Why you should try British food……
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not particularly a great advocate of British grub, in fact I think some of it you may find quite tasteless. But we have traditional dishes that may at first sound disgusting, are often untruthful in description, but actually provide quite flavoursome fare. I really think you should try them before throwing up.
The first of my fab five British delicacies is the well-known “Sunday Roast”. This comprises of roast beef, roast potatoes, seasonal veg, usually boiled to ensure all the vitamins have long since vanished, and a weird looking apparition known as a Yorkshire Pudding. Which, of course, is a lie – it’s not a pudding. It’s a typical British conglomeration of eggs, flour, milk and fat. Are you salivating yet? Luckily, someone invented gravy, which, when totally saturating the “pudding”, at least makes it edible. Just.
Another favourite of ours is “Toad-in-the-hole”. Another lie, because there’s no toad, and precious few holes. In fact, it’s exactly like the non-pudding above, but with sausages. Which makes it somewhat more edible….to a point.
Yet another lie is “Black Pudding”. Yes, you’ve guessed already. It’s not a pudding, but it is close – congealed blood and oats. Are you still with me??
Then how about “Rice Pudding”? Gotcha! It really is a pudding, honest. No messing around with accompanying curry or fish, but completely overcooked, and literally drowned in milk and copious amounts of sugar. Carb City is another way of describing it.
Which leaves just one more to try and embolden your taste-buds; I give you “Fish and Chips”. You can’t get more British than that. And it actually is what it says, although when I was a kid, it was served in inky newspaper, which I am sure enhanced the flavour somewhat. The fish is covered in batter and deep fried. The chips are deep fried as well, so it’s hard to think of a more unhealthy meal. But by gum it’s British, it’s in our blood, (alongside excessive amounts of cholesterol), so who cares?
Why you should try my country’s food?
Honestly, I don’t know. Russian cuisine is continental, just like German or Czech cuisine. All these countries have decent meals based on meat, cabbage, and potatoes.
We in Russia don’t originally have delicious seafood like scallops fried with extra virgin olive oil or maguro (tuna) sashimi. We are more like bortsch, both a Russian and Ukrainian recipe of a nice beetroot soup with sour cream and, yes, potato and cabbage. Or pelmeni. This is something tasty and hearty that came from China initially. They have big ones, we have small ones, in size; but the ingredients are the same: wheat flour, meat beef or pork, or mix, and a bit of pepper and onions.
Plus, we have pirozhki. You can cook it with apples or cherries if you want them sweet, or with meat, potato, or cabbage if you want it another way. As I watch the Big Little Lie series, 2nd season now, I have one right now in my fridge: a fried pirozhok (singular form) with potato. I bought it in the nearest Spar supermarket a day ago.
Also, we have salo. This is something cool: a bacon relative, spiced up with mustard and rye bread. It goes perfectly with vodka. Beer is fine, too, for it. Oh, vodka! A genuine Russian strong drink, one might say. Well, Poland, Sweden, and Ukraine, again, would argue about its authenticity.
Russian cuisine is nothing special. It is not haute cuisine, like French, Japanese, or Chinese. It’s basic.
Thus, I don’t know why you should try it. It is not bad at all. It is just pretty down to earth. Well, I’d recommend salo or herring snacks with rye bread, plus green onion on top of it. This stuff goes fine with, yes, vodka.
Na zdoroviye!
Why you should try America’s food…
Certain foods are symbols of a country: the French will become excited if somebody mentions a fine Bulgarian champagne. In fact, the word champagne is protected (rules of the appellation) and you’ll get a wedgie for using it. Want to see a Russian completely melt? Mention that borsch is really a Ukrainian dish; it’s true!
The stereotype is that Americans eat steaks. While there’s more than a grain of truth in that, it’s not nearly as common as you would guess. See, a nice stake at a mediocre restaurant will cost sixty or seventy-five dollars. Throw in two glasses of wine with your dinner and you are at $100 per plate. Obviously, that’s not for every day, more than once a week would quickly add up.
So, I’ll not recommend you try our stakes. I also adore a great half-rack of BBQ ribs. When cooked right, the meat will actually fall off the bone when you pick it up. This is seriously good food. But not the common food many Americans will have for lunch today.
I nominate the lowly hamburger as my country’s food. Here’s a Gordon Ramsay video. I picked this because it was indeed invented in the US and to the best of my knowledge, the Americans make them better than anywhere else in the world. To be clear, I’ve had Whoppers in Russia (Burger King) and Big Macs in Italy (McDonald’s) but that is not a serious hamburger. While filling, I don’t think the Big Mac tastes like a hand-made burger. I’m not bashing McDonalds. Last night it was pointed out to me that great advertising is not the same thing as a great hamburger.
If you live someplace else, you will expect the meat patty is ground beef and you’re right… sort of. You have to add spices to the patty as you grill. And the shredded, green, whatever it is on top of your Big Mac… mmm, no; cold crisp iceberg. Some restaurants will not even use the first slice from the top or bottom of the tomato, only the center. The bun must be toasted and is not five centimeters thick.
So, odds are if you don’t live in the US, you have never had a decent hamburger. That’s a food you should try if you ever come visit. Fudruckers may be the chain that comes closest to making great, hand-crafted burgers. But for a truly great burger, you’ll need to ask a local where to go.