Many gardens here have rhubarb. I have a small patch but am going to get more since I go through it as soon as it’s available. Apart from baking with it, I also make an agua fresca which is basically stewed rhubarb blended with water and then strained (or not). It’s quite refreshing.
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There are quite a few Prairie recipes for a rhubarb-ade, in various community cookbooks.
There’s a really nice pressed rhubarb and apple juice imported from the UK that’s available at some stores in Ontario, but it’s a splurge at $9 CAD/ litre
Cawston products are great. Their orange is the best I know that comes in a tetrabrik. But it’s more than four times the cost of the supermarket’s own label product, so doesnt get bought for this house, except for special occasions.
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From this morning
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Good advert for Tom Kerridge - who has a “Sunday Lunch” series on Food Network UK. Although the “changing” nature on a British Sunday pub lunch seems to be restricted to one pub, in London, serving a lamb curry. WOW., shock horror - my whole national food culture us being undermined. 
Disappointing to see the American interviewer continuing the stereotypical suggestion that British food is “bland and boring”. It’s really only an accusation that can possibly be levied between the 1930s and 1950s - the latter period being related to post World War 2 food rationing (which continued till 1954). It’s interesting that the accusation is levied at the UK but, seemingly, never at other very similar cuisines elsewhere in Northern Europe. We all grow pretty much the same stuff and use it in pretty much the same ways. But stereotypes are always like that, I suppose.
The mention of Yorkshire pudding being traditionally served with the Sunday roast was interesting. Whilst this is true for most Sunday roasts now served in pubs, it isnt traditional and, in fact, it’s only been like that in fairly recent years. Originally, it was served as a starter, with the gravy - a cheap way of filling up the family before the meat was served. And, in my experiece, it was only ever served with roast beef. Having a Yorkshire at home with roast lamb or pork would have been very odd - and still is in this house.
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Thanks for that summation.
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On the subject of Yorkshire puddings, our favourite South Asian place serves one as a starter - filled with lamb keema. With spicy mashed potato (presumably the same spuds that go in to their masala dosa). I’ve yet to try it as I’m not a great fan of fusion but maybe one day.
Making a good, crisp well-risen Yorkshire is a culinary skill, Unfortunately it’s a skill neither Mrs H nor I possess. So, we usually have a bag of Aunt Bessie’s in the freezer - https://www.auntbessies.co.uk/ranges/yorkshire-puddings
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I always look forward to reading Rayner on a Sunday morning. Actually didnt bother with this one. Just couldnt be arsed reading about posh hotdogs (unlike most sausages, I don’t particularly like the flavour of hotfogs),
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I still haven’t tried Spotted Dick, 2.5 years later.
I’m going to try to getr done before the end of the year.
I may make a new year resolution to try to eat more traditional British desserts. I think these days we get stuck on “sticky toffee pudding” (stuck/sticky - geddit?). It’s years since I’ve seen a jam roly-poly
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This sounds like fun and a workout for Harters who never disappoints with his informative posts about British cuisine.
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Let’s start a new thread dedicated to British desserts.
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Speaking of sticky toffee pudding, I have a claim to fame for this forum. That is, that I’ve eaten at the place where it was supposedly invented and to the recipe of the inventor. That was at the now closed Sharrow Bay Hotel in Cumbria (northwest England). The supposed inventor was Francis Coulson who owned and ran the hotel with his life and business partner, Brian Slack.
Most probably, he didnt invent it but he was certainly responsible for popularising it in the 1970s. There are a number of earlier claims to be the original. There’s even a story that Coulson told another chef, Simon Hopkinson, that he’d got the recipe from a Lancashire woman who, in turn, had got it from Canadian troops billeted with her during WW2. I like that story - our most famous and common dessert actually being foreign.
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I’ve never heard that account before! Thanks for the information, @harters.
A possible Canadian connection is mentioned here, too.
Potato Scones. Deets on the NYT baking thread here.
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Potato scones may not have survived the postwar ending of food rationing. Certainly I can’t recall ever seeing a recipe for them.
See also Woolton Pie.
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