Most Brits associate mincemeat with Christmas – its intoxicating mix of fruit, spices, booze, nuts and mixed peel provide Pavlovian stimuli, stirring memories of cherubic choirs a-caroling, roasted poultry, and the Queen’s speech – whereas I associate it with Easter, because it was always around then that we finally ran out of mince pies. I use the term “ran out” quite deliberately, as mince pies were the kind of thing that, growing up, were considered within the realm of “supplies”, so numerous were they. Every year in early December, my industrious mother would make at least six, but often as many as ten, dozen individual mince pies, fashioned lovingly from homemade mincemeat she had prepared several months in advance.

These seasonal confections then proceeded to appear on the table each and every mealtime, during tea breaks, whenever we had company over and any other time people were sat sitting and might be persuaded to have a smackerel of something, until everyone was thoroughly sick of the sight of them. Towards the end of March, the sight of the poor, battered-looking stragglers, that had been taken in and out their box so many times that their pastry shells were all dented and crumbly, was particularly sad.

The derivation of the word mincemeat, which today contains no minced meat, is Medieval, from a time shortly after Marco Polo had returned from the East, and every cook worth his salt was finding new ways to disguise and preserve rotten provisions with the spices he popularized. Adding cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves to ground meat, dried fruits, candied peel and chopped nuts before soaking the whole lot in high octane liquor must have been a hit at the time, which probably speaks more to the concurrent lack of fresh meat than to whether this was, in fact, a delicious preparation. Either way, it caught the imagination of a nation, and though the ground meat has largely been dropped, the tradition of using these spices to perfume pie filling continues strongly.

Another reason mincemeat was such a hit way back when is because once made, it can be expected to keep, unrefrigerated for as long as 2 years – something my mother bore in mind, as she often made hers over the first weekend of the New Year giving it ample time to “improve” over the next 12 months. Throughout the year, she would occasionally rouse it from its slumbers, turning it over and adding a touch more brown sugar or booze as she deemed necessary. Suffice it to say that by the time Easter came around, and the last mince pies were served, their mincemeat contents was nearing its second birthday, and was so highly perfumed that to inhale deeply close to a warmed mincer was to risk singed nose hairs.

Following my mother’s established tradition, I was well prepared, having put together my mincemeat last January, and fed it occasionally throughout 2011, so that it was rich and boozy by the time the Holidays arrived. Unfortunately, the energetic screams of our firstborn put paid to any intentions I may have had of making batches of personal mince pies before Christmas, so I had plenty of mincemeat leftover to ring in the New Year with. Inspired by a desire to produce something that people would actually eat before the next Christian festival hove into view, I quickly prepared this mincemeat stuffed quince. You could quite equally pair it with a vanilla custard/creme anglaise or, as I prefer, a whisky-laced whipped cream, but I lost my dander somewhere along the way and just shook some powdered sugar over it to evoke the wintry season instead.

I could have used apples in this recipe, but opted for quince largely because it’s one of those fruits that was, coincidentally, first popularized in the UK during Elizabethan times and has, rather sadly, since fallen out of favor. Brought originally from Asia and sometimes known by the moniker “love apple”, quince isn’t dissimilar in taste and texture to the apple — to which it is botanically related and which would make a fine substitute here — but when you’ve got the strains of “Good King Wencelas” with its frosty and feudal lyrics echoing in your mind, quince just feels right. [For more on quince, check out our friend Rachel Eats.]

Oven-baked quince are really, really good: rich, almost custardy in flavor and not overly sweet. A perfect dessert for the Holiday period, providing enough time is taken between courses. It’s probably not worth making a batch of mincemeat just for this purpose, but they are they dead easy and quick to pull together, and will be eaten in no time, allowing you and your family to leave Yuletide flavors safely behind you before the end of January.

I often think that living in a small scruffy New York City apartment is akin to a pioneer life in a log cabin somewhere remote. Sure, the commute is easier, but the myriad quotidien affronts and man traps of a city existence certainly resemble the perils of life on the range.

