Re: OT: Big Tupperware Sale (Modular Mates)

Same here. I got my egg coddlers as a hostess gift from an American who could not believe I didn't have a set. (I'm from the north country. Nothing and nobody gets coddled there!!)

Nor me. I make my own.

We have egg cups, and I have a mother-of-pearl eggspoon which was a christening present from my godmother (and favorite aunt). My kids were fascinated by the idea, couldn't understand it, until I pointed out that I only let them use stainless eggspoons, not silver, because egg yolks tarnish silver.

They got boiled eggs with soldiers when small, but the grands only get them if they visit here.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans

Elizabeth wrote

That sounds just lovely!

Elizabeth

Not only are they nice portable picnic food, as Bruce said, I know as a kid I loved the bullseye effect when they are sliced in half, so you have the concentric circles of golden crumbs, brown meat, egg white, and the yellow yolk bullseye inside.

Dawne

Have you tried Grosvenor pie?

Sounds pretty bad. Personally, I'm more of a Burger King or Wendy's. Here we have a branch of Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger - which is a burger joint that we take out from - and good. Also, a local DC area chain called "Five Guys" which IMHO has not as good burgers, but is close, but better fries. Fortunately, both are on the main road which 90% of the time we go past on the way home from anywhere not further out - and one is open til 10, so that helps for the occassional fast food thing. Never been a MacD's fan, and expecially overseas, they seem to be adapted to the locale, and not an improvement. OTOH, in France there was "Lucky Luke" fast food - a bit odd - take on BK/MacD based on a comic book character.

The funniest burger thing I saw in England, about 20 years ago - I had 2 young (and obnoxious) engineer/physicists over to work on our project for a couple of weeks (it was a treat for them, my boss insisted, I tried to be nice). At a local pub grabbing quick lunch - they ordered "hamburgers" . I told them to order a beefburger - they insisted, and got....minced ham (gammon) patties on buns. Tee hee. They were quite stunned.

Ugh. I really, really, don't like those heavy smelling organ meats, and especially can't stand steak and kidney pie. It's way too rich in just the smell for me. I think the start of my horrible relationship with ex-DH's SIL (a doctor that lived in Richmond Upon Thames) was that on our first day there she made us Steak and Kidney pies - likely from M&S food halls, and dumped one on a plate for me, splitting it open - not listening to my polite refusals up front. Then fiance had to grab the plate away.

Me either. But, you never know. I do really like fried ice-cream.

Ellice

I don't think so--please enlighten me as to what that is??? Dawne

Did you ever have veal, ham and egg pie ? Grosvenor is the same sort of thing but more of a pork pie mix with hard boiled eggs in the centre. So you get a slice of pastry, pork mix with a ring of hard boiled egg in the centre.

It's made with the same pastry as pork pie, hot water pastry and you use a special pan, after it has cooked enough for the pastry to have become slightly cooked, you can release the sides and leave it standing in it's own right while the cooking is finished and it browns evenly all over. I have one of those pie pans, couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it in Eatons many moons ago and bought it. I have also used it for Beef Wellington, makes a more elegant shape of it.

"lucretia borgia" wrote

Sounds quite good. The pan would be a tall version of a springform pan??? Dawne

I think I would sell my soul for a good English Pork Pie. Somewhere in the back of my mind Melton comes to mind. Not sure if Melton Mowbray is where the good ones were made, or Melton may have been the manufacturer. Sitting here, I can picture them in a wrapping that looks a bit like wax paper.

Memories...want me to burst into song??

No, it looks like a loaf pan with slightly sloped sides.

They are actually very easy to make with the right pastry, to make a traditional pork pie you don't even need a special pan. The work used to lie in grinding up the pork mixture but with a food processor it's a snap. Want a recipe for the pastry ?

Someone gave me a recipe once, but it didn't have the essentials of the pork pie I loved.

It was eaten cold, a suety pastry-crust and tasty gelatinous goo between the meat and the shell.

I guess it was fast food in the old days. If I was hungry, going to up to Hammersmith or one of the other teaching hospitals in London (like the London in the East End, Jack the Ripper territory) for night school ( folk didn't go to Uni that much in the old days) a cold meat pork pie was wonderful

Then I liked Bev on a cold day! With chips and something ( forgotten what) at a cafe in Hammersmith.

Strange, it was very safe for young women to go to these places, and now I would worry to death if my daughter, let alone grand daughters did the same things.

If I missed the bus in Iver on thew way to Windsor for work, I would thumb a ride until we passed the bus, and I would pick it up at the next bus-stop.

