Eating for England Quotes

“I cannot go any further without mentioning my favourite biscuit of all time, now sadly, tragically, extinct. The oaty, crumbly, demerara notes of the long-forgotten Abbey Crunch will remain forever on my lips. I loved the biscuit as much as anything I have ever eaten, and often, in moments of solitude, I still think about its warm, buttery, sugary self.”
― Nigel Slater, Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table

“Believe me when I tell you that there is no lie quite so obvious as the one where you try to protest that you have washed your face ready for bedtime while you are still sporting an enormous ear-to-ear purple smile of dried Ribena.”
― nigel slater, Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table

“It is an inescapable fact that the Great British Pudding is made of flour and water. In other words, our sweet culinary heritage is based on little more than glue. Sure, our puddings are sweetened with jam, or currants, or treacle, or syrup, or honey, or chocolate, or apples, but at their heart and soul is glue – something that cannot be said for a French crème brulée or an Italian tiramisu, or even a New York cheesecake.”
― Nigel Slater, Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table

“short list of puddings to die for (and you will). Spotted dick – A suet roll encasing a filling of currants, sugar and raisins. Spotted dog – A roll freckled with dried fruit, as Mary Norwak says in English Puddings, ‘like a Dalmatian dog’. Jam roly poly – In theory, a roll of suet pastry wrapped round a layer of jam, but I have yet to see one that didn’t look like the aftermath of a car accident. No doubt I am not the first: this pudding was often nicknamed ‘dead man’s leg’. Sussex pond pudding – A basin-shaped pud of golden suet pastry with a lemon and sugar filling. So named because the syrup runs out as you slice into the crust, forming a sweet pool around the edge.”
― Nigel Slater, Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table

“There is a bit of a scrum at the salad stall as fifteen Guardian readers all try to get at the wild rocket at once. We might have a Zen-like appreciation of a single, perfect organic onion, but it makes us no less capable of elbowing a fellow shopper in the ribs when we have to. This is food after all, and we are happy to fight for it if needs be.”
― Nigel Slater, Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table

“I fear for the custard. It is as old-fashioned as a slice of Hovis or a clothes brush. It belongs to a world of fire-tongs, antimacassars and black-and-white television. The appreciation of sinking your teeth into the soft, almost damp pastry of a custard tart and feeling the filling quiver against your lip is not for the young. The true enjoyment of a custard (as opposed to the pleasures of custard) is something that only comes with age, like rheumatism, bus passes and a liking for Midsomer Murders. I am probably the only person in England to regularly buy a couple of custards from Marks who is still in possession of his own teeth.”
― Nigel Slater, Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table

“The curious fact about Oxo cubes is that we have probably never really needed them. These little cubes of salt, beef extract and flavourings were, and I suppose still are, used to add ‘depth’ to stews, gravies and pie fillings made with ‘inferior’ meat. Two million are sold in Britain each day. Yet any half-competent cook knows you can make a blissfully flavoursome stew with a bit of scrag and a few carrots, without recourse to a cube full of chemicals and dehydrated cow. Apart from showing disrespect to the animal that has died for our Sunday lunch (imagine bits of someone else being added to your remains after you have been cremated), the use of a strongly seasoned cube to ‘enhance’ the gravy successfully manages to sum up all that is wrong about the British attitude to food. How could we fail to understand that the juices that drip from a joint of decent meat as it cooks are in fact its heart and soul, and are individual to that animal. Why would anyone need to mask the meat’s natural flavour? By making every roast lunch taste the same, smothering the life out of the natural pan juices seems like an act of culinary vandalism, and people did, and still do, just that on a daily basis.”
― Nigel Slater, Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table

“unsealed”
― Nigel Slater, Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table