The Last shall be First

So I was going to write my last Welsh posting about the first meal of the day.  I was going to comment (See editor’s notes below) that most anywhere you go in the UK the “Full Breakfast” is pretty much standard.  That is, you get eggs, usually scrambled, link sausages (quite fine grained), black and white pudding, back bacon, stewed mushrooms, roasted or grilled tomatoes, beans (like our baked beans), cold and hot cereal available (usually granola type and porridge), generally a cold plate with assorted meats (sliced ham, Genoa type sausages, maybe smoked salmon) and cheeses (some regional variations, but sometimes a foil wrapped Laughing Cow or Babybel red wax encased type is in there).  

The general practice is that you check in to the breakfast room by giving a front person your room number who will then seat you (God forbid you try to bypass this step, you uncivilized American colonists!) whereupon a server will come and ask if you would like tea or coffee, and do you care for toast?.   The buffet is pointed out, although most places do have an a la carte menu if you care for an omelet or maybe kippers.  Since the “full breakfast” buffet is normally included in the tour package we usually go for that (breakfast is the only time I appreciate a buffet) because you can pick and choose and control your own portion size.

Speaking of which, the offered tea and coffee is pretty much always brought to each individual in a rather large pot, one even if you both have tea.  And the toast is generally served in one of those rack affairs that holds approximately 279 slices of bread of different varieties.  One soon learns that when touring the countryside in a coach, limiting the intake of the liquids might be wise.  Yes the coach has a loo, but that is an experience that soon gets relegated to “emergency only” status.  A detailed description of its use might be a little graphic for a such a genteel blog.

I could pretty much pick any picture of any of the breakfasts we’ve had in England, Scotland, or Ireland and they would be very similar, with maybe only variations in serving dishes and implements.   This may have been the nicest presentation we came across, at our first Hotel in Wales.

Alert readers will note that the Dutch Ovens are Le Creuset.  Excellent heat holding capability but users will know the lids are HEAVY (a fact acknowledged by chef behind the serving line), which only exacerbates the ritual of trying to lift the lid, grab the tongs, select your item, try to get it on the plate, and return same tongs and on to the next.  Being the first day out, I cut down some, staying with tried and true with the usual attempt at black pudding.

Which to be honest, kind of got pushed around the plate .  The bacon is always good, although you spend the rest of the days getting pieces of it out of your teeth.

As i said, there is a commonality for the "full" breakfast, so in line with that here's sort of a breakfast tour of the UK, starting with a lovely cold plate from Dublin in 2010

A lesser presentation from Scotland in 2012:

Or a really bare bones basic one also from Scotland:

Notice bacon is always popular..

We did sometimes order from the menu, which got us this lovely salmon and poached egg (in Scotland)

However, the menu approach wasn't always that successful;   here’s somebody’s menu – note the list under “Welsh Breakfast” all the stuff save sausage..

MFO chose the Eggs Benedict, and I decided to try (thinking or Scotland) the Scrambled Eggs and Smoked Salmon.  Eventually we were presented with

And

You will note that while the “Bene” dish looks okay, in fact the Hollandaise sauce was so viscous it wouldn't flow from the pitcher, perhaps because it was stone cold, as were the poached eggs which had a (cold) solid yolk.  The scrambled eggs were pretty consistent with others we had, kind of grainy.  The salmon, which appeared to be just slapped on the plate, had just a bit of tang to it.  Once that gets in your head, you’re done.  I am sure it was fine, but the thought kind of stayed in my stomach all day.