This is never more true than in winter when leaving your apartment on an icy weekend is about as enticing as wading through thigh-deep snow while being pursued by a pack of ravening wolves. On the those days, when opening your front door results in a nasty swirl of city trash blowing across your threshold, there is nothing better to do than hole up and compensate for your super’s inattention to heating your building to legally established levels by braising something porky for however many hours it takes to chase the chill back, at least as far the verminious bathroom and its dripping condensation.

In this case, it was some seriously chunky pork neck bones – whose original owner must have been a champion of his breed – braised in a rosemary-scented Guinness broth. Typical of parts of the English Midlands where malty, hoppy ales abound and rare breed pigs grow fat on acorns, apples and whey, this is an ancient recipe and in it lie the origins of the famous baked bean dish that, when transposed to the rather more Puritanical colonies, banished the beer in favor of the sweetness of readily-available sugar coming up from the Caribbean, so becoming Boston baked beans. For those pioneers, the presence of such a stew on the table during a long Massachusetts winter must have been even more important than for us hard-pressed city dwellers today.

It is also very similar to a stew my Great Auntie Annie used to make when a crowd of family descended on her Solihull semi-detached so that the grandkids could spend the day riding around the garden on her husband’s 1/16th scale-model railway. It’s not clear to me how often Great Uncle Roger used his train when there were no young guests in the house, but I rather enjoy the idea that if you peeked through the box hedges of a quiet Birmingham suburb on any given weekday morning you might find a highly eccentric retiree rushing around his back yard on a toy train.

For we grandkids, all the excited shreaking and ducking under low hanging bushes as the train chugged around at a decent clip always left us red-faced and famished. My Great Aunt, the youngest of nine kids, knew instinctively how to cater for large groups of young ‘uns, stretching a cheaper cut of meat with white beans, potatoes, and iron-rich ale.

The quality of the final product relies greatly on the quality of the beer used in the braise. Lager is of no use here and light beer (if it is ever worth drinking) should be completely avoided. A fine malty and/or hoppy English-style brew that will give strength, depth and some sweetness to the stew is what you’re seeking. Auntie Annie used to use Flowers’ Original, a floral English ale (then) made in nearby Stratford-upon-Avon. Similarly, pork necks with plenty of connective tissue and marrow are ideal because the former breaks down to thicken the sauce and latter makes a simple and rustic dish somehow luxurious.

Of course, unlike life in the country where heating is controlled by the number of logs on the fire, your apartment heating is bound to come on, clanking and groaning itself into overdrive, just as you plate this dish, forcing you to sweat through it, and all night long in your bed, in spite of the open window. The following morning, perhaps only to escape the dry, oppressive internal conditions, the grey, freezing city will magically appear more inviting and your struggle on the subway marginally less onerous.

One finds mulligatawny soup on an Indian restaurant menu the same way one always finds buffalo wings or nachos on a bar menu. It just has to be there – if it wasn’t on the menu you just know there’s something wrong with the place. But how many of you have ever ordered it over the papadums or samosas to start your meal?  Like many dishes ordered at your local Indian, it can feel like a bit heavy.   This is a good thing if you make this your lunch or your dinner, which is why I absolutely love making batches of this incredibly hearty and extremely inexpensive soup that lasts for many meals.

The funny thing is, mulligatawny soup has a kind of shady past.  After doing research, I realized that there is no cut and dry history of the soup.  There are so many variations of mulligatawny, it almost makes sense that it was difficult to pin down its origins. One thing we do know, it’s not strictly an Indian dish.  It’s actually based on an Indian dish that was changed into soup to satiate (and placate) the fussy British soldiers during the British Raj (the period between 1858 and 1947 when Britain ruled parts of South Asia/India).

Mulligatawny means “pepper water” and is believed to be loosely based on a stew the Brits loved that their Tamil servants would often serve.  They “demanded” a soup course which, before this time in history, had never been a part of Indian food culture.  The result was a thinned out version of the stew base that they liked so much.  According to research, the British eventually brought the invented soup dish back home where it became a well-loved classic there, but because of its many, many variations, it is hard to know what the original recipe contained.

