Tell us about a simple food item that you enjoy occasionally, and are always glad about it

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  • ChastMastr wrote: »
    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.

    A drawer? :O

    A pair of drawers perhaps?
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Gee D wrote: »
    ChastMastr wrote: »
    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.

    A drawer? :O

    A pair of drawers perhaps?

    No, because it would fall out the bottom. Better putting it in your socks.
  • BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
    Grilled halloumi 😋
  • A certain TV advert for crisps has brought to mind another simple favourite - the crisp butty.
    It's possibly over a year since the urge last struck. Fortunately the supermarkets only seem to sell crisps in 'family' or 'multi' packs and my urge isn' tusually strong enough to justify the expense. Nor the quantity then asking to be crammed between two slices of bread.
  • The_RivThe_Riv Shipmate
    edited September 2024
    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"?

    In the States we call something close to this Fried Mush -- essentially, slices of congealed polenta that are pan-fried in butter, topped with more butter, and finished off with maple syrup. Quite satisfying.
  • Okay, what is this food drawer thing people are referring to? Presumably you don’t just pour stuff into either the drawers you have in a dresser in the bedroom, or the vegetable crisper drawer in the refrigerator. I’m assuming this is a special thing made to hold food until it solidifies?
  • No, it’s just a drawer. Sometimes lined with grease proof paper or foil, but sometimes not. Same drawer, in my grandmother’s upbringing, which was also used for the baby in lieu of a cradle.
  • LeafLeaf Shipmate
    ChastMastr wrote: »
    Okay, what is this food drawer thing people are referring to? Presumably you don’t just pour stuff into either the drawers you have in a dresser in the bedroom

    Surprisingly, this appears to be exactly what was done.

    In the time before fitted kitchens had built-in cabinets, people had dressers as places to prepare (dress) meat and other foods . Think "Hoosier cabinets" in the American context. The internet informs me that some dressers in Scotland had a tin-lined drawer, or just a plain wood drawer lined as per Cathcats, into which cooked porridge would be poured to cool and set.

  • Good heavens! I imagine so many insects… I’ll have to look up Hoosier cabinets, as I’ve not heard of that. Of course I’m a Florida native, so with the heat and humidity, doing that with food would be perilous indeed here… (tries to remember what state Hoosiers are in. Indiana? I’ll look it up…)
  • Ah, okay. So people were able to do this without refrigeration? Was this only in the colder months?
  • ChastMastr wrote: »
    I’ll have to look up Hoosier cabinets, as I’ve not heard of that.
    Nor had I. It does sound risky in the South.

    And yes, Indiana is the Hoosier state.

  • ChastMastr wrote: »
    Ah, okay. So people were able to do this without refrigeration? Was this only in the colder months?

    We are talking about Scotland. Much as I love my home, from your climatic perspective, there are only colder months here!

    (Average summer maximum in my part of Scotland (one of the warmer parts) is 19C / 66F)
  • I've found this discussion around porridge and making a piece, really interesting! The last few days I've been enjoying toast and vegemite, a real childhood favourite. As a kid we would have white bread, toasted, lots of butter or marg and a very think scrape of vegemite, heavenly! If unwell, the toast would be plain with spread only and no butter.

    I have to limit how often I have this because of salt content, but it seems even more delicious because I have it so infrequently that it's a total delicacy!
  • HuiaHuia Shipmate
    @Cheery Gardener Vegemite also comes in a version that has 40% less salt. Only some supermarkets sell it here - Woolworths being one of them. It has a blue band printed around the top of the label ( the gluten free version has green band). Here it's only available in the 235g size.

    Toast and vegemite is one of my favourites too.
  • I've found this discussion around porridge and making a piece, really interesting! The last few days I've been enjoying toast and vegemite, a real childhood favourite. As a kid we would have white bread, toasted, lots of butter or marg and a very think scrape of vegemite, heavenly! If unwell, the toast would be plain with spread only and no butter.

    I have to limit how often I have this because of salt content, but it seems even more delicious because I have it so infrequently that it's a total delicacy!

