Tales from A Broad - England
Beer
I’d heard all the tales of warm beer with no head, so it was with some trepidation that I took a tentative sip of my first beer in my first pub in England. Mind you, it was a Foster's so it tasted pretty much the same as it did back home. But to me all beer tasted pretty much the same anyway. Enter my relatives, the beer connoisseurs.
We were Out Drinking with an aunt and uncle from Yorkshire and were having a very nice time getting to know each other. So I was a little alarmed when the discussion turned to the serious business of ales, a very important topic of conversation around these parts.
"I don’t like draughts", my auntie declared. "I prefer the bitters, especially the Belgian imports". Eh? Were we still talking about beer, or did we somehow move onto cars? I mumbled something about liking the pretty creamy froth.
"Bitters and draughts are quite different, you know", my uncle patiently explained to me. "And the difference between the two is that bitters are a much more pure ale due to the higher levels of fermenting". Mmm, yes. I sipped at my Foster’s thoughtfully and reminded myself to only drink bitters from now on. At the next round I stoically ordered a pint. Delicious. Full of all good things hopsy and yeasty, with a proud creamy head that left our fluffy white lager froth back home somehow sadly lacking. I am now a beer connoisseur. Plus – no finger frostbite. You could actually appreciate the brewing process without all that chilliness. Much more drinkable. I took another creamy sip.
I harked back to your average beer conversation in Australia, which based itself around levels of consumption, alcohol content and how much you threw up the next day. We had clearly moved into a higher social echelon.
Food
"Before you go", my kindly English mother had advised before we made our sojourn over to the UK, "eat plenty of steaks and fresh fruit and vegetables. Because you won’t be getting them over there".
I can now quite assuredly tell you (and my mother) that this widely-held belief of nasty English produce is a fallacy: possibly deriving from the outbreak of Mad Cow Disease a few years back, more likely dating back to the post-war era. But it is not true. In fact, I have enjoyed some of the most enormously juicy porterhouse steaks right here from our local butcher. The said butcher also bakes his own pies (steak, pork or cottage), stuffs his hand-made sausages and proffers fruit & veg in case you can’t be bothered with the traipse up the hill to the local Tesco’s.
I also got to enjoy vast quantities of ripe, plump strawberries when we first arrived; and these days the refrigerator shelves are groaning under the weight of luscious blood-red cherries. Not to mention the roasts, available with every kind of root vegetable known to man, and my Aunt Connie’s outstanding gastronomic feats. Never did we figure on the culinary delights proffered by my kind aunt. Chicken and saffron paella. Spiced lamb with apple and red cabbage. And puddings after every meal: home-made jam tarts, variously flavoured cheesecake and succulent seasonal fruit salads. Who said we’d starve?
Beer
I’d heard all the tales of warm beer with no head, so it was with some trepidation that I took a tentative sip of my first beer in my first pub in England. Mind you, it was a Foster's so it tasted pretty much the same as it did back home. But to me all beer tasted pretty much the same anyway. Enter my relatives, the beer connoisseurs.
We were Out Drinking with an aunt and uncle from Yorkshire and were having a very nice time getting to know each other. So I was a little alarmed when the discussion turned to the serious business of ales, a very important topic of conversation around these parts.
"I don’t like draughts", my auntie declared. "I prefer the bitters, especially the Belgian imports". Eh? Were we still talking about beer, or did we somehow move onto cars? I mumbled something about liking the pretty creamy froth.
"Bitters and draughts are quite different, you know", my uncle patiently explained to me. "And the difference between the two is that bitters are a much more pure ale due to the higher levels of fermenting". Mmm, yes. I sipped at my Foster’s thoughtfully and reminded myself to only drink bitters from now on. At the next round I stoically ordered a pint. Delicious. Full of all good things hopsy and yeasty, with a proud creamy head that left our fluffy white lager froth back home somehow sadly lacking. I am now a beer connoisseur. Plus – no finger frostbite. You could actually appreciate the brewing process without all that chilliness. Much more drinkable. I took another creamy sip.
I harked back to your average beer conversation in Australia, which based itself around levels of consumption, alcohol content and how much you threw up the next day. We had clearly moved into a higher social echelon.
Food
"Before you go", my kindly English mother had advised before we made our sojourn over to the UK, "eat plenty of steaks and fresh fruit and vegetables. Because you won’t be getting them over there".
I can now quite assuredly tell you (and my mother) that this widely-held belief of nasty English produce is a fallacy: possibly deriving from the outbreak of Mad Cow Disease a few years back, more likely dating back to the post-war era. But it is not true. In fact, I have enjoyed some of the most enormously juicy porterhouse steaks right here from our local butcher. The said butcher also bakes his own pies (steak, pork or cottage), stuffs his hand-made sausages and proffers fruit & veg in case you can’t be bothered with the traipse up the hill to the local Tesco’s.
I also got to enjoy vast quantities of ripe, plump strawberries when we first arrived; and these days the refrigerator shelves are groaning under the weight of luscious blood-red cherries. Not to mention the roasts, available with every kind of root vegetable known to man, and my Aunt Connie’s outstanding gastronomic feats. Never did we figure on the culinary delights proffered by my kind aunt. Chicken and saffron paella. Spiced lamb with apple and red cabbage. And puddings after every meal: home-made jam tarts, variously flavoured cheesecake and succulent seasonal fruit salads. Who said we’d starve?
