March 14th in the USA is Potato Chips Day which I confess makes me smirk because in the USA they don’t even know what a potato chip is …
Read a story about chips Here…
First, the facts…
… Over four billion pizzas are sold in America every year, 17% of all restaurants are pizzerias, including Italy at World Showcase at Disney World at EPCOT and around about three hundred and fifty pizza slices are eaten every second. Pepperoni is the most popular pizza at just over one-third of all pies ordered.
Posted in Arts and Crafts, Europe, Food, History, Italy, Postcards, Travel, USA, World Heritage
Tagged bouef bourguignon, Canada Poutine, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, Italy EPCOT, Naples, National Pizza Day, Norway Pizza, Pizza, Poutine Pizza, Queen Margherita of Savoy, Sorrento, The Scream, Vincent Van Gogh
March 14th is National Potato Chips Day in the U.S.A. and although mine is not a food blog I am happy to recycle my post about potato chips…
Some of you will have read it before of course.
Click on an image to scroll through the Gallery…
Posted in Europe, Food, France, Germany, History, Holland, Postcards, Spain, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Belgium Chips, Canada Poutine, Chinese Chips, Fish and Chips, French Fries, Friterie, McDonalds France, Moules et Frites, patatas bravas, pommes rot-weis
February 9th is National Pizza Day in the USA.
A National Pizza day in USA is not really surprising because over four billion pizzas are sold in America every year. 17% of all restaurants are pizzerias and it is estimated that around about three hundred and fifty pizza slices are eaten every second. Pepperoni is the most popular pizza at just over one-third of all pies ordered.
“When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that’s Amore”
The USA makes the extravagant claim that it makes the best pizza in the World and specifically from New York but surely the finest pizza must come from come from Italy. Maybe New York has a claim to make because at 15% the Italians are the largest ethnic group in that city.
Back to Italy. Legend has it that Queen Margherita of Savoy gave her name to the most famous pizza of all on a visit to Naples in 1889.
Tired of French gourmet cooking (as you might well be) she summoned the city’s most famous pizza-maker, Raffaele Esposito, and asked him to bake her three pizzas and she would chose her favourite. Like a judge on a cookery TV programme she decided upon the patriotic version, prepared in the colours of the Italian flag – red (tomato), green (basil), and white (mozzarella) and this became the Pizza Margherita.
Everyone in Naples eats pizza, I have never seen so many pizza restaurants in one place, I tried to work out how many pizzas might be eaten here in a single day but I found the number to be so big it was incalculable and I feared that my head might possibly explode.
Interestingly I cannot see that Italy has a National Pizza Day. Maybe the reason why is this. In terms of pizza consumption per population Italy is only fifth in the World. Fourth is Germany, third is the UK, second is the USA but first is NORWAY!
Perhaps not so hard to understand when you discover that the National dish of Norway is something called fårikål – a dubious combination of boiled cabbage, sliced potato and sheep head meat. Norway doesn’t have a National Pizza Day or understandably a National Fårikål Day. It does have a National Day on 17th May each year which seems to cover just about everything including pizza and fårikål.
When I was a boy growing up I am certain that we had a version of lamb stew but we certainly didn’t have pizza!
We had never heard of moussaka, paella or lasagne and the week had a predictable routine. There was absolute certainty about the menu because we generally had the same thing at the same time on the same day every week, there were no foreign foods at all, no pasta or curries, rice was only ever used in puddings and olive oil for removing ear wax.
I can still remember my very first pizza and I consider myself fortunate that it was in Italy, in 1976, my first ever overseas holiday when I visited Sorrento with my dad.
I became an immediate fan of the Italian classic and all of its variants . Just so long as it doesn’t have pineapple on it because pineapple on a pizza is just plain wrong.
And, I am not the only one who thinks this way; in 2017, the President of Iceland, Guðni Jóhannesson said that he was ‘fundamentally opposed’ to pineapple on pizzas.
In his words…
“I like pineapples, just not on pizza. I do not (unfortunately) have the power to make laws which forbid people to put pineapples on their pizza.”
Authentic Neapolitan pizzas are made only with local produce and have been given the status of a ‘guaranteed traditional speciality’. This allows only three official variants: pizza Marinara, which is made with tomato, garlic, oregano and extra virgin olive oil, pizza Margherita, made with tomato, sliced mozzarella, basil and extra virgin olive oil, and pizza Margherita Extra made with tomato, buffalo mozzarella from Campania, basil and extra virgin olive oil.
