Tripwolf Blog

I’ve been in London for about a week now, visiting various friends and family – since I’ve been here enough times to have seen all the touristy bits, I usually just focus on eating all my favorite foods, as many times as I can. So I’ve had the salted beef beigel at Brick Lane Beigel Bake 3 times now, and am planning a 2nd stop to Borough Market for the cheese sandwich that Ruth Reichl once called “the platonic ideal of a cheese sandwich.” But for those times when I can’t fit a food destination into my schedule, I just go eat at the nearest pub. Everything is still tasty so it’s a win-win situation.  Well, except for that heart attack I’ll inevitably have from all the fat I’ve been eating.

Such as the innocuously-titled Welsh Rarebit. There’s not much in the name that implies the orgy of cheese, butter and bread that it actually is, like some sort of amorphous monster out of a cult B-movie.  I can just see some guy in the Welsh countryside, trying to think up a new dish for his customers:

Dude we need something like the grilled cheese sandwich Amos makes down in Llanfairpwllgyngyll. How about if we triple – no, quadruple – the amount of cheese we’re using but melt it outside the bread instead of inside?  Genius!  Then it’s technically a casserole and not a sandwich!  And hey, since everyone likes bacon, why not dump that on there for sh-ts and giggles?  And let’s not forget the token slice of tomato and a sprig of parsley for some color.

And then there’s the famous English breakfast.  My husband, Michael, assures me that English people don’t eat like this everyday, and I have no doubt that he’s right.  But the fact that they’d have the nerve to eat like this even once a month is fairly shocking.  Though my inner Midwesterner appreciates that there is never just one type of meat for breakfast, even Set 2 is going a little too far for me – really, who on god’s green earth is willing to have bacon, sausage and a burger before noon?  And I find it hilarious that Set 2 only comes with one egg instead of two.  As if that second egg would put it over the top?

Finally, there is the pork pie.  It sounded great – I like pork, I like pie, what’s not to love about a combination of the two?  But it is . . .funky.  On first glance, it is an innocent-looking pastry filled with meat, kind of like a chicken pot pie.  But there is an unmistakable lard flavor, probably owing to the pork jelly made from leftover pig organs, also filling the pastry.  The most interesting thing about a pork pie is that it is always served cold.  Perhaps the lard would melt off under direct heat, so yes, it’s probably best to keep it cold so the fat will stay congealed.  Funnily enough, Michael asked me what I thought pork pies tasted like.  For him, pork pies taste like a heady combination reminiscent of his childhood.  But for me, pork pies just taste like enlarging thighs and looming obesity.

Don’t get me wrong, London is full of good food.  All I do here is eat, literally – the other day, I passed on going to St. Paul’s Cathedral because I’m broke and I could buy two Hampstead Crepes with the admission fee.  But seriously, some of this food will f– you up in the long-term if you’re not careful.