culture smash!

[kaigou]

Actual conversation, the other day. I've been to England/Scotland (otherwise raised in the Deep South), while CP attended a Brit school as a kid. Makes for some odd culture-squishes, here and there, in the house conversations. I still don't know how this one started, but I think it was thanks to CP's trip to the grocery store.

CP: I was in the international food aisles, and you know what they have there? Right next to the Hispanic food, there's British food-- and Heinz baked beans.
Me: Say what?
CP: Baked beans, Heinz. Because it's apparently a huge part of British breakfasts to have American baked beans on your eggs.
Me: What, when you're not getting a slice or two of tomato that's been cooked until it's kinda crispy--
CP: But otherwise soggy? Yeah, that.
Me: Did that aisle have appropriately burnt toast, too?
CP: Just baked beans.
Me: Because my sister and I could never figure it out, I mean, the entire time we were in Britain, all we got was burnt toast.
CP: It's a thing.
Me: But it didn't make any sense! They'd put the toast in, it'd stay in until smoke was coming out, and they'd pop the toast out, burnt black.
CP: And I'm sure your mother scraped off the burnt parts and told you that you were gonna eat it, and you were gonna like it.
Me: She did it with a smile, too.
CP: Unh-hunh.
Me: Still, I mean, it's not like we didn't know how to set the toaster to not burn the toast. And I was eight! My sister was five! We knew about how to stand over the toaster until the bread was nicely browned and then pop it out -- if it was looking like it'd still be going -- and then we'd get bread toasted just so. We couldn't figure out how an entire country seemed to be clueless about this.
CP: Well, like the British space program...
Me: Hunh?
CP: There isn't one... and now you know why.

Snark rules this house, sometimes.

Comments

[penship.livejournal.com]

Heh. I don't understand the British love for Heinz baked beans, but there it is in its viscous, murky brown glory. (I don't understand the American love for Twinkies either.)

I've never heard of the toast quirk though. I used to like my toast almost charcoal black when I was younger. I'd sprinkle sugar with it and chow down. Maybe they prefer the taste of slightly sweet ashes?

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

For years I thought it was just bad luck, that everywhere we stayed had broken toasters. Wasn't until talking to someone who'd lived in England for awhile that I found it was some kind of a national bad toast thing. Very odd.

[christeos-pir.livejournal.com]

"And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey."

Or not.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Weirdo.

[pixiepilot.livejournal.com]

This is just one reason I love you guys.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

We get paid by the smirk.

[haya5h1.livejournal.com]

Well, see, if you burn the toast, you can scrape off the charred bits until you reach the exact degree of toastedness you want. Thus you only need to make one huge batch of toast, and everyone at the table can customize their slice without fights over the toaster.

I have always regarded the fried tomatoes as a grudging nod to vitamins. Or garnish.

But beans on toast are kind of yum. especially if there's a slice of nice cheddar on top and the whole lot is shoved under the broiler till the cheese is bubbly and brown. Even better if there's a slice or two of bacon under the beans. ...mmm, heart attack on toast.

[christeos-pir.livejournal.com]

If I'm to eat baked beans on toast, there'd better be some bangers on the table.

Sadly, I think it's been years decades since I had a good steak and kidney pie.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

thus you only need to make one huge batch of toast, and everyone at the table can customize their slice without fights over the toaster

That's a kind of efficiency that's... not. *contemplates* And people say grits are strange.

[sans-pertinence.livejournal.com]

Well, there's my snicker for the morning. *checks clock* The very early morning.

When it comes to food, I'll take South America over Britain any day. ;P

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well, that's a pretty normal conversation for this house!

[aulus-poliutos.livejournal.com]

They finally have figured it out. Last time I was in Britain (June 2007) I didn't get a single burnt toast; they were all the stage of lightly brown I like best.

If you want something really scary, try Mallaig Kippers. The saltiness of that fish ... *shudders*

I was lucky with my B&Bs; I even got alternatives to the usual bacon/egg/beans stuff like scrambled eggs with smoked salmon. Yum.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Kippers... oi, no, I've lived through two weeks of herring at every blooming meal, so I pretty much swear off all salty fish, or sweet-oily fish, or generally any little fish. Except lox; I adore lox, but again with the salt. (Not to mention you sort of need to live near a sizeable Jewish population center to get anything remotely close to decent lox.)

[underpope.livejournal.com]

My dad, with his own Scottish ancestry, likes to say that there's a very simple reason why the British once had a global empire: it's because they were simply looking for good food.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

*dies*

That is awesome. Yes, I believe it may be true, as well.

(My Welsh professor -- 1st gen American -- liked to say the reason the sun never sets on the British Empire is because it's afraid what the empire would get up to, in the dark.)

[kalilung.livejournal.com]

Man, I remember the burnt toast. The burnt toast that was also buttered after it had cooled off. Then put on toast racks to cool off further.

I spent some of my formative years in England, and I still crave the stuff occasionally. >_>

Never did get into the whole baked beans thing, though.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

There's just something not right about cold, burnt toast, with unmelted butter on it. Still cold unmelted butter at that, with the burnt toast ending up squished because the butter has to be practically ground into the bread... yipes.

I remember when we visited (long-lost and questionably related) the head of our family's clan, and were invited to stay with them for several days. (They remain good friends of my folks, all these years later. My sister and I became "the American cousins".) Because my sister and I were young, we were stuck in the guest rooms attached to the nursery, and ate breakfast with the kids and their nanny. The nanny burnt every single piece of toast, and then would set it aside, bring it back and squish this hard lump of butter on the bread, then hand it to my sister or me.

Since our mom had promised to beat our heads in if we didn't stay on our best behavior, that meant we had to, like, eat the toast. (It didn't help that the toast was also white-bread, which we rarely got, and tasted funny to me.) I remember thinking I was going to choke, those mornings, and I ended up drinking so much tea to get the toast down that this might explain why I recall we were still running around at just shy of midnight!