Puddings

In other words, desserts.

The British have a sweet tooth and so do I -- sort of --, much to Fernando's consternation.

Here's a list of British desserts from Wikipedia.  I need to identify the ones I should definitely search out in London and be aware of in Yorkshire and the Lake District.

Eccles Cake

Eccles Cake
St. John, the head-to-toe dining of Fergus Henderson, offers Eccles Cake and Lancashire Cheese.  According to Wikipedia, Eccles cake is a small, round cake filled with currants and made from flaky pastry with butter, sometimes topped with demerara sugar, from the British town of Eccles.  An alternative name is "Squashed Fly Cake".  Now, is that pronounced eckels or eckless?  And for a bit of poptart humor: British fire brigades have reported fires started by Eccles cakes overcooked in microwave ovens. The sugar contained in the cakes is alleged to be flammable.  You can learn even more about how they are made at Heston vs St. John.

Gypsy Tart

Gypsy Tart
Paul Hollywood (of Great British BakeOff fame) has a recipe for Gypsy Tart on BBC Food.  Made of a filling of evaporated and condensed milk and dark brown sugar in a pastry crust,  it must be awfully sweet and it doesn't seem particularly exciting.  I can't imagine why St. John Smithfield has it on its dessert menu or why Paul Hollywood would bother with it.  Evidently it is a common dessert for school dinners and you can see how to make it on this video from the Kent County Council (it originated in Kent), by a school meals trainer.  And Pinterest has a collection of photos, including one topped by passion fruit from Bubble and Squeak.

Treacle Tart

Treacle Tart
The Wolseley serves a treacle tart at its Afternoon Tea and according to Yelp, it is the best in London.  This tart is as sweet as the gypsy tart, being made with breadcrumbs, golden syrup, and lemon to cut through the sweetness.  Mary Berry (of the Great British BakeOff) has a simple recipe for treacle tart on the BBC Food website.  According to The National Trust Book of Traditional Puddings, treacle (the syrup remaining after sugar refining, i.e. molasses) was used in the beginning and was gradually replaced by the lighter golden syrup.  Oh, and evidently Harry Potter loves treacle tart.  You can make it treacle pudding by leaving out the pie crust.  Lyle's is famous for its golden syrup and treacle and also offers a recipe for Lyle's Lovely Treacle Tart.

Sticky toffee pudding

Sticky Toffee Pudding
This appears on almost all London dessert menus. It is a cake made with dates, eggs, sugar, flour and treacle ("treecul"), topped with a toffee sauce (the Brits love their toffee!).  BBC Good Food has a recipe for the Ultimate Sticky Toffee Pudding if you want to try it before we go.  The toffee sauce can be homemade or you can pick up a can of Carnation caramel sauce.  Nigella Lawson has a recipe for it and even a YouTube video to help you.  Gordon Ramsay serves it at his restaurants and Mary Berry bakes it as well.  Pinterest will give you all sorts of versions.

Banoffee Pie

Banoffee Pie
Ban (from bananas) + offee (from toffee).
Wikipedia says it is an "English dessert pie made from bananas, cream and toffee (made from boiled condensed milk, or dulce de leche), combined either on a pastry base or one made from crumbled biscuits and butter."  Supposedly it was developed "in 1971 by amending an unreliable American recipe for "Blum’s Coffee Toffee Pie" with a soft toffee made by boiling an unopened can of condensed milk for several hours."  Blum's Coffee Toffee Pie?  Do you think Mother ever ate it in San Francisco?   Carnation will sell you a can of caramel, which apparently is almost the same as dulce de leche.

Bakewell Tart

Bakewell Pudding and Bakewell Tart
According to Wikipedia, "a Bakewell tart is an English confection consisting of a shortcrust pastry shell beneath layers of jam, frangipane, and a topping of flaked almonds," while a "Bakewell pudding is an English dessert consisting of a flaky pastry base with a layer of sieved jam and topped with a filling made of egg and almond paste."  They sound the same to me but the community of Bakewell Online says the Bakewell Tart "is not really at all like the Bakewell pudding either in flavour or texture."  I guess we will have to try each to find out.

Rhubarb Crumble

Fruit Crumbles
These are like our fruit crisps and are fruit topped with a streusel mixture of flour, butter and sugar.  According to Wikipedia, "Crumbles became popular in Britain during World War II, when the crumble topping was an economical alternative to pies due to shortages of pastry ingredients as the result of rationing. To further reduce the use of rationed flour, fat and sugar, breadcrumbs or oatmeal could be added to the crumble mix."  Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall of River Cottage fame, has an article on cobblers, crisps and crumbles with recipes.