Pizza should be kept simple but sadly it is not only pineapple that is used to spoil it.
Canada joins in on USA Pizza Day and I nominate this Poutine (chips, gravy and cheese curds) Pizza as probably the worst ever variation on the famous pie.
If we had ever had pizza at home and my mum served this up I can guarantee that I would be there twenty-four hours later listening to her repeat over and again – “you are not leaving the table until you have eaten all of your dinner” or, on rare occasions that I could wear her down…” one more mouthful and you can get down ”.
In Naples we stumbled upon an excellent pizzaria down a predictable untidy back street and went downstairs into the restaurant. Good job we were early because within half an hour it was heaving with customers. The food was cheap, the house wine was served in a jug and I would like to tell you that I had a classic Margherita but I can’t because I added ham, olives and artichokes to the topping.
We cannot go to Naples right now of course so have to settle for the next best thing. Last year I bought a pizza stone and Kim has become a bit of an expert at preparing the Italian classic, making the dough from Italian flour and preparing the toppings from ALDI. The stone works well in a regular oven by absorbing the heat and doubling the oven temperature. This process probably does enormous damage to the oven but it makes great pizza. Check out your house insurance policy before using it is my advice.
This is our favourite, thin crust tomato, mozzarella cheese, prosciutto ham and artichokes…
This may look like a pizza but it is in fact a jellyfish and it is important not to get them confused.
So, what is your favourite pizza?
“Hey Mom, they have pizza in Italy too!” American tourist family overheard in Rome
There was no debate or discussion about evening meal, we were in Naples and it had to be pizza, it had to be pizza because Naples is the home of the dough based, tomato topped classic.
Legend has it that Queen Margherita of Savoy gave her name to the most famous pizza of all on a visit there in 1889.
Tired of French gourmet cooking (as you might well be) she summoned the city’s most famous pizza-maker, Raffaele Esposito, and asked him to bake her three pizzas and she would chose her favourite. Like a judge on a cookery TV programme she decided upon the patriotic version, prepared in the colours of the Italian flag – red (tomato), green (basil), and white (mozzarella) and this became the Pizza Margherita.
Everyone in Naples eats pizza, I have never seen so many pizza restaurants in one place, I tried to work out how many pizzas might be eaten here in a single day but I found the number to be so big it was so incalculable that I feared my head might possibly explode.
Interestingly I cannot see that Italy has a National Pizza Day. Maybe, and this is an interesting fact, because in terms of pizza consumption per population Italy is only fifth in the World. A lot of places outside of Naples are clearly bringing the numbers down. Fourth is Germany, third is the UK, second is the USA but first is NORWAY! I can understand that, if I lived in Norway I would eat cheap pizza because Norway is amongst the most expensive places to live in the World.
The USA has a National Pizza Day on February 9th. Over four billion pizzas are sold in America every year, 17% of all restaurants are pizzerias, including Italy at World Showcase at Disney World at EPCOT and around about three hundred and fifty pizza slices are eaten every second. Pepperoni is the most popular pizza at just over one-third of all pies ordered. Not one of my favourites I have to confess.
“When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that’s Amore” (Harry Warren/Jack Brooks)
When I was a boy growing up we didn’t have pizza!
For my Mum preparing food took up a lot of every day because there were no convenience meals and everything had to be prepared from scratch. We had never heard of moussaka, paella or lasagne and the week had a predictable routine. There was complete certainty about the menu because we generally had the same thing at the same time on the same day every week, there were no foreign foods at all, no pasta or curries and rice was only ever used in puddings.
I can still remember my very first pizza and I consider myself fortunate that it was in Italy, in 1976, my first ever overseas holiday when I visited Sorrento with my dad.
I became an immediate fan of the Italian classic and all of its variants just so long as it doesn’t have pineapple on it. Unless you live in Hawaii pineapple on a pizza is just plain wrong. And, I am not the only one who thinks this way; in February 2017, the President of Iceland, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson said and he was ‘fundamentally opposed’ to pineapple on pizzas. In his words…
“I like pineapples, just not on pizza. I do not (unfortunately) have the power to make laws which forbid people to put pineapples on their pizza.”
Today, authentic Neapolitan pizzas are made only with local produce and have been given the status of a ‘guaranteed traditional speciality’. This allows only three official variants: pizza Marinara, which is made with tomato, garlic, oregano and extra virgin olive oil, pizza Margherita, made with tomato, sliced mozzarella, basil and extra virgin olive oil, and pizza Margherita Extra made with tomato, buffalo mozzarella from Campania, basil and extra virgin olive oil.
