The amount of international cuisine on offer these days is quite amazing. In my regular UK supermarket I can buy foods from all around the world, including Halal and Kosher.
Having been born in 1946, I can still remember that the only Rice available in the shops was 'Pudding Rice'. Pasta was still unheard of, and China was just some far off place where people smoked Opium.
Curry was still considered exotic in the 50's and 60's, and it eventually became popular via packets made by Vesta; as did certain so-called Chinese dishes. People knew no better. It took another 60 years for Chicken Tikka Masala to become Britain's favourite dish.
Chinese and Thai foods have now become so popular that take-away restaurants are everywhere.
However, North African dishes are yet to become favourites, and I expect that will remain so.
Most households would now eat Pasta or Pizza every week. We eat Swedish Meatballs, German Sauerkraut, Greek Salads, French Croissants, Spanish Paella, Turkish Kababs, and Danish Pastries.
French cuisine, once regarded as the epitome of fine-dining, is really very similar to English cuisine, and in fact I think we have now overtaken them in the gastronomic league table. Their decline is very noticeable in France itself.
I am personally very fond of Ground Cumin, so any excuse to use some is welcomed, and North African dishes appear often on the Magnon table.
So what is my favourite national cuisine? I really don't know, but The Maghreb, China, and India are all jostling for first place. I really must make my mind up!
We were the same growing up. Even spaghetti was exotic. But my mother mother did make a mean curry. However it was a sweet curry with marmalade and coconut. The exact recipe was lost but all the siblings make something similar.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile back here on a Greek island Chinese, Indian and even Moroccan are exotic. Anything like that is made from scratch. Not much in the supermarket except instant noodles, curry and cumin.
I miss a good Chinese. Made a curry yesterday, neither sweet nor too hot.
Lovely
My father's older brother had worked in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and had taught him the secrets of a good curry. Father used to make a curry occasionally when I was small; they were very good.
DeleteMy brother shared a flat with a Ceylonese student when he was at uni, and learned the art of curry making then. He introduced the rest of the family to curries, except for one uncle who had served with the RAF in India during WW2 who had developed a taste for real Madras there.
ReplyDeleteI never tasted one of my Uncle's curries, but I expect they were even better than Father's. I'm not sure how long he stayed in Ceylon, but he eventually caught para-Typhoid, and had to be repatriated.
DeleteThe first time my mother cooked spaghetti she served it up as a vegetable. I first tasted pizza at the Ideal Home Exhibition in the 70s. Ski yogurt was a new thing and Dad's Vesta curries (that he alone ate) were 'exotic'.
ReplyDeleteI do remember the Vesta 'Chow Mein'; it was dreadful. I'm amazed the trades' description folk didn't sue them!
DeleteNow you've made me feel hungry, and I've just finished breakfast.
ReplyDeleteJust in time for lunch!
DeleteIt is surprising that you did not mention a special delicacy that is enjoyed all across this island - the Yorkshire pudding. To witness a golden Yorkshire pudding rising is to stand on the edge of heaven.
ReplyDelete"To witness a golden Yorkshire pudding rising is to stand on the edge of heaven."
DeleteYorkshire Puddeing... to actually get a Yorkshire Pud to rise would be a miracle to me... in 75 years, it is one thing that has totally eluded me... I have followed this recipe and that recipe very carefully [gods alone know how many].... temperatures observed, no opening of oven door to check.... and all I ever get is shoe leather!!
I had an Aunt in Shropshire who made the world's best Yorkshire Pudding. She would just pour the batter underneath a roasted lump of Beef; and woooosh! Gosh it was delicious!
DeleteLe Pré de la Forge... Please accept my most sincere sympathies. Not being able to bake Yorkshire puddings means that your life is incomplete. You have missed out on one of God's finest gifts. In contrast, Cro's Aunt Bessie in Shropshire had demonstrably discovered the key to enlightenment.
DeleteMy mother was one of five sisters, and she was the only one who had the "knack" of making golden, fully risen, Yorkshire Puddings. Whenever we visited my aunt's, my mother was always dragged into the kitchen to make the Yorkshires
DeleteLuckily, I haven't missed out as my Mother and now my wife, both do not have my handicap.... our microwave is also a grill and a convection oven and on more than one occasion, my wife has succeeded in getting her Yorkshire to hit the grill element! So I concentrate on the ingredients to go with it!
DeleteI have had success at toad-in-the-hole... and therefore decided on one occasion to try using the same recipe for the Yorkie..... nope. flat and leathery!
Surely "toad-in-the-hole" is a euphemism.
DeleteI suppose we think that we know what foreign foods taste like but my son lived in Hong Kong for 2yrs and he said the food was totally different to what we call a Chinese takeaway. Plus the teas that he used to send me were like twigs of wood which actually improved when brewed more than once.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that's right. Often foreign foods are altered to suit the new country. In France, Chinese food is totally different to the UK.
