Thursday, November 09, 2017

BRITISH REGULARITY

In a country where the dominant cooking smell is of burning fat and boiling starch, a Kentish landlord feels justified in deliberately not renting his apartments to Indians and Pakistanis because of a curry odour.
Which is remarkable, because until the British went massively for vindaloo and chicken tikka masala, English food was, in a word, revolting.
The famous British breakfast is a sterling example.
It's all fried, even the sliced tomato.
Possibly excepting tea.

Like everybody who speaks English, drinks tea, and smokes a pipe, this writer also enjoys a good old-fashioned fry-up to start the day. But only as an intellectual exercise. British food normally makes me ill, and the very last time I had a British breakfast I suffered dyspepsia for several days.

Fish and chips are another good example.
Massive acid for several hours.
No more, I'll talk!
Make it stop!


Landlord's 'curry smell' letting ban unlawful

From the BBC:

"Speaking to BBC Asian Network earlier this year, Mr Wilson said a property he had bought from an Indian couple cost him about £12,000 because the curry smell became a "massive problem"."

"It gets into the carpets, it gets into the walls. You'll find that most landlords think the same."

Source: Fergus Wilson


The best food in Blighty is 'curry'.

My ex-girlfriend, who is Cantonese and consequently has the digestion of a horse, just loved British food, proving that she has a sense of humour, but even she found the cress and cucumber sandwiches boring and the Spam fritter atrocious. The fist nibble of that fried item was wonderful, by the third, gastric distress, depression, and despair filled the eater.
Between the two of us we could not finish it.

[She has a massive English thing going on, having grown up reading murder mysteries, Brideshead Revisited, and all of the Jane Austen books.
Seriously, she really loved the place.]



One can well understand why the Brits erupted forth and conquered the world, like the Goths and Vikings before them. They were desperate to get away from their own food. Grease and frozen peas.

An urge to eat brought them to the Indies, the largest supply of laxatives in the world took them to China.

[China was the world's premier source of rhubarb at the time, which apothecaries in London prescribed in truly massive doses.
Poo, you poor buggering sods, poo!]



It should be mentioned that both strong tea and marmalade have beneficial effects on the guts. As do tomatoes and chilies.


Without the Chinese and Subcontinentals there would be nothing to eat in Britain. Well, other than the frightful Graeco-muck served in many lunch places in the capital, where office drudges stuff themselves on something masquerading as mutton, drenched in tzatziki, and minced lettuce.

There is a reason why the British won the war.
Sheer intestinal fortitude.



[File under 'rancid animal fat']



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, the tastes and smells of my misspent youth in England.

Stale pork [fat] pie smothered in brown sauce.

Elderly lettuce drenched in salad cream.

No amount of newspaper could absorb all the grease exuded from a cod or plaice deep fried from the chippy. Let alone mask the odour of the ripe fish.

Cold sausages composed of pork fat and war- rationed sawdust were made edible only by liberal application of Colman's mustard.

The smell of over-boiled Brussels sprouts and cabbages permeating cold dank walls in bed-sits.

Scotch Woodcook served in Hall and pitched at High Table.

M


The back of the hill said...

Hah! No wonder the Brits smoke St. Bruno, Condor, and Ennerdale Flake! It alleviates the other odours!

;-D

Anonymous said...

All too true!

M

Sir Rachas said...

But can British food be alleviated by using hot sauce? If so, perhaps there is hope, eh?

The Old Campaigner said...

A miniature bottle of Tabasco in one pocket, and emergency sachets of alkaselzer in the another.

That, plus grim resolve, will get you at least to Dover, where escape beckons.

Search This Blog

THEIR NATURAL HABITAT

There are more dogs in this neighborhood than children. One very rarely sees people walking their children outside when one is, hypothetical...