Pizza should be kept simple but it is not only pineapple that is used to spoil it.
Canada joins in on USA Pizza Day and I nominate this Poutine (fried potato, gravy and cheese curds) Pizza as probably the worst ever variation on the famous pie.
If we had ever had pizza at home and my mum served this up I can guarantee that I would be there twenty-four hours later listening to her repeat over and again – “you are not leaving the table until you have eaten all of your dinner” or, on rare occasions that I could wear her down…” one more mouthful and you can get down” and just to make it clear that didn’t include “I don’t want to eat this shit.”
On this occasion we stumbled upon an excellent pizzaria down a predictable untidy back street and went downstairs into the restaurant. Good job we were early because within half an hour it was heaving with customers. The food was cheap, the house wine was served in a jug and I would like to tell you that I had a classic Margherita but I can’t because I added ham, olives and artichokes to the topping. It was wonderful. So good we made an instant decision that we would return again the following evening.
We walked back through the grubby urban scarred back streets of Naples to our accommodation, our senses and stomachs overflowing full to busting after an excellent first day.
I liked it here. I really liked it here!
What is your favourite pizza, do tell?
Posted in Childhood, Europe, Food, History, Italy, Literature, Norway, Postcards, Travel, United Kingdom, USA
Tagged bouef bourguignon, Canada Poutine, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, Italy EPCOT, Naples, National Pizza Day, Norway Pizza, Pizza, Poutine Pizza, Queen Margherita of Savoy, Sorrento, Vincent Van Gogh
“Everything (in the UK) comes with chips, which are French fries. You put vinegar on them. Cookies are biscuits and potato chips are crisps” – Scott Walters
March 14th in the USA is Potato Chips Day which I confess makes me smirk because in the USA they don’t even know what a potato chip is so I am going to take a look at how people prefer to eat their chips and watch out because I although I don’t want to offend anyone I am going to be awarding points.
I posted previously on eating fried potatoes in a Friterie in Northern France so it is only really polite to start with our nearest continental neighbours.
Friteries are a feature of this part of northern Europe and are a simple place, usually outside on wooden benches, to buy and eat French fries accompanied by a selection of traditional sauces and accompaniments. The thin strips of potato are fried twice, first to drive out the moisture and second to achieve the essential golden crispness of the French Fry.
The French and the Belgians eat more chips per head than any other nation, USA third, UK fourth, Eygpt is fifth (they grow a lot of potatoes in Eygpt) so you might expect the French, along with close neighbours the Belgians and the Dutch to know a thing or two about chips and they do make a good job of cooking them it has to be grudgingly said but as soon as they are served up they demonstrate a dreadful lack of culinary style and taste.
They immediately apply a dollop of horribly sloppy mayonnaise!
Now mayonnaise is fine on lettuce leaves or as an ingredient in a McDonalds burger, it gives them a bit of taste after all, but it really shouldn’t be smeared all over a helping of lovingly prepared potato chips and I am reminded here about a scene from the film Pulp Fiction and a conversation between Jules and Vincent…
… “Do you know what they put on their French Fries in Holland instead of Ketchup?” – “What? “ – “Mayonnaise” – “No Way.” – “Yes, I’ve seen them do it man they f*****g drown them in that s**t.”
Marks out of 10 for the French and the Belgians and the Dutch – 6 and that includes a bonus point because (as you can see in the first picture) at least they call them chips!
However, if you think that is bad then let’s cross the River Rhine into Germany where they serve up a variation called pommes rot-weis (potatoes red and white) named rather unimaginatively it is said after the colour scheme on level-crossing barriers and this toxic combination is achieved by smothering the poor chips in not just the evil mayonnaise but a good slug of tomato ketchup for good measure which has the effect of turning the classic dish into a sort of Salvador Dali gastro-interpretation.
I don’t know about the colour of level crossing barriers more like the rags and blood of a barbers pole if you ask me.
Marks out of 10 for the Germans – 4.
As I mentioned in my previous post Spain makes a creditable claim to be origin of chips so let’s head south now across the Pyrenees into Iberia.
Spain has patatas aioli which is a mayonnaise with garlic and having already dismissed mayonnaise as inappropriate then the addition of the foul tasting noxious onion bulb is not going to improve it one taste bud notch in my opinion; and then there is patatas bravas with a spicy sauce whose ingredients vary from region to region.
Generally I am a big fan of Spanish Tapas but my recommendation would have to be to avoid the patatas bravas at all costs.
