They are made with a lot of salt, butter and lard, and certainly it used to be the case that on the fishing boats they would be dipped in a tin of syrup. Health food!
They can be ordered online, and Tesco do stock/have stocked them in ‘Local Bakery’ - even in some stores in southern Scotland. My sister bought some at Tesco or Sainsbury’s two years ago on a journey between Ilkley and Whithorn. My daughter has also been pretty successful in baking them at home.
The mention of lard takes me back 65 and more years to my favourite after-school snack.
Coming from Black Country stock we ate a lot of pork products, and only ever used flead lard (the rendered down fat from round the internal organs of the pig). It is soft and spreadable and utterly delicious, especially spread on white bread and sprinkled with a little salt and plenty of pepper.
It is also probably a contributing factor in the health problems I have accumulated in later life, so it is as well that I live in the south and haven't seen flead lard for donkeys' years - I would find myself unable to resist.
I have never been able to make pastry as good as my mother's - I suspect the absence of flead lard is the reason!
I will with much guilt admit that I used to make myself bacon sandwiches with cheddar cheese on pumpernickel bread: lots of bacon, enough cheddar cheese to weld it all together when the cheese melted, fried on both sides.
Butteries, aka rowies, warm with butter or marmalade, or both. An Aberdeenshire and Banffshire delicacy.
Oh Bro J, just go away! Now I want a buttery, right now, and I don't think Tesco's here keeps them. 😥
You think you have trouble sourcing butteries! Our last ones came from Forres, where we stopped on the way to Gairloch. If that sounds like quite a diversion, it's because we wanted to see Sueno's Stone. It was well worth the diversion, not least because butteries.
For the non-initiated, it's rather like a steamrollered croissant, heavy to suit a cold climate. And delicious.
The alternative method of sourcing is for me to bake them using my Granny's recipe. Since this involves yeast, lots of butter (no lard, it's a fully veggie recipe), and folding the dough over and over like for flaky pastry, it doesn't happen very often.
I like my rowies / butteries warm, but just as they are. Adding butter seems like overkill.
Originally posted by Sandemaniac: For the non-initiated, it's rather like a steamrollered croissant, heavy to suit a cold climate. And delicious.
That should say steamrolled salty croissant. They have a high fat and salt content, because they were intended to sustain fishermen at sea for several days. Unlike bread they don't go stale easily.
FWIW, a Tesco all-butter croissant has only 380 calories, and 0.7g salt per 100g, compared to 430 cals and 2.3g salt per 100g for a rowie.
Rice pudding with home-made jam. At a push semolina pudding can replace the rice.
British puddings are things of wonder.
Rice yes. Semolina on the other hand - I survived that at school by asking for a small portion and smearing it around the bowl so it looked like the remnants of a large.
Pikelets (basically small pancakes), made with SR Flour so they puff up a bit. Last night's offering was with frozen berries. Very nice as the juice soaks into the pikelet and adds extra flavour. A good Saturday night dinner when not feeling very hungry.
I'd generally expect food to be worse in London than the rest of the UK.
So am not surprised that New York (not that it's the capital) also had singularly uninteresting fare (unless one went to an upmarket place).
New York has great food at every price point. It's just that you might not want to have the plain regional food from another region of the country there. An inexpensive slice of pizza in New York is probably going to be heaven. An inexpensive burrito in New York? I want to know where the people who make it come from, just like @Nick Tamen says people who make good grits outside the American South probably have a connection to the South.
Edit: Forgot to put my favorite simple food item -- grilled cheese sandwich.
Rice pudding with home-made jam. At a push semolina pudding can replace the rice.
British puddings are things of wonder.
Rice yes. Semolina on the other hand - I survived that at school by asking for a small portion and smearing it around the bowl so it looked like the remnants of a large.
Quite, quite revolting.
I didn't mind semolina as long as there was enough jam, or I liked it with golden syrup. However, tapioca ..... really revolting.
I love a simple meal of bread, butter and a selection of good cheeses. I’m also a bacon sandwich fan but I keep that simple, just bread butter and bacon.
I a
So like rice pudding, semolina and tapioca. Comfort food, as is porridge for breakfast.
When Lord P was working across the Bridge, he looked for Welsh Cakes in the foreign foods section of his local supermarket!
Good bread, like from a particular bakery in Brecon.
Real Cornish pasties, preferably eaten in Cornwall
Good bread pudding or good bread and butter pudding, not too eggy.
Yes, Grommit, toasted with apple. Alas .... my toasted cheese days are over*. Perhaps in Heaven? Oh well, always pancakes with a ltlle maple syrup. PTL.
* I didn't know divers suffered from 'ticulitis' until it started to afflict me.
