What's Your Favourite British Dish?

You guys are killing me with your dislike of ham.  Oh well, more for me!  I will eat ham any day but have a really hard time finding good ham here.  Anytime I get it, it seems to be boiled or cooked to rubber.  Just give me a good honey-roasted ham and I shall be set.  I like applewood smoked bacon but can live without bacon otherwise.

I agree about the ricotta in lasagna.  The sauces here just lack any kind of volume or flavor and I cannot stand them.  Give me chunky ricotta with marinara sauce any day!

haha, heck thing can be different from one end of the US to the other. Barq's rootbeer over there has caffeine in it in the midwest but it doesn't in CO. Weird, no?

No caffeine in Barq's in my part of the midwest!  Thank goodness for that.

Mushy peas, any local cheese board, sticky toffee pudding, Yorkshire puds....it's nearly elevenses, right? Hungry! 

You guys are killing me with your dislike of ham.  Oh well, more for me!  I will eat ham any day but have a really hard time finding good ham here.  Anytime I get it, it seems to be boiled or cooked to rubber.  Just give me a good honey-roasted ham and I shall be set.  I like applewood smoked bacon but can live without bacon otherwise.

We were in High School and we had this discussion panel thing. It was about inequality or whatever, and someone from the audience asked my friend John, "Yeah right, what would you do if you won the lottery, huh? Give it away? Buy a Lamborghini?"

And John says, "If I won the lottery right now...like 32 million, I would go buy a honey baked ham."

I think my favourite British dish has to be sticky toffee pudding.  I'd honestly never had anything like it before I came here, and I love it.

There are lots and lots of other 'British' foods that I enjoy, but they don't really count because, well...:

• Bubble & Squeak:  Love it.  Could eat it every day.  Used to get it at least once a fortnight at this great little pub...in Kalamazoo, MI.  I've never actually seen it on a menu here.  Maybe it's more of an English thing?
• Pasties:  Love 'em.  Am fully aware that they're Cornish.  But they're also a Wisconsin/UP delicacy.  Have never had one in the UK (don't often see them in Scotland, and I'm wary of suet/lard in pastry, anyway).
• Fish & Chips:  Right...you mean a Fish Fry?  Yeah.  Every Friday night (and Wednesdays, during Lent), at every restaurant & tavern in Wisconsin.  The chips are usually better here (though not from our local one, which is godawful), but honestly, the fish batter is usually tastier in WI (because beer).
  
• Cheese: The UK does have some really excellent cheeses. But see above re: Wisconsin.  I will, literally, fight anyone who says ours isn't as good-- biting, gouging, hair-pulling, the whole deal.  Plus, while we do know the pleasures of an extra, extra mature Cheddar, we also know the pure bliss of eating it right out of the vat (i.e. cheese curds).
  

I guess maybe it's just where I'm from, and my very British family background (my grandma can boil a dinner with the best of them!), but most 'British food' just wasn't any kind of surprise or revelation.  I'd had most of it before, and in the rare case that there's any difference at all, I usually prefer the US version (i.e. trifle w/ angel food cake, fruit & pudding-- and no jello!). 

That said, there are all kinds of things here I just can't/won't eat.  I mean, I used to think I was very easy to feed; maybe not all that adventurous, but certainly not fussy.  Now, I feel like the fussiest eater in the world, because there are all kinds of things that it never occurred to me would be standard issue: buttered sandwiches, 'sausages' full of bread, half-raw bacon, suet & lard pastry.  It's made breakfast/lunch very difficult.  I have to pack my own anytime I go to a meeting/conference/etc.

I've also learned (the hard way) to avoid anything 'American' or 'Tex-Mex,' because it's just going to be horribly wrong.  (Why is the salsa sweet!!???)

Southerners...even the healthy stuff we make deadly.

Ranch dressing. Take a serving of healthy greens and vegetables and then pump on a pint of gloop...

And it's even better when you deep fat fry those healthy veggies before getting a big glop of ranch dressing on it! 

Sadly... that's pretty much the only way I'll eat zucchini (courgette ?) - other than my sainted grandmother's zucchini bread of course. 