I have two issues with them. First of all they don’t even look like chips and instead of being long and slender they are served in solid lumps of fried potato and secondly the bravas sauce is often so fierce that it completely spoils the dish all together and you can add to that the fact that it frequently (depending on region) includes a whole host of odd ingredients such as chorizo, baked chicken or fried fish, none of which in my opinion should be anywhere near a sauce for simple chips – if you want to muck about with vegetables then stick to pumpkins.
The Spanish like these things so much that they are even served in McDonalds…
Marks out of 10 for the Spanish – 3.
Nearby Italy shouldn’t really be featuring because they don’t really do chips or fries. There is an awful lot of street food in Italy but this is mostly pizza and deep fried rice balls. I did come across this food stall in Naples which sold all sorts of fried food served in a brown paper cone and one of the options was fried potatoes which looked more like English chips than French Fries.
I am not going to score the Italians because that wouldn’t really be very fair
Hastily retreating to the United Kingdom I am first going to head north to Scotland despite the fact that Scots deep fry chocolate so cannot really be taken seriously in a culinary sense. In Glasgow and Edinburgh they have a fondness for gravy with chips and I find that odd because in my copinion gravy should only really be served up with the weekly Sunday roast.
Having said that it is really rather tasty so marks out of 10 for the Scots – 7.
In The UK we have a liking for Chinese food, I like Chinese food but I cannot understand why anyone orders chips with a Chinese. To begin with chips don’t really go with Chinese food, rice is a much better option and secondly they almost always taste dreadful. Chips from Chinese restaurants I have generally found to be too greasy and cooked in oil that is just not hot enough, hence they just soak up oil and are under cooked, limp and soggy.
This is so wrong at every level – chips with rice and gravy!
So, marks out of ten for Chinese chips – 0
Which brings me back rather neatly to England and especially my home town, the fishing port of Grimsby. They know a thing or two about chips in Grimsby let me tell you and there is a chip shop in every street – sometimes two and people here know best how to cook them and to eat them.
Never mind the fancy restaurant trend for twice or even thrice fried potatoes they just cut them up and sling them in a vat of boiling fat or preferably beef dripping and then serve them piping hot and crispy on the outside with delicate fluffy middles with the only two accompaniments that chips really need – a generous sprinkle of salt and lashings of good vinegar. No mayonnaise, no gravy, no tomato sauce and definitely no curry!
Marks out of 10 for the English – 10 – of course.
So what about the USA you might ask. Well to be honest I have dismissed the New World completely. Is that fair? Well, yes I think it is and I will explain exactly why.
Whilst I am prepared to concede that they know how to prepare French Fries in McDonalds and other similar places the bottom line is simply this – they don’t even know what chips are, they think they come in a foil packet. Please take note – these are not potato chips they are potato crisps!
To be fair to the U.S.A. I should point out that they do have a National French Fry Day every 13th July.
My research informs me that in Australia they cannot make their minds up whether they are potato crisps or potato chips. Let me help my antipodean pals on this point – these are potato crisps!
Anyway marks out of 10 for the USA – 0. This might seem a little harsh but the rules are that you have got to compare apples with apples!
So let’s finally go north to Canada
“in Eastern Canada there is poutine with curds of cheese and gravy. None for me thanks but there people are gaga for the stuff”. My blogging pal Sue from “Travel Tales of Life”
Graphic content warning – do not proceed beyond this point if you have a weak stomach or are of a nervous disposition…
…because this is Poutine from Canada…
When I first heard of this I was convinced that it was some sort of wind-up, but apparently not, you can even get it in McDonalds, but thankfully only in Canada…
Try eating that in your car without making a mess of your shirt and trousers while you are driving down the motorway.
Marks out of 10 for Canada – minus 10
Anyway, enough of all this, let me tell you my favourite. In this picture taken in France my mum has gone for the tomato ketchup option and is wagging her fry around to prove it. Alan has kept things simple and luckily is not wagging his fry at anyone, my brother Richard has gone for the classic salt and vinegar combo and although I am not in the picture (obviously I was taking it) you can clearly see my preferred accompaniment is a bottle of cold beer – just don’t mistake it for the vinegar and pour it over the chips!
“Hey Mom, they have pizza in Italy too!” American tourist family overheard in Rome
First, the facts…
… Over four billion pizzas are sold in America every year, 17% of all restaurants are pizzerias, including Italy at World Showcase at Disney World at EPCOT and around about three hundred and fifty pizza slices are eaten every second. Pepperoni is the most popular pizza at just over one-third of all pies ordered.
