[muglo] Re: OT: Cotswolds Pubs - British & Dutch food

>From: Eurogarth <eurogarth@xxxxxxxxxx>
>Reply-To: muglo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>To: "Muglo@Freelists. Org" <muglo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: [muglo] Re: OT: Cotswolds Pubs
>Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 11:29:47 -0400
>
>If you're in Yorkshire, that's the place they supposedly come from... For
>all cholesterol freaks like me a chip-buttie basically a sandwich with the
>bread smeared lavishly with butter, and hot french fries as the filling!
>
>Yum! ... And sooo good for you.

You just made me nearly retch! Butter + french fries. That's as horrible as 
"Vlaamse frites" in the Netherlands. Something you try *once* just so you 
can say you've had it.

I've got to admit I'm of two minds of the food on this side of the pond. On 
the one hand, there's a lot of choice b/c of the proximity of many countries 
& good availability of fresh foods (& fortunately Italian, Indian, 
Mediterranean & Mexican cuisine have caught on in UK/NL to a certain 
extent).

But, the indigenous food of the English (& Dutch) is, well, umm, how do I 
put it politically? Is it possible to put it politically? (don't think so) 
It's horrible! The Dutch cuisine has one saving grace that the English one 
doesn't -- they are masters at making cheese, bread and desserts (England 
has a *lot* of bakeries but few of them bake good breads (white bread with a 
few whole wheat loaves for the health conscious) & invariably have 
lard-laced meat pastreys & pretty disappointing dessert pastries). Aside 
from that, indigenous Dutch cuisine is as bad as the indigenous English one 
(& I am half Dutch so I've had lots of experience with Dutch "cuisine"... it 
doesn't exist unless you count plain old cheese, meat, meat pastries & 
potatoes as a "cuisine"... a heart attack, yes, food, NO)). The Dutch and 
English have both benefitted immeasurably from their colonies (India and 
Indonesia :) so I am happy to say there's at least some good imported 
"native" cuisine to complement the crap that passes for the native food of 
Northern Europe (of course, I've always known that northern Europeans 
weren't skilled in the kitchen... what did surprise me was the extent to 
which it (the unhealthy part) was still part of the diet).

PS What boggles my mind is how the Dutch can eat the way they do (cheese, 
meat, desserts (they really are the masters of the dessert)) yet remain a 
fairly slender people (the English unfortunately can't be described as a 
slender nation & the gov't is complaining about it... make walking and 
biking the preferred mode of transportation and you'll fix a lot of the 
problems). Veronica and I couldn't decide whether it was that the Dutch bike 
everywhere (5 million cars vs. >>17 million bikes for 17 million people), or 
because they're soooooooooooooooooo tall (in Holland we could instantly pick 
out if someone was a tourist or an immigrant to Holland (after a while it 
became boring b/c we were right more often than wrong)... they're usually 
(invariably?) "short" (<6'), and, (if American or English) often "rotund"... 
I always thought it was just an exaggeration that the American waist line 
was oversized but the stereotype held true FAR too often). (though, there 
were "short" Dutch as well but they were relatively uncommon... in the 
Netherlands I encountered a urinal that would've caused a *lot* of Canadian 
men problems (I'm 5'9" & would guess that someone 5'8" or less would've had 
to stand tip-toe or else pay 20 eurocents for the sit-down toilet ;-).

PSS The Dutch attitude towards 'vegetarian' was summed up wonderfully by My 
big fat Greek wedding: "He no eat meat!!!!!! No problem. I make lamb!" (an 
aunt's concept of "vegetarian" was that she'd only put in 1/4 the amount of 
ham and bacon that she normally would). I don't know where the typical Brit 
stands on it but I suspect it's a touch different (UK is the home for the 
radical animal righters after all).

L8r, Eric.

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