Tipping in England, Ireland and Scotland

[chefestelle]

I bet this thread is going to spike the instances of English people going home for the weekend to get some old fashioned cooking from mum/grandmum!

 

 

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[john watson]

I would never ever use something like that. Bartender or Barman is fine for me!

 

Bar stewards!

 

Lol John

[john watson]

Mushy peas is a "Northern" thing, but we're seeing it more & more down south. Mainly with fish&chips, never with a roast or a chicken tikka masala. (well, mebbe with curry on P&O ships, but that's another story)

Made with big marrowfat peas, looks a mess but tastes great.

Best mushy peas I ever tasted (and the accompanying fish & chips was pretty good as well) was in the Wheelhouse(?) pub on a Princess ship!! But the chef obviously didn't like the lumpy look of mushy peas so he puree'd it. Totally wrong, but very tasty.

 

 

 

Spotted Dick is another re-born blast from the past, as described by others.

Cheap & cheerful, warm & filling in winter.

Used to be on school menus, but I bet it's not nowadays due to being loaded with carbohydrates & fats & calories.

 

JB :)

 

*** the egg fried. Not the duck. ;)

 

 

Not only a Northern Thing but also a "Class Thing" in my opinion I remember a famous politician being filmed in a Fish & Chip shop during an electoral campaign. He pointed out the mushy peas and asked the serving assistant whether he could have a portion of that Avocado Dip.

 

You have not mentioned Toad in the Hole.

 

PS London Towner MUSLIN cloth.

 

Regards John

Edited March 8, 2016 by john watson

[john watson]

 

Spotted Dick is suet pudding with raisins and/or currants in it and it is very yummy served with custard. Not the posh stuff made with egg yolks, but proper Birds Custard. The name probably morphed from dough to duff and then dick. This is really school food and only people who are fit and active should eat it.

 

In the Royal Navy any substantial pudding is referred to as a "Dick" I believe. What's for Dick would be a reasonable question.

 

Has anyone heard of the suet pudding known as "Babies Head"? Might confuse a few on a cruise ship menu.

 

Regards John

Edited March 8, 2016 by john watson

[John Bull]

In the Royal Navy any substantial pudding is referred to as a "Dick" I believe. What's for Dick would be a reasonable question.

 

Has anyone heard of the suet pudding known as "Babies Head"? Might confuse a few on a cruise ship menu.

 

Regards John

 

By coincidence I came across Babies Heads just last weekend. :)

Went over HMS Alliance, the naval sub which is the centrepiece of the navy's submarine museum at Gosport, just across the harbour entrance from Portsmouth's historic dockyard - there were babies heads amongst the other scran in the galley.

Individual steak & kidney puddings topped by tinned potatoes, a throwback of a few decades ago, not widely seen nowadays though I've seen it on a few pub & café menus (minus the potato).

But never called babies heads - that's Navy slang.

 

Here's some more:

http://www.hmscarysfort.co.uk/MessageBoard/Naval%20Expressions.htm

 

JB :)

[diebroke]

 

Mushy Peas are a died pea that is then soaked, normally for hours and then cooked so that they basically fall apart (delicious)

 

Bubble and Squeek a mixture of mashed vegetables, potato mainly as a rule, but including any vegetable you like (carrot, pumpkin greens onions sort of staples) fried, sometimes in oil sometimes just on a pan. Often formed into a patty first but probably just as often just done in a pan. a way to use left overs (again delicious)

 

Probably the best way to describe spotted dick is a cake (actually pudding) full of raisins sultanas and such dried fruit (a bit like fruitcake but a boiled or steamed pudding)

 

This & the other comments from "experts," explain why the British Empire is but a mere shadow of its former self and why the Big Mac explains American superiority.

[SteveH2508]

One or two of the recipe typos crack me up. GUT2407 using died peas (well they have been harvested).

 

LondonTowner using a Muslim cloth to make his Spotted Dick - diebroke - this is why the British Empire is no more:rolleyes:;).

 

Babies Heads is also Army slang for tinned steak and kidney pudding from the old tinned compo rations. Not bad when sliced in half and baked with a slice of processed cheese on top.

 

All good rib-sticking stuff!

