A Wee Bit o Haggis and Treacle Tart

While in the UK I attempted to sample the local, traditional fare as much as possible. This meant I ate fish and chips a few times, and a ton of meat pies. If there is one word to sum up British cuisine, I would say it is heavy. Steak and kidney pie. Mushroom and steak pie. Sausages and mashed potatoes. The vegetables are always steamed or boiled, mostly potatoes, carrots, and brussel sprouts. Heavy gravies, thick and flaky crusts. The tastes were always good, but its pretty much "stick to your ribs" every meal. 

I stuck with local ales as much as possible, which gave me mixed results. Some of the ales were so stout they could be confused with Guinness, while others were much pale. Almost all of them were served at a cool but not cold temperature, which was a little different for me. I did really like an extra bitter beer we got in one of the villages in Surrey, and while in Scotland, I drank a lot of 80/- (eighty shilling) beer. 

At one of the Edinburgh pubs, the last day we were there, I got the "wee taste of haggis" (cater to tourists much?), which was a very small portion of the infamous dish served with neeps and tatties (mashed turnips and mashed potatoes). Served with a wheat cracker, but no traditional prunes. It was actually not bad. If you made a slightly runny meatloaf with liver and kidneys, then you'd get a pretty close idea of what haggis tastes like. Of course, this is the tourist version, so instead of boiling everything in a sheep's stomach, they probably just added a few dashes of sheep's stomach extract. 

The last night in the UK, we went to a country pub/restaurant. This was in an old house, and it had low wooden ceiling beams we had to duck under as we walked back to our table. Actually, first we sat in easy chairs by a small fireplace and drank our pre-dinner tipples. I had my typical local Enlgish ale, Tay got his usual Kronenbourg, and Brit got her usual hard apple cider, although it was unusually unfiltered which gave it a really nice flavor. For dinner, we hit all the British countryside favorites like were a group of feasting young lords. Roast pheasant, roasted potatoes, ales, treacle tart, bread-and-butter pudding. Treacle tart is pretty good stuff actually. Reminded me a bit of the gooey butter cake of midwest fame.

Overall, I would say that British food is unfairly maligned, perhaps because it is contrasted with French and Italian cuisine. It's not bad, some of it is quite good, but it is more of a particular character.