    We must have similar tastes and memories, as my go-to quick lunch is a vintage cheddar and vegemite sandwich on grain bread. Usually consumed when Mrs BA is away at her craft group for the day, as I am also on a salt-limiting diet.

    On toast or crumpets, I like good quality varietal honey or our own home-made jams or marmalades. Since we've stopped travelling around the state, I haven't been able to acquire local honey varieties. It is fascinating to compare the range of strengths, colour and tastes across the countryside - cotton honey from Moree I found most interesting as it is so thick you really have to dig it out of the jar even in summer.
  • I was just reading the previous two posts when an email popped up. It was a Lewes Council Newsletter, headlined "Get Help to eat healthier with the Healthy Start programme", eek!

    My salty sin is Bovril on toast, which I hadn't added to this thread as I enjoy that much more frequently than occasionally.
  • Cameron wrote: »
    ChastMastr wrote: »
    Ah, okay. So people were able to do this without refrigeration? Was this only in the colder months?

    We are talking about Scotland. Much as I love my home, from your climatic perspective, there are only colder months here!

    (Average summer maximum in my part of Scotland (one of the warmer parts) is 19C / 66F)

    Sounds wonderful. Wish I could get a job there.
  • Ah, come and join our salty sinners corner, @Roseofsharon! Plenty of room here, glad I'm not alone in enjoying our national dish!

    Like you @Barnabas_Aus cheese and vegemite, the perfect combination, and I do like a toasted sandwich made with that filling! I had cheese and vegemite quite often in my school lunchbox and enjoy it on really fresh bread, nothing better.

    I wasn't sure @Huia if they were still making the lower salt version, it isn't on the shelves in the supermarket I frequent. At one point I thought it may have had an orange lid, rather than yellow, but perhaps they have dropped that and I'm looking for something that no longer exists?!

    @Barnabas_Aus I used to buy honey at our local market held monthly, but I found that sometimes I got a bit wheezy after eating it. Having now read something this week that honey might help with allergies, I might try a different local honey available in my local supermarket. I am very partial to creamed honey as it's more controllable, but runny honey is good too!
  • Sorry, been offline for a bit due to corvids. I grew up in a Derbyshire farming family who came here under the banner of Bonnie Prince Charlie and didn't want to pay the fare back to Fife. We had a proper Scottish dresser which had a drawer with a removable tin liner that got filled with water based porridge three or four times a week. If anyone on the farm was a bit peckish between meals they could help themselves and either let it down with milk or cream or if feeling fancy, fry it. We didn't refrigerate much back then, bacon, milk, cheese, butter all went in the pantry on all but the hottest days.
  • Sorry, been offline for a bit due to corvids. I grew up in a Derbyshire farming family who came here under the banner of Bonnie Prince Charlie and didn't want to pay the fare back to Fife. We had a proper Scottish dresser which had a drawer with a removable tin liner that got filled with water based porridge three or four times a week. If anyone on the farm was a bit peckish between meals they could help themselves and either let it down with milk or cream or if feeling fancy, fry it. We didn't refrigerate much back then, bacon, milk, cheese, butter all went in the pantry on all but the hottest days.

    ...and houses were built with pantries, with a big stone (sort of) shelf in them to help keep things cool, until at least 1946 because that's when our house was built, and there's no way that the concrete shelf needs to be as thick as it is for strength, that's a cooling shelf.
  • Cameron wrote: »
    ChastMastr wrote: »
    Ah, okay. So people were able to do this without refrigeration? Was this only in the colder months?

    We are talking about Scotland. Much as I love my home, from your climatic perspective, there are only colder months here!

    (Average summer maximum in my part of Scotland (one of the warmer parts) is 19C / 66F)

    I think that temperature all year round would be awesome. (I’m a Florida native, so this is home for me, but I actually don’t like extreme heat. Summer is “go from one air-conditioned environment to another with a little time in the hot, humid sun as humanly possible” season for me. Nor extreme cold, either, to be fair, so I can’t just go to somewhere up north…)
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Not a simple year-round food, but each spring I look forward to freshly picked asparagus steamed with a squeeze of lemon and butter. And toast with organic fynbos honey, an aromatic wild herb fragrance that can probably only be found in the Cape.
  • Firenze wrote: »
    Gee D wrote: »
    ChastMastr wrote: »
    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.

