The North-South Culinary divide…
Now that I’m on the topic of food…
There is a definite North/South divide in England when it comes to food.
Firstly if we take the good old staple Chippy. It is very hard to find a chip shop that will sell Gravy, Mushy Peas, or Curry Sauce. The exception for curry sauce is chippies that are Chinese take aways. If you are lucky enough to find such a chip shop, they generally sell the gravy etc as an extra in a little Polystyrene cup. You get no chance of eating it to go… what ever happened to take out trays? Also the pies down south are awful, they generally seem to be plastic wrapped Pukka Pies, whereas in the north they tend to be fresh Hollands Pies. Worse yet is that they don’t sell Steak and Kidney puddings… and even if they did there’d be no tray for it, or gravy to pour over it. All supermarkets sell Hollands products in packs of 4… in the south - nothing. There are now a few Asda’s starting to stock their products, however on the whole I have to import my supplies.
Greggs is a pretty universal pie shop now, however there is a subtle difference depending where in the country you live. Greggs in Newcastle sell Ham and Pease pudding Stottie cake, but by the time you get to Manchester you can’t buy this. Manchester have decent pasties, my particular favourite being Potato and Meat ( note the order ), however as you move south these are replaced with inferior pasties and the Potato and meat is not even available.
Warburton’s bakery is a good northern baker. You can now get a small amount of their products in southern supermarkets. I recently found that sainsbury’s were selling their Seeded Batch which is just fantastic for sandwiches, but even better toasted. Other products that are a Warbutons must… Oven Bottoms and Toastie. Although beware, the Toastie loaf is generall taller than your toaster! 
Food, Gravy, Mushy Peas, Curry, chip shop, Polystyrene, Pease pudding, Stottie cake, pasties
Gravy, Mushy Peas, Curry, chip shop, Polystyrene, Pease pudding, Stottie cake, pasties
October 20th, 2005 at 8:49 am
Where on earth did you get a picture of pudding, chips, peas, gravy and a fish from? I thought that was just one of your ‘odd’ likes.
Were you feeling particularly hungry on Monday all this talk of food?
ps
Now I know where all the pretzels went!
October 23rd, 2005 at 2:35 am
Warburtons is a northern thing? Explains why its difficult to come by down here and why its so expensive. Tastes bloody nice though.
October 24th, 2005 at 10:01 pm
Yes; Originated in Bolton soem 139 years ago… only recently started to penetrate the south… I actually saw a Warby’s van on the M4 near slough the other week.
My father tells me they have a bakery down south now!
http://www.warburtons.co.uk/about_warburtons/history/index.html
October 31st, 2005 at 1:57 pm
We can get a belting pot of peas in nottingham..we could be the Pea capitol of the world..fantastic pea stall in Vickky Market in the town..
mint sauce anyone?
November 17th, 2006 at 11:21 pm
I’m an exiled Geordie, living in Harwich,Essex.
Our local chippie - ‘Pieseas’ does excellent pies from the Pukka brand and our local Supermarket sells the same brand. Pukka tells me that they deliver fresh pies - I’ve never seen a wrapped Pukka pie in my life. Pukka seem good as far as pies are concerned.
Warburtons Bread. Generally pretty good. However, the bread is baked via the Chorleywood process, which accelerates the action of the yeast, and thus reduces the granular consistency of the brown breads, in comparison to those baked by the normal process by local bakeries. They have a bakery and distribution point in Enfield, Herts, and are moving in to the Southern market. This is a very good thing. Although their bread is Chorleywood, and, in my opinion, inferior to the breads baked by local bakers in my own town, it is a great improvement on the other breads sold in local supermarkets.
Steak and Kidney pudding is a rarity in the South.
I remember Carricks bakeries and ‘lite bites’ in Newcastle in 1974-76 and the grub was good.(I left Newcastle in 1976 in search of work). I understand Greggs originated from this concept. I visited a Greggs in Stratford, East London recently, and the produce was pure stodge.
It is easy to make your own pies (use stewing steak from a butcher, not a supermarket - frozen pastry is pretty good if you wish to avoid the trouble of making your own). Stottie cake is a cinch - there are oodles of recipes on the web. Steak and Kidney Pud is also quite simple - look up recipes on BBC food, but buy your meat - shin is good for this dish, and your kidnet, from a butcher, not a supermarket. He will also be able to sell you decent suet, although packeted Atora is reasonably ok.
Finally - I’ve waxed lyrical about food. I’m entitled to do this - I’m a chef.
December 4th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
I’d be interested in a recipe for Stotties… I’ve tried a few but never been able to get them to work and the number I have found never seemed to match each other… I blame my mother for not passing the familt recipe down to me…!
I agree about Warbies, I prefer fresh baked bread, but Warbies is the better of the Supermarket packed variety.