This sage advice advice had me contemplating packing food to avoid the potential starvation was dooming my travels. The year was 1998 and I was terrified of British Cuisine. Once on British soil I found most of the advice was rubbish. After about 10 years in the UK the only time that I've experienced bland British food is when it's been poorly executed. Any cuisine can suffer the same dreadful fate when left to uncaring hands.
Hold on, this rambling is not about about poorly executed food, But a celebration of Great British Food!
There are loads of restaurants that serve what I'd call proper modern English cuisine. Canteen stands out for it's ethos to offer honest, nationally sourced, skilfully prepared and reasonably priced food. The all-day eatery Canteen has 4 locations around London and is likely to increase in the coming year. Canteen has been heaped with reviews of praise from the likes of AA Gill, Giles Coren and Fay Maschler.
Canteen's popularity has born beautifully designed cookbook, containing a collection of 120 thoroughly British dishes. Everything form spicy mutton pie, potted duck, welsh rarebit, scotch eggs, fish and chips, gammon & parsley sauce, treacle tart and a killer rhubarb and almond trifle. At first glance the craft paper like cover has a wonderful vintage school book feel to it. The writing style is very casual, with the exceptions or rather precise measures but more on that later. The photography is visually stunning, uinique and inspiring. I have to admidt that the photography had me captivated for the first couple of reads.
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I've cooked quite a bit from the book and I can say that all the recipes that I have tried are winners. The welsh rarebit is a much demanded snack in the my house. The tarragon and porcini laced Chicken and Mushroom pie is the perfect cold weather comfort food. The treacle tart is probably the best I have ever tried, and believe me, I've had my fair share of tarts from around the UK.
All the recipes in Great British Food are very economical, in this frugal time of wallet watching that is a blessing. I suppose if I was born British, these are recipes that my grandmother would make. Thankfully there is not an aspic in sight.
I do have a few minor niggles about the book. There are couple of recipes that annoyed me when it came to the accuracy of the weights and measures. One example is the Chicken and Mushroom pie recipe. The recipe calls for 150g of leeks which happens to be 1 good sized leek. I would have preferred a more casual approach to the measures of ingredients, in my opinion it would suite the tome of the book.
I also have a minor problem with cookbooks that illustrate a way to serve something, but then neglect to give the method. Case in point is the single serving pie. They show a lovely picture of it just like it's served in the resturaunt. When it comes to the method, the book only sites the method for making a communal pie. I worked though the method myself, but if you are going to show me a lovely picture of it I would like to know how to achieve it.
The only other issue I've had with the book is the fact that it includes a recipe for Skate. According to the MCS Fish to Avoid list skate is a no go territory when it comes to sustainability. I would have thought this somewhat goes against Canteens ethos.
Despite these minor niggles with the book I highly recommend this book! Great British Food is the perfect reference book of Modern British cooking. I know that in years to come it will become tattered and torn like most of my school books.
Great British Food indeed!
Want to try the treacle tart? I've included the recipe with my step by step photos. Try The Tart
Buy It now from Amazon: Canteen: Great British Food
NOTE: I'm such a bad blogger. There I have said it! I've neglected my cooking and blogging to get Kooky Bakes going. But luckily I found this this review as an unpublished post. Enjoy!