And finally, a special thanks to Cole Travel for arranging our travels this year.  They do it right. and yes, dear readers I always did

DFD

Okay, Some (Random) Editor Notes on this and that:

Welsh Laverbread:

In poking around about Welsh breakfasts, I discovered that the Welsh are quite nationalistic about what is considered “Full Welsh Breakfast”, and many authors pointed out that it is NOT the same as a Full English breakfast.  However, comma, the ingredients are all pretty much the same, it is just that the Welsh stress that the eggs, sausages, bacon, and so forth must come from Wales.  Okay.   BUT, I did find one unique item that should have found its way onto the buffet (if it did, I missed it..).  There is something called “Laverbread” and you can see it on the menu pictured above.  It apparently is traditionally served with Cockles and Bacon.. (as noted).  To quote one source:

“Laverbread or ‘bara lawr’ in Welsh is an important traditional food of historical value. A national delicacy made from seaweed, it is washed and then cooked to a soft greenish black paste. Made from laver, one of the most nutritious varieties of seaweed, laverbread is full of health benefits…Traditionally a miner’s breakfast of laverbread, bacon, eggs and cockles was eaten by hungry workers before a long day at the pits.”

Got to admit it doesn’t sound all that thrilling (soft greenish black paste??  Yikes)..The Penclawdd is a reference to a village famous for its cockles.   

Posting notes:

I suppose by this time most readers are growing tired of my ramblings and pictures of foreign lands.  I kind of am too, so I think now I will go back to my normal content of rants, restaurant reviews, and thoughts on proper service.

Emails:

Some of you occasionally respond with a comment on one thing or another from the blog, and is sent to my “Bill at Billsbottom Feeder” inbox.  And I really do appreciate that, I really do.  It lets me know that somebody out there actually does read the blog.  However, over the past few weeks somehow the address has spread far and wide, and the Outlook “junk mail filter” has quit being smart.  So I routinely get maybe 250 emails a day telling me that somebody has requested a background check on me, or my credit report has been comprised, or how I can make one million dollars by doing nothing, and several medical products that will enable me to…. Well, you know.  With the result that I do scan the inbox and if something catches my eye I will look at it, but most likely it will fall victim to mass deletions.  If you wish to comment (which I really, really value) send it to my wcmatpax email which most know about.  If not PM me on facebook. 

Local Foodie Stuff:

There has been lots of goings on here in the park with restaurants moving, opening, and so forth.  I hope to be able to yak about those, although a lot of the info can be gained through other outlets.  I did have a chance to experience Rex over in Leonardtown the other day and have a few things to say about that, and I also visited the “new” lighthouse on the Solomons.

Finale:

So that concludes our travel for this year (with the exception of our annual trek to Missouri), and we are already looking forward to next year’s journeys which will include a river boat (on Viking) trip to Amsterdam and Tulips, and then next fall a return to Ireland to visit Maryland historical related sites and also attend the Galway International Oyster Opening competition.  And yes, to experience Guinness in its home country. 

and, just to emphasize you must ALWAYS

DFD

A few of my....

At the final dinner of each trip, Dr. Henry Miller our (Wales) “tour director”, always asks everybody what was their “favorite thing or memory" of the trip..  That of course is highly subjective, but it is interesting to see what struck a chord with different folks. 

After a bit of reflection, I kind of surprised myself with my answer.  I thought most likely  food was not the appropriate candidate for the best memory (what was my worst memory?  Those damn sausages at Lamphey).   Anyway, as it turned out, it was not the castles

(Conwy Castle)

Nor was it the Abbeys laid waste by Henry VIII

(Tintern Abby)

Or lovely Welsh gardens

(Llancaiach Fawr Manor)

Not even the kitchens in several of the old manor houses we visited (but close!)

(Plas Mawr Manor, Conwy)

And strangely not the Cathedrals

(St. Davids)

Nor our descent down into the “Big Pit” coal mine

Well, maybe it’s because of my affinity for our little brick 1667 reconstructed chapel at St. Mary’s City (a child compared to what others we saw) but it turned out my favorite thing was also a chapel.

There is a outdoor museum at St. Fagans called the National History Museum, and features a:  “collection over forty original buildings from different historical periods which have been re-erected in the 100-acre parkland, among them houses, a farm, a school, a chapel and a splendid Workmen's Institute.  It is situated on the grounds of the magnificent St. Fagans Castle and gardens, a late 16th-century manor house donated to the people of Wales by the Earl of Plymouth”.