    A drawer? :O

    A pair of drawers perhaps?

    No, because it would fall out the bottom. Better putting it in your socks.

    Good point.
  • I am very fond of a vegetable called kohl rabi. Slice it thin and eat it raw with salt. Alas, it is usually out of season.
  • I have grown Kohl Rabi in the past, but this garden doesn't seem to suit it.
    I like it, and used it for coleslaw or remoulade, or crunched it like an apple, but as often as not when I needed some they were either tiny and slug-ravaged or big and woody.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    I've just come back to this thread after a few days, and when I saw a post from @Trudy I thought she was going to mention seal flipper pie.

    The first time I was in Newfoundland, David and I were taken to a flipper supper, and I have to confess we never repeated the experience.
  • TrudyTrudy Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Piglet wrote: »
    I've just come back to this thread after a few days, and when I saw a post from @Trudy I thought she was going to mention seal flipper pie.

    The first time I was in Newfoundland, David and I were taken to a flipper supper, and I have to confess we never repeated the experience.

    I know it's considered a local "delicacy" but I have never had the (dubious) pleasure. I've smelled it and that's enough.
  • When Mrs RR is away I sometimes, in the privacy of the kitchen, indulge in one of my favourite 'go to' yummy occasional snacks: light toast - smear of butter - marmite - lashings of cashew (or peanut butter) - mango chutney on top.
    Oh so tasty, oh so nourishing, oh so comforting. According to Mrs RR it's 'orrible. As proof, she reminds me of the time (in my single lone parent days when I took them to a church 'shared lunch' event. Nobody, but nobody, would touch them. So I took 'em home. Tried them on daughter .... she wouldn't eat 'em either.
    They lasted me several days. I found they went splendidly with grilled cheese on top.

    Perhaps we need another thread (but in anothe place) called 'Food I can't stand and refuse to eat'.
    You now know Mrs RR's 'top of the list'. Mine would be cooked apricots. Ugh!!!
  • RockyRoger wrote: »
    When Mrs RR is away I sometimes, in the privacy of the kitchen, indulge in one of my favourite 'go to' yummy occasional snacks: light toast - smear of butter - marmite - lashings of cashew (or peanut butter) - mango chutney on top.
    Oh so tasty, oh so nourishing, oh so comforting.

    I haven't tried this particular combination (is it one you invented yourself?) but I have all the ingredients and yes it sounds awesome to me! Might give it a try tomorrow! I love any recipe containing peanut butter anyway. Never thought of having mango chutney with anything other than curry, but its a favourite flavour, so why not? And I do like Marmite but rarely eat it, not sure why.

  • ChastMastrChastMastr Shipmate
    edited September 2024
    RockyRoger wrote: »
    When Mrs RR is away I sometimes, in the privacy of the kitchen, indulge in one of my favourite 'go to' yummy occasional snacks: light toast - smear of butter - marmite - lashings of cashew (or peanut butter) - mango chutney on top.
    Oh so tasty, oh so nourishing, oh so comforting. According to Mrs RR it's 'orrible. As proof, she reminds me of the time (in my single lone parent days when I took them to a church 'shared lunch' event. Nobody, but nobody, would touch them. So I took 'em home. Tried them on daughter .... she wouldn't eat 'em either.
    They lasted me several days. I found they went splendidly with grilled cheese on top.

    Perhaps we need another thread (but in anothe place) called 'Food I can't stand and refuse to eat'.
    You now know Mrs RR's 'top of the list'. Mine would be cooked apricots. Ugh!!!