British Cheese Plate
Fortunately if you don't like cloyingly sweet desserts, there is usually a cheese board selection in the puddings menu, like this one at the Drayton Arms Pub: British cheese plate - Taw Valley Cheddar and Garstang Blue with savoury biscuits, apple and fig chutney, celery and grapes.  The National Café at the National Gallery offers an artisan British cheese plate (Keens Cheddar, Barkham Blue, Tunworth and Berkswell) served with oatcakes and chutney.  The plate usually comes with crackers and chutney.

This 2016 article in the Guardian claims that now British cheesemakers are outperforming the French: "The experts’ guide to a great British cheeseboard".  It mentions several cheese stores in London: Paxton & Whitfield, Neal's Yard Dairy, and La Fromagerie.  So we'll have to explore them.

Cacio (Cheese) or Formaggio

Fernando probably hoped this posting would get off of food and talk about calcio (soccer).  I'll let him identify the Roman soccer team and its rivals.

This is about cacio, as in cacio e pepe, the cheese and pepper pasta dish we will absolutely have to try.  There are two words for cheese in Italian:  cacio and formaggio (the word one usually hears).  Evidently cacio is a more southern term (from the Latin caseus - cheese) and formaggio is northern (maybe the French influence of fromage - from the Latin forma - shape or mold).  However we call it, we need to learn about the local cheeses in Rome so that we don't make the mistake of asking for parmigiana instead of pecorino romano.

Pecorino Romano
Pecorino Romano is made from sheep’s milk (pecora is sheep) because Lazio (Rome's province) raises lots of sheep.  According to Eating Italy Food Tours, it is a key ingredient in all Roman pasta dishes and in the spring time (again) it is typically eaten with fresh fava beans on scampagnate (picnics).  They also like it with sweet things like figs and pears.  According to Wikipedia, it is a cheese from Ancient Rome but vegetarians can't eat it because it has to be made using lamb rennet.  A lot of the production now has been shifted to Sardinia but at Volpetti's you can get Pecorino Romano from Lazio.

Ricotta Romana
There is a Ricotta Romana DOP but I don't know if we can get it in the supermarkets, although except for the Sapori and Dintorni under the Termini train station, I haven't located many to put on my Google map.  I have read that they don't stand out like the ones in the suburbs with giant parking lots.  I wonder what we can get at the mercati.

According to formaggio.it, there are 50 cheeses from Rome and Lazio.  Cheese.com has descriptions of many Italian cheeses.

Burrata

Burrata
This is a mozzarella cheese originally from nearby Puglia that is stuffed with cream and more mozzarella.  Katie Parla first had it in New Jersey... but it seems everyone recommends getting it Roscioli's.  This New York Times article says you can get it everywhere in Rome.  But they say you have to eat it within 48 hours.  There also is a burrata di bufala.

Mozzarella
There is cow's milk mozzarella but the more famous one is buffalo milk mozzarella from Campania (as in Naples).  Since Campania is so close, we should take advantage of that.  We could try Obika Mozzarella Bar, which I thought was a Japanese restaurant when I first saw the name on a Google map, except their menu says they don't use any garlic or onions so what fun is that?  (Oh no!  they have a location in LA at Century City.) Katie Parla gives it a thumbs down.

Caciocavallo
No, this isn't cheese made from mare's milk but "cheese on horseback", getting its name from the manner in which the cheese is always tied together in pairs and dangled over a wooden board to drain and age.  It is made in different regions of southern Italy and from different animals: cows, buffalo and sheep.

A Passion for Cheeses

Rather than pastries or bread which we understand, perhaps we should be studying cheeses.  After all, we come from a country where Cheddar is considered exotic.  Lebovitz talks about nutty Cote and Beaufort, milky sweet Cantal, Blue de Laqueuille, Reblochon, Rocamadour, etc...... How ever are we going to choose?  Perhaps I'll take myself to Fairway Market and order some, but I'll have to get a very small amount, as all the cheese I buy quickly molds and this is not blue cheese we're talking about. 
But before I go I'll check out Fromages.com which has a bewildering assortment of cheeses in the Cheese Library arranged under pictures of what I take to be a cow, goat or sheep (that one's a little hard to decipher).  There look to be easily 200 different entries...a few more than  Mozarella, Pepper Jack, Provolone, Swiss, American and Cheddar. 
And can you believe that I didn't know that cheese must be cut certain ways..determined by the shape and size?  I thought you just whacked off what you thought you could eat.  Non, non, non!