It turned out that our visit to the museum was during the “term week” when all the little kiddies were between terms in school and hence were unleashed on the public.  Place was crawling with kids.  Anyway, we decided to go see the Chapel figuring maybe it wasn't so popular with kids who just wanted to see goats.  So, map in hand MFO and I trudged to the far reaches of the property (why are Chapels always at the far reaches of things?) and eventually we saw an attractive but unassuming little building.

Noted on the map as St Teilo's Church, Llandeilo Tal-y-bont, removed and reconstructed from its original location in south Wales.  Originally a 12^th century chapel and updated over the centuries, it was supposed to be restored to its original pre “reformation” condition, i.e., before Henry (not ours!) got involved in church business.  Okay, fine.  Let’s go in and see it.  We stuck our head inside and immediately said “Holy Smokes” (not the word i actually used but does start with the same letter).  It almost took ones breath away

Those walls were just incredible

Incredibly beautiful.  They sort of defied any pre-conception of what one (at least I)might think of as “medieval” art.

It was the familiar story that during the reconstruction as they removed some of the covering on the walls they uncovered (portions of) these beautiful paintings.  The current ones are as faithful as possible to the originals.  In some of the literature, it was noted that since most of the parishioners were illiterate, visual depictions of the life of Christ was how it was communicated.  

Astonishing.. and that is why it will remain my utmost memory of the trip (with those others not far behind!)

(Musing)

Which sort of got me thinking, and coming to a realization (which i should have known) but this experience brought it slamming home.  Being a engineer living in a technical world, it’s hard to shake my perception that comparing today’s technology to historical (automobiles instead of horse carts, electricity instead of fires, mobile phones instead of handwritten letters, etc.,) leads one to think “old” is crude and primitive.  In reality while this may be true of “things” it certainly does not apply to “art”.  As long as there have been humans, there were individuals with an eye to beauty and the ability to create. I know this is obvious to almost everybody but me but it is a good lesson for me.

Well, that’s almost a wrap for Wales, but i do think their breakfast deserves a nod of the head or roll of the tongue..

And I’ll bet those medieval folks even

DFD

Cuisine d’hôtel

Well, I said last time that the subject of “hotel food” probably deserved its own column.  It does, so lets go.

It is a great convenience when traveling as part of a group to be able to eat together in the hotel in which you reside. It is an opportunity to get to know your fellow travelers a bit more, compare notes on the day’s adventure and so forth.  Plus the private dining rooms are generally not far from the bar which is always convenient, with no worries about getting “home”.  Our travel hosts included at least one dinner in each of the hotels we occupied, so there was a good cross section to compare.  I would say that the food was uniformly good and generally nicely presented.

All of the places we were to have dinner provided a menu before we left from which you could pre-order your selections (and promptly forget – keep reading).  I think all were kind of prix fixe arrangement, normally giving you a choice of three starters, main dishes, and desserts. 

This one has the Feeder’s chicken scratches on the side (keep reading).  It appears that the Feeder’s standard set of gripes in such situations are not limited to the new world.   Since we all had pre-ordered, each institution knew (presumably by name) who had ordered what for each course.   Well, the first night we all gathered for dinner and the captain of the room had no clue, or at least professed not to as to who ordered what.   And, of course humans being human and most of us generally of an age where memory begins to fail didn’t remember what we chose several weeks before.  That produced a flurry of our tour leader having to visit most everybody with the holy “spread sheet” to remind us we had the…. (prawn tian) or whatever.  Homework:  what is a tian, and how has it evolved over the years?.   Anyway, I (me personally) would think that an accomplished restaurant would have this down.   Provide name cards (or even have the travelers have their own); place them in front of you; server comes to the table, sees she has Mr. and Mrs. Feeder, the Smiths, and the Jones at the table.  Back to the kitchen, consults the posted list, and tells the kitchen staff: “I need three pates, two soups, and a tian”.  Pick them up and deliver them to the table to the proper guest.  Not hard.

