Scotch Egg History

The United Kingdom is known for its diversity of food and has over the centuries adopted many recipes that have subsequently lost their origins and are now thought of as being quintessentially English.

Many of these dishes are then sold around the world as being traditional English Fare. One such dish is Scotch Eggs

A traditional Scotch Egg is a hardboiled chickens egg that has been wrapped in sausage meat which has been dipped in breadcrumbs and then deep fried.

The Scotch Egg is claimed to have been invented by the London food store Fortnum and Masons back in 1738. The store was founded in 1707 as a grocery store and soon gained a reputation for supplying quality foods and was renowned for supplying luxury foods and meats to members of the British Aristocracy and serving officers in the British Army all around the Empire.

It is as a result of supplying such goods that the idea of a Scotch egg is thought to have come about.

During the 18^th century the British Empire had spread into India and discovered an entirely new style of cooking and food preparation. In one of the conquered areas around Delhi the Mughali style of cooking was to be found and one of the common dishes was to use lamb or beef mixed with spices and then formed in to balls before cooking. One of the local variants was to place an egg in the meat and then served and known locally as Nargisi Kofta

It is most probable that someone wrote back to Fortnum and Mason asking that they prepare such a dish for their return to the UK or when they were posted to another part of the Empire and were not able to obtain it.

The first recorded recipe of a Scotch Egg is in Mrs Rundell’s “ A New System of Domestic Cookery” which was published in 1809 and quickly became a firm favorite on both sides of the Atlantic. The recipe showed how to prepare the Scotch Eggs and then recommended they be served in a gravy or sauce further giving credence to their origins in India.

Today Scotch eggs are invariably eaten cold and a popular favorite at picnics for their ease of eating and combination of flavors. They can be made quite easily but there are so many places selling them over the counter or prepackaged that few people bother to make them and as a result some of the regional variations are now seldom found.

Bite sized, chopped eggs. Quails eggs, pickled eggs and Worcester sauce are all varieties that can still be found and in today’s fast food world the Scotch Egg is likely to have a long and prosperous future

The 50 most delicious foods in the world - really?

Ask 100 people what their favorite food is and you will more than likely get 80 different answers. Ask 1,000 people and the number grows but not in the same proportions and so it continues. What makes the compilation of lists very hard is getting a good cross section of respondents  and so whenever we read a list of the top whatever you can be sure to find people who disagree with it and some who could quite possibly never heard of it.

Online website CNNgo, part of the CNN group of companies recently decided to compile a list of the top 50 foods in the world with some very interesting results. The criteria for how they achieved their results is hidden in mystery, as are nearly all such surveys, so the results should be taken with a pinch of salt (quite appropriate for a food survey don’t you think?). All that we know is that the survey was as a result of asking readers of CNNgo.

A number of the usual suspects can be found – fajitas, tortillas, hamburgers, fried chicken, tacos, chocolate to name but a few and there are some exotic listings as well but missing from the list are some very noticeable regions. There is no mention of French cooking, the place where reputedly the best food comes from.

In 50^th place was buttered pop corn from the US (really??!!) with potato chips (crisps for the English) in 48^th place which is understandable if the selection was favorite foods but the selection request was for the 50 most delicious foods in the world – just how chips gets in to this category beats me.

In fact when you look down the list you start to wonder as to the quality and intelligence of the respondents to the survey as many of the foods on the list are snack foods or fast foods or at best convenience foods. Could it be that the world’s appreciation of “delicious foods” is being dumbed down by mass processed foods and the addition of salts and sugars as a preservative?

I have eaten all around the world and had some simply sensational food that has left you gagging for more and at other times have spent months looking forward to a special meal.

There is no mention of steak in any format on the list (Hamburgers do not count) nor is there any individual fish. Fish and chips is on the list and Sushi makes it in to the top 5. I have no problem with sushi being there as some of it can be simply stunning but I would have rated sashimi above it and to be frank I think a number of those that voted for sushi really meant sashimi as they do not know the difference.

Peking duck at number 5 deserves a place but not so high and I could never countenance pizza, let alone Neapolitan pizza as number 2 or even in the top 50.

So the result of the survey and the world’s most delicious food is……… Massaman Curry

For those who are unfamiliar with this dish it is a mild curry that is slightly sweet in flavour and was thought to be Muslim in origins hence  it is not often served with pork although can be. The 2 most common variants of the dish are chicken or beef and is normally served with rice which when you take in to account the potatoes that make up part of the dish make it quite high in carbohydrates.

The sweetness of the curry comes from the coconut  milk that makes up part of the sauce along with the roasted peanuts or cashew nuts  which are added to cardamom, cinnamon, star anise, chili and tamarind.

It is definitely a popular dish across Asia with slight regional variations so you would expect to find it up there in a list of 50 top Asian dishes but to head the 50 most delicious dishes in the world highlights a fault in the selection process.

Being ones to double check their facts (how I wish the news channel would do the same) CNNgo did a survey on Facebook and asked people to vote for their top 50 dishes from the list provided and the result was…….

……Massaman curry did not top the poll and only just squeaked in the top 10 in 9^th place with 801 votes 

out of a total number of voted cast of 35,000.

Top place went to Rendang, drive from Indonesia which only made it to 11^th place on the original list but with over 7,400 votes it was clearly the favourite with over 2,000 votes more than the 2^nd place dish of Nasi Goreng, also from Indonesia – do I sense a pattern emerging?

All of the top 5 dishes were from Asia which makes you wonder just who has had an influence on the result or whether Asians are just more likely to participate in Facebook surveys.

The next thing to do is to go down the list and see just how many of the dishes you have already tried – I scored 38 which leaves 12 more to go

You can see the full list at http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/eat/worlds-50-most-delicious-foods-067535?page=0,0