    I made one in Hell! :) "Food I can't stand and refuse to eat":

    https://forums.shipoffools.com/discussion/5943/food-i-cant-stand-and-refuse-to-eat/p1?new=1

  • BREAD AND BUTTER PUDDING!
  • With custard of course.
  • RockyRoger wrote: »
    When Mrs RR is away I sometimes, in the privacy of the kitchen, indulge in one of my favourite 'go to' yummy occasional snacks: light toast - smear of butter - marmite - lashings of cashew (or peanut butter) - mango chutney on top.
    Oh so tasty, oh so nourishing, oh so comforting. According to Mrs RR it's 'orrible. As proof, she reminds me of the time (in my single lone parent days when I took them to a church 'shared lunch' event. Nobody, but nobody, would touch them. So I took 'em home. Tried them on daughter .... she wouldn't eat 'em either.
    They lasted me several days. I found they went splendidly with grilled cheese on top.

    Perhaps we need another thread (but in anothe place) called 'Food I can't stand and refuse to eat'.
    You now know Mrs RR's 'top of the list'. Mine would be cooked apricots. Ugh!!!

    Mrs RR is wise.
  • RockyRoger wrote: »
    BREAD AND BUTTER PUDDING!

    Never had it. Always sounded eurgh.
  • Bread pudding is fine. Without the butter.
  • Sauerkraut, not really simple, but I rediscovered it recently, and have to curb my gobbling of it.
  • I would think bread pudding would go with jam.
  • HarryCH wrote: »
    I would think bread pudding would go with jam.

    M&S BP and jam is classed as a 'Class A' hard drug and is adictive. You have been warned!
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Nooooo. Not jam. Just the soft, squidgy interior, the crispy top, and luscious sultanas. All the human frame requires.
  • KoF wrote: »
    I've always thought there's something special about fresh asparagus. Fresh vegetables in general have a taste and zing that old ones in the supermarket don't have, but asparagus seems to be one of those things that you know when you have. It's almost worth experiencing all the nasty asparagus to really appreciate when you get to the good stuff.

    Also I really liked oysters shucked in front of us. Only had them a couple of times, probably wouldn't again what with the state of our oceans.

    Finally as a reminder of my childhood I'd have freshly caught mackerel cooked on the BBQ.

    Had some Asparagus last night that was to die for. Lightly roasted, just a little crunchy. Flavor like no other. I love oysters too. Maybe tonight.
  • Telford wrote: »
    In a few months time I will be eating Chesnuts .

    Used to eat them from street vendors when we lived in Lisbon. Lovely!
    Yes they are but quite expensive
  • Spike wrote: »
    Bacon sandwich, or if I really want to treat myself, a bacon and egg sandwich. Must be with crusty white bread and lots of butter.

    Or you could try bacon grill. Make sandwiches with either egg and/or microwaved tomato.

    Or you could have bacon grill, eggs, chips and beans !!!
  • HuiaHuia Shipmate
    @Cheery Gardener The lower salt vegemite no longer has the orange lid. I think that only lasted while it was being introduced. I now has the same yellow lid as the other vegemites. but the blue band I mentioned around the label.

    My brother who live in America always takes a few jars back with him. Fortunately for him most of the Americans he flatted with only tried it once and hated it.
  • A while back I noticed that among some hedging round some large retail/industrial units there was a quince bush with a lot of fruit. I asked the guys in the car MOT garage if they knew and if they wanted them. Of course they had no idea and told me to pick as many as I liked. A made some quince jelly which has a divine aroma and taste!
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    Enquiring minds want to know Japanese / japonica quince or tree quince?
  • Quince jelly (which Mrs RR makes) should only be eaten with runcible spoon.
  • It was a thorny shrub not much more than a metre high so maybe the Japanese variety? Maybe the RockRogers can tell us what they think?
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    Small thorny shrub certainly sounds like the Japanese quince. Ours have red flowers.
  • Just pulled some buttermilk cornbread out of the oven. Ridiculously easy, but guaranteed to make my wife happy. She had many things up for today, and by the time she gets home, I’ll be on a webinar, but she’ll find the cornbread waiting.


  • Butter!
    Only bought when visitors are expected, because I like it too much.
    We had visitors over the w/e, so there is now left-over butter in the fridge - but not for long!

    I like it spread (or sliced) very thickly on white crusty bread (also not often found in this house), or even better, mashed into the flesh of a baked potato, and then when that has been eaten, a little more spread inside the skin, to eat separately.
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