And if you’ve felt too silly to ask what it is, the food that gives its name to Liverpudlians as in Liverpool scouse, this week’s Hungry and Thursday is all about Liverpool scouse and stews around the world.
Scousers have been getting their voices heard (and what’s new there?) these past few weeks, culminating in their fireworks party as they lifted the Premier League title at Anfield yesterday.
But seeing this is a food and drink post, and I already give you a sporting post, My Sporting Weekend every weekend, I’ll stick to scouse.
In a Stew
Which will stick to you teeth or in them. Because it’s really just stew with extras.
Ally in red, naturally
I first had myself a plate of scouse in Albert Dock, Liverpool, as I waited for my interview at the Liverpool Daily Post back in the 1990s.
I had pulled a sickie to attend and was to go on and stare inside the studio where the British morning magazine programme This Morning was televised, only for the camera to turn on me.
Just the job
Which is when I got a shiver down my back as I thought of my boss’s wife watching from up in Aberdeen and reporting to Jim that I was really down on Merseyside when I should have been at my desk.
Still, I got the job so it wouldn’t have mattered.
Back to the scouse and the word derives from ‘lobscouse’ which was a Scandinavian and Northern German stew brought to Liverpool by sailors.
The Liverpudlians, of course, reciprocated and sent exports of their own to these parts… The Beatles. And you can hear all about that in the city they made their home, Hamburg.
Hamburgers… and stew
On Stefanie Hempell’s Beatles tour (and you won’t get better).
While scouse isn’t the only comfort food that the Hamburgers have exported with great success. See Hamburgers and ships.
A Star in Hamburg
So what’s in Scouse?
Scouse consists of mutton, lamb (often neck), or beef with vegetables, typically potatoes, carrots, and onions. Serve with pickled beetroot or pickled red cabbage and bread.
Ethiopia and the world
While I leave my Liverpool-born son to make his way back from the festivities to Scotland, or indeed the phone call to bail him out of jail, I’ll take you on a gristlestop tour around the world of stew.
With the queen of Ethiopia, Meseret
Meat of Africa
Ethiopian chicken stew: And I’ll miss those Ethiopian New Years in Dublin which I shared with my friends Carole, Lorcan, Tony and my Queen of Ethiopia Meseret.
Because Enkutatash runs to the old calendar which means that you actually lose time. I, of course, lose all sense of time when the wine starts flowing which I only do to soak up the Ethiopian stew which you eat with your hands soaking it up with bread.
And you can get a fancy dish too
Balkan bellies
Bosanski Ionac, Bosnia & Herzegovina: And they love their homely food in the Balkans and it unites the different cultures and traditions.
Carbonnade, Flanders, Belgium: And the brave soldiers who went to the Front in the First World War would take their pleasures where they could.
So that meant wine, women and song… or in Ieper, dark beer (there’s lots of it in this dish), women (they’re the same the world over) and drinking shanties. All right up a Tommy’s street and the best people to go with are GTI Travel and Visit Flanders.
Load your plate up with shellfish and don’t be liberal with the squids and octopus.
You’ll need a rich base of onions, white wine, olive oil, and tomatoes, and season with a variety of fresh herbs and spices such as saffron and nutmeg.
They’ll be the dumplings then
Cesky goulash: Not to be mistaken for Hungarian goulash. All right, it is quite similar. Mop it up with the obligatory Czech dumplings and sauerkraut.
And, of course, Pilsener Urquell.
They had a big post-lockdown feast on the Charles Bridge in BohemianPrague recently and I[m hoping there were leftovers!
And with apologies to Irish stew and other meaty greats from around the world.
Heck for fear of being force-fed vegetarian I’ll return to this subject.
With lockdown bringing a revival in camping, what’s your campfire song? You’ll go some to match the Big Rapper in Jordan.
There must be something about the desert that brings out the entertainer in me… and it transpired in St Lucian Big Jerry too.
I came late to rapping…
When I slipped my ‘A Wake Up For The People’ into the set of our poetry performance group The Forth Stanza’s show at the Edinburgh Fringe https://www.edfringe.com/
Bandanaman, RapperMan
A line or two of which I reprise for you here….
Wham, bam/Come home Uncle Sam/Bored of Ford/Get Carter/Shelter the Shah/Hostages to barter/Joni warned us of the Devil’s bargain/And told us to get back/Get back to the garden… We are stardust, we are golden/And we’ve got to get ourselves/Back to the garden
It’s a ramble through Modern Western History which I sang heartily among a company of Berbers by a Moroccan campfire.
Before sidling off to be violently sick (dodgy beef tajine in the Atlas Mountains. Honest!).
Where you can spend many a happy hour checking their progress… which isn’t much to be honest as they sidle sideways.
Much like I did, giddy from one too many Rum Punch, after Happy Hour. And who am I kidding? Every hour was happy hour.
It seems heartless then to say that I love them best on my plate but then if God hadn’t meant them to be eaten he would’t have made them so damn tasty.
And when I say ‘plate’ I probably mean a big pot.
Being shellfish in Boston
Boston skyline Photo by Kristin Vogt on Pexels.com
My first introduction to crabs was on the last evening of my much-storied summer in Boston https://www.bostonusa.com after university.
When I had saved up enough money to have a blowout and eat at the oldest restaurant in Beantown, the Union Oyster House http://unionoysterhouse.com on the Freedom Trail.
Mysel and my mucker Neilly proceeded to order the most expensive meal on the menu and were surprised and thrilled in equal measure when they presented us with what appeared to be two big wine buckets.