I thought if this thread—and particularly the talk upthread of biscuits in the American sense—this morning when my wife and I ate at one of our favorite breakfast/brunch places (which has delicious biscuits). Painted on one wall is a quote from Carl Sandburg:
“Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.”
(Actually, the quote as found in his collection of poems Good Morning, America, is “Poetry is the achievement of the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.” But the shorter version works fine on a restaurant wall.)
Rice pudding with home-made jam. At a push semolina pudding can replace the rice.
British puddings are things of wonder.
Rice yes. Semolina on the other hand - I survived that at school by asking for a small portion and smearing it around the bowl so it looked like the remnants of a large.
Quite, quite revolting.
I didn't mind semolina as long as there was enough jam, or I liked it with golden syrup. However, tapioca ..... really revolting.
Rice pudding with home-made jam. At a push semolina pudding can replace the rice.
British puddings are things of wonder.
Rice yes. Semolina on the other hand - I survived that at school by asking for a small portion and smearing it around the bowl so it looked like the remnants of a large.
Quite, quite revolting.
I didn't mind semolina as long as there was enough jam, or I liked it with golden syrup. However, tapioca ..... really revolting.
Have you heard of the craze for bubble tea?
That's tapioca - yuk!
I tried bubble tea once recently when out with some friends at a local drinks emporium. Never again.
I'd generally expect food to be worse in London than the rest of the UK.
So am not surprised that New York (not that it's the capital) also had singularly uninteresting fare (unless one went to an upmarket place).
New York has great food at every price point. It's just that you might not want to have the plain regional food from another region of the country there. An inexpensive slice of pizza in New York is probably going to be heaven. An inexpensive burrito in New York? I want to know where the people who make it come from, just like @Nick Tamen says people who make good grits outside the American South probably have a connection to the South.
Edit: Forgot to put my favorite simple food item -- grilled cheese sandwich.
Well like I said, the bagels were good. The coffee was good.
The local beer I tried was drinkable and although nothing to write home about, certainly a lot better than internationally known US brands.
I'm sure you can get decent pizza and what-have-you in New York.
The breakfasts were pretty dire where I was staying.
But that could be said of a lot of London breakfasts too.
Elder Son made some butter a few weeks ago, and made American biscuits with the resulting buttermilk. (First attempt at both butter and biscuits)
I understand that the results went down well, but no samples reached me
Rice pudding with home-made jam. At a push semolina pudding can replace the rice.
British puddings are things of wonder.
Rice yes. Semolina on the other hand - I survived that at school by asking for a small portion and smearing it around the bowl so it looked like the remnants of a large.
Quite, quite revolting.
I didn't mind semolina as long as there was enough jam, or I liked it with golden syrup. However, tapioca ..... really revolting.
“To make matters worse, she disliked tapioca.”
—C.S. Lewis
My simple treat is very seasonal; it's available year-round, but I only eat it in summer. It is a hot dog: an all-beef weiner cooked over an open fire, eaten in a bun lightly toasted over the same fire, and served with shredded cheese sprinkled over the weiner and bun.
Normally I would never think of eating a hot dog, and am snobbish about them in all the same ways many people are: processed meat made of random parts, lots of unhealthy preservatives and all the rest, and not tasty enough to make any of that worthwhile. But put it over an open fire in the firepit by the lake at our place in the country, keep it over the coals till the skin is just a bit crackly, and eat it outdoors in the same lovely setting (perhaps with a handful of very crispy kettle chips as a side). Suddenly it becomes my favourite gourmet treat.
I have this meal on probably seven or eight summer evenings, lovingly cooked by my husband on the grill over the fire, and then never think about hot dogs again until they come into season next July.
Rice pudding with home-made jam. At a push semolina pudding can replace the rice.
British puddings are things of wonder.
Rice yes. Semolina on the other hand - I survived that at school by asking for a small portion and smearing it around the bowl so it looked like the remnants of a large.
Quite, quite revolting.
I didn't mind semolina as long as there was enough jam, or I liked it with golden syrup. However, tapioca ..... really revolting.
“To make matters worse, she disliked tapioca.”
—C.S. Lewis
What with having COVID for a few weeks and being away at a conference, I'd forgotten to eat many strawberries this summer. Fortunately there are still fresh ones in the supermarket in September (!) so I was thinking of this thread whilst enjoying some yesterday.
I occasionally enjoy a fried slice. When we had a dresser it used to be a thin slice from the porridge drawer, fried both sides in a little butter and sprinkled with cheese. These days I have to make a weapons grade porridge and keep it in the fridge until solid enough to be sliced. Best with fresh Colwick cheese as well, the stuff you make yourself from soured milk.
Rice pudding with home-made jam. At a push semolina pudding can replace the rice.
British puddings are things of wonder.
Rice yes. Semolina on the other hand - I survived that at school by asking for a small portion and smearing it around the bowl so it looked like the remnants of a large.
