British cooking

   It’s this mechanical simplicity of British  cuisine that made it easy for them to take to the colonies, where the original staff could be trained without having to bring  culinarians along from home.   Indeed the most die-hard Anglophile won’t describe British food as  instigative. Indeed to call it  intriguing would be a stretch– it  clearly lacks the imagination of, say, the French for case. 

The spice route ended in Europe. The British were more interested in the  plutocrat trail to bother about the finer  effects in life. So they used  veritably little seasonings beyond pepper,  sometimes a pinch of nutmeg or cinnamon and a  gusto of mustard.   

A many sauces  set up their way into their kitchen but were confined

 to the likes of parsley, celery, rosemary and thyme. Nothing  fantastic . else, who’ll sprinkle  ginger over fish and chips? No wonder when the silliest of curries  raided the  islet they had no defense to  fight it. Had it not been for the French across the channel, they would have discovered wine and remained happy guzzling beer and getting sloshed on whisky. One can argue their climate didn’t allow growing anything as delicate as grapes. But  also let’s face it one would n’t associate anything delicate with that land other than Princess Diana.   I am, of course, joking. But it’s true that food didn’t rank  veritably high on the Anglo- Saxon  scale of  requirements. 

This, I  suppose, is also reflected in how, despite ruling over  further than half the world at one time, how little of world cuisine the British brought back with them or imbibed into their  cuisine. My own  proposition for that’s- the people that the conglomerate  transferred to manage its overseas colonies were neither its brightest nor the most educated. They were primarily agents of  profitable imperialism who enjoyed the good life condescend over native subjects. The attendant socio-artistic osmosis was,  thus, a one- way  road.  

 Yet, there must have been a commodity special about British food to have left an imprint across the globe to have lasted over centuries. The answer to my mind lies in standardization- important like the  celebrated British upper- lip- rather than  invention.  Come to  think of it, indeed single malts and Scotch whiskies were known by their  invariant quality, taste and flavor for a hundred times. No variations in notes as in wine from one stretch to another. Each distillery would stick to its identical process using the same malt, peat, source of water and indeed old  pipes for generations.

 It’s only  lately that they’ve started playing around with  composites and barrels to produce different  goods  feeding to the fickle tastes of the post millennial consumers.   The same went for the perfect repasts, pies, puddings and sandwiches that have been the  dependant  of the British culinary  force.  British  cuisine  presumably makes the most  expansive use of ranges and grills. It may have  something to do with the rainfall. Being  wedged indoors for the better of the time with  inadequately  voiced homes  erected with a good deal of wood for  sequestration, open wood or coal fire weren’t the preferred mode of  cuisine. Sealed pots, kettles and  kissers

The range of vegetables in England was limited with the royal spud or potato ruling the roost with some side actors like carrots,  sap, cabbage, leek and many others thrown into the pot. This left little room for  invention keeping the  culinarians within the straight and narrow path of traditional  fashions. There was also no  important  complication in the  gravies and seasonings. The  important accredited Worcester sauce is nothing but an admixture of  ginger and jaggery and the  notorious mint sauce that goes with angel repasts is finely diced mint leaves in  ginger and sugar.   

 still, variety came from the source of the raw material. Despite being a  bitsy  islet, there was a great deal of variation in the  yield and beasts of different regions owing to the different climatic conditions, terrain and attendant  foliage. Therefore the angel from Wales, beef from Scotland or Berkshire pork would not be the same as  types from other  corridors of the area. Isolation was also made from the cuts of the meat according to the muscular texture and  quantum of bedded fat that gave the final dish its typical taste. Still, I would add British  cuisine is a work of artificer and not  art like the French. In fact, it’s this mechanical simplicity of British  cuisine that made it easy for them to take to the colonies, where the original staff could be trained without having to bring  culinarians along from home.   therefore was born the  strain of Khansamas and Bawarchis in India, who replicated the originals using original  contrivances and original raw  constituents-  frequently  conforming  fashions for what was available at hand. The repasts, pies, bakes and puddings they would turn out with  extemporized ranges, pots and degchis and souffles using ice- servers before the  arrival of refrigerators were nothing short of culinary  phenomenon.  