 

Chefestelle - we are hitting the venison while it is in season - venison casserole with parsley dumplings last weekend - luverly!

[GUT2407]

This & the other comments from "experts," explain why the British Empire is but a mere shadow of its former self and why the Big Mac explains American superiority.

 

Big Mac v mushy Peas (or sloppy peas as we call them) and Fish nd Chips and Bubble and Squeek, no contest.

[GUT2407]

One or two of the recipe typos crack me up. GUT2407 using died peas (well they have been harvested).

 

LondonTowner using a Muslim cloth to make his Spotted Dick - diebroke - this is why the British Empire is no more:rolleyes:;).

 

Babies Heads is also Army slang for tinned steak and kidney pudding from the old tinned compo rations. Not bad when sliced in half and baked with a slice of processed cheese on top.

 

All good rib-sticking stuff!

 

Chefestelle - we are hitting the venison while it is in season - venison casserole with parsley dumplings last weekend - luverly!

 

 

Sorry, due to some medications I've got some eye problems, coupled with a dead computer (thus needing to peck things out on a small tablet, having some issues.

[SteveH2508]

Sorry, due to some medications I've got some eye problems, coupled with a dead computer (thus needing to peck things out on a small tablet, having some issues.

 

No worries mate - hope the eyes improve quickly.

[GUT2407]

No worries mate - hope the eyes improve quickly.

 

A change of medications coming up I hope.

[Bob++]

In the Royal Navy any substantial pudding is referred to as a "Dick" I believe. What's for Dick would be a reasonable question.

 

Has anyone heard of the suet pudding known as "Babies Head"? Might confuse a few on a cruise ship menu.

 

Regards John

 

I think that a British seaman would eat 'duff' rather than 'dick' (quiet at the back there).

 

For what I think must surely be the last word on suet puddings, I quote Patrick O'Brian, author of the definitive description of Naval life at the end of the 18th century.

The genus may be divided into three species, the first being the almost-obsolete dish called ball, or herb-pudding, a solid object made of flour and suet, with thyme, rosemary, marjoram and the like sprinkled through its substance, the whole being wrapped in a cloth and boiled for some hours before being brought to the table earlier than anything else, since its function was to take the edge off extreme appetite before the appearance of better and more costly things.

 

The second is made up of those which form the main substance of the meal, haggis, Burns's great chieftain of the pudding race, being a good example -- though there is also a great deal to be said for steak and kidney pudding, in which the obvious ingredients (and occasionally larks) are enclosed in an envelope of paste or dough made of flour, water and suet and then boiled, wrapped in a pudding-cloth, for a great while.

 

But the third, and for many the most delightful, is that which appears when the meat has been taken away -- the end and the crown of a dinner, reaching its apotheosis at Christmas, when the plum-pudding, a wonderful mixture of dried currants, raisins, rum, candied peel, spices, small silver charms and of course the essential suet, comes to the table, blazing with brandy and topped with holly.

 

Second only to that of Christmas we find a series of others, all founded upon that happy marriage of flour (two parts), suet (one part) and sugar consummated in a cloth or basin surrounded by boiling water. In spotted dog, for example, the dough is liberally sprinkled with fine bold currants and the cloth is tied tight, so that when the pudding is turned out on the dish its exterior is firm and relatively dry; in the version known as drowned baby, on the other hand, the cloth is somewhat looser, so that the resultant surface is agreeably glutinous. Plum duff is much the same, but prunes, sultanas or even dates take the place of currants (when it is made with raisins it is knows as figgy-dowdy in the West of England). Then there is roly-poly, in which the dough or paste is rolled out, spread with jam and rolled up again before being put into its cloth and boiled; and to this day a square in Lisbon is called after it, because the elegant paving has much the same pattern.

 

Other sweet dishes sometimes reach the table at the end of the meal, and by extension they too are called puddings; but although there are respectable tarts, pies and preparations based on rice, most of the custards, sillabubs, flummeries and other kickshaws do not deserve the name at all, which should be reserved for nobler objects altogether, the true heroes' delight.

[LondonTowner]

My partner is in the RNR and always asks me 'what's for Duff'. Sorry about previous Muslim typo. It's the annoying predictive text.

 

I remember my Dad talking about the Babies Heads'.

