French gastronomy

Come over here, Walter, and I will get you well stuffed in....let's see now..... The Cat and Fiddle, The Rose and Crown, The Green Dragon, The George, The Golden Lion, The Three Horseshoes, The Three Compasses....all within two miles of my house, and all excellent quality food with good value, not to mention the odd log fire and cask ale.

The only difference is that our 'restaurants' are usually part of an old country pub.
We like a bit of noise and banter in the background when we eat, rather than a sniffy waiter in the background, silently cleaning his nails with a corkscrew.
Yes, I saw that actually happen.

From 2010....

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/22/british-cook-better-than-french

My experiences with Brit foods (especially on bases) was not as bad as those that I "enjoyed" in Irelnd. Ireland is a country devoid of culinary crafts. people would eat merely because it was what one did at 8am and so on.
The only good foods I had in Ireland were in Indian or Chinese restaurnts. Even Italian food in Ireland tasted like some overly sweetened "gravy" plopped a top dome overcooked gooey pasta.
Breakfast was a complete dumpster-dive with a "full Irish breakfast'. Eggs were done too long and were usually done last week. Some piece of really salty ham they called "bacon". Godawful greasy sausage puddings and a fuckin piece of cheesed up and breaded tomato that was swimming in its own bodily fluids.
All served up with luke- warm Lipton tea and some crackery roll .

Even the toast was too cold to allow butter to melt.

Ask me whether I liked Irish food.
Ithink that its mostly cause the Irish were usually more hammered than spendi that they didn't notice how crappy their foods were/
"Irish Cuisine"-- HA

we have a "Rose and Crown" pub wannabee in Lewes Delaware that is a great plce to eat. (pricey but good)
Every time I go I have their twice broiled large pork chop with a terrific au jus . Its a flavor explosion. Its served with a creamy lumpy (skins on) mashed potatoes with horseradish, and always a nice medley of julienne carrots with dill an brussel sprout halves cooked an a broth and then quickly browned in the pork chop jus.
Its suppose to be a direct lift froma similar named pub in UK (somewhere, I know that UK is as big as Wyoming so itd be a long drive about)

I would guess that there are at least several hundred Rose and Crown's up and down the land.
I got blind drunk for the first time in one of them, and bought my first packet of condoms in the gents toilets of another, so I have fond memories.

Great discovery of mine, condoms.

Before that I used to employ the biscuit tin method. Standing up with both of us balancing on biscuit tins , wherupon she used to look for the certain glint in my eye and quickly kick my tin away.

so I guess going in to a store for a couple of tins of bisquits wasn't a give away as would be asking the store keeper for condoms.

Remember, some pimple faced kid always fills the condom machines and usually one or two per stack would have pin holes purposely inroduced.

Ah....I always tested them first by putting them on my head and blowing..


...

Great post, Lordy.

Is the Slow Food 'movement' active in France at all? I should look all that up. I was an early member but didn't keep up my dues, thus no more great booklets by them in my mailbox.

We ate a few times at the early Gilliland's Cafe in Santa Monica, CA. She is from Northern Ireland and well trained in culinary arts. We liked the place a lot, and me, I'm ms. picky on these matters. She may be/is probably the exception that proves the rule - the restaurant was well lauded, so let's say it was pretty good. Sometime later she changed the restaurant to Lula's Cocina after studying with Lula Bertran, and also opened an irish pub. I've never been there, so I dunno.

On the seeming more usual irish heritage cooking in the U.S., my youthful experience is not that great. Nor was my husband's and his brother's. Husband learned to cook to, uh, get a decent meal. His mother tried, though - major recipe saver.

http://www.weddinginmalibu.com/pdf/About.Geraldine.pdf
Creds in reverse order on the bottom of the page. I guess it's a wedding event ad, but it had more cred info than a more serious article that I saw.
She did leave Ireland....

bookmarking

I really enjoyed what you wrote about food in France and UK - fine article.
Took a pause, made a cup of coffee and wanted to watch TV for a few minutes and happened to end up in a program about UK and all the places in London you can get good food which is not too expensive. Fitted this discussion perfectly.

I've been to a couple.in East Anglia as well as in more northern England during the few years ... and enjoyed that very much!
(Most recently, the best and really not expensive was in Cornwall, though.)

Cornwall is great for food. Best seafood platter I ever had was in Looe.


It came on a plate that was about two feet wide! I seriously tried but couldn't manage it all, and I can eat for England!

I wasn't saying that one can't get good food in England. I like shepherd's pie, and can stand some Yorkshire pudding now and again. The point is that British cuisine, which is the term the author here used, is not up to the standard of French cuisine. Here in Toronto, you can get Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Greek, Serbian, Afghan, Lebanese, Thai--any number of really good cuisines. Canadian, though, ain't one of them.

This is a great holiday read, for any who are interested.

http://www.amazon.com/Spotted-Dick-Sil-Vous-Plait/dp/0449910474

My kind of book..

you're mistaken about that

but you're entitled to believe that

Canadian maritime cooking, even the humblest,because its ingredients are special, is worldclass.
The best cuisines take their local ingredients and run with it.
The exceptions are, IMHO, the "hybrids "like French/ Asian or Japanese/ South American.

Serving fresh lobster seared on top of garlic buttered toast is a New Brunswick treat from the "Nord Shore"

Their Chocolate Moose isn't bad either.

OOPS, I posted about a moose incident that was not too popular with folks in New Brunswick CA.
The largest chocolate moose is in Moose Jaw Saskatchewan



Technically, this is not an actual chocolate moose but it is a chocolate flavored moose made mostly of nutritious fiber glas

I've only been to France once and have two memories-
1- France stinks of **** everywhere, their sewage system must be useless.
2- The food is revolting.