And I'm gonna smell up the neighborhood this weekend!
Just damn.
If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...
Posted on 03/05/2004 2:17:25 PM PST by quidnunc
London – A curious smell began wafting across the Soho district here early last year, one that to Americans might have been as familiar and distinctive as the scent of popcorn at a movie theater but which struck the locals as new, foreboding and not a little uncivilized.
It was the smell of hickory smoke and charred hog fat, the unmistakable aroma of an old-fashioned pit barbecue, emanating from the chimney of a new rib joint called Bodean's, which takes its name from a main character in "The Beverly Hillbillies," Jethro Bodean. "They asked, 'How often will it smell like this?'" Bryan Tyrell, a Kansas City native who manages Bodean's, recalled his neighbors asking. "We said, 'All the time.'"
There has been nothing subtle about the arrival of down-home Southern cooking in London. Thanks to the overpowering smell coming out of Bodean's chimney and a handful of American soul food restaurants that have opened here in the last year, the English — or at least, a certain trendy subset of British foodies — have discovered Southern food, and have gone gaga for it.
No strangers to American culinary achievements like Pizza Hut, McDonald's, Krispy Kreme and the occasional 1950s theme restaurant like Johnny Rockets, some Londoners have gained a sudden and improbable enthusiasm for food that until recently many here considered vile: ribs, gumbo, collard greens, buttermilk biscuits, even grits. "It's wild and it's weird, and it's working-class, blue-collar food — nothing wrong with that," said Michael Smiley, a 41-year-old actor, as he ate a plate of ribs at Bodean's, where he said he had barbecue "once a fortnight."
London critics have rushed in to praise the new gastronomy, which some have called "redneck food" and "prison food." A.A. Gill, the rapier-penned critic for The Sunday Times, who makes mincemeat of overreaching London chefs, gave four stars out of five to Ashbell's, a soul food joint in trendy Notting Hill, which charges $28 for a plate of pulled pork and grits.
Bodean's was nominated for a Carlton Restaurant Award, one of London's premiere culinary prizes. Those who can imagine Daniel Boulud squaring off for a food prize against Dallas BBQ will get an idea of the culinary stakes involved in that matchup.
The timing of soul food chic in England could not be odder. Only a year ago, Giles Coren, a critic for The Times of London, spoke for many here when he likened grits to vomit and wrote that American food "is no different from the food in rural Ukraine in the darkest hours of Stalinism." He said: "It's just brighter colored and there's more of it."
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Making proper soul food in England, even for a professional chef, is no easy task. Simply getting a slab of ribs can be difficult because butchers in England do not usually make that particular cut. Getting proper hominy grits — ground feed corn that has been soaked in lye — is next to impossible, so restaurants like Ashbell's and Harlem are left to mix their own versions of grits from regular corn meal. The result looks and tastes like polenta, not that most Londoners would know the difference.
Condiments, too, are tricky. Yellow mustard must be shipped in from the States, and Helberg said he used a ketchup made from Portuguese tomatoes. It is more flavorful than the regular American stuff, and yet not quite the same. He uses charcoal not from South Carolina but from South Africa, and his hot dogs come from the Netherlands.
Tyrell is surprised at how many vegetarians show up at his barbecue joint — he estimates that about 20 percent of his customers do not eat meat — and for them, he said, he had to add a goat cheese ratatouille to the menu. He also said locals hated his corn bread. "You couldn't give it away," he said.
Sometimes British customers have to be educated about how to eat American cuisine, and occasionally their behavior at the table speaks to broader cultural differences between England and America. Conran said that when he served hamburgers unassembled — with an open bun and garnishes on the side — his customers often mistook the lettuce, tomato and onion for salad. Building your own burger, he supposed, is democratic and individualistic, and therefore a distinctly American notion. The British, he said, are unfamiliar with the notion of culinary manifest destiny.
The Brits have a way of taking a good thing and buggering it up.
Take pizza for instance: You can get Brussels sprouts, corn, baked beans and cottage cheese as pizza topings, for instance.
And then there is Chinese duck pizza, chicken tikka pizza and balti pizza.
Fish 'n Chips rules.
And I'm gonna smell up the neighborhood this weekend!
Just damn.
If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...
And I think haggis is pretty good; that is if you can get past what's in it.
The problem with real English fish 'n' chips is that they serve it dripping with deep-fry grease.
Except for salad cream!
That's vile and disgusting stuff, as is Marmite.
Seek and ye shall find:) We are everywhere!
By Dead Dog
1 Porter House Steak (Nebraska Beef)
2 Black Pepper
3 yellow onion
4 green pepper
5 shrooms
6 Beer (24 pack..brand of choice)
7 3 Lbs of Ice.
One hour before serving:
Poor a layer of ice in bottom of large wash tub
Place beer over layer of ice, cover beer with remaining ice.
30 minutes before serving
Light brickets
15 minutes
spread brickets into dense but even layer
Pepper and Grill steak 5 minute per side
While steak is grilling, saute veggies in butter until al dente(sp)
Remove steak; let set 5 minutes
Serve with veggies and nearly frozen beer.
That's OK, as long as it's real LARD and not that sissy vegetable shortening stuff!
;^)
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