These days, mocking British food is almost a political correctness.

According to legend, friends who study in the UK, no matter what major they major they study, they must minor in the kitchen. If they are lazy and skip classes, they have to surrender to the 108 ways to eat potatoes and receive the successive experience of fish and chips, blood sausage pudding, and steak waist pie.

Even those who have never been to the UK are familiar with the "Looking up at the Starry Sky" (but many British people have never eaten it themselves). If you dare to express any doubts about the darkness of British cuisine, they can just take out the Scottish national dish "small belly" with a smile and can stuff your mouth...

In fact, haggis can also be placed very well!

But - I have to pluck my courage to say this sentence - there is an illogical point that seems to be overlooked lightly: From Norman, the gorge to the Tudors, the country has countless glorious history, and the prosperity of maritime trade has brought endless spices, tea and exotic ingredients. In order to show their status and identity, the princes and nobles regard themselves as the highest criterion for life, from the wide and narrow brim of hats to the tattoos on the edge of the neck, are they only potatoes, fish steaks and sausages changed back and forth at their golden and grand banquets?

The dinner at Downton Abbey is so fancy, it is impossible to just eat fish and chips, right?

If they had ever had exquisite and cumbersome dishes, why would British cuisine look like today?

After eating in the UK for a few days, I plunged into the old paper pile and searched for several days before I could piece together the general life experience of British cuisine. Unexpectedly, it was not a short joke, but rather a long and graceful narrative poem.

British cuisine before the 11th century was very vague due to lack of literature. We can only infer from some letters that several complicated dishes had appeared on the royal table of Anglo-Saxon, such as chopping chicken, mixing it with egg whites, piled on scallops, steaming it in a pot, and seasoning it with a little wine and honey - it sounds good, right?

In the 11th century, William of Normandy conquered Britain, which was a very special record in the history of British cuisine. The Normans originally lived in northern France. Shortly after conquering Britain, they also seized Sicily from the North African Arabs. The cultures of France and North Africa were integrated and brought to Britain by the royal family, which began the prosperous era of British cuisine.

Today’s criticism of British cuisine without spices and tastelessness was simply a rebellious thing. In that era, it was almost obsessed with the influence of Arabic and Persian cuisine. The rich orange blossoms, juicy citrus, ripe sweet figs, bright lemons, crisp pistachios and pine nuts produced in Sicily and North Africa are all ingredients that British chefs compete for. Pepper, almonds, cumin, cloves, nutmeg, saffron and ginger are also often seen on royal purchase orders. When you open the recipes from the 13th century, you will find the aroma of the clouds and clouds, and you will see it:

A dark sauce made with currant, walnuts and cinnamon,

Add vinegar and bread crumbs to adjust the consistency.

It is usually eaten with herons, egrets, cranes, crows, apebble-billed ducks, woodpeckers or big bustards.

It should be seen that in addition to eating, they have the ability to show off their financial resources. In ancient times, spices were expensive such as gold, herons, wild cranes, and so on, and were naturally more elegant than chickens, ducks, cattle and sheep. Among them, saffron is probably the most preferred spice. One is because it is expensive, and the other is because it is beautiful. Adding a small pinch to the sauce can dye a pot of golden light.

Today's British celebrity chef Heston Blumentha1 opened a restaurant in London dinner         heston      Blumentha1, interpreting ancient British recipes with innovative ideas, bsp;F1esh.

The original recipe from 139o was very simple. The rice was stewed with broth, and then seasoned with almond milk, saffron and salt. It looked casual but the cost was not low. Rice was also a noble imported ingredient at that time. With the blessing of saffron, it was a double show of wealth.

There is no meat in the original recipe. "f1esh" refers to the broth of stewed rice, but to avoid diners being confused, Heston added red wine to stew the calves tail. The rice is a risotto recipe, with Parmesan cheese and butter giving it a strong texture, while the white wine and white wine vinegar make it taste extremely fresh.

While showing off the ingredients, the chefs also started to play tricks on their styling. You should know that it was an era without TV and mobile phones. A formal dinner would take at least two hours. In order to avoid exhaustion of topics and sudden death in the topic, food also had to take on the heavy responsibility of entertainment.

Some recipes will teach the chef how to perform the little magic of turning white wine into red wine in front of guests; how to roll fish roe, eggs and flour into small dough, then dye it with parsley juice, and pretend to be a pea.

The most humorous dish is probably this: chop the pork, add egg white balls to make meatballs, cook and then roast, then use egg yolk or saffron to simulate the golden surface of the orange, and some use flour and vanilla juice to mold it into a green shell, then brush a layer of hazel leaf juice and add egg yolks to make it a shiny "apple".

The medieval British nobles rarely ate fruit raw, so when they cut the round apples with doubts and exposed pork stuffing, they often cause a burst of knowingly pleasant laughter.

Heston     Blumentha1 also replicated this dish in the restaurant, called "meat     Fruit". The citrus jelly on the outer layer is even and exquisite, perfectly simulating the appearance of the orange, and it can arouse amazement when served; the inside is replaced by smooth chicken liver mousse, which is obviously a shadow of French food.

The richness and smoothness of the chicken liver mousse is not difficult to imagine, but the finishing touch is the sweet and sour citrus jelly, which gently supports the chicken liver so that it will not fall into the fat and astray path.

This trend has become so intense that the banquet has almost become a carefully arranged drama, and the dishes are nothing more than tools for entertainment and show-off. During the Royal Banquet, the chef grilled the peacocks and inserted feathers one by one:

When everything goes on, a bird flapping its wings and flying out; be especially careful when seeing the huge pudding come up - there may be a gnome acrobat who suddenly jumps out of it.

The dove pie in "Game of Thrones" is not the idea of ​​Mr. Martin himself...

The magnificent castle sculptured in dough is surrounded by green grass, and the roasted pheasants, partridges and pigeons are carefully colored and restored to lifelike appearance. The nobles at that time were really energetic - thousands of acres of fertile land, thousands of hectares of dense forests, grasslands, mountains, rivers and oceans, in their eyes, are nothing more than their own property, and can be picked up at will and turned into a miniature landscape on the dining plate.

By the Tudor dynasty, the life of the nobles gradually became less and less easy. The enclosure movement and the religious reform came one after another, and coupled with the impact of the commodity economy, the old nobles gradually declined, and the gentry and wealthy businessmen began to rise.

The emerging bourgeoisie had no interest in exaggerated and cumbersome medieval recipes. They did not pursue expensive imported spices, but preferred to appreciate the undecorated deliciousness of a local oyster.

In the 17th century, a hand-made recipe by Lady Fettipce of England allowed us to observe the interesting evolution of cooking methods. She still likes to use rose dew and black currants that were common in the Middle Ages, but saffron has rarely appeared, and the spices in the recipe have also been reduced from seven or eight to two or three. She used egg yolk instead of bread crumbs to make a smoother sauce, boiled rose petals into jam, peach and apricot into syrup, and used white wine sauce with mutton, squeezed a little fresh Sevilla orange juice on steamed oysters...

Until the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the eating habits of the bourgeoisie did not change much. Jane Austen's best friend Martha Lloyd, who lived with the Austen family, was not difficult to see in her manuscript that the squire life at that time was full of pastoral leisure—the yard was full of turkeys, geese, ducks and guinea fowls, and the fruit trees produced cute red strawberries in the spring. Martha picked lettuce, chicory, onions, spinach, cucumbers, peas, asparagus and other fresh vegetables from the garden. Add egg yolks, cream and a small spoon of flour to create a pot of vegetable soup, and the pearl white steam bakes the kitchen warmly.
Chapter completed!