Gillian

No suet and the gelatinous goo is self making with the right pork mixture. It shrinks inside the pastry case, leaving the goo (aspic)

Don't you have a decent English cookery book, Gillian? I have several, and you might want to investigate your local public library, see what they have on their shelves. One of the ones I have, I first saw in the library.

Anyway, there is a fairly simple recipe for Melton Mowbray Pie in "Great British Cooking: a Well Kept Secret" by Jane Garmey, a more complex one in "British Cookery" edited by Lizzie Boyd and put out by the British Tourist Authority and British Farm Produce Council. Also, a decidedly more complex one in "English Provincial Cooking" by Elisabeth Ayrton.

I have made the Jane Garmey one, and it tastes just fine to us. If you like, I can scan any or all of the three and forward them to you.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.

Grosvenor pie - cheating Melton Mowbray pork pie

Thanks for the offer Olwyn Mary. I have one cookbook the milkman left when I was last in England about 20 years ago. I may have a Sainsbury's one.

I have absolutely no desire to cook an English meal.......I think I would prefer to keep the memories alive LOL

When my late husband was alive I would occasionally make steak and kidney pie (Americanised) and the family loved it. WE just omitted the terrible word "kidney". Same as my kids loved their grandmother's rabbit stew. They didn't have a clue what was in it, because my mother told them it was a special meat just for stews called lapin!

Your offer was appreciated, though.

I have been in this country for 47 years, and am one of those folk who don't weep for the past.

I remember in 1962, shortly after I arrived in the USA, met my first husband etc got married etc, I went to a tea of the local English club on the Sub Base. All they did was whine that this wasn't as good as home etc etc. I was so disgusted, I never went back. These silly women had agreed to marry an American, and I thought would have thought this all out before saying YES. To give Paul credit, he wouldn't let me say yes or no until I had a week to think about all the ramifications.

Gillian

On Jan 9, 4:05=A0pm, ellice wrote: =A0Never been able to justify

I guess you haven't yet reached for your opened box of Cream of Wheat and spied a huge roach in residence. =A0 Ha.

I should have known better. Any opened container will now go into fridge or contents into a Rubbermaid or glass jar with tight lid. Those square clear plastic containers which rice, couscous etc come in make dandy storage containers.

I still own some Tup I bought prob. in 1980 when a gal in my office horsed me into a purchase. It HAS held up, but not clear enough to my liking. I think it's expensive - just my 2 cents.

Sounds like the bunch around here, the Daughters of the British Empire (probably spelled Empah, doncha know). We used to go to their "Pub Night" fundraiser, because the grub was excellent, but dh vows they are all still living in 1946. I went to one meeting shortly after the first Pub Night, and the first thing the president did during the business session was to remind the dear ladies that it is time to renew green cards this month. Green Cards???? When not one of them has been over here for less than four decades???? Why in Hades are they not citizens????

But yes, I do still cook quite a number of Brit foods. After all, we ARE both Brits by birth, and steak and kidney pie is in our DNA. In fact, recently I noticed my local Cajun grocery had beef tongues, so I bought two and cooked one in the slow cooker. Delicious.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.

OK - you're right - I've forgotten my roots. My DM had tupperware for things like cereals, sugar, flour. When growing up in Miami, we always kept the sugar in the fridge, even inside a tupperware canister.

You're right. Since I grew up with the habit of sugar, etc in the fridge, when I was living in NM, the then spouse thought I was nuts. There really aren't bug problems in the high desert there, so he had not idea what the heck I was doing. But, the habit got broken. Now, I do put things like usgar, flour, in very sealed containers. Open boxes of things like corn-starch, or similar (matzoh meal), pasta, I use the newish cling seal stuff from glad. Works great. My Indian spices, lentils, etc - are in the set of snapware. But, I still could never do tupperward to dump boxes of cereal into - however I completely understand why you would living in some places.

We're lucky in that the new house was built with a tube system in the walls, that is charged every quarter with some pesticide - which doesn't bother us, or the dog, and evidently provides a barrier. We've had almost no bugs in the house, except in the summer when the doors to the deck from the breakfast room get opened a lot, and someone forgets to pull the screen - plus the dog's bowls are near there.

A worthy 2 cents - you did make me remember.

Ellice

I don't bother with that, the open cereal boxes are folded shut and on the pantry shelf. OTOH, I am vigilant about bugs, went to far as to go to the shop where the pros buy their stuff to get supplies. I do, occasionally, find weevils in the flour, but they probably came in with it. Not hard to dump one bag of flour. For all the kinds of dried beans, lentils etc., I once found at a rummage sale a case of half-gallon clear mason jars for $10. Works great. I just screw the tops on tight and I can see at a glance exactly what I have. However, I do store whole-wheat flour, couscous, bulghur, shelled nuts etc. in the freezer, as they tend to go off.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.