What’s in a Lancashire black pudding? I saw one in an old episode of The Goodies and it looked more like a sausage than a pudding – unless the word “pudding” means something different in the UK than in the US.
I have a container of Lyle’s Golden Syrup, which I bought at The Pasta Shop in Berkeley, California. I have seen it for sale in other stores in the Bay Area.
I got the syrup to make pecan pie, which is one of the foods you supposedly don’t have in England (see here). The recipe in The Pie and Pastry Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum calls for Lyle’s Golden Syrup.
Vegemite is available in the UK as Marmite - it’s, erm some kind of yeast extract. Spread it thinly on toast. I like it a lot.
Weetabix, while similar in concept to shredded wheat, is a different consistency, it’s more of a pressure formed brick than one formed out of strands.
Potted meat is like a wetter pate - it usually comes in little jars.
A couple of other ones I’m remembering (this thread is great):
Lemon Curd - a nice preserve we spread on our various unusual bread products:
http://thefoody.com/preserves/orangeorlemoncurd.html
Scotch eggs - a hard boiled egg covered in sausagemeat and breadcrumbs. Good for a packed lunch or a picnic:
- I used to eat these all the time, not realizing how unhealthy they really are.
You can get malt vinegar over here but it’s by no means as common a condiment as in the UK.
Haggis really doesn’t taste as bad as it sounds. It’s like a spicy sausage. I never ate the skin.
I’d imagine the average American eats as much offal as the average brit, just without knowing it. Taco Bell et al aren’t known for the quality of thier beef. Here in PA there is a local delicacy called scrapple that many swear by, but I only ate it once:
http://www.chickenhead.com/scrapple/
Then there is the time my dad tried to buy some liver at a Delaware supermarket and was informed that all the offal from the meat counter was usually sold to cosmetics companies to thicken their products with…
I sometimes bring a bagfull when I come down to WA to visit the boyfriend. They can almost be used as currency with some people. 
Me too mate. I just guessed “tiggy oggy”, Googled to make sure and found this site, which confirmed my guess. But Googling “tiddy-oggy” chucks up far more references, so we’ll go with that one after all shall we?
Not wanting to spoil the joke, but just in case someone tries to search for them they should’ve been:
Emmenthal; Jarlsberg; Danish Blue (or Daneblau); Double Gloucester; Dorset Blue Vinny.
BrainGlutton
I’ve never eaten jellied eels and have no plans to. They look and smell disgusting and are only available in East London and where people from there might travel to the seaside on holiday. Smoked eel, on the other hand, is excellent.
Aficionados claim that Vegemite (Australian) and Marmite (UK) are not the same. Don’t like either myself, but I believe they’re full of B vitamins and are indeed derived from yeast as a by-product of the brewing industry.
I’ve only ever met one person who cooled his toast deliberately at home (he didn’t like the butter to soak into it), but for some reason it’s standard procedure in hotel dining rooms. No idea why. The hotter the better suits me.
Lister and the curry: Curry is completely classless food eaten by everyone, but there is a stereotype of certain groups of crass young men who stop off for a curry on the way home after drinking too much lager. For that sort of person, eating your curry as hot as possible is what carries the cachet (think Homer Simpson and the radioactive chilli). They’ve moved on from vindaloo now, btw; the really hot stuff is the phal.
Spotted dick is a steamed suet pudding full of raisins (hence the “spotted” – the “dick” is just an abbreviation of Richard, nothing more sinister). Toad-in-the-hole is sausages baked in batter that has been made using the same recipe as Yorkshire pudding. Potted meat is indeed paté. Why BMalion imagines roast beef would come in a can I cannot imagine.
Black pudding is a sausage made from blood, bound with breadcrumbs, suet, cooked barley and dry oatmeal. Haven’t we been over the “pudding” word thing before? It originally referred to any food prepared in a rounded mass or sausage shape, not just a dessert, although I gather it is only used to mean a dessert in the USA?
Pecan pie can be bought in the UK. I had a piece this afternoon, bought from the Pret a Manger sandwich shop chain.
Pretty sure you aren’t supposed to eat the casing on a haggis. I figure it’d be pretty tough and chewy with no flavor…
I have a small tuna-sized can of roast Beef in gravy from Hormel in my pantry. Been there forever. I was only guessing on my definition, but since pate’ is “cooked meat in a can” I think I could get a 1/2 point can’t I?
Now that sounds disgusting ;). Braised beef in gravy I’ve seen in a can, boiled and roasted ham too, but not roast beef.
You can have ½ a point AFAIC, but potted meat always comes in a pot (i.e. a ceramic container). Actually I can’t recall the last time I saw paté in anything other than a ceramic container, a vacuum-sealed plastic wrapping or greaseproof paper if bought by weight.
The one next door to the bakery.
Posted by everton:
Of course, a black pudding is a formidable weapon in the hands of a master of the Lancastrian martial art, eckee-thump!
(I know kung fu, karate, and 23 other dangerous words!)
There are a number of places that import it; I see it advertised in the Baker’s Catalogue. There are also some regional equivalents, such as King’s Golden Syrup - which I think is made in Kentucky.
Regular corn syrup - aka “white” or “light” - is just sweet, with no real caramel notes. Dark corn syrup is actually stronger than golden syrup, closer to molasses and, if anything, thicker, but you don’t see it much anymore.
I remember going to a supermarket in London a couple of years ago. I was amazed at all the flavors of crisps they had. I finally settled on the “chicken dinner” flavored ones. And yes, they were quite good.
I read an autobiography once, and the author kept referring to eating a “jam butty”. What on earth is a jam butty??? I don’t know if it’s food, or refers to sex or what.
Jam is what you call jelly. A butty or buttie, as previously mentioned, is a sandwich (because it has butter in it).
Well, scrapple is delicious, floured and fried nice and crisp. But I saw a haggis on a food channel, and I’m sorry, I couldn’t have eaten that. Of course, if you want to talk about disgusting food, there’s always “head cheese.” Somehow “blood pudding” sounds nasty, although of course a nice flow of juice around a slice of rare roast beef is blood, too. I’m not inconsistent or anything, though.
That’s probably why iot is referred to as “Black Pudding” in the UK. Many other European countries have a form of it and call it “blood pudding” (for example it is called “blodpudding” here in Sweden), but we Brits like to hide the ingredients from you.
I don’t think this is actually true; As far as I can tell, jam and jelly exist on both sides of the Atlantic, it’s just that jam is more popular than jelly in the UK and vice versa in the USA.
Most of the major supermarkets here in Fort Worth, Texas seem to carry at least some lamb cuts. Good thing, too, as I simply love lamb.
I see references to “caster” or “castor” sugar in UK recipes, I don’t think it’s readily available in the US. I’ve also seen mushroom ketchup listed as an ingredient, but again, it doesn’t appear in my local market.
OH…and according to my Home Economics teacher, (this was many years ago) jelly is made from the strained juice of fruits, jam is made from chopped up fruits (with bits of solid fruit in it) and preserves contain larger portions of fruit.
Yup, same here; many people think that the difference is the inclusion or exclusion of seeds, but it isn’t - jam is boiled fruit and sugar, jelly is boiled fruit juice and sugar - usually the juice will have been strained carefully so that the resulting jelly is clear (at least it should be that way if you want to win prizes at the show).
Caster sugar is just a finer version of granulated sugar, dissolves a little quicker, making it better for some applications.
Mushroom ketchup (of which I have only ever seen one brand - Geo. Watkins) is a bit like Worcestershire sauce.