Some mulligatawny soups contain rice or noodles, some are made vegetarian, but traditionally it should have a meat base (like chicken or mutton).  Some contain cream, others coconut milk or yogurt.  Some add apples for a sour/sweet flavor, others add tomato while some people just dump in some chutney.  Your head could spin with all the recipes out there!

So how did we come up with our recipe?  Well, we went to our main source – our local Indian.  We absolutely adore their mulligatawny soup and wanted to eat a version as close to theirs as possible. This homemade recipe is relatively close to one we found in a Madhur Jaffrey book, but with a bit of help from our local Indian restaurant.  It can most definitely be made vegetarian or even vegan (!) and the lentils provide a great heartiness. Pair with some naan (store-bought for us) and you’ve got an amazing lunch or dinner.  Regardless of it’s history, mulligatawny soup is going to remain a staple in my household.  It’s too easy to make and too delicious.

New Jersey, it’s like a cross-section of the entire United States stuffed into a very small area — fenced-in by heavy industry, ugly sub-divisions, peaceful tidal bays and relaxing shore towns — but with its own very distinct character. And, if you drive around it long enough, you’re bound to see some pretty interesting stuff. This goes for the social and the edible, as well as the geographic and architectural.

For example, every spring, you’ll find aged Italian-Americans risking the wrath of New Jersey State Troopers as they harvest dandelions from the banks and verges of Jersey’s myriad highways and parkways. The first time I saw this I thought it must be part of a program to get the elderly outside and active by having them weed public areas. Then, when I’d learned what they were really doing, I marveled at the genetic lottery these robust octogenarians were winning in spite of eating greens picked from the sides of some of the most heavily trafficked roads in the country. So, even though I was apprehensive — for that reason, as well as only having ingested dandelions previously in the form of the disgusting traditional British beverage Dandelion & Burdock (something my grandparents used to trick me into drinking by telling me it was Coke. Its taste is somewhere between sarsaparilla and rust.)— I figured I should give it a go myself.

Now, I haven’t yet had the privelige of picking my own weeds for dinner as cars and trucks whizz by on the NJ Turnpike, and when I do, you can sure you’ll hear about it right here, but I have experimented with eating dandelions a couple of times. The first was an unmitigated disaster, as their unbelievable bitterness ruined an entire meal: leaching acrid chemicals into the sauce and turning my mouth so far inside-out from the first bite that I spent the rest of the evening scrubbing the insides of my cheeks almost raw with a toothbrush.

But recently, I decided that they deserved a second chance. So, arming ourselves with a little research, as well as a precautionary array of tongue scrubbing devices, we set about turning a large bunch of sandy weeds into a delicious side dish. Happily, after a sound preliminary blanching, the outcome was an enormous improvement on our first, rash experiment. And, as part of a scrumptious early fall dinner of veal chop, rich buttery rosemary-brandy cream sauce, and a frankly beautiful (if I do say so myself) roast turnip, I was delighted to concede that eating weeds can, in fact, be very enjoyable.

Of course, the world needs another basic veal chop recipe like Williamsburg, Brooklyn, needs more frickin’ hipsters, but we have been on kind of a veal chop kick since we returned from Argentina in the spring. It’s an expensive habit for sure now we’re back, but in Buenos Aires, as with all kinds of cattle products, veal is very reasonably priced and is treated with a similar degree of skill as the more famous beef.

One particular veal dish stands out. At the rather trendy-looking Grappa restaurant in the Palermo “Hollywood’ district of BA, Amy had a spectacular grilled veal chop slathered with one of the most mushroomy sauces imaginable. It was as if entire sacks of porcini mushrooms had been somehow liquefied on her plate. The menu described it simply as a chuleta de ternera con crema de hongos and our pathetic (certainly for food and menus) dictionary couldn’t tell us what hongos are.

