Mr Pie

I realise this is of no use to you, but I have a quince bush in the back garden. Last season I got a few pounds of fruit off it and made it into chilli and quince jelly. It was great and had a nice tangy edge to it. What do you have in mind for them? I would be interested to hear of any ideas for this years crop (other than jams/jellies I am a bit thin on ideas)

What a rush..... My first job, several bazillion years ago, was at an H.Salt Esq. shop down the street from my house. Yes, they were pretty decent, I remember I absolutely loved their tarter sauce. One of the perqs of working there was that the employees could skim the excess, crispy-fried batter (no fish) out of the fryers. That, and the chips, dipped in tarter sauce was manys a working night dinner. The other thing I remember about the Salt was that I started on Good Friday Yikes..... In my neck of the woods these are called scraps (and they are free). The server normally asks you if you 'want scraps with that?' when they are wrapping your fish and chips. As a child I used to think they were great, but I seem to have gone off them over the years. Maybe my furring arteries got in touch with my brain. In my experience (in the UK) the best fish and chips shops are the tiny ones hidden in a row of houses that open for a couple of hours a day around (5:30 - 7:30). The best ones will have people queued out of the door the entire time. I have never had good fish and chips from a chain.

I have an aversion to fruit with meat. Fruit is good, meat is good, lets just leave it at that. The following are particulary offensive:- Duck and orange or plum sauce Pork and apple sauce Turkey and cranberry Lamb and red current jelly Lamb and apricots For some reason I thought miso paste would be good in a Thai green curry, it wasn't.

The foie will be hard to beat. Next up, flipper pie. What is the flipper from that goes into this pie? Presumably nothing to do with the 80's Australian kids tv show about a dolphin? I have always wanted to catch fish from the sea shore and BBQ it on the beach. Also, I have not tried the kobe beef and would like to give that a go.

my 'accept no substitutes' section:- Coca-cola Kellogs cornflakes Colman's mustard (I think this is intenational) HP sauce Heinz tomato ketchup The papads that have a photo of a boy eating them on the front, but I don't know what the brand is called. my 'tried and trusted brand, but there may be better out there' section:- Kikkomans soy sauce Squid brand Thai fish sauce Encona West Indian hot sauce

Same here, I tend to find that a fine grater will take the skin away for you. I have never washed or peeled ginger.

That's a winner combo. Reminds me of a story from adventure writer Jon Krakauer. He was in Borneo, I think, where the local folks rely a tree where you pound the woody fibers and ground it up to get the mushy carbs, and nobody enjoys eating it. He fed them Basmati rice, and they cried. Sounds like it could be the sago tree? I have seen this on TV and when mixed with water it looks exactly like wallpaper paste. Nobody seems to enjoy eating it, even the locals.

I guess that, as always with these things, it's a subjective matter of taste. What might be great to you, might be shite to me and vice versa. I'd certainly be interested to see your posts suggesting where you do think is great - it all adds to the available information on the board. I guess I have an issue with the definition of what a 'pub' is. I grew up in the countryside and see a pub as the focal point of the village where folks get together over a good pint and talk. If food is required it consists of 'pub food' i.e. pies, stews, roasts etc. However, the important thing for me is that serving food is a secondary function of a pub rather than a primary one. If an establishment is going to serve ballentine of fois gras with sauterenes jelly I don't see how it can market itself as a pub? It is essentially a restaurant in an old pub building.

suckling pig, garlic....

Pubs landlords/managers discovered a while back that there was more money to be made selling food than there was selling beer. While once common to find pubs that sold no food other than pork scratchings and crisps, it is now very rare to find a pub where a large proportion of the floor space is not designated to diners. As mentioned on a previous post many pubs are now owned by large chains that prize profit above all else and the concept of the local freehouse is rapidly becoming a distant memory. Serving what is now called 'real ale' (once called beer) is a skilled practice. The lines require more attention, there is more waste and the cellars require better keeping. All this means less profit than a pint of lager with a plate of crap chicken tikka masala. Yes, I am old and bitter (no pun intended).

Bread and butter pudding, fantastic! http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/breadandbutterpuddin_85936

I was listening to an Indian chef (Atul Kochhar) on TV recently and he mentioned that in India rice is often 'put down' for a period of time before consuming. By this he inferred that bags of rice where stored in a cellar for a while before eating (in a similar way to wine, but not for as long). According to Mr Kochhar, this helped develop the flavour of the rice. This was not something that I had come across before. Is it an Indian thing or do other rice eating nations do this also?

+1 with the Appleton, I have a couple of bottles of VX just itching to meet some coke (maybe not all in one go.)

check Thanks, very informative. I would never have thought of putting tofu with meat....

Currently in the pantry are: Arborio for ristto White and Brown Basmati to go with curries, byriani, kedgeree, etc. Jasmine rice for Chinese/Thai food American Brown Long Grain for Jamaican rice and peas and last but not least Pudding Rice for err..rice pudding. The trouble I find with brown rice is that it takes so damn long to cook. On the plus, side it is more difficult to over cook!