Which brings up another gripe.  The kitchen staff knows for starters they need so many of each dish, and has them plated, ready for the servers.  But no… in reality what all too often happens is that the server(s) bring ALL soups for the whole room “who had soup?” then ALL the pate’s, then ALL the tians.  Which then leads to the all too common: “oh, you go ahead and eat” which makes for awkward situations like all the soups are either finished or cold before the rest of the stuff hits the table.  I just don’t get it.   And again, this is all too common.  Watch for it at your next event.

Anyway, as I said for the most part whenever the food got to you it was pretty good.  Starters were for the most part quite good, there was a lot of pate, and a lot of seafood

(Country Pate with Onion Compote)

(Smoked salmon)

Main courses were kind of hit and miss, and it was always fun to see what you got compared to what was described on the menu.  Ravioli, for instance, was as expected and quite good…  

incidentally, as far as I could tell, that little garni of watercress was not the same one following us around, but it sure was common. 

In one place I ordered a “crispy pork belly” got me the following

Which was more of a pork loin with “almost” crispy outside, and the little puck of…. Black pudding puree.  Of course anything pork always tastes good, and it did.  And if the Feeder would be critical he would point out that that little ring of liquid around the sauce cries out: “heat lamp”.

Probably the consistently best course was dessert.  It was always nicely presented and generally quite good.

(Meringue Roulade Fresh Fruit and Almonds)

Oh, and we did run across a unique dessert that popped up on menus, it was called an “Eton Mess”.  It kind of was, but fairly tasty..

And as I always point out, the food is secondary to the good time with friends, and fellow travelers.

Lastly, I am always up for trying new things (to a point), so I have to point out one particularly interesting dish.  On the menu at the top (the "keep reading part"), note the last entry of the main dishes is described as: “Wild Rice and Parsnip Sausages with root vegetable mash & a red onion and cranberry jus”. Well, I thought, that certainly would be a chance to try something (completely) different;  (Monty Python reference here) so I ordered it.  Sounded pretty good.  Anything called sausages can’t be all bad.  Wrong – O, o-culinary adventurer.  The dish set before me was

Certainly sausage-like in shape (with a lone parsley leaf instead of the ubiquitous watercress bundle), and the cranberry/red onion jus didn’t look too bad.  So I cut into the little tubes only to find a dry, grainy substance punctuated by slightly crunchy, chewy, wild rice.  No particular taste or hint of spice, just dry.  When asked how it was, I gamely replied “it must be an acquired taste”.   I didn’t finish it.  But, it was my choice so I lived with it.  Always an adventure..

So that kind of encapsulates the Hotel experience, leaving us to consider breakfasts and lunches.  Next time.. and maybe we'll talk about

DFD

Wales tripping continues

Time for poor traveling food bloggers seems to be a precious commodity.. maybe just some pictures of what we’ve seen instead of words, well with fewer words anyway..

Wales is a beautiful country… you drive along and see sights like this

And in a country that goes back, well, forever, there are smaller remnants of things of an earlier era

Besides the unnamed monuments to the past, there are grander things like castle Caernarfon courtesy of Edward I, built in the late 13^th Century

Twelve Hundreds?  Ptooie.  Modern stuff!! how about the lovely St. David’s Cathedral ( or in Welsh) Eglwys Gadeiroil Tyddwi), where since the 6th century there has been a church on the site, and for the past 1500 years prayer and worship has been offered on a daily basis which continues to this day.

But as usual when you’re traveling, it’s the little things that stick with you.  Dr. Henry Miller took us to a little out of the way Church, St. Gwrst’s, built in the late 1470’s in the town of Llanrwst.

The church itself contains the finest “rood” known to survive the “reformation” of Henry III.

 It is a gorgeous piece of wood carving

.

But it turns out that Richard Wynn added a small chapel in 1633 (off to the right in the upper picture)

Which survives to this day pretty much as it did in the 1600’s.  Still here, still a holy place.  Henry arranged to have a parishioner give us a “tour”.  It is such a pleasure to have somebody who is a member of their parish.  They are so proud to tell the history to somebody who at least understands and appreciate.