Still, we knew that we liked them and they were delicious, not to mention that hongos is just a fun word to say, so a couple of days after eating said dish, perusing the shelves of a local almacen, we were excited to find large bags of dried Chilean hongos at rock-bottom prices. It was only after we returned to Brooklyn that we learned that hongos translates as “fungus”, but even with a couple of bags of hongos in our pantry, we’re still not exactly sure what kind of fungus we are the owners of. They look and taste very similar to porcini, so we’re assuming that they are a related species, but research into the differences between hongos and setas (wild mushrooms in Spanish) returns no categorical answer except that taxonomically, mushrooms are fungi and fungi are mushrooms. However, one almost helpful Argentine website informed us that, fungus usually refers either to inedible mushrooms, or to the large (usually subterranean) organism of which the mushroom is but the visible, and gatherable, part. To turn the example above ground, the fungus is the apple tree, the mushroom is the apple.

Anyway, though we, like the fungus, might still be in the dark about many micological issues, we can assure you that should you find hongos on the menu anywhere in the Spanish speaking world, you should eat them, especially if paired with veal and a delicious buttery sauce.

Grappa
El Salvador 5802 – Palermo Hollywood, Buenos Aires
T: 4899-2577
E: grappacantina@fibertel.com.ar
Every day 12noon to 1.30 a.m.

Similarly, in the American imagination, the British are all highly genteel, pale-skinned folk, who sip tea out of dainty bone china cups at exactly four p.m. every day, and take tiny bites out of their cucumber sandwiches to avoid baring their horrific teeth. Of course, most Brits are more likely to be swigging gin or alcopops from a tin mug than Earl Grey by the time four o’clock comes around, but as with French and Mexican stereotypes, these outdated notions retain an element of truth.

In this case, the Victorian era high-tea of, well, tea and various sandwiches and cakes isn’t a tradition that has survived intact. However, the summertime practice of taking ones tea (meaning the meal here) out of doors in a kind of impromptu and slightly lame picnic is still going strong, particularly since the tea (meaning the drink here) is commonly replaced by another Victorian era stalwart, Pimm’s.

As I wrote last year, prior to the industrial revolution, London’s East End and Docklands area was known for the quality of its shellfish. The large tidal range on that part of the Thames revealed great and healthy mudflats at low tide from which bushels of cockles, mussels, winkles, razor clams, and oysters were pulled. This bounty of shellfish meant that oyster bars were as much a part of East End life as rhyming slang, and it was typical for your working man to wash down each mouthful of crustacean with a jigger of dry gin. Now, if you’ve ever drunk cheap London dry gin neat, you’ll know that the bitter flavor can turn even the toughest Cockney’s mouth inside-out and have him clutching the Betty Grable for support.

A Little of the Back Story
So it was that in 1823, East End oyster bar owner James Pimm began serving a drink that mixed gin with quinine, citrus fruit, and spices to make it more palatable. Pimm’s cocktail, or No.1 Cup, as it became known after the small tankard it was served in, quickly became a hit, and before long even the posh folks of London’s West End were quaffing it as “The Original Gin Sling”. So popular was his beverage, that James Pimm introduced two other kinds of Pimm’s cups to London drinkers: numbers 2 and 3, based on scotch and brandy, respectively.

Indeed, by the late 1880s, Pimm’s had established itself such a following that even when the Pimm family sold their business – to no less than Sir Horatio Davies, member of Parliament and (at the time) Lord Mayor of London – the purchaser decided to keep the name. Davies expanded the Pimm’s brand to five new oyster bars around the city and succeeded in making his drinks such an integral part of Victorian life that throughout the empire from Delhi to Khartoum, Pimm’s was refreshing the British troops, tommies and officers alike. And, until the outbreak of the second World War, Pimm’s was the drink of choice for any self-respecting Britisher. This enduring popularity bringing forth a 4th “cup”, this time based on rum.

Pimm’s Gets Groovy
During the 1960s, when Britain, and particularly London – with the arrival of the Stones, Kinks, Beatles, and The Who – became cool again, sales of Pimm’s, which had dipped in the post-war years, took off. Daring to reinvent itself as the drink of the trendy, swinging classes instead of the stuffy, buttoned-up Victorians, the company launched two new cups, numbers five and six, based on rye and vodka, to great acclaim.