Quite, quite revolting.
I didn't mind semolina as long as there was enough jam, or I liked it with golden syrup. However, tapioca ..... really revolting.
“To make matters worse, she disliked tapioca.”
—C.S. Lewis
I’m sorry, I just had to
Dawn Treader?
Miracles. The more complete quote is:
“A girl I knew was brought up by ‘higher thinking’ parents to regard God as a perfect ‘substance’; later in life she realized that this had actually led her to think of Him as something like a vast tapioca pudding. (To make matters worse, she disliked tapioca).”
Rice pudding with home-made jam. At a push semolina pudding can replace the rice.
British puddings are things of wonder.
Rice yes. Semolina on the other hand - I survived that at school by asking for a small portion and smearing it around the bowl so it looked like the remnants of a large.
Quite, quite revolting.
I didn't mind semolina as long as there was enough jam, or I liked it with golden syrup. However, tapioca ..... really revolting.
“To make matters worse, she disliked tapioca.”
—C.S. Lewis
I’m sorry, I just had to
Dawn Treader?
No, Miracles. The context of the quote is:
A girl I knew was brought up by ‘higher thinking’ parents to regard God as perfect ‘substance.’ In later life she realized that this had actually led her to think of Him as something like a vast tapioca pudding. (To make matters worse, she disliked tapioca.)
Rice pudding with home-made jam. At a push semolina pudding can replace the rice.
British puddings are things of wonder.
Rice yes. Semolina on the other hand - I survived that at school by asking for a small portion and smearing it around the bowl so it looked like the remnants of a large.
Quite, quite revolting.
I didn't mind semolina as long as there was enough jam, or I liked it with golden syrup. However, tapioca ..... really revolting.
“To make matters worse, she disliked tapioca.”
—C.S. Lewis
I’m sorry, I just had to
Dawn Treader?
Miracles. The more complete quote is:
“A girl I knew was brought up by ‘higher thinking’ parents to regard God as a perfect ‘substance’; later in life she realized that this had actually led her to think of Him as something like a vast tapioca pudding. (To make matters worse, she disliked tapioca).”
I occasionally enjoy a fried slice. When we had a dresser it used to be a thin slice from the porridge drawer, fried both sides in a little butter and sprinkled with cheese.
I know these words, but not in this context. Today I learned what a "porridge drawer" is, as well as the concept of a fried slice [of very thick porridge].
Wait - I thought a fried slice was usually a fried slice of bread, no? But this fried slice is made out of solidified porridge?? So if you just say "fried slice", where do you have to be in order that people will assume you mean "fried solidified porridge"?
I occasionally enjoy a fried slice. When we had a dresser it used to be a thin slice from the porridge drawer, fried both sides in a little butter and sprinkled with cheese.
I know these words, but not in this context. Today I learned what a "porridge drawer" is, as well as the concept of a fried slice [of very thick porridge].
Me too, and once the weather gets cooler, I'm going to try making it.
Dad (a Peterhead loon at university in Aberdeen in the 60s) has told me of a student around the same time who went down with scurvy. Apparently the young man was living on porridge - occasionally hot, but mostly having been poured into a drawer to set and slices then cut.
There was an outbreak of scurvy at a university hall of residence when I was a student. They were having a pie and a pint at university and although they were eating cooked meals in the evening the catering staff were boiling the vegetables to death so that there was barely any Vitamin C left.
I can believe that - I lived on site for my first two years in a job, and at breakfast we'd see that catering staff putting the cooked veg into chafing dishes for lunch. We used to reckon it had been autoclaved, it can't have had much nourishment left in it.
Dad (a Peterhead loon at university in Aberdeen in the 60s) has told me of a student around the same time who went down with scurvy. Apparently the young man was living on porridge - occasionally hot, but mostly having been poured into a drawer to set and slices then cut.
Dad (a Peterhead loon at university in Aberdeen in the 60s) has told me of a student around the same time who went down with scurvy. Apparently the young man was living on porridge - occasionally hot, but mostly having been poured into a drawer to set and slices then cut.
The same story was told in Leeds in the 1980s. I smell an urban myth.
Scurvy is extremely rare, but it can / does happen. So there may have been such a student in the 60s and another in the 80s - or one cautionary tale may have been told in several places.
In a bored moment, I was thinking about this some more.
I like a nice piece of Stilton and heavy fruitcake. I remember my grandfather (born around 1910, I think) eating it with a funny silver cake spoon/fork on Christmas Day.
Funny how memory works, I can’t even tell if that is real or constructed. But I do like fruitcake and Stilton, not had it for a long time.
Comments
Coming from Black Country stock we ate a lot of pork products, and only ever used flead lard (the rendered down fat from round the internal organs of the pig). It is soft and spreadable and utterly delicious, especially spread on white bread and sprinkled with a little salt and plenty of pepper.