“When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that’s Amore” (Harry Warren/Jack Brooks)
When I was a boy growing up we didn’t have pizza!
For my Mum preparing food took up a lot of every day because there were no convenience meals and everything had to be prepared from scratch. Mum would have made a pizza from scratch I am sure but no one did. There was complete certainty about the menu because we generally had the same thing at the same time on the same day every week, there were no foreign foods at all, no pasta or curries and rice was only ever used in puddings.
The main meal of the week was Sunday dinner which was usually roast beef, pork or lamb (chicken was a rare treat and a turkey was only for Christmas) served with roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, which for some reason mum always called batter puddings (she is from the South) and strictly only seasonal vegetables because runner beans weren’t flown in from Kenya all year round as they are today.
Sunday dinner at our house…
We had never heard of moussaka, paella or lasagne and the week had a predictable routine; Monday was the best of the left-over meat served cold with potatoes and on Tuesday the tough bits were boiled up in a stew (we would call that bouef bourguignon now of course) and on Wednesday what was left was minced and cooked with onions and served with mash and in this way one good joint of meat provided four main meals with absolutely no waste.
Thursday was my personal favourite, fried egg and chips and Friday was my nightmare day with liver or kidneys because I liked neither (and still don’t!) I complained so much about this that later I was allowed the concession of substituting sausage for liver but I was still obliged to have the gravy (which I didn’t care for much either) on the basis that ‘it was good for me!’
If we had been Catholics or lived nearer to the sea then we would have had fish I suppose but we didn’t have things out of the sea very often except for fish fingers.
Anyway, back to pizza…
…I can still remember my very first and I consider myself fortunate that it was in Italy, in 1976, my first ever overseas holiday when I visited Sorrento with my Dad.
It was lunchtime and because we were in Naples we had to visit a pizzeria because this is the home of the dough based, tomato topped classic.
Legend has it that Queen Margherita of Savoy gave her name to the famous pizza on a visit there in 1889. Tired of French gourmet cooking (as you might well be) she summoned the city’s most famous pizza-maker, Raffaele Esposito, and asked him to bake her three pizzas – of which, prepared in the colours of the Italian flag – red (tomato), green (basil), and white (mozzarella) the simple and patriotic version was her favourite.
Today, authentic Neapolitan pizzas are made with local produce and have been given the status of a ‘guaranteed traditional speciality’. This allows only three official variants: pizza Marinara, which is made with tomato, garlic, oregano and extra virgin olive oil, pizza Margherita, made with tomato, sliced mozzarella, basil and extra virgin olive oil, and pizza Margherita Extra made with tomato, buffalo mozzarella from Campania, basil and extra virgin olive oil.
My granddaughter , Patsy always opts for this traditional but simple option…
I became an immediate fan of the Italian classic and all of its variants just so long as it doesn’t have pineapple on it. And, I am not the only one who thinks pineapple is wrong on pizza; in February 2017, the President of Iceland, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson declared that he was ‘fundamentally opposed’ to pineapple on pizzas. He said…
“I like pineapples, just not on pizza. I do not (unfortunately) have the power to make laws which forbid people to put pineapples on their pizza. For pizzas, I recommend seafood.”
I agree with his opinion on pineapple but personally I don’t like seafood on pasta either.
Interestingly I cannot see that Italy itself has a National Pizza Day!
Maybe because in terms of pizza consumption per population Italy is only fifth in the World. Fourth is Germany, third is the UK, second is the USA but first is NORWAY! I can understand that, if I lived in Norway I would eat cheap pizza every day because Norway is amongst the most expensive places to live in the World.
Canada joins in on Pizza Day and I nominate this Poutine (fried potato, gravy and cheese curds) Pizza as probably the worst ever variation on the famous pie.
If we had ever had pizza at home and my mum served this up I can guarantee that I would be there twenty-four hours later listening to her repeat over and again – “you are not leaving the table until you have eaten all of your dinner” or, on rare occasions that I could wear her down…” one more mouthful and you can get down” and just to make it clear that didn’t include “I don’t want to eat this muck”.
Happy National Pizza Day USA and Canada and Australia too, I believe – have an extra slice for me (no pineapple preferred).