Ever the fashion-conscious beverage purveyor, Pimm’s capitalized on the latest era of Brit-pop cool – the mid-1990s – when Blur and Oasis were kings of indie rock, to release its ready-mixed cans of Pimm’s & Lemonade, and in certain places, Pimm’s on tap. Sadly, throughout it’s long, chameloenic history, Pimm’s has been out of fashion as often as it’s been groovy. Between 1970 and 1990, many of Pimm’s cups were phased out, with only numbers 1 and 6 currently still in regular production. The no.3 cup, based on brandy, is still sold but only seasonally nowadays as Pimm’s Winter Cup.

Personal History
In my lifetime, Pimm’s has mostly been associated with watching a cricket match, or watching things float by from a beer garden by the Thames, while scorching my pinkish skin scarlet under sunny skies. However, you don’t have to be British, in Britain, or even interested in British mod-style music to enjoy Pimm’s. Wherever the sun is shining and it’s approaching Pimm’s o’clock, there’s an opportunity to slice-up some fruit (strawberries, apples, and oranges are good), cucumber (not just for sandwiches), and mint leaves, mix yourself a large jug of Pimm’s and lemonade (lemon/lime soda is fine), and watch the sun fall into the sea.

And, lest you wonder why we’re promoting a British drink on America’s no.1 (pun intended) holiday, I should remind you that every year on or around Independence Day I am asked, by more Americans than seems possible, how we celebrate 4th July in England.

File this one under “utter fabrications told to you by older sibling and believed for too long”. I must have been very young when my sister (15 months my senior) informed me that I should be wary of eating my grandmother’s suet dumplings because suet was the gooey material supporting bovine eye-balls. Quite where she got this idea from, I’m not sure, but she seemed to believe it and, as a credulous juvenile, so did I. And so convinced was I, that until some brief research yesterday proved her to have been telling porkies, I had held it up as truth for the intervening 25 years or so. Why I found her a credible source about this I have no idea – she’s been a vegetarian since the age of 12, and an extremely picky eater before that.

Suet is, in fact, raw beef fat that is typically from around the animals’ kidney or loin area, and while that may not be a much less appetizing prospect than eye-socket, it certainly helps explain why it should be used in the preparation of a traditional British dumpling. It’s basically a firm kind of lard that melts perfectly at the relatively low temperatures found on top of a stew, which is where a British dumpling is typically found.

American readers will be forgiven for commonly associating dumplings only with Chinese restaurants, or at the outside, with Russian or Polish cuisine, but in the northern reaches of Britain, suet dumplings are, or, at least, were a frequent sight floating on top of a thick stew during the winter. And indeed, suet dumplings do look and taste a bit like their Chinese counterparts – slightly chewy and definitely filling, except that they’re much less uniform in shape and are not wrapped in pasta, the filling is the dumpling, basically. Suet as an ingredient though, is not confined to the creation of floaters, it’s also used in the recipe for other traditional British favorites as spotted dick, pastry, Christmas pudding and mincemeat, demonstrating remarkable flexibility as a fat and flavoring.

Suet is also commonly used throughout the Caribbean in the preparation of patties, particularly in Jamaica, and I think that this is the reason for it appearing on the shelves of our local supermarket, as not far from us resides a large and vibrant Caribbean community.

We’ll definitely be exploring some patty recipes with suet in the near future (a $2 package goes a long way), but for the time being, please consider searching out some suet and making yourself a good old British dinner this weekend. It’s on oft-repeated maxim among survival experts that icy temperatures can best be braved when you’re core is fired with plenty of firm beef fat. I’m not kidding.