DeleteCro, what about the French idea of curry.... so mild, they use it almost as a enhancer of flavour!
DeleteEven Pataks curries are toned down for the French market.... we were coming to the end of a British bought Pataks Madras curry paste so naturally I made sure a new jar was bought the next Intermarché visit.
As it happened, there wasn't enough paste for the next curry, so the French Pataks was opened alongside the old UK jar.... the first thing I noticed was a lack of curriness in the French jar, so I tasted what was on the spoon from the Anglias jar against the French one [both Madrass, both totally different!]
The contents of the french jar were edible off the spoon!!
So we now get friends who migrate to bring us Pataks pastes from the UK.
Thai curries are better flavoured and I got some Vietnamese curry paste from Lidl... now that is good.... blows the ruddy doors off that does [manages to find two more... but like a lot of things "Lidl", it will probably never appear again!!!]
I had a neighbour who 'treated' me to a curry. She was a Parisienne, and felt obliged to ask if the curry was too hot for me. It was so mild it could have been a Chicken stew!
DeleteI now always take a jar of Patak's Balti Spice Paste with me to France. The one jar usually lasts for the 3 months, but I have others in reserve.
Here too, pasta or pizza were unheard of in the 1950s and maybe even the 1960s. My grandmother, who came from Germany, would make macaroni with sugar, white cheese, and cinnamon, but they didn't call it pasta. The first time I ate pizza was in the late 1960s when I first arrived in Italy.
ReplyDeleteI think my first taste of Pizza was probably around the same time, and also in Italy itself. In the 60's it was still unknown here. Your grandmother's Macaroni sounds very strange.
DeleteYael, my Grandmother [of German descent also] made that, using her "cottage cheese" [milk that had gone over and strained through a butter muslin stretched between the two sink taps].... hers was baked in the oven, was yours..... the name will come to me later.... probably around 3am!
DeleteI've just looked it up, kugel... lokshen kugel... we knew it as Granny's Kugel...
Deleteit is apparently...
"an Ashkenazi Jewish casserole, side dish and popular variety of kugel made with lokshen noodles and either a variety of dairy or pareve ingredients."
Apparently the noodles/macaroni gets a bit caramelised!! I am now tempted to make it as I have a white goats cheese in the fridge that needs consuming!
Le pre... I'm so glad there's someone here who knows these foods, she didn't make kegels, (unfortunately, knowing how delicious they are...) she just cooked the macaroni and mixed it with plain white cheese, we hadn't heard of cottage cheese here in those days. She also cooked krapelach in chicken broth, and a kind of sweet omelet with lots of jam and sugar that they called a pan cake...
DeleteMy first husband would not eat foreign foods, so I regularly had Vesta boxes, this was back in mid 70's. These days we eat from around the world, Chinese is my favourite, hubby's would be Indian, we both love Paella.
ReplyDeletePicky eaters don't know what they're missing! Chinese food is probably the most interesting and exotic. I've had some memorable meals.
DeleteAhh! Vesta!!!
ReplyDeleteThe little packets that taught me to cook!!
At teacher training college, resident students were not catered for at weekends... instead we had a kitchenette in each block and were given a cardboard box with bread rolls, UHT milk, tea bags, instant coffee sachets, tinfoiljam and four Vesta packs.... after one "meal" where the prawn curry came out as "a curried prawn"... just one, shrimp sized "prawn" and a lot of sauce with veggie bits in... I began to extend the Vesta pack with added chicken, prawns, beef and real veg... much tastier!
And you are slightly inaccurate about lack of North African restaurants in the UK... Leeds at least, we had six... all very good.
And at your "wee hideaway" in France there's no problem... packs of ingredients for tajines and couscous in all the supermarchés, and African spices like Ras el Hanout to liven up pumpkin & tomato soup... not so sure about African restaurants... there's one in Tours that everyone raves about.. and I'll hazard Marseille has plenty, though.
My love of Moroccan food comes mostly from France. My recollection of Tagines etc in Marrakech didn't come anywhere near the French ones. We have lots of Moroccans and Algerians where we live; they came to work in the huge nearby Iron foundry (now closed)..
DeleteEnglish food has vastly improved in the last 50 years. We really eat a world cuisine these days. Communications and travel have broken down many barriers of the past.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile the quality in France has gone downhill. You would hardly believe how well we ate in tiny restaurants 50 years ago. Not now!
DeleteI also like exotic dishes well spiced. Although, my attempts at exotic dishes are never quite as good as the restaurant version.
ReplyDeleteTurmeric is great and I use smoked paprika quite a bit.
We all make our own versions of restaurant favourites. Ours can often be better; but not always.
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