Posted in Europe, Food, Germany, History, Iceland, Italy, Literature, Norway, Travel, United Kingdom, USA, World Heritage
Tagged bouef bourguignon, Canada Poutine, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, Italy EPCOT, Naples, National Pizza Day, Norway Pizza, Pizza, Poutine Pizza, Queen Margherita of Savoy, Sorrento, Vincent Van Gogh
In my last post I raised the issue of chips/crisps/fries and preferences for eating them. This reminded me of my dad who liked chips but absolutely never came to terms with eating them in a bread bun…
I will get onto chips in a minute but I just want to talk a little bit about bananas. It seems almost impossible to believe but it was only in 1954, the year that I was born, that war time food rationing was only officially ended a couple of weeks later on July 4th.
It began in January 1940 when bacon, butter and sugar were rationed and this was followed soon after by meat, tea, jam, biscuits, breakfast cereals, cheese, eggs, milk and canned fruit. As the Second World War progressed, most kinds of food came to be rationed along with clothing and petrol.
I mention this because the very last food item to be released from the shackles of rationing in Britain were bananas, which for me is quite a significant fact. My Dad loved bananas and I could never quite understand why but I suppose he was only twenty-two in 1954 and hadn’t had the pleasure for fifteen years and in fact it is quite possible I suppose that he had never had a banana before in his life.
Interestingly, fish and chips were considered so important during the Second-World-War that it was one of only a very few food items that were never rationed.
The return of the banana was hailed as heralding an end to austerity and to the curse of the ration book. The Labour government even instigated a national banana day in 1946.
This was only a one year event but in the USA they continue to this day with several banana themed days – February 23rd Banana Bread Day, March 2nd Banana Cream Pie Day, August 25th Banana Split Day and most important of all, April 15th National Banana day!
The USA also has some other weird food days – July 15th National French Fries Day, even though they don’t know the difference between chips and crisps and most odd of all National Hot Cross Bun Day on September 11th. Now, I know that Easter is a moveable feast but I don’t believe that it has ever fallen as late in the year as September!*
My dad liked all sorts of strange banana combinations, weirdest of all being banana sandwiches on brown bread with sugar, but he was also very fond of chopped bananas in custard. Personally I’ve never been that keen on bananas at all but this rationing fact explains a lot about my dad’s unusual dietary preferences.
Once a week we all had to have bananas for a pudding until one day when I was about fifteen I could take it no longer I planned a teenager protest and I refused to eat them. It was the only time I can remember him getting really upset with me but I stood my ground even though he severely chastised me and wouldn’t let me leave the table. I continued to stubbornly refuse them and eventually I think I wore him down and he ate them up for me because he liked them so much. That is what you call a win/win result!
Now, getting back to chips and the point of the story because at about the same time as he was gorging banana sandwiches dad used to turn his nose up at a chip butty and found this quite unacceptable, which for a man who would slap a banana between two slices of bread and put sugar on it was always a mystery to me. He would have a slice of buttered bread with his chips but the idea of making a sandwich he considered rather common!
So, in response to the comments received after my previous post I started to think about all the other chip combinations that he would disapprove of and I think his top five would be:
1 Cheesy Chips
2 Chips with Curry
3 Chips with Mayonnaise (and he wouldn’t have liked Reservoir Dogs either)
4 Chips in foil packets (because these are crisps)
but most of all, and thank you to my friends in Canada for this one…
5 Poutine with curds of cheese and gravy
Graphic content warning – do not proceed beyond this point if you have a weak stomach or are of a nervous disposition…
…this is Poutine from Canada…
When I first heard of this I was convinced that it was some sort of wind-up, but apparently not, you can even get it in McDonalds, but thankfully only in Canada…
Try eating that in your car without making a mess of your trousers while you are driving…
So, now please tell me about any of your own dining peculiarities or personal favourites?
*The timing of Easter seems somewhat confusing because it is termed a moveable feast that is not fixed in relation to the civil calendar as for instance is Christmas Day or my Birthday.
Easter falls at some point in a thirty-five day period sometime between late March and late April each year and the exact date is determined by the cycle of the moon. After several centuries of disagreement, and prompted by the Roman Emperor Constantine in the year 325 to sort things out, all churches accepted the basis of the Alexandrian Church that Easter is the first Sunday after the first fourteenth day of the Paschal Full Moon that is on or after the ecclesiastical vernal equinox. To you and me this is the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox which is that moment in time when the centre of the Sun can be observed to be directly above the equator.
Posted in Childhood, Europe, Food, History, Literature, Travel
Tagged Banana Custard, Banana Rationing, Banana Sandwiches, Bananas, Canada Poutine, Chip Butties, Life, War Time Rationing
Have Bag, Will Travel 