Chicken & Root Vegetable Stew with Herbed Suet Dumplings (serves 4-6)

Ingredients

• 4 bone-in chicken breasts, or (preferably) 6-8 bone-in chicken thighs
• 1 large yellow onion, roughly sliced
• 1 large leek, cut into 1 inch chunks
• 3 large carrots, cut into 1 inch chunks
• 2 parsnips, cut into 1 inch chunks
• 4 medium potatoes, cut into eighths, or 2 inch chunks
• 4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
• 1 bouquet garni (store bought, or wrap parsley, bay and thyme in the green part of a leek and secure with string)
• pinch of hot pepper flakes
• 2oz (50 grams) dry white wine
• 3 tsp olive oil
• 2-3 pints (1-1. liters) chicken stock (depending on size of pot you’re using)
• 2oz (50 grams) plain flour
• salt and black pepper

For the dumplings:

• 4.5oz (125 grams) plus a bit more, plain flour
• 2oz (50 grams) grated or very finely diced fresh suet
• 2-3oz (50-75 grams) water
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tbsp chopped parsley

Recipe

• Heat oil in large heavy casserole or dutch oven to medium.
• Dust chicken pieces with flour and sprinkle with salt and pepper and place in pot. Allow to brown well on all sides – about ten minutes.
• Remove chicken and add onions, carrots, potatoes, parsnips and leeks. Sweat until lightly browned, about 6 minutes.
• Add garlic and hot pepper, and cook for a further 2 minutes, or until garlic softens and perfumes room.
• Deglaze pot with white wine or 2oz of the stock. Make sure all the caramelized chicken juices come up before adding remaining stock (or enough to cover contents) and bouquet garni.
• Cover and allow to simmer for around 40 minutes.
• In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, chopped suet and parsley. Mix well.
• Add half of your water and stir. If dumpling mixture is too dry add more, but you’re looking for a dough that’s nicely sticky and elastic, not too damp.
• Then using two tablespoons, make quennelles with dough and removing the pot lid, gently plop them into simmering stew. Alternatively, flour your hands well and make squash-ball size dumplings and drop them in.
• Then, re-cover stew and allow to simmer for another 10-15 minutes.
• Serve in a bowl and allow to stick to your ribs. Repeat with second helpings.

The purpose of this trip was, principally, to visit my new nephew, William, who, we discovered, is a charming young chap with pink cheeks and a propensity for chewing his fingers, drinking milk, and synchronizing his burps and farts – some skills you just can’t teach. However, we also planned to visit old friends we hadn’t seen since our wedding 18 months ago, and, if we could fit it in, actually see some of London.

I’m sure many of you have heard and/or seen about the culinary renaissance that has been happening in the UK over the past ten years or so, that the country is rightfully proud of. Marco Pierre White, Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, Rick Stein, and Heston Blumenthal, among others, have all made huge names for themselves domestically and internationally for their reinterpretations of classic British dishes and focus on the excellent produce of the British Isles. Much of this gastronomic progress has been realized in the restaurants of London, turning it from culinary wasteland to hot spot almost over night.

Now, my experience of dining in London as a resident were generally not at these temples of fine food, but instead at more down-at-heel places like the many gastro-pubs and curry houses. So, the first opportunity we got, Amy and I raced off to a local boozer in Putney (the Coat & Badge) for a quick pub lunch of pork pie, chips and mushy peas, washed down with a couple of pints of Fuller’s London Pride (a bitter made just over the Thames in Chiswick), and that evening, followed it up with a typically Anglo-Indian take-out curry from the totally average but completely wonderful Putney Tandoori.

Chucking back a chicken tikka jalfrezi and a lamb dhansak was like putting on an old sweater – familiar, comforting, and with a smell that evoked many happy memories. Rose-tinted memories for certain, because I’ve committed some fairly miserable and embarrassing mistakes of judgment at Indian restaurants over the years, including the time I ordered a fahl (an insanely-spiced dish), took one bite and then rubbed my eyes with a chile-soaked finger, and spent the rest of the night feverishly rinsing out my sockets fearing I’d blinded myself.

The day after our curries, we headed into London proper – to the centre/center – to revisit the nasty-ass basement bar where Amy and I stumbled across one another nearly six years ago, do some shopping down Neal Street, and then head up to Farringdon for lunch. Amazingly, the Gardening Club (the basement bar) looked like it had been given a face-lift, and was now, curiously, serving lunch, but neither of us could really face going inside for fear that it might change our cherished memories of the place. So, pushing on, we enjoyed the recent fall in value of the pound vs. the dollar and actually did some non-food shopping for a change.