  Alas that old style cookery is nearly  defunct. The accentuation is on  ultramodern European and  transnational cookery. Many  hospices serve a good repast except  maybe on special occasions like Christmas and New Year. With the  previous generation of  culinarians passing and the profile of members changing, it isn’t easy to come by indeed at the old clubs. Though  cafés  are now ubiquitous, the  cantina

 food one gets there’s alien to the English and Irish  cafés  of  history. So, in London  before this month, I went on a club hopping spree on Pall Mall. It was a nostalgic time.    The carnivore in me is divided in its  fidelity between steak and repast. With age, it has started leaning towards the  ultimate- but that has nothing to do with either the greenishness quotient of the meat or any other temporal injunctions. It’s primarily out of practical considerations. First, a good steak can only be made out of the finest quality of beef, which isn’t easy to find  far and wide. Give me a Wagyu filet and I’ll take it any day(  handed someone differently is paying for it at US bones

             300 a pound). But  else, it’s  delicate to handle a  high piece with frail bowel and fragile dental condition.  still, repasts are meat agnostic. Each has a distinct character which can be carried to perfection by a skillful  handworker by applying the right temperature and  upping the authorities into a sauce. Amateur  culinarians like me tend to make a repast by looking at the roaster  timekeeper.   But the critical parameter is the temperature inside the meat which can be measured with a  cuisine thermometer. Different flesh and cuts have their own optimum heating point, which would also vary depending on the kind of finish one would like. For being some plated with a sauce, one might want a more  well-conditioned cooked softer meat whereas to be put on a figure board in a buffet, a slightly more firm repast that can be sliced into pieces may be preferred.   

The  ultimate is my  fave for beef repasts, which I  generally keep away for making a cold cut sandwich the day after. Though I love pork,  currently I tend to lean towards oriental pork repasts, especially if it’s a pork belly. The same with duck as well. Though I’ll  noway  forgive the Chinese for giving Covid to the world, if anything can redeem their sins a atomic bit, it’s the repast duck. Since traveling to China will be off my diary  presumably for the rest of my life, I made a minor  concession by visiting one of the repast duck  caffs in SOHO Chinatown off Leicester Square. Not the same bonegets in Hong Kong or Beijing but a memory jogger all the same.   Mutton is good but I  suppose repast was firstly  constructed for angels. Goat is slender than  lamb- so not as amenable to  riding.

 The Exmoor( Devonshire) angel repast I had on this trip was  fluently stylish in my recollection. Lawn- fed in the moorlands of Devon, it tends to melt in the mouth. One can not go wrong with a  funk repast at most places but the highlight of this adventure was the beef repast. So far the closest I had come to a beef was the whisky-notorious Beef which shot to fame, literally, after the Crown Prince of a neighboring country  scattered  pellets on his entire clan after imbibing  riotous amounts of that spirit.   But this was the real thing. The beef is a small  raspberry– in the same  kidney as partridge. It’s a little larger than quail or ‘ bater ’- the size of a spring  funk- just enough for one person. Being a game  raspberry, it’s a little tough but that doesn’t mean it has to be cooked for. In fact, overcooking would make it harder.  

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 Since wild  catcalls aren’t available in India– as firing and  network are banned– the closest can get a roasted quail. else, try Kethel Chicken at Rahmaniya in Trivandrum. Or, if in Kolkata, come to Radu Babu’s  hostel, coming to Lake Market, on a Thursday evening and try their whole  funk repast. Tender spring  funk not  further than 400 grams a piece. Not anything like but  important  toothy for the Indian palate, if you ask me. The onion, garlic and  gusto paste gravy with a hint of turmeric served with white  chuck   can be a big  megahit as a pop up at Picadilly.   Indeed the most die-hard Anglophile won’t describe British food as  instigative. Indeed to call it  intriguing would be a stretch– it  clearly lacks the imagination of, say, the French for case. The spice route ended in Europe. The British were more interested in the  plutocrat trail to bother about the finer  effects in life.  

 Nothing  fantastic . else, who’ll sprinkle  ginger over fish and chips? No wonder when the silliest of curries  raided the  islet they had no defense to  fight it. Had it not been for the French across the channel, they would  norway  have discovered wine and remained happy guzzling beer and getting sloshed on whisky. One can argue their climate didn’t allow growing anything as delicate as grapes.   The attendant socio-artistic osmosis was,  thus, a one- way  road. Yet, there must have been a commodity special about British food to have left an imprint across the globe to have lasted over centuries.

 The answer to my mind lies in standardization- important like the  celebrated British upper- lip- rather than  invention. Come to  suppose of it, indeed single malts and Scotch whiskies were known by their  invariant quality, taste and flavor for a hundred times. No variations in notes as in wine from one stretch to another. Each distillery would stick to its identical process using the same malt, peat, source of water and indeed old  pipes for generations. It’s only  lately that they’ve started playing around with  composites and barrels to produce different  goods  feeding to the fickle tastes of the post millennial consumers.   It was a nostalgic time. 

The carnivore in me is divided in its  fidelity between steak and repast. With age, it has started leaning towards the  ultimate- but that has nothing to do with either the greenishness quotient of the meat or any other temporal injunctions. It’s primarily out of practical considerations. First, a good steak can only be made out of the finest quality of beef, which isn’t easy to find  far and wide. Give me a Wagyu filet and I’ll take it any day(  handed someone differently is paying for it at US bones

             300 a pound).

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