Sticky Toffee Pudding is certainly winning in terms of popularity on this thread. Perhaps the best British dessert? Even beating out the trifle?!

How about Clotted Cream Fudge? Any fans here? Clotted Cream is something I can't find anywhere in Austin except for those tiny jars that look like they were made by the Borrowers. When I went back to Blighty I bought two huge pots of it from Aldi to dollop generously all over my scones.


 

We were in High School and we had this discussion panel thing. It was about inequality or whatever, and someone from the audience asked my friend John, "Yeah right, what would you do if you won the lottery, huh? Give it away? Buy a Lamborghini?"

And John says, "If I won the lottery right now...like 32 million, I would go buy a honey baked ham."

I like the way this man thinks.

Cheese: The UK does have some really excellent cheeses. But see above re: Wisconsin.  I will, literally, fight anyone who says ours isn't as good-- biting, gouging, hair-pulling, the whole deal.  Plus, while we do know the pleasures of an extra, extra mature Cheddar, we also know the pure bliss of eating it right out of the vat (i.e. cheese curds).

I LOVE cheese curds.  Love them.  Really want some now....
And I understand what you mean about not being surprised about British food.  I realize now that my family retained a lot of their old world traditions.  Sunday Roast, Christmas/Suet Pudding, etc.  Fish and chips were fairly normal, especially as I am Catholic.  I remember going somewhere with my British friends and they were showing me the very British way of dousing your chips in vinegar and explaining how that might be weird to an American.  Yeah, I've been to fairs, that's how you eat chips.  Not weird to me.

I seem to remember seeing clotted cream somewhere -- was it Whole Foods?? 

DS (still residing in US) reports having gone to a new place advertising themselves as "Best Fish and Chips in town".  They may have been the best, providing there was no one else doing it.  Batter wasn't right, fish wasn't right and the chips were just fries.  But he knows better than to expect good fish and chips over there.

And I understand what you mean about not being surprised about British food.  I realize now that my family retained a lot of their old world traditions.  Sunday Roast, Christmas/Suet Pudding, etc.  Fish and chips were fairly normal, especially as I am Catholic.  I remember going somewhere with my British friends and they were showing me the very British way of dousing your chips in vinegar and explaining how that might be weird to an American.  Yeah, I've been to fairs, that's how you eat chips.  Not weird to me.

I'm not surprised about the old world traditions being pretty common in the North Eastern part of the country. When I went to New York, I felt strangely like I was at home there. The funniest part was when I went to the Brick Lane Curry House and we were served by an English bloke. It was definitely a surprise as every Indian place I've been in Britain had, well, Indian people serving. Plus it was the best curry I'd had in the US till I discovered Masala Wok in Austin.

DS (still residing in US) reports having gone to a new place advertising themselves as "Best Fish and Chips in town".  They may have been the best, providing there was no one else doing it.  Batter wasn't right, fish wasn't right and the chips were just fries.  But he knows better than to expect good fish and chips over there.

I've had passable fish & chips over here and it was at a Renaissance Fair held in the middle of summer in a place calling itself 'Sherwood Forest'. The summers in Texas are pretty much unbearable if you're outside and these people were dressed in costume for a Nottingham Winter in 1535. I'm surprised they weren't fainting from heatstroke.

When I do see Fish & Chips on a menu over here I usually avoid it as I know I'll be disappointed.

 

When I do see Fish & Chips on a menu over here I usually avoid it as I know I'll be disappointed.

You'll just have to take a trip up North.

DS says the best fish and chips he's had over there was at Epcot (Harry Ramsdens)

ETA: our iconic local fish and chip restaurant has been taken over by The Fisherman's Wife!    

DS says the best fish and chips he's had over there was at Epcot (Harry Ramsdens)

I went to Harry Ramsdens in Bournemouth about 15 years ago. It was terrible. Hopefully they've upped their game at Epcot by now.

Cream tea with clotted cream!

Cream tea with clotted cream!

Delicious!

Cream tea with clotted cream!

Delicious!

I agree!  That's one of my favorite treats as well as crumpets smothered in butter and honey and a cup of tea.  Yum!!