One of the other “new” breed of British chef/restaurateurs, we knew about from having read about him, seen him on TV and bought his book, but who has garnered far less international celebrity is Fergus Henderson of St. John Restaurant near Smithfield Market. He is most famous for his widely-copied dish of roasted veal marrow-bones and parsley salad which we had eaten and loved at both Gabrielle Hamilton’s fabulous Prune, in NYC, and more recently at L’Express in Montreal. Now we wanted to try the original.

Below a sign featuring a hand-drawn pig, we entered the restaurant down a short hallway (the building which houses the restaurant is a Georgian-era carriage house, and one enters via the former carriage entrance the courtyard of which is now covered and serves as the restaurant’s bar, bakery and cafe area), and ascended a short flight of stairs to to the dining room full of anticipation. Factory-style lamps illuminated a white-walled space completely circled by head-high coat-hooks, and a thickly-painted floor was decorated only by ordinary white-clothed tables and dark, well-worn chairs.

Check out the slideshow above to see what we had for lunch, and then listen to the podcast below to learn more about St. John Restaurant, and our excitingly awkward meeting with chef/owner Fergus Henderson.

We recently invited you to tell us what your top five flavors of potato crisps/chips are, and we were, frankly, amazed that so many of you did. Not only that, we were surprised by the variety of flavors you selected. It seems that there is a wide world of taste out there and we are not alone in our obsession with salty, potato snacks.

So, preamble over, because there were such great flavor suggestions, the decision was tough, and there are three categories: honorable mention, close but no cigar, and, the one, the only, the champion top five. Bear in mind that only the champion wins the package of British crisps.

Honorable Mention:
Joanne @ Frutta Della Passione
Heather @ Gild the Voodoolily
Melissa @ moe.org
and Fuji Mama

Close but No Cigar:
Maybelles Mom (solid flavor selections and the extra note about eating Lays while posting was a nice touch)

Champion Top Five:
Choosy Beggar Tina (exhibited good knowledge of British gourmet sandwiches with the “chippie” aka chip sarnie, aka chip barm, aka sandwich of french fries, to endear herself, and followed up with great overall choices, but the all important no. 1 choice – my all-time favorite flavor – salt & vinegar.)

1. Ketchup
2. Smoky Bacon
3. Old cheddar and red onion
4. Lime and black pepper
5. Sea salt and malt vinegar (kettle cooked, please!)

Congrats Tina, we’ll be in touch to arrange the crisp transaction very soon!

Those of you who have watched or read Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, will be familiar with the idea of top fives. In the movie, the main character (played by John Cusack) is a record shop owner, who spends most of the movie revisiting the demise of his past relationships, and in so doing, constantly re-imagines his top five break-up songs according to how each break-up made him feel. However, top fives are not limited to songs or relationships, you can have a top five anything: top five smells, top five colors, top five sneaker brands, top five breakfast foods, etc., anything at all.

There are only two rules to top fives: one, everyone’s top fives are different, i.e. there is no single right or wrong top five; and two, your own top five selection will almost certainly change over time, as Cusack’s did according to the particular break-up.

One top five that I spent much of my early twenties thinking about is my top five crisps, or potato chips. Much of this thinking was done in the pub because a) much of my social life was in the pub, and b) after a number of pints, one often finds oneself craving salty snacks. This craving led to the purchase of far too many bags of crisps in a variety of halitosis-inducing flavors, followed by lengthy arguments about their various merits.

The purists, and I happen to agree, would argue that you shouldn’t compare potato crisps with cheese puffs because the latter are made from corn. It would be like comparing dogs to cats. So rather than do a top five salty, packaged snack foods that are good with beer, this is simply a top-five potato crisp/chip flavors. Of course, this begs the question what my top five salty, packaged snack foods are, or if a better top five would be my top five cheesy corn snacks, but that would be another post, or number of other posts.

Please post your own top five potato chip/crisp flavors in the comments section with or

without lines of reasoning, because yours won’t be the same as mine, and my top five might even change if you suggest a flavor I’ve left out. It’s all very subjective, and, some may say, pointless, but I love top fives because they are a source of endless and purile debate, which in election season might just be the antidote you need.The “best” top five (selected according to how I’m feeling at the time) will win a flavor-selection of fine English crisps.

