Spain’s answer to our black pudding is a mile from the slice you’ll get with your fry-up. It’s a spiced blood sausage, delicate, with a gentle tang. Recipes vary across Spain from the loose, rice-flecked morcilla from Burgos to morcilla de Arroz, the variety made with onion and rice. Morcilla pronounced mor-thee-ya, […]
Sprouts and Christmas dinner, a great British tradition which divides opinion. Rather like Marmite you either love or hate them. Anyone who has had an overcooked soggy green ball on their plate knows what I mean. Perhaps “I’m a Celebrity” could use them in an eating trial? Modern stir fry […]
Pastel de Nata, an egg tart pastry dusted with cinnamon, has become very popular and widely available in the last few years. They go down really well with a cup of coffee.
Why? That was my first thoughts on discovering that you can buy coffee beans from animal poo!
All snails in Britain are edible. They’re essentially the same creatures that the French, Spanish and Italians devour by the tonne.
The snail is a delicacy in Portugal and every May they celebrate them with the Festival do Caracois! Snails in Portugal are really good. Snails are flavoured with olive oil and/or butter, garlic, piri-piri sauce, and a lot of oregano. Some restaurants will add extra ingredients but this covers the […]
Traditional Spanish chorizo is a very tasty sausage found all over Spain, each province having its own variation with most families having their own recipe. It can be fresh, which needs cooking, or cured, ready for eating.
In times past, lunch consisted of at least 5 courses, starter, mains, cheese, dessert, coffee and sometimes an aperitif. In more modern times this rather time-consuming meal has been updated to serve dessert and coffee as one.
A plate of seafood with shrimp, winkles and brown crab was a common tradition on a Sunday evening, which meant Sunday afternoons were spent foraging.
Steak and kidney pudding, a traditional British dish consisting of diced steak, onion, and kidney—generally from a lamb or pig—cooked in a brown gravy and then encased in a soft suet pastry and steamed for several hours.
I’m a retired aeronautical engineer living in Tunbridge Wells, England. I love cooking and food history.
My grandchildren said, “Grandad, you ought to share your favourite recipes and histories online”. So here they are!
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