Food of the British Isles

We had - *gasp* - really tasty food in the UK.  Pick yourself up off your chair.  I know they don't exactly have a reputation for being culinary geniuses (understatement), and they aren't going to surpass France or Italy anytime soon, but the Brits can pull off some good belly-filling grub.

Let's start with breakfast, shall we? The Mister really went for  it here with THE BIGGEST BREAKFAST, listed below.  Pretty much all of it was good except the haggis, which is a traditional Scottish sausage-ish mystery meat made of all the unsavory parts of your favorite barnyard animals.

If you are eating in the UK, I recommend that you follow that up with a nice lunch of a cheese and pickle sandwich, which to my shock and amusement had little to do with cheese and nothing to do with pickles.  I kind of thought that it would be like slices of cheddar or something with dill pickle slices.  When I mentioned this to a British woman who was sitting near me, she snickered and said, "Pickles? Like gherkins? Interesting. That wouldn't have occurred to me."  Then I asked her what exactly "pickle" is in the British sense, since it looked, as you will see below, like a trail mix held together with some kind of salty brown sauce.  "Well," she said uncertainly, "it's just pickle."  

"Yes," I said, "I have been educated now, no more of that silly gherkin nonsense.  But do share with an underbred New Worlder: what exactly is pickle?"  

She floundered helplessly, "Well, you see, it's pickle."

It was most enlightening.

For dinner, wrap it up with a classic fish and chips.  I don't even like fish too much and this was transcendent.  Crunchy, smooth, greasy.  Perfect. 

Oops, focus was off. I must have been overexcited at the prospect of actually eating this baby.

For an authentic touch, soak the fries/chips in vinegar before eating...and eat them with a fork, please.

Wash the whole thing down with a Scottish soda, Irn-Bru (pronounced iron brew , no word yet on why the Scots decided to ignore basic principles of English spelling while naming their favorite drink).  To really get the feel for this thing, imagine bubble gum, Smarties candies, Red Bull, and plain sugar mixing in a toxic brew.  Add some carbonation and artificial neon orange coloring, and you'll have the general idea.  But don't listen to a malcontent like me, listen to the residents of Scotland who have made it their best-selling national soda - beating Pepsi, Coke and all the other behemoths.

For dessert, chase the whole thing with an Edinburgh tradition, a deep fried Mars bar.  If you think this would only fly in the American South, think again.  Scots aren't afraid of anything: not men in skirts, not the English and certainly not a little wussy thing like cholesterol.

Delicious foods not pictured included bangers and mash (twice!), sticky toffee pudding, treacle tart (Harry Potter's favorite dessert), sausage rolls and plenty of meat pies.

Oh, and for the truly curious among you, here is what pickle really is.

Either way, the sandwich was tasty.