Tasteavision from just seeing it? Cool. Sort of like Willy Wonka’s Wonkavision. Why go to the restaurant when the food can be zapped directly to you to taste yourself?
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So, we agree what it looks like. Maybe where I am in the world, I’m just more used to eating crap bread but I’m so used to being fed that sort of baguette in cafes that I don’t regard it as “horrendous”. Times are tough in hospitality so, even though a Turkish breakfast may cost me in excess of £10 , I’ve no great expectations of great quality of product.
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Horrendous bread for me is moldy bread. Or 4 day old bread that’s rock hard. Or burnt toast.
Ordinary cheapish baguette is ordinary cheapish baguette.
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Getting served unexpectedly good bread is a delightful surprise. And when it happens, I shamelessly indulge.
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At a now-closed Lebanese restaurant in London called Fakhreldin Express (despite the name, it was not fast food) we were served warm pita to go with their really good food; it was a very pleasant surprise. We had a favorite Lebanese restaurant here (alas, also now closed) that had great food, but did not warm up the pita. What a difference!
The rest of the comments are fun. And Twitter pointed me to this, an American trying out British mustard.
https://twitter.com/paul_haine/status/1766386912128795000
Also with lots of funny comments.
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We went to the market at Bury last week. Came away with black puddings, Chorley cakes, rare breed pork shoulder, cheese & onion pie. And some very expensive rhubarb - the very first of the new season forced rhubarb But we noticed that just about every bakery stall was selling something called “school cake”. Never heard of it before but realised it was obviously something of a “thing”. Looked like a basic sponge, topped with icing and then a scattering of sprinkles. I’m told it’s now the thing to use the American word “sprinkles”, rather than the British “hundreds & thousands”.
So, a bit of Googling reveals it is a traditional cake but I can’t find anything that confirms why it’s called school cake. Maybe something served in the school canteen, or a cake that might go in a kid’s lunch box. Whatever. Here’s a recipe -
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I had a rather good though not great Sunday Roast at the Angel on the Bridge in Henley on the Thames a few weeks ago. For me, this dish is the epitome of British food.
It was prepared rather well with potatoes, parsnips and carrots and a very good Yorkshire Pudding. The roast beef was a bit overdone. I peeked at the table next to me and theirs was as well. I guess rare roast beef is frowned on at that establishment. But the ale and the rest of the food were very good. Love that pub and its location. The Thames was pretty high, the narrow boat owners had to tip toe through a couple inches of puddled water to get to their ladderways. Nothing bad in mid-March but I am not sure what the river did later in the month.
I thought i had posted this but could not find it here. Sorry if this is a re-post!
Brakspear was a good choice for me!
The lowest picnic tables were in nearly a foot of water.
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Ah, one of my favourite subjects there, Phoenika. The regionalisation of the humble bread roll name.
In the south of the Greater Manchester area, where I live, it’s a barmcake (usually shortened to barm). Ten miles away, in the town where I used to work, in the east of the metro area, it’s a bap. It’s a muffin in the northern part of the metro. And 20 miles to my south, where we occasionally go to a farmers market, it’s become a cob.
But an oven bottom muffin is flat on both sides, rather than the normal dome top on a bread roll. The best you can buy come from Sheldon’s in East Manchester. It’s what you want for your mid morning bacon butty from the greasy spoon. You’ll be asked if you want it with red or brown sauce but that’s a whole different debate.
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What are the fillings?
That illustration totally looked like a chip butty to me.
That is NOT British mustard, that is ENGLISH mustard.
The fillings for a bacon butty are bacon and sauce (red or brown).
The drawings look like they’re chips/fries, though. Someone uptopic mentioned them.
Apologies. As your post was marked as a reply to me, I’d assumed you were asking me about my post.
As for the drawings further upthread, they are a chip barm. A chip butty would, more usually, be on sliced white bread but it’s pretty interchangeable.
My question here would be to any contributors from the south of England. Do you have chip butties or are they chip sarnies?
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The Guardian article nails this.
It makes reference to the first chip barm being in Oldham in the 1860s. This is , I presume, referencing the guy who is fully recorded as the person who first sold fish & chips together in the town of Mossley (now part of the borough of Oldham). Mossley is about a 20 minute drive from me and still in the metro area. I hadnt previously seen to reference to the chip barm but it makes sense that he’d also sell chips with bread.
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