Well. The fifth essay (on the novel Tipping the velvet) is on it’s way to be finished and I thought I should allow myself a break. By writing some more.
Yesterday, in a very hot kitchen and with a very red face, I baked Dutch pancakes for a full house (not my own flatmates though, but mostly visitors; J., who had been home to Switzerland (i.e. I’m not talking about the Swedish J.) had brought me a fresh Limited Edition Toblerone, and R., Swiss as well, a fresh Swiss Stollzie (don’t know how to spell it). And for tomorrow, I have an counter-invitation for a Swiss cheese fondue next door!
However, I am not here to tell you about the Netherlands, or Switzerland, so here we go:
English Food is Pretty Good!
Whatever some people may say or think (;-) George Orwell is right in his “In Defence of English Cooking” (published first in the Evening Standard on December 15, 1945); so right that I will quote the beginning of the essay here:
“We have heard a good deal of talk in recent years about the desirability of attracting foreign tourists to this country. It is well known that England’s two worst faults, from a foreign visitor’s point of view, are the gloom of our Sundays and the difficulty of buying a drink.
Both of these are due of fanatical minorities who will need a lot of quelling, including extensive legislation. But there is one point on which public opinion could bring about a rapid change for the better: I mean cooking.
It is commonly said, even by the English themselves, that English cooking is the worst in the world. It is supposed to be not merely incompetent, but also imitative, and I even read quite recently, in a book by a French writer, the remark: ‘The best English cooking is, of course, simply French cooking.’
Now that is simply not true, as anyone who has lived long abroad will know, there is a whole host of delicacies which it is quite impossible to obtain outside the English-speaking countries. No doubt the list could be added to, but here are some of the things that I myself have sought for in foreign countries and failed to find.”
I will proceed as Orwell did and tell you of some of the “delicacies” (and of course the ‘not so delicacies’)I found here.
There’s indeed a lot here you can’t get in the Netherlands or elsewhere. And there’s a lot not here which I have been looking for because I miss it. Of course, England still being a somewhat European country, the largest parts of the Dutch and English food worlds overlap, but even when items appear in both worlds (yoghurt-yogurt, melk-milk, brood-bread, sojasaus-soy sauce), you will invariably find they have acquired a different quality here; call it Englishness. But of course this is only relative, for food in the Netherlands has, I guess, a Dutchness, as I will undoubtedly notice once I get back in a few weeks…
Some things which I found strange when I arrived here in September last year, I still find strange. Or a shame. Some things I have come to enjoy with time. Some things I’ve simply got used to (such as the (in my eyes somewhat uneconomic) shape of the plastic milk bottles). But most things have been wonderful from the start.
As you know, I’m a softy for desserts. And somehow, English desserts seem to be made for winter. I wouldn’t eat treacle sponge, chocolate pudding, custard and spotted dick all year round. I think I would prefer light French desserts – tarte au citron, îles flottantes, crème brûlée, tarte tatin… - on a déjeuner sûr l’herbe. But on a rainy afternoon*, tucked away in the corner of a warm, damp, smoky public house, next to a blazing fire…
*English dinners are served in the late afternoon, because otherwise there will be no time left to get drunk before 10pm. According to the same logic, lunches are taken between 12 and 2, not later. This silliness has often annoyed me, on moments that I (we) were looking for a place to eat, or, on one occasion, when M. and I were told we could not have dessert after our dinner anymore, as the cook had gone home (as if they needed a cook to heat the dessert)… at eight! That’s when in proper countries they are still very busy with their siesta! (Don’t mean that seriously of course. England is not an improper country. But let’s call it… funny in some respects.) For the rest, my/our pub meals (i.e. main courses) have been excellent without exception. I think I would call steak and ale pie my favourite at the moment.
Then there’s the astonishing collection of baking products they have in the average supermarket. Colorants, essences, loafs of marzipan, thirty types of flour and forty types of sugar, baking powders, cake decoration thingies, mincemeat, all the nuts and dried fruits of the world (well, okay, not all, but the choice is larger here) and more. And then there’s treacle:
“‘Once upon a time there were three little sisters,’ the Dormouse began in a great hurry; ‘and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well -’
‘What did they live on?’ said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking.
‘They lived on treacle,’ said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two.
‘They couldn't have done that, you know,’ Alice gently remarked; ‘they'd have been ill.'’
‘So they were,’ said the Dormouse; ‘VERY ill.’”
But I have been modest with the treacle, and there’s still a good deal left of Lyle's Golden Syrup in its elegant gold and green tin ("out of the strong came forth sweetness" it says) to take back with me.
Let’s move on to more serious business. Knives.
I had brought my precious IKEA Swedish Chef knife, of the size to cut (chocolate) moose with, to Exeter. (I say precious, because it is a souvenir from the time I was cutting tuna at the IKEA restaurant.) On my first visit to an English supermarket I intended to buy a nice cheap little aardappelmesje. Not a chance. On my second visit to town I went to a different supermarket. Nope. On my third, I looked for a HEMA (one thing I have dearly missed). In the meantime I had to make do with the Swedish butcher’s knife. Cutting raw meat was fine. Cutting huge white cabbages: okay. Cutting bread: mwah… Cutting an onion: surprisingly smooth. Cutting raw flesh: surprisingly smooth. Cutting garlic with four fingers: mm. After paring an apple with three fingers I gave up. There must be a solution. So I spent an entire day in town asking around for a place to buy a decent all-round fruit/vegetable knife. It was about the sixth shop were I finally had success (not exaggerating now). Thank you Woolworths.
Some tips for expats:
Miss vanillevla? I mean, real vanillevla? Cook custard and mix with English yogurt (not French, not German, not Dutch, but English – or you will get vanilleyoghurt). Niet van echt te onderscheiden.
