In which Helen expounds on British foods

I'm eating a mozerella (sp) basil and tomato melt. So good! But I was beginning to think about American food. The British don't make sub sandwiches, hoagies, like we do. I don't even think (Emma, am I correct?) that the English use mayonnaise on anything nor do they sell it -- yeah? At least, I've never seen it anywhere.

I suppose you can get a burger somewhere but I've never had one in England. Pizza's are sold here -- they have Pizza Hut -- but the popular European pizza is the Margherita, which is a thin-crust pizza with basil, tomatoes, and generally loads of cheese.

I've already mentioned how I can't find diet, caffeine free pepsi here, and pepsi itself is undermined by coke, whereas in America the two can be found on any store shelves. (Though in America generally either one or the other is served in restaurants).

The only place I have found hotdogs are the ones sold on the street, that cost nearly 4 pounds, sold in vendors that you would find on most streets in New York City.

We have McDonalds, Burger King, Subway here but nothing within the English cuisine that is especially large in portion size like the Americans culinary penchant with sandwiches three feet tall. Their largest dishes are things like stews, chile con carne, and bangers and mash (sausage on potatoes). High in starches. Their gravy is loaded with onions and is more soupy than thick.

There are sandwiches sold in rectangular packages in most cafe's (like Caffe Nero, any store --Tesco's and Boots -- and Pret A Manger). They are the essential, and by that I mean usual, lunch time food. Pre-packaged sandwiches. Some with egg and ham, that's a popular one. Or cheese, lettuce and tomato. Like what your mother made you for lunch every morning, except here you don't have to wait for someone to make it for you; they're just there, on the shelf, like a diet coke. Aha! Here, a picture:



The melt that I got was also sitting on a refrigerated shelf. It is heated at the desk in a toaster oven. No sauces applied.

Here's what the traditional English breakfast looks like. It is what most people eat in the morning (as we would scrambled eggs or cereal, though certainly they eat that too). It is what I had most mornings when I went to breakfast in my previous dorm.



You got your beans -- the British LOVE their beans, they eat it with everything, another favourite dish is beans on toast (it is as it sounds) -- then black pudding (which is not always a staple, I believe, or at least I've never had it with it before) -- sausage -- eggs -- mushrooms and ham -- usually there is toast as well, and sometimes chips (fries).

Different ingredients are added depending on what part of Britain you are from -- whether England, or Ireland, Scotland, or Wales.

I'm going to try to find a little known place that serves English breakfast in Smithfield that I saw on the Anthony Bourdain show. It is near the Smithfield Meat Markets where men still -- and have for hundreds of years -- cut up meat and store them for the various shops that buy them. Afterward they go to this cafe and have a "fry-up" as the English breakfast is known in Ireland.


Smithfield Market

It's cheap, since it caters mostly to the butchers in the area, but the best place to have a real English breakfast as, obviously, the meat is extremely fresh.