It is also probably a contributing factor in the health problems I have accumulated in later life, so it is as well that I live in the south and haven't seen flead lard for donkeys' years - I would find myself unable to resist.
I have never been able to make pastry as good as my mother's - I suspect the absence of flead lard is the reason!
My favourite too!
And mine! And one of the few meals it takes a shorter time to prepare than it does to eat.
British puddings are things of wonder.
The alternative method of sourcing is for me to bake them using my Granny's recipe. Since this involves yeast, lots of butter (no lard, it's a fully veggie recipe), and folding the dough over and over like for flaky pastry, it doesn't happen very often.
Originally posted by Sandemaniac:
For the non-initiated, it's rather like a steamrollered croissant, heavy to suit a cold climate. And delicious.
That should say steamrolled salty croissant. They have a high fat and salt content, because they were intended to sustain fishermen at sea for several days. Unlike bread they don't go stale easily.
FWIW, a Tesco all-butter croissant has only 380 calories, and 0.7g salt per 100g, compared to 430 cals and 2.3g salt per 100g for a rowie.
Rice yes. Semolina on the other hand - I survived that at school by asking for a small portion and smearing it around the bowl so it looked like the remnants of a large.
Quite, quite revolting.
New York has great food at every price point. It's just that you might not want to have the plain regional food from another region of the country there. An inexpensive slice of pizza in New York is probably going to be heaven. An inexpensive burrito in New York? I want to know where the people who make it come from, just like @Nick Tamen says people who make good grits outside the American South probably have a connection to the South.
Edit: Forgot to put my favorite simple food item -- grilled cheese sandwich.
I didn't mind semolina as long as there was enough jam, or I liked it with golden syrup. However, tapioca ..... really revolting.
I a
So like rice pudding, semolina and tapioca. Comfort food, as is porridge for breakfast.
Good bread, like from a particular bakery in Brecon.
Real Cornish pasties, preferably eaten in Cornwall
Good bread pudding or good bread and butter pudding, not too eggy.
Sorry, I’ve picked a few!
Yes, Grommit, toasted with apple. Alas .... my toasted cheese days are over*. Perhaps in Heaven? Oh well, always pancakes with a ltlle maple syrup. PTL.
* I didn't know divers suffered from 'ticulitis' until it started to afflict me.
“Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.”
(Actually, the quote as found in his collection of poems Good Morning, America, is “Poetry is the achievement of the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.” But the shorter version works fine on a restaurant wall.)
Have you heard of the craze for bubble tea?
That's tapioca - yuk!
I tried bubble tea once recently when out with some friends at a local drinks emporium. Never again.
Well like I said, the bagels were good. The coffee was good.
The local beer I tried was drinkable and although nothing to write home about, certainly a lot better than internationally known US brands.
I'm sure you can get decent pizza and what-have-you in New York.
The breakfasts were pretty dire where I was staying.
But that could be said of a lot of London breakfasts too.
I understand that the results went down well, but no samples reached me
“To make matters worse, she disliked tapioca.”
—C.S. Lewis
I’m sorry, I just had to
Normally I would never think of eating a hot dog, and am snobbish about them in all the same ways many people are: processed meat made of random parts, lots of unhealthy preservatives and all the rest, and not tasty enough to make any of that worthwhile. But put it over an open fire in the firepit by the lake at our place in the country, keep it over the coals till the skin is just a bit crackly, and eat it outdoors in the same lovely setting (perhaps with a handful of very crispy kettle chips as a side). Suddenly it becomes my favourite gourmet treat.
I have this meal on probably seven or eight summer evenings, lovingly cooked by my husband on the grill over the fire, and then never think about hot dogs again until they come into season next July.
Dawn Treader?
“A girl I knew was brought up by ‘higher thinking’ parents to regard God as a perfect ‘substance’; later in life she realized that this had actually led her to think of Him as something like a vast tapioca pudding. (To make matters worse, she disliked tapioca).”
No, Miracles. The context of the quote is:
Oh! You beat me to it! LOL!
The funny thing is I used to hate them. Now I am mildly addicted to the taste.
I know these words, but not in this context. Today I learned what a "porridge drawer" is, as well as the concept of a fried slice [of very thick porridge].
Me too, and once the weather gets cooler, I'm going to try making it.
Scotland
*ponders the existence of the deep-fried slice in batter*
A drawer? :O
The same story was told in Leeds in the 1980s. I smell an urban myth.
I like a nice piece of Stilton and heavy fruitcake. I remember my grandfather (born around 1910, I think) eating it with a funny silver cake spoon/fork on Christmas Day.
Funny how memory works, I can’t even tell if that is real or constructed. But I do like fruitcake and Stilton, not had it for a long time.