Old English Puddings
Who wants tiramisu when you can have a spotted dick?
In the chef world there are currently two schools of cooking, those in the molecular camp who make you wear silly headphones whilst sticking a syring in your egg which has been poached at two degrees for ten years and those who aren’t.
I stand firmly in the rest home for normal food, the one plus about being a chef is that you tend to know what to order or what the ingredients on the menu are, I don’t want to take a science degree in order to choose a starter.
Gastro pubs, which is a horrible name largely because nobody knows exactly what one is are all the rage. You would think they have just come up with the idea to serve food in pubs, well no, what they’ve done is paid a couple of ex-London boys to set up in a pub in a posh village (usually just outside of London) serve ‘new’ dishes like steak and kidney pudding or beef cobbler then charge London restaurant prices for it.
The one good thing to come out of this is the return of lost British classics, chefs are continually searching for something new and the new is the former old-British food, you know the sort-Mrs B, Elizabeth David but certainly not Escoffier. Gone are the truffles and foie gras and in come the mutton, ham hocks, oxtails and suet, ‘cheap food done posh’ as one chef so eloquently put it to me recently.
I’ve always been interested in the food of yesteryear and not because of Gary Rhodes either, just as my love of bollito misto with salsa verde began pre Jamie. We seem to be slowly coming full circle to a time when our food made sense, even the inspectors from the good food guides are telling us to limit our ingredients.
It wasn’t all good of course, reading through old recipe books I have winced at recipes calling for the ‘fish fillets to be placed in water and boiled for ten minutes’ (yes, that’s you too Mrs B.) and so on but in general they are sound methods and flavour combinations.
One area which we often look to the past for inspiration is in the pastry section. As much as we like to show off from time to time with clever sugar garnishes, fancy tuille shapes and dried things here and there nothing sells like an old fashioned pudding.
Spotted dick, plum crumble, queen of puddings, eton mess, the list goes on. We serve them very simply, no silly garnish to satisfy our ego, just a pudding with plenty of custard and a generous splodge of golden syrup to send the cholesterol up. As the winter months ensue (next week) I shall post some recipes for homely pudds to revive the spirits. In the meantime here’s some we made earlier…
“Just a Pudding With Plenty of custard”.
Miles,
When I think of puddings it brings back my memories of school dinners, which in all fairness in those days were not at all bad, basic but edible. I stuck with the school dinners mainly because I could not see the point of walking over a mile into town just for a bag of chips.
Anyway in my later years I rarely eat such things as puddings ( must think of my waist), but I did enjoy them in my early school days, and on a good day you could get a second helping. Twenty-five to thirty years later in a restaurant and picking a desert-pudding from a menu, it would be a good old fashioned English pudding every time, some things are just meant to stand the test of time.
Looking forward to the recipes, you may even inspire me to cook one
August 20, 2007 @ 11:33 pm
I think you’re right, many chefs and the like are always looking for something new, which I understand …
But, some things have stood the test of time for a reason - they work !
Some dishes may seem a little commonplace if put on the menu but cooked superbly with top notch ingredients they’ve got to be a hit
DC
August 21, 2007 @ 9:06 am
Miles,
One look at your puddings this morning has brought on an attack of the vapours, forcing me to loosen my corset at the mere thought!
Kindly give fair warning before the next temptation appears, towards the end of next week if possible … should give me time to recover
Cid
p.s. should I be plumping up my sultanas before cooking begins?
August 21, 2007 @ 10:31 am
Cid,
Oooer missus! The puds in question are an old english sort called Cumberland made with apples, currants and suet. You could give your currants a dip in something naughty if you wish, that or leave plain and drink the spirits instead!
miles
August 21, 2007 @ 12:54 pm
Bravo Miles for promoting and cooking eclectic foods. The scientific approach to cooking may be of interest to some professionals but I cannot see this having a future in home cooking.
Talking of home cooking, I am looking forward to some of your recipes. As SC demonstrates the powerful memories evoked by the smells and tastes of home cooking, perhaps I can manage to create some for my family and friends in the months to come.
August 21, 2007 @ 2:11 pm
Hi Elsie,
I shall indeed post one or two recipes which I think may be of use in the coming weeks.
Thanks for returning to the site
regards
miles
August 21, 2007 @ 2:42 pm