Mind you, it wasn't the only thing boiling today - it's been so hot and sticky, high humidity and cloud cover and no breeze. I've showered twice so far and I still feel overheated (I was going to put "on heat" but decided that would give the wrong impression!)
Out tonight for a meal at a local hostelry, and although the food was pleasant, I wish places like this could get to grips with how to cook chips (fries for any European or American readers) properly. The ones we had this evening were only just cooked and looked quite anaemic.
Chips should be double-fried to get a crisp outer casing and soft fluffy innards. Fry them off once, let them drain and cool, and then fry them again as required. So simple, yet beyond the capabilities of so many pub/restaurants.
Also needed is an adequate supply of tomato sauce (ketchup, or that vile Americanism - catsup) and a slice or two of buttered white bread to make a decent chip butty.
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ReplyDeleteCatsup is not an Americanisation - but a failed attempt (albeit by
ReplyDeleteAmericans) to anglicise the Malay word 'kitsup'. It was a dressing
sauce popular in the "good old imperial days" made initially from
boiled fish. Americans in the 19th century changed the sauce by adding
tomatoes.... and basically they created the stuff we pour today!
Only Heinz, of course!
Ah - I bow to superior condimental knowledge. Trust an ex-Royal Navy chaplain to know about sauce made from boiled fish!
ReplyDelete*yuk*
See that Rural Rector beat me to it, but:
ReplyDeletecatchup, catsup: a liquor extracted from mushrooms, tomatoes, walnuts, etc., used as a sauce. (Common in N. Amer., but in the U.K. now only KETCHUP.)
1690 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Catchup, a high East-India Sauce.
1730 SWIFT Paneg. on Dean Wks. 1755 IV. I. 142 And, for our home-bred british cheer, Botargo, catsup, and caveer.
1751 H. GLASSE Cookery Bk. 309 It will taste like foreign Catchup.
1832 Veg. Subst. Food 333 One..application of mushrooms is..converting them into the sauce called Catsup.
1845 E. ACTON Mod. Cookery v. (1850) 136 (L.) Walnut catsup.
1862 Macm. Mag. Oct. 466 He found in mothery catsup a number of yellowish globular bodies.
OED
Thank you, "strange rabbit", for your research. I shall sit at the table corrected. Mind you, whatever its descent, I still think the term "catsup" is rather unappetising. Sounds like something the cat brought up!
ReplyDeleteps Thanks for the link to eggbaconchipsand beans site
ReplyDeleteNot ketchup -- brown sauce. And it has to be HP. On bacon and eggs for breakfast too.
ReplyDelete