Post by Ismail AbdulAzeez on Sept 22, 2013 10:22:49 GMT 1
I love my food. The chance to eat three times a day is one of life’s greatest pleasures and, I suppose, the reason why cookery programmes are so popular.
But chefs seem to spend most of their time nowadays coming up with outlandish food combinations. Reluctant as I am to be branded an unadventurous Northerner, I simply cannot summon up any enthusiasm for the likes of snail porridge. Yes, I may begin every day with instant Scottish oatmeal (two minutes in the microwave) and I cannot deny that I have an ample supply of the aforementioned molluscs on my hostas, but that said I have no burning desire to combine the two and inflict them upon my intestines.
You could brand me a classic “meat and two veg and none of your foreign muck” Yorkshireman thanks to the apparent absence of any spirit of adventure where food is concerned but that would, I feel, be unfair. I am as happy as the next man to tuck into a prawn biryani or a chicken tikka masala, which, we are told, is now the current favourite British dish. Oh yes, I really am cosmopolitan when it comes to food – leaping easily and willingly from the Indian subcontinent to countries closer to home.
Spaghetti bolognese is one of my signature dishes. It will astonish Mrs T to hear me talking in the plural, since she will claim she has yet to taste my other signature dish. But she has enjoyed it on many occasions. I call it a full English. Well, to be honest, not full. Not one of those that comes with hash browns, mushrooms, sausage, black pudding, white pudding, devilled kidneys, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all – the sort you find gently congealing under one of those heat lamps in hotel breakfast buffets. That’s cheating anyway.
My speciality is a home-laid egg or two (preferably fried but sometimes scrambled), two rashers of dry-cured back bacon, two small pieces of fried bread and a modest portion of baked beans (without all the runny juice). Add to this toast and butter (not margarine or low-fat spread), marmalade, a fresh pot of tea or freshly ground coffee in a china cup and you have, for me, the perfect start to the weekend.
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/10322995/Alan-Titchmarsh-its-a-full-English-over-snail-porridge-for-me.html
But chefs seem to spend most of their time nowadays coming up with outlandish food combinations. Reluctant as I am to be branded an unadventurous Northerner, I simply cannot summon up any enthusiasm for the likes of snail porridge. Yes, I may begin every day with instant Scottish oatmeal (two minutes in the microwave) and I cannot deny that I have an ample supply of the aforementioned molluscs on my hostas, but that said I have no burning desire to combine the two and inflict them upon my intestines.
You could brand me a classic “meat and two veg and none of your foreign muck” Yorkshireman thanks to the apparent absence of any spirit of adventure where food is concerned but that would, I feel, be unfair. I am as happy as the next man to tuck into a prawn biryani or a chicken tikka masala, which, we are told, is now the current favourite British dish. Oh yes, I really am cosmopolitan when it comes to food – leaping easily and willingly from the Indian subcontinent to countries closer to home.
Spaghetti bolognese is one of my signature dishes. It will astonish Mrs T to hear me talking in the plural, since she will claim she has yet to taste my other signature dish. But she has enjoyed it on many occasions. I call it a full English. Well, to be honest, not full. Not one of those that comes with hash browns, mushrooms, sausage, black pudding, white pudding, devilled kidneys, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all – the sort you find gently congealing under one of those heat lamps in hotel breakfast buffets. That’s cheating anyway.
My speciality is a home-laid egg or two (preferably fried but sometimes scrambled), two rashers of dry-cured back bacon, two small pieces of fried bread and a modest portion of baked beans (without all the runny juice). Add to this toast and butter (not margarine or low-fat spread), marmalade, a fresh pot of tea or freshly ground coffee in a china cup and you have, for me, the perfect start to the weekend.
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/10322995/Alan-Titchmarsh-its-a-full-English-over-snail-porridge-for-me.html