake than brick for sure. It was wonderful and set my mind to thinking of variations of gingerbread for this winter.  I'm a convert.  In my family I'd tell people it's like our aunt Virgie's Boston brown bread. But different.  In a good way.

 

Yes, I brake for bakeries.  We were walking down the street in another little town and two little old ladies came out of this bakery holding a bag and giggling about the goodness.  I stopped them (I stopped everyone and talked to everyone) and asked what they bought.  "Lardy cake!"  Well, that doesn't even sound a bit healthy.  I mean the first word is "lardy!"  I asked what it was and they couldn't really say other than it's covered with sticky goo and it's sweet and it goes straight to your bum.

So of course I went in.  There was a tray of lardy cake slices and I bought one of those.  I can only describe it as kind of like a baklava but different.  The flake layers weren't flaky but a bit more dense - maybe from sitting in that sticky goo? Some fruit but mostly layers and goo and of course it was delicious.

 

We were in Windsor on the right day.  The middle market street was full of tents with vendors selling street food and there wasn't anything you could name that wasn't there as a street food. They only do this once a month so we were very lucky.  We make paella often so this stall looked good to us.  The pan was huge. You can just see the cook's hand at the top.  There were several different kinds you could choose from.  As we walked I suggested to PH that on our way out we stop and get something to take back to the hotel.  He ordered paella and I got bubble and squeek. That's potatoes and cabbage cooked together.  I ordered the chicken on top.  

In Port Isaac PH saw a sign board at a little outdoor cafe offering homemade velvet crab soup and he talked about it all morning.  So that was lunch that day.  I had a crab sandwich. He loved the soup. I loved the sandwich.  Fresh caught crab? What's not to like?

In a pub one night I ordered the fish and chips. The fish is one huge piece - like the whole fish!  It comes with mashed peas or whole and I opted out of those.  On our last evening with Brian just before we were to head home we had fish and chips from a fish shop.  He and PH went to pick it up and when they got home I had the table set, beer and wine poured.  As I unrolled the fish from the wrapper and put the chips in a bowl he said, "Fish and chips are meant to be eaten straight out of the newspaper while leaning against a wall." But we were content to eat them off a plate.  It was the perfect English meal for our last night.