I came across a worrying rumour in a discussion with other ex-patriots - there are no dill pickles in England. I went to the grocery store this afternoon, and sure enough, it was true. Add one more item to a growing list of AWOL food products.
There were, however, two possible contenders for runner-up. One was “Pickled Dill Cucumbers” and the other was “Cucumbers in Brine”. Different seasonings in each, and to be honest both looked fairly nasty, but I’m willing to give it a shot.
I’d like to choose the one that is closer in ingredients to US dill pickles. So if someone’s got a jar, could you tell me what the ingredients are? Then I’ll know which to choose - the jar full of warty looking things with various small bits of vegetable matter floating around in the jar, or the one with fewer warts, fewer unknown plant bits, but a rather scum-like film on the bottom of the jar.
(Other notable missing items, for the curious: Chicken noodle soup. Baked beans that are not canned in tomato sauce. Ravioli. Teryaki sauce. Rold Gold pretzels. Jello pudding. But at least I’ve finally located my waffle iron!)
And fresh cucmbers are green on the outside and white on the inside. Now why do you suppose that a typical supermarket pickle is green all the way through? What purpose could there be in impregnating them with green dye? Is it perhaps to hide the fact that if you had a cucumber like the factory’s pre-dyed one you wouldn’t serve it to your family you would throw it in the trash? I mean…you know…the ones I put in the salads that I make don’t have large brown & white splotches on them from starting to rot in the field.
Dill cucmbers, in Australia, Britain and throughout Europe are whole cucumbers, often baby cucumbers, pickled. What else could they possibly be? I think these originated in Poland and Hungary. They are absolutely delicious.
Are they mashed in the US or something like that? Are you talking about gherkins?
BTW, Beth, whilst in England do treat yourself to Branston Pickles. Yum.
Wombat - I’m lost with you…but I’m sitting smack dab in the middle of the continental USA. I think what’s happened is that most Americans have no idea where there food came from. I remember my grandmother making dill pickles…which are simply cucumbers pickled with dill and other spices.
Avanutria - Be brave, try both. Real pickles beat the tarnation out of what passes for pickles in the USA…although those Claussen pickles with all the spices floating in the bottle that are stored in the store cooler are really, really good.
Hm, I saw those in a different section of the store, and thought they were what I was looking for, but a closer inspection revealed it seemed to be some sort of paste or spread, I think.
A lot of things are in paste form here. There’s even a “cheese and prawn” squeeze tube in the dairy section. I guess they are anticipating a massive loss of teeth in the population sometime soon.
But as they’ve got your recommendation, I’ll give them a try sometime.
Beth…can tell you’ve been UK’d. You recall, don’t you, that the average Yank would say “part” not “bit.”
You can tell MarMil that the best use we’ve made of Jello pudding was to use it as the cytoplasm in a 7th grade cell model project. The ribosomes, vacuoles, nucleus, etc, were made of different candies.
(then there’s those “bits” in orange juice, aka “pulp.”)
Oh, dear! That IS the best part! I make pudding in a sheet pan so there’s more surface area to thicken . . . oh, well, more for YOU!
We have a brand of “fresh,” i.e., the kind you have to refrigerate, Kosher pickles here, BaTampte, which have that ook at the bottom. Sometimes at the top, too. I think it is a byproduct of the pickling process–it’s mostly clumped alum and whatnot, I think–which large manufacturers must filter out. Just rinse them off.
If that doesn’t appeal, just make yer own! This lady does:
The teriyaki sauce is nothing to fret over. I never buy the stuff. Here’s an authentic family (they owned an oriental restaurant) recipe: equal parts soy sauce, red or white wine, and sugar; as much fresh grated ginger as you think it needs (you can use dried ground, too), and optional fresh or dried garlic. If you want it a bit thicker, you can use some corn starch or cook it down until it thickens.
I hesitate to mention it, because they probably don’t have this, either, but you can use a bit of pineapple and/or tropical style fruit juice for a more Hawaiian effect.
Sweet and sour sauce is made from equal parts of catsup and crushed pineapple, thickened with a bit of corn starch.
As for ravioli, were you thinking of Chef Boy-ar-dee canned? (Bleah!) Or fresh/frozen? It’s not difficult at all to make them fresh. You just make the dough, roll it out, apply dollops of filling, put another layer of dough on top, then crimp the edges with a fork. You can cut out circles and do them one by one, or you can do a whole sheet and cut squares. Simmer in lightly salted water until they’re edible.
The filling is the same as you’d use for lasagna . . . 8 ounces of ricotta cheese, an egg, salt, pepper, and maybe some ground parmesan or other hard cheese, or even some finely chopped mozzarella. Oh, wait . . . no ricotta? Probably no cottage cheese, either. Maybe there is some kind of fresh white crumbly cheese? If not, you’ll have to use ground meat.
What about spaghetti sauce? That’s easy enough to do. In a shallow pan, saute onions in a bit of olive oil, then add finely sliced tomatoes and some oregano, salt, pepper, and maybe some garlic. Stir while simmering. In no time at all, it’ll turn into lovely fresh tomato sauce with bits of tomatoes in it. It works with canned tomatoes, too.
I think I saw a can of tomato-sauce stuff in the Brit section of the grocery store–right next to the canned pudding, canned peas, and some kind of brown condiment–so maybe you’re ok on that. I imagine it would taste like Chef Boy-ar-dee.
Chicken soup is made from a few wings and/or the not-so-useful parts of a whole chicken, like the neck and such. Simmer with carrots and celery, salt and pepper, strain out the bones, then add some noodles. Surely they have egg noodles, but if not you will have remembered to make some from the leftover ravioli dough (which you’ve re-rolled, cut into little shreds, and dried).
The beans are a little more complicated. For that, you’ll need dried small white beans, brown sugar, salt pork, mustard, and a large crockery bean pot, which you’ll bake overnight in the oven, getting up every hour or so to water them. (I think you can do them in a baking pan, as well, and might be able to hasten the process by boiling them first.)
Whew! Anything else?
Incidentally, I wouldn’t be too sure that they DON’T expect an epidemic of tooth loss. In Orlando, situated prominently in the midst of all the hotels around Disney World, right there on Universal Drive, there is a . . . Brit dentist. Not necessarily a British dentist, but a dentist whose entire business is apparently Brits who cannot get dental services at home!
Sara (who loves to eat Jello instant chocolate pudding)