[Globaliser]

Not only a Northern Thing but also a "Class Thing" in my opinion I remember a famous politician being filmed in a Fish & Chip shop during an electoral campaign. He pointed out the mushy peas and asked the serving assistant whether he could have a portion of that Avocado Dip.

Although that story is probably not true.

 

See, for example:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/michaelcrick/2009/09/oh_mandy.html

The famous story about Peter Mandelson was that he once went into a northern fish and chip shop, spotted the mushy peas on display, and asked for “some of that guacamole”.
 
A total fabrication, of course, from the days when Mandelson was the ogre of the Labour Party.

http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/a-fishy-tale-david-milibands-chippie-claim/3644

MPs are fond of using food as a political statement. Remember Tony Blair telling the Sun in 1997 that his favourite supper came from “the local chippie” in his Sedgefield constituency – a meal he devoured, man-of-the-people-style, in front of the telly?
 
But it can all go horribly wrong. Peter Mandelson has never quite redeemed himself with the Labour left after allegedly failing to identify mushy peas in a Hartlepool fish and chip shop – asking instead for “some of that guacamole”. In his recent memoirs he insists he’s never mixed up the two and actually “quite likes” mushy peas.
 
The mistake, according to Mandy, was made by “an American intern working for Jack Straw”. But the damage was done.

[GUT2407]

See that the auto censor does not like that we'll known delicacy beginning with f with two g's in the middle!

 

Thanks I was puzzling over what food (I presumed) they didn't like. Wonder how the get on with the male chicken that Crowed while Peter denied Christ.

[GUT2407]

I think that a British seaman would eat 'duff' rather than 'dick' (quiet at the back there).

 

For what I think must surely be the last word on suet puddings, I quote Patrick O'Brian, author of the definitive description of Naval life at the end of the 18th century.

 

Is that the actual title of the book.

 

I'm trying to find a copy.

[SteveH2508]

See that the auto censor does not like that we'll known delicacy beginning with f with two g's in the middle!

 

Ooh - haven't had f*gg*ts in years. Normally made by Brains (for our US cousins - that's the name of the company not the ingredients:D).

[John Bull]

Ooh - haven't had f*gg*ts in years. Normally made by Brains (for our US cousins - that's the name of the company not the ingredients:D).

 

At one time in my formative years I was put off f*gg*ts because of that misapprehension :o

 

But we also got butcher's own from our local butcher's shop. Very dry compared to Brains, but great with onion gravy.

 

JB :)

 

ps. Still trying to decipher GUT's post. First bit easy, can't figure the second bit.

Am I thick?

(no, don't answer that :rolleyes: :D)

[chefestelle]

Cock. Before the cock crows

 

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Edited March 8, 2016 by chefestelle

[GUT2407]

Cock. Before the cock crows

 

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So it let's you use cock but not f4gg0ts?

 

Funny isn't it

[SteveH2508]

At one time in my formative years I was put off f*gg*ts because of that misapprehension :o

 

But we also got butcher's own from our local butcher's shop. Very dry compared to Brains, but great with onion gravy.

 

JB :)

 

ps. Still trying to decipher GUT's post. First bit easy, can't figure the second bit.

Am I thick?

(no, don't answer that :rolleyes: :D)

 

This offers another thread diversion in that - why are meatballs called the same thing as a bundle of sticks?:confused:

 

I am guessing that GUT is highlighting the inconsistencies of the forum censor software (Pee, Po, Belly, Bum and Draws:D).

Edited March 8, 2016 by SteveH2508

[chefestelle]

I know, right?!

 

 

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[John Bull]

 

I am guessing that GUT is highlighting the inconsistencies of the forum censor software (Pee, Po, Belly, Bum and Draws:D).

 

US website, most members are North American, US rules & standards.

 

I don't have a problem with that.

 

Although I will if the moderators start charging members a daily gratuity, or add a 15% service charge to my posts ;)

 

JB :)

[SteveH2508]

:mad:Most are 18% now:mad:

[Kenswing]

Ooh - haven't had f*gg*ts in years. Normally made by Brains (for our US cousins - that's the name of the company not the ingredients:D).

 

Whew.. I was starting to really wonder about you guys.. :D