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Traditional British cuisine - teaching French teens

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  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    They won't know what's hit them @B3.  I had to talk them out of doing sticky toffee pudding AND banoffie pie.  Persuaded them they really need something fruity.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    Stp and bp  while perhaps British are not traditional. Crumble is. Nuts, oats, white flour,wholemeal? Ice cream,custard? What to do? Any would suit me even though I rarely have room for desert.
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    STP and BP are as traditional as Italian tiramisu - not invented till the 60s and for Brits in Italy wanting dessert - or tartiflette - invented in the 70s for a marketing exercise to sell alpine Reblochon cheese to the French in the cities.

    Just cos it's not old doesn't mean it ain't British.  Cream for me with STP.  There's enough sugar in it already not to need custard or ice cream too.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    I suppose the thing is what do we eat in  Britain that they don't eat in France rather than its provenance
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    All sorts because the UK has absorbed influences from all the invasions and immigrants from pre-Roman times and then spices and dried fruits coming in as people ame home from the Crusades, dishes like kedgeree which go back to the British East India company before India became part of an empire and then Flemish weavers and Huguenots escaping religious persecution and Spanish escaping the civil war and the Italians looking for work after the war not to mention more recent waves of immigrants from Asia, the West Indies, Africa and eastern Europe.

    Somehow, the French have resisted similar influences.   Chicken tikka masala may now be an every day British dish but there is nothing comparable from Indo-China or North Africa or French west Africa in their regular home cuisine.   When asked what they like to eat the students today nearly all said Pizza! 

    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    They're particular about introducing foreign words too, aren't they? Totally different mindset. We tend to embrace the unfamiliar. Maybe the French are less easily bored. Not wrong with that but boring from our point of view perhaps.
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    I did elicit a gasp from the head chef today when I said I had a problem with French wine.   What?!?  I explained that most of it is too subtle to cope with the spices I use so unless I had a Malbec from south west France - or Chile or Argentina - most French wine could be swamped by cumin, coriander, turmeric, cardamom, fenugreek, Sichuan peppercorns, ginger, lemon grass.......    Boggled.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    A chef/sommelier I know who has lived and worked in the Correze for over 39 years always recommends a Gewurtztraminer from Alsace to accompany spicy food. 
    Might be worth a try  😊 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • Nanny BeachNanny Beach Posts: 8,719
    True, Obelixx, BUT you did say traditional, so not bananas, or onion bajis.  Probably late to the party here, but 3 course, prawn cocktail, (no, not the marie rose sauce!!) roast beef, yorkshires, trifle without the booze.  I did have a Mrs Beetons from my gran, shame I no longer have it. I am 70, we didn't eat curries, spices, other than pepper, growing up it was fish my late Dad caught, rabbits,pidgeons next door caught, our own eggs and chicken.
  • debs64debs64 Posts: 5,184
    I think bananas and custard is a traditional dessert, my father spoke about eating it as a child and he would have been 80 this year? My grandfather was very fond of banana sandwiches. 
    To some British people Bhajis are traditional, food their ancestors have cooked for years. Surely the  thing about British food is that it’s multicultural and all the better for it. 
    I think the brief is food enjoyed by many British people now not “ what we all ate as children” 
    The planned menu sounds delicious good luck with it. 
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