“Muffins, teacakes, tea rolls, morning rolls, batch rolls, stottie cakes, wigs, birdies, huffkins, oven-bottom muffins, baps and cobs... It says something about us as a race, doesn't it? (But, frankly, I'm not sure what.) HORACE DAVIDSON, Ripon” LetterPastriesBunsRollsEnglish FoodBreads Book:Good Taste Source: Good Taste
“I'm sure you are aware of the history of the Crusaders bringing spices and dried fruits back to England. While these would have been luxuries at first, with the establishment of regular trade routes, spiced cakes would eventually become affordable treats for the common people, and were often associated with the festivals of the religious calendar. Spiced buns, marked with a cross, were being eaten on Good Friday in the fourteenth century, the origin of our Hot Cross Buns, and there are also many local peculiarities linking spices, currants and the church. Banbury cakes, baked for the town's St. Luke's Day fair, are made in an oval shape to signify the cradle of the baby Jesus... REV. SAMUEL WAVERLEY, Banbury” SpicesLetterCrossBunsCakesEnglish FoodChristian HistoryCrusadersSpicedHot Cross Buns Book:Good Taste Source: Good Taste
“We're quite happy to shrug and swap raisins for currants, if that's what we happen to have in our cupboard, an orange for a lemon, a chicken for a rabbit, a saucepan for a frying pan, and I suppose that attitude stimulates inventiveness. (But rule-breaking and multifariousness aren't good for a writer who is striving to discern patterns and draw tidy conclusions.) One of the privileges of researching a book of this kind is the opportunity to travel, and I have seen different versions of England over the past year--- the England of new red-brick bungalows and modern white-tiled factories and the coal-blackened terraces of Industrial Revolution England. I've visited timeless cathedral-city England, the landscapes of Wordsworth and Jane Austen, recognizable still, and the England of village greens and fleeces and orchards full of shiny apples. I've seen silenced shipyards, rusting cranes and queues outside Labour Exchanges, and the England of lidos, motor cafés and nightclubs, all presently coexisting, and I've been struck by what a land of contrasts and contradictions this is. As much as I have asked myself "What is English food?," I have pondered, "Where---and what--- is England?" A land of contrasts (and it always has been, I suspect) creates a food of contrasts. English food is elaborate and simple, conservative and adventurous, regionalized and international.” EnglandInventivenessContrastsEnglish Food Book:Good Taste Source: Good Taste
“Pan haggerty wasn't dissimilar to a gratin dauphinoise (she could almost hear Freddie crowing that the English had got there first), but was fried in a pan in hot dripping. Singing hinnies were griddle cakes, it transpired, enriched with lard, flavored with currants and eaten spread with butter. "They sizzle and sing on the girdle," Mrs. Birtley explained and smiled. There was much use of potatoes in these recipes, Stella noticed, as she turned the pages, lots of dumplings, leeks, dried peas and oats, and a wholesome sense of economy. These recipes suggested that the region had always been thrifty, but Stella heard pride, not complaint, in Mrs. Birtley's voice, a care and a particularity.” EconomicPotatoesCookerySconesEnglish Food Book:Good Taste Source: Good Taste
“Stella turned through the pages and saw the pikelets, pea-and-ham soup and the boiled mutton and capers of her childhood. Here was her mother's wimberry pie, her damson jam and her gooseberry fool. Where recipes came from relatives and friends, her mother's handwriting noted the case: the method for hot-water pastry had been handed down from her grandmother; the parsley in her suet dumplings came from her cousin; the parkin was her great-aunt's recipe. Stella remembered how she and her mother would always share the first slice of roast lamb at the stove and the secret glass of sherry they'd drink as they made a trifle.” CookeryMemories Of MotherEnglish FoodFamily Recipes Book:Good Taste Source: Good Taste