Yorkshire Puddings

I remember, when I was little, every Sunday we would walk down to my Granddad's house for Sunday dinner.  Having Sunday dinner was a tradition which involved the gathering of our family to have a roast dinner. The meat varied, the usual vegetables were potatoes, peas, carrots, butter beans, cauliflower, turnip, cabbage and Brussel sprouts.  How could I forget, the Yorkshire puddings too!  The gravy was always lovely and the accompanying sauce would match the meat, apple sauce with pork, mint with lamb and horseradish with beef.  Sometimes we would have dripping and bread or be able to scoop out the bone marrow from the leftover lamb bones.  My Granddad or uncle would drink the cabbage water, yuk.

Glen and I would be out in either the large garden or the alley way playing football.  If we were lucky our Uncle Peter would be there to show us his ball skills and run rings round us.  Of the three of us I was the most useless at football.  I spent most of my time chasing a ball across the main road at the bottom of the alley way, this was on a hill so it was good exercise.  We also used to climb the trees and make bows and arrows as well, Glen once managed to spear me with  home made javelin, thankfully it did not break the skin.  We would often be off to casualty after standing on a plank with a rusty nail in it, getting a tetanus jab was a regular event.

Anyway the usual cry of 'oh, the potatoes are burning!' would follow the detection of that unmistakable aroma emanating from the kitchen.  The rescue attempt would follow and sometimes you could taste the charcoal other times it was fine.  Glen would always want whole potatoes even when the mashed season was upon us.  The Yorkshires were one of the favourite parts of the meal, these are baked puddings made by mixing milk, eggs and plain four and then baking in an extremely hot oven.  In fact the smoke coming from the oven looked scary but it was necessary to get the lard that hot.  Yes, lard, not oil.  I don't know if you can even get lard anymore!  Apart from the sauce that went with the meat, there was nothing fancy about the preparation no special way to prepare the veg or flavour the meat and it is here in the main, where we differ from the Belgian side of things.  I am not saying all households have 'plain' food but we did and it tasted great.  The UK culinary tastes are now so broad it would seem that the trend is that we must do something different.  We take in the best we can find from the rest of the world, a walk down the supermarket aisles will confirm the cosmopolitan tastes we have.

I have often had the debate with An when she seems keen to flavour everything from the meat down to the humble carrots, 'they need to have a taste!', she says, they do, they taste like carrots!  The best way I can demonstrate the difference in the approach to food is when we compare our Christmas dinner.  Typically we have, carrots with onion, butter, parsley, thyme, bay leaves and salt.  That was just one vegetable side dish of carrots!  There is also warm pear halves, freshly made cranberry sauce made with port, chicory (with butter, salt and pepper, simple compared to the carrots).  Maybe I am just very lucky and have a wonderful wife who goes the extra mile to make the food more than just a meal, an experience.

I have had mixed success at introducing Yorkshire puddings and this is down to my inability to make them.  I am not sure whether I get the balance of flour, milk and eggs wrong, if I make the batter too runny or whether it is just the oven that is not hot enough.  We have often had very flat and solid biscuit looking things which is no real advert for this wonderful thing.  I basically have to wait until my mother comes over before I get a decent Yorkshire pudding.  I prefer stodgy gravy absorbent ones, not the airy mushroom shaped ones.  I have also introduced butter beans, which were not welcomed, cranberry sauce (out of a jar), which An puts on cheese sandwiches and Christmas pudding, which sends everyone off to sleep when they have a mouthful.  Curries have been a hit, but then that is never a surprise.  Crackers, both the pulling variety and the ones that go with cheese have also been warmly welcomed.  They don't really do crackers with cheese.  They do, however, do cheese and there is a great shop in Leuven called Elsen , which you must visit if you are around.

I have managed to go to a few places in this blog but the main purpose was to compare the typical roast in the UK to Belgium.  Believe it or not they don't do crackling here, you have to ask, in code, with a butcher who is in the know.  Mind you some people would not see the attraction in eating pigskin, slashed, with salt rubbed in and is baked until crispy.  I can understand why you might get put off.  But then they eat horse here and also snails, so horses for courses, if you forgive the pun.

Getting back to Sunday dinners at my Granddad's house, he used to come in from the social club, put his feet up and watch the football or snooker.  Occasionally there would be a western or war film on in the afternoon.  At some point around 2pm we would have dinner, in the early years Glen and I had to eat in the kitchen as there was not enough room on the main table.  My uncle was always very fast at eating his dinner.  Whenever I went to get the salt before anyone else, my stepdad would stab my hand with a fork, a subtle way of saying let others go first.  There was normally a break between the main meal and dessert.  Dessert would range from Jamaica cake to apple crumble with custard.  The first out of a packet and the second home made.  My Auntie would then make cheese and fruit scones and an apple pie for tea, Glen and I used to ask for the apple peel to eat whilst we watched her do the baking.

I occasionally make apple crumbles here, which are appreciated.  I also make scones, shortbread and other things.  I have to say nothing can ever replace that taste of a roast dinner, which my mam comes over and makes every now and again, she also does a fantastic lasagne.

Before I close this one off I must tell you about the time An asked what I would like for tea when I came home.  I said I fancied breaded plaice with mashed potatoes and peas.  Now this, back home, is a case of banging into the oven a frozen breaded plaice, heating up the peas in a microwave and boiling a few potatoes (the most time consuming aspect).  An on the other hand bought fresh plaice, floured and flavoured it and covered in breadcrumbs. With the peas she got frozen and puréed them, it was like concentrated mushy peas.  Finally she bought some pre-made mash, cheating so to speak, but then she got them from the equivalent of Marks and Spencer's.  The meal was lovely, but it shows that the tendency, in our house at least, is to go for fresh.  Tinned and ready meals are almost never used.