Run out of pepper for on your sandwich? First cut some cabbage, and then use the same knife to cut the bread. (Mm, why was I doing that?)
Want to taste something truly disgusting? Try to cook rice pudding with coconut milk instead of cow milk. Life must be hard for vegans…
Cheese:
Cheddar (or “Cheddich” as it is sometimes called. By L.) must be even more boring than Goudse jong belegen. Why is England not famous for its glorious Cheshire (cats), its Red Leicester or its Wensleydale’s, with or without cranberries?
Bread in England is rather a disaster. Ordinary bread that is. I’m sure there must be some small independent macrobiotic bakery in London; but cheap and simple supermarket bread here is so much worse than in the Netherlands. That’s at least one thing I have learned from my stay: I now know why the English do not eat boterhammen: they eat “toast”. Groot gelijk.
And then there’s thirty types of marmalade to make up for it. Some may remember that I dislike (read: am disgusted by) jams and the like. In France this already proved something of a problem, so I have loosened my principles. And I think, by now, I am even kind of liking things like marmalade and blackcurrant jam. (O, did I tell you they have something very nice here? It’s called gooseberry fruit fool. It is gooseberry (kruisbes; my favourite vla (L)) plus yogurt plus lots of cream. Sounds nice, ay, dad?
A long time ago, I heard someone say they missed bladerdeeg in the English supermarkets, so they couldn’t make all their splendid bladerdeegcreaties anymore. To them I would say: don’t look in the freezer; look in the fridge. Works for Sainsbury’s at least. And bladerdeeg (puff pastry) is not the only thing they have!
What they also have, as M. remarked some months ago, is Dutch fruit and ginger loafs, ready imported.
What they don’t have, and another thing I miss dearly, is Ketjap. Have had to be satisfied with Chinese soy sauce for the time being.
It is widely known (especially in Dining Hall) that the Netherlands are something special when it comes to the things we put on our boterhammen (untranslatable, or it would have to be ‘single sandwiches’). Of course no hagelslag or muisjes on the shelves here (wel in mijn eigen voorraadkast natuurlijk). There is peanut butter, and very nice peanut butter for that matter (although the jar looks like it contains mustard, which has been a problem when they were still next to each other in my cupboard). But it contains sugar! So, in the end, I prefer Calvé. Wie is er niet groot mee geworden?
What else have I put on my bread? “Shippam’s beef spread; Chichester, England estd 1750. Improved recipe”. I was seduced by the mentioning of ginger in the list of ingredients. It’s not quite pâté, but it’s okay. Still, I wonder whether I was really meant to put it on my bread, as the jar was so unbelievably tiny. However, what else would you “spread beef” on?
Moving on to dinner/supper/high tea/food at 6pm.
I’ve cooked a lot (much more than my British flatmates, who were usually satisfied with baked beans on toast three times a day). And I’ve aten sooo much better than in Dining Hall: will be hard to get back.
To my regret I’ve mainly been cooking from Dutch/French recipes, but I’ve done some English/Indian stuff, too.
Sausages (or “saulsahges” as they are sometimes called. By d.) for example, though I’ve only had them once or twice, are very good here. However, as all food you buy here, their packaging can be quite funny: “Tesco finest. 6 pork and sweet chilli sausages. Suitable for home freezing [no: really?!]. Remove all packaging before cooking [Oh?]. Adjust times according to your particular oven; all appliances vary, these are guidelines only. Freezing guidelines: freeze on day of purchase. This product may contain traces of sesame seeds and nuts, as it has been made in a factory that uses sesame seed and nut ingredients”. Aha.
Local food: as it’s rather expensive most of the time, I haven’t had much. Some cheese, scones (Devonshire cream tea!), cakes maybe. And Cornish pasty, the practical miners’ lunch from Cornwall (potato, swede, meat, packed into solid dough) that turned into a tourist attraction. I’ve given it two goes, but decided that it’s not for me.
The Traditional Sunday Roast to me first sounded as a nostalgic memory from the days of the separation of public and domestic spheres, in other words, the housewife era. It turns out to be very much alive: my flatmates told me their mothers really get up early on Sunday morning to drudge in the kitchen until at 12 noon they can present the perfect roast joint and potatoes (and turnips of course).
However, the solution is nigh (and no, it does not involve giving up the Sunday roast; quite the contrary): not only will the roast cost no trouble at all anymore, but it’s even become so easy that we would like to eat the same, not every week, but every day!!:
”Ready roast: don’t save it for Sundays! […] Preparation and mess-free […] There’s nothing quite like a Sunday roast to tantalise your taste buds… the aroma, the sizzle, the meat that melts in your mouth. But why wait for the weekend when it makes the perfect midweek meal? The launch of Global Cuisine Ready Roast, a revolutionary new range of joints, brings you the modern way to enjoy the great family tradition. This award-winning innovation brings you the quality of a home-cooked roast, microwaved in just 7 minutes. Grab one from Somerfield’s shelves now.”
Hail to modernisation and emancipation! Or hail to tradition and Englishness?
A note on supermarket magazines: here, you have to pay for them everywhere, except in Somerfield, but that one has very few recipes. Dus dat moet ik Albert Heijn (and its copy-cats) nageven: de Allerhande is vurkeluk veurtréffeluk (and for free)!
- We are finally approaching the end of this entry -
In December 1945, war rationing still in place, Orwell said that “It is not a law of nature that every restaurant [or supermarket] in England should be either foreign or bad”. And I am happy to be able to say that now, sixty years later, Orwell’s wishes have come true.
-
A last something: yesterday’s All Stars; what they look like?
Two mugs of hot chocolate with pink marshmallows in it!
