Why ‘Idea for Sausage’?
During our journey across the country, I wanted to sample and record some of the local dishes we came across and also find nostalgic food from my childhood (and beyond). This was partly inspired by Australian friends who would ask ‘What on earth is… (insert name of foodstuff)?’ when such food would come up in conversation. In addition, eating all kinds of yummy things is positively encouraged during a long walk and so here was my chance to munch my way around Great Britain.
This section was christened in honour of Nigel’s voice notes which he takes as we walk. He stops, says ‘Hold on’ and talks into his phone about what we are seeing. He uses these notes to write the blog later that day. This had me giggling from day one as it so reminded me of Kel Knight doing a similar thing in the TV show Kath & Kim when he had an…. Idea for Sausage.
First up we have Percy Pigs! A national sweet treat that has fuelled hyperactive children around Britain since 1992. These jelly sweets are now also fuelling our trot across the country, sometimes in twos and threes. They are sold only at Marks & Spencers shops, some of which proudly display a pink heritage plaque in their honour.
When are sprogs were little, the chain of pizza restaurants, beloved by anhidrotic Prince Andrew, was also a favourite with our family. We would always start off with garlic dough balls. These little round mounds of joy are basically tiny bread rolls that come with garlicky butter into which they are dipped. I love a miniature anything and these are fun for all the family. We had these in London on the eve of LEJOG.
And here is one of my favourite foods of all time! This is a lardy cake native to the Southern Counties of England. This is hugely nostalgic for me as ever since I was a small child we have been buying these from a bakers in Stamford called Askers which has been delighting the Lincolnshire residents for almost 100 years. It is a type of bread, rather than a cake, which contains spices and dried fruit and is made with lard of course! Lard being rendered fat from a pig, but just don’t think about that when you heat the lardy bread in the oven, slice it, and serve it with butter.
Just look at this beauty! Everyone’s mum makes the best apple pie, right? Wrong! My Mum’s is the best of all. Always with homemade pastry and always decorated with leaves and roses which we kids would fight over. With cream if we were lucky, otherwise we’d have ‘milk-tops’ which was the cream that formed in the milk bottle when it was left to stand, poor man’s cream!
Full English Breakfast! How to really start the day, especially when feeling a little dusty (hungover). Here are two prime examples, the first is a Full Cornish Breakfast. The essential elements of a full breakfast are sausage, bacon and egg (usually fried). Then variably are included baked beans, mushrooms, grilled or fried tomato, fried potatoes or hash browns, toast or fried bread and black pudding (more another time on that delight!). The Cornish breakfast we had also included Hog’s pudding, which I read actually originates in Devon, but the two counties can add that to the list of things they disagree about. Hog’s pudding is a large sausage, of which we received a slice, made from spiced pork and suet bulked with bread, oatmeal or pearl barley. It is yum!! And suet? That’s fat from around the kidneys of cows or sheep – nose to tail eating.
The Cornish Pasty! Sold everywhere in Cornwall. We often saw multiple Cornish pasty shops, sometimes side by side, in the towns we walked through. The typical pasty is made from shortcrust pastry folded over a filling of meat, traditionally beef, and vegetables which include potato. These pasties apparently account for 6% of the Cornish food economy! As a child I remember being told that they were given to the menfolk to take to work for their lunch. These men who worked in the mines or in the fields and consequently had grubby hands would hold the pasty by the pastry fold, eat the rest of the pasty and discard the now dirty pastry edge. Clever hey! Probably a load of rubbish.
Oh yes indeedy – the Devonshire Tea. Scones, cream (preferably clotted cream) and jam. Beloved afternoon snack of our recently departed monarch (who was said to eat a scone everyday, note to self, eat more scones). Also called a Devon tea (because the county is called Devon so why the need for shire?), cream tea and, to some, a Cornish tea. In Devon the preferred method of preparation is cream then jam, in Cornwall jam then cream. I side with the Cornish on this particular debate.
12 Responses
Thank you Louisa – enjoyed the virtual food tour, particular the photo of your Mum’s apple pie – she does the best.
Love the KathnKim reference – and so Nigel, I mean Kel – hope he’s got the Kel power walk going🤣💕
The powerwalk happens just before lunch and for the last kilometre of the day 🙂
Love, love, love it! Who needs masterchuff when we’ve got this.
The Cornish pasty fold for tin miner’s dirty mitts is true.
I discovered Percy Pig only last December and found his little piglet face quite delicious. Note – Costa Coffee sell M&S foodstuff. So in a PP emergency, CC will feed your habit.
Dan and I loved the food tour blog update! I have made my way through a few of these since being back but still have more to tick off! And all hail Percy Pig, a cultural icon 🐷🐷 xx
Long live The Pig! xxx
This is excellent backup information all round! I dread a PP emergency but am happy I will now know what to do if there is one!
I’ve been wondering how Nigel manages to write such extensive reports every day! Is recording voice notes something he does in his day job? Problem is, then you have to listen to them again! Or does speech to text do the trick???
He listens back to them – usually at about 4.30am when I thankfully have my earplugs in!
Have rellies in Barnstaple if you are in need of anything ( and Nigel’s rules prevent you from using any vehicles 😂😂)
Nigel has three rules which I will bore you with when we return. He tells me they are guidelines but he would be very disappointed if they were broken 🙂
The recorded voice note is sublime.. it reminds me of Alan Partridge, ‘Lyn, note for new tv series’…
It is hilarious, I try to make rude comments in the background 🙂