(Please note that you might not be familiar with some of my top five – the UK, generally speaking, leads the world in the variety of potato crisp/chip flavors available – but there are many flavors available in the US now so this shouldn’t be a problem.)

Top Five Potato Crisps/Chips Flavors (in reverse order)

5. beef & onion (sounds nasty, and is, in a way – meat flavor potatoes anyone? but, like #4, it’s a taste investment)

4. cheese & onion (similar to cheese & chive, but the onion-y tang gives it that little extra oomph now and through the morning after)

3. worcestershire sauce (it really does taste like Lea & Perrins’ classic condiment, not as stinky as #5, but still tangy enough when you’re drunk)

2. prawn cocktail (this flavor began resembling cocktail sauce (ketchup & horseradish), but these days has a slightly shrimpy, sweet tomato taste. Too fishy for some, just right for me.)

1. Of course, the king, beating out every other flavor by a country mile, salt n’vinegar. What can I say? It’s just magnificent. The perfect combination of salt and acid with the fried potato taste of the crisp. Cuts the beery mouth feel and encourages salivation, then requires more beer to refresh the slightly parched tongue, and when you get to the bottom corners of the bag where all the flavor and crumbs reside, the vinegar’ll turn your lips purple. Glancing around the pub, you tell you’re not alone as you spot other sn’v lovers by shade of their lips.

Check out some other posts you may enjoy:

• Toad in the Hole (An Easy English Family Meal and, No, Toads Aren’t Involved)
• Gambas al Ajillo (A Simple, Authentic Tapa)
• The Forbes Top 10 Celebrity Chef List (Be Prepared To Cry)
• Gnocchi alla Romana (Roman Gnocchi)

So, the headline above might be slightly hyperbolic, but the sentiment I’m trying to convey is very real and serious. Last night, UK TV cooking legend, Delia Smith’s new show Delia premiered on BBC2 and instead of garnering the rave reviews virtually every one of her previous series have, this one has been roundly panned, and foodies across the UK are outraged at what they see as Delia’s complete volte face.

You see, for years Delia has been at the forefront of those encouraging us to return to fresh, seasonally-available foods, locally-grown in traditional ways and prepared using time-honored British techniques and recipes – something many of us started to believe, and a mantra that johnny-cum-latelys like serial-lisper Jamie Oliver have made a career out of parroting. But, in her new show, it seems that she is advocating the use of ready-prepared, dried or frozen ingredients to make dishes that are barely cooked, take no time to make and, frankly, sound horrendous. After having built her career by encouraging, nay teaching, a nation to cook properly and traditionally with real ingredients, she’s throwing all that away and encouraging us to cook as little as possible and make meals from foods full of preservatives, artificial colorings and flavorings. Delia had always said that the actual cooking could be as pleasurable as the eating, but now she’s saying it’s just a waste of time. Why, Delia? Why?

The equivalent, for US readers, would be if Julia Child had suddenly decided to advocate making frozen dinners or meals out of a can. Regular readers will know that we’re typically very disparaging about TV cooks who encourage us to cook in this way – Rachel Ray and Sandra Lee, in particular – and in this instance we’re going to have to agree (without having seen the show, admittedly) that (assuming the reports are true) Delia has made a serious mis-step here. Let’s hope that the cooking-haters out there (e.g. the Rachel Ray/Sandra Lee lovers) don’t win on UK TV as they have on the Food Network.

It’s a philosophical issue: either you look at food as fuel, and therefore eating and cooking as necessary evils to be completed as quickly as possible and with the minimum of effort, or you look at food as an opportunity to make a necessity enjoyable and relaxing, and therefore eating and cooking as a “way of bringing pleasure to everyday life,” to quote Delia. Surely those who are on TV trying to get people excited about food should be in the latter camp, rather than encouraging us to rush through to the end of the meal so we can get on with our busy lives? What do you think?

• TOAD-IN-THE-HOLE WITH MUSHY PEA