In which seemed to contain two giant scoops of Boston Harbour.
This being America where practicality is king we were each given bibs too.
Slip slidin’ away
Maryland history. Photo by David Dibert on Pexels.com
We both waddled like crabs out of the Union Oyster House and back to our billets in Boston’s rough and ready Combat Zone where we were staying.
And drank the night away at their all-black shebeen Alfies’s. But that’s a different story and one I will keep for another day.
Full to overflowing. Photo by Terje Sollie on Pexels.com
Meanwhile I’ll tempt you with a recipe for Maryland Crab Cakes given to me by my favourite cousin which I spotted on this fridge magnet in the kitchen.
And which she gave me among a hamper of goodies when I visited when I was in Washington DC http://www.washington.org and Easy DC.
Tobago obviously
Any jobs going? With Auntie Ali and Uncle Kenneth in Tobago
The Redhead in Bed, 25 Degrees, Huntington Beach, California:
Ingredients: Ketel One Citroen vodka, strawberries, lemon juice, sparkling wine.
I’ve yet to have a Redhead in Bed anywhere (honestly) but if I did it would be in Huntington Beach.
How to: Mix One Citroen vodka, strawberries, lemon juice, and sparkling wine for an added kick.
For those who like to drink their dessert, 25 Degrees offers four spiked shakes, mixing vanilla ice cream and your choice of Guinness, Maker’s Mark, Kraken Black Spiced Rum, or Kahlua among other sweet milkshake additions.
Ingredients: Mint, shochu, sugar, lime, fizzy water
If you had been planning to get out to Japan this year for the Olympics then you have our sympathies but here’s a multi-discipline event you can do from the safety of your own home.
This is a Japanese twist on a classic mojito which swaps the rum usually found in a Mojito with shochu, a Japanese liquor typically made from buckwheat, sweet potatoes or barley.
This is an easy cocktail to whip up once your guests arrive (two minutes prep time) and is a guaranteed crowd pleaser.
How to: Add the lime, mint and sugar to a tall glass and bruise with a muddler. To this, add the shochu and fizzy water and stir. Serve over ice with mint to garnish. www.japan.travel/en/uk/
Men left, women always right as the old sign says… except, of course, when left means going back on yourself to Edam and right means returning to Amsterdam.
It was the one and only time I signalled correctly which is probably why SHE ignored me.
And we cycled around for another 10km in the twilight before returning to the crossroads.
By the time we got back and had our crepes and Amstel beers I was feeling it.
The top table: The Dylan Amsterdam
And I was cramped up the next day.
And did I say that we had only got the wrong day to go out to Edam as it was their half day?
Still we did manage to get a cheeseboard, garlic Edam cheese and one of those slicers with a delft pattern before they closed their shutters.
The cheese might have got a bot smelly in my backpack on the ride home too but I wasn’t telling my parents for whom it was a souvenir.
All of which reminisces have been prompted by an itinerary suggestion from the now reopened Dylan Amsterdam… www.dylanamsterdam.com.
Where I took the by now Mrs M nearly 30 years after our first visit to Amsterdam.
Another power couple
Safe to say we were moving in far different circles and hotels in 1999 than now with the Dylan being George and Amal’s Dutch hotel of choice… George Clooney and Amal’s Amsterdam hotel.
One of the distinguishing features of the Dylan (and there are many) is the fabulous concierge service.
And here it’s almost as if they can read our minds.
Because among their alternative excursions is the Kroller Muller Museum which houses the world’s second largest collections of Van Goghs.
Blooming marvellous: The Dylan Amsterdam
And they are tempting us with a cycle around the Hoge Veluwe National Park afterwards.
Isn’t it great when someone throws open their doors to an unexpected visitor… and that someone is Canada?
On this Canada Day I’m reminded of the good people of Ontario (and, of course the other nine provinces and three territories).
It’s just that the Ontarians gave home and hospitality to my Grandfather, uncle and brother at various times over the last 100 years… www.mytravelanimal.com.
All of which gained me entrance to their annual bash in Dublin which they were holding downstairs from the Adams & Butler Luxury Travel https:// www.adamsandbutler.com do.
Would you Adams and Eve it: Out of Africa at the Adams & Butler event
Liquor had emboldened me to ask entry.
And before I knew it I was telling my story to the Ontarians and taking part in a table quiz.
Most of the answers I’ve already forgotten.
But I do now know that Thousand Islands Dressing comes from the 1,864 islands.
They run up the St Lawrence along that 50 mile stretch of the Canadian and American border.
Legend has it that our favourite dressing was invented for George Boldt.
And the multi-millionaire happened to be out on a cruise.
With his wife off the coast of Boldt Castle which was the centrepiece of their heart-shaped island.
You wouldn’t want to be the chef then who forgot to bring dressing on board for the greens for the menu.
Luckily for him though he was inventive and whipped up a dressing from what was lying about…
Mayonnaise, ketchup, pickle relish, Worcestershire sauce and a hard-boiled egg.
Forget the mayo
The Canadian and New York link, the latter which was important too with the plethora of New York relatives which I have, wasn’t mentioned in Chez Murty when I was growing up.
It was on the table because it was particularly popular in the Eighties.
We were broadening our tastes you see from Salad Cream and Mayonnaise.
So if you find yourself in a tizzy on your yacht or private cruise ship (although of course you’ll have people who stress out for you) here is how you put together a quick Thousand Island Dressing.
Of course this being Canada Day I trust too that you’ll have pancakes and maple syrup, catch of the day and salad, pecan pie and a Labatt Blue or Molson beer to ten to wash it all down.
