NS November 9th, 2005

Meat is good, I’ll be the first to admit it. I ain’t no vegetarian. However, I have limits. I don’t like meat intermixing with my desserts, potato chips, or pastries. Call me meatist if you must, but meat or meat-flavouring doesn’t go with just anything. Britain seems to be a bit behind in realizing this, however, and you can still find the following dishes being served in homes and pubs across the nation(s):

Beef, Oyster and Kidney Pudding ~ steamed beef, oyster and kidney with onions, tomatoes and mushrooms, baked in a suet pastry. This is what they ate during the Plague, so consider it a history lesson as you gag your way through it.

Cock-a-Leekie Soup ~ beef, chicken, leeks and PRUNES. Since we all know that prunes are eaten only in a last-ditch effort to cure constipation, I think it would be more aptly named Ass-a-Leekie Soup.

Mincemeat Pies ~ beef suet combined with chopped nuts, apples, spices, brown sugar and brandy, used as a filling for pies or cookies. This is a terribly British food, eaten almost exclusively at Christmastime. Don’t be fooled by the cute star design embossed into the pastry, or the sugar dusted on top — there is real MEAT inside, just waiting to wish you a Merry Christmas (and a trip to the porcelain god).

Then there are meat-flavoured crisps (US translation = potato chips) which just defy the laws of cheesey-chivey-salted snacks. Popular crisp flavors here include:

• Prawn Cocktail ~ Take a cliche appetizer from the ’70s, turn it into a processed food flavoring and give it some CRUNCH! No wonder this is a nation of alcoholics. I’d drink too if this is what I was given in my lunch box as a kid.
• Roast Chicken ~ Now, in theory this seems the most innocent of all the ‘meaty’ crisp flavors but the irony is that roast chicken is eaten as a traditional Sunday meal all over the nation. So what is this — fine dining for the lazy? “Hey kids, I couldn’t be bothered to get up off my ass and cook chicken and mashed potatoes. But here! Have some roast chicken potato chips, that’ll do ya’.” It’d be like Americans having pancake flavored cookies with syrup nougat. Just make the food you want, man!
• Roast Beef ~ Because sometimes it’s just too chilly in the cold-cuts section of the grocery store.
• Scampi ~ If you’ve never sat next to a toothless old fisherman who has just come in off the rough white seas at the height of summer and after a long session of gutting cod, just open a bag of Scampi crisps and take a deep whiff. Aaaaahhh.

• Britishisms , Hunger Pangs
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