And on the little stroll to the church in a small town, the Feeder got to see more stuff he really loves

No silver sided Sysco truck, but real butchers, real local food

.

These carcasses were slaughtered three days ago, and they said they would hang for several more days before being offered for sale in the little butcher shop to which these were being delivered.  Great stuff.  And on we went, hoping to end the day

DFD

Ps a meal report will be forthcoming….. foodies hang on.

Pss:  Although the Feeder's 73rd birthday was celebrated yesterday in Wales, a slightly more prominent Welshman will have a 100th commemoration tomorrow... one Mr. Dylan Thomas..

The Unfriendly Skies

Hello, finally an internet connection that works.  In a nutshell, we’re having a wonderful trip, although the weather is about what you would expect for Wales in the fall, coupled with the shirttails of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Gonzalo, we’ve been kind of in and out of showers most every day. And, since this is supposed to be a food missive rather than a travel missive (which it sort of has been lately) I thought I’d do a quick food update, before I forget the details.

For the purpose of this issue, the worst of times refers to the meal we had on the airline on the way over.  The start of the trip was kind of halting.  Actually all the logistics of getting to the airport were fine, and we were even able to benefit from MFO’s little sheet of paper that got her TSA Pre-approved.  Shoes, belt, pants stayed on, only laptop and cell phone out of cases.  Not bad.  With the usual Dulles walk about, after a brisk walk of seemingly miles, we arrived at our gate, and met the rest of the travelers for our trip.  More new friends along with re meeting old ones, or I guess is should say previous fellow travelers.

It was not a full flight for Manchester, and mercifully both of us were on adjoining aisles with nobody next to us, and in fact, MFO was the only occupant of her row.  The center seat in my row was empty.  As part of our planning for the trip we had “upgraded” to that nebulous class of seats called: “economy plus” or something that gives you a little more room for your knees and tray tables, which in fact it does and is well worth the fairly nominal price.

So I settled back ready to enjoy the flight as much as possible.  Soon after takeoff, I got out my Bose headphones, ready to connect to the entertainment system, eager for that first drink before dinner.  The first indication of not the best of times was when I touched “music” on the touch screen and got a screen full of “Selection Not Available” avatars in the classical music menu.  Tried, jazz, pop, R&B, all same stuff.  About this time the attendant came trudging down the aisle with her cart, and when she got to our row, I asked her about it and got a reply of “Oh, we don’t have ANY music channels anymore”.  Huh?  Yes, so many people have their own devices that we discontinued it.  Well, lady, I don’t!  Out of luck there.   At any rate I would like a Scotch on the rocks, please.  Admittedly, it has been a while since  we’ve done international flights, but I swear then the drinks were complimentary.  Nope, $5 and we accept (only) major credit cards.  This was anticipated as the thoughtful folks at Cole Travel included two drink chits in our envelope.  So armed with the slip I was presented with a plastic of ….Dewars.  Um, do you have anything else?  No sir that’s all the scotch we have.  Fine, no music, a pedestrian scotch, and no warmed nuts.  Fine.  Cold nuts in a bag would have been nice, so we broke out some of the ones MFO purchased at the airport for probably twenty dollars a pound.

I was going to surrender my second voucher to dull the frustration, but before I could do that, the rumbling cart re-appeared and I was quizzed: “chicken or pasta”.  I took the former and MFO the latter.  Well, I don’t enjoy complaining although I do it well, but what followed was the absolute worst excuse for a meal any airline has had the audacity to set before me.  Exactly as presented (or rather chucked on the tray):

Which looked like this after unwrapping everything

3585

MFO’s Pasta like material appeared as

Despite a gallant attempt, I honestly could not eat the chicken.  You know that texture that results from cooking with steam (in like a Combi oven?)  kind of spongy, bread like stuff?  Even so, it was so tough I couldn't cut it with the plastic tools they gave us.  I had to unceremoniously hold it by hand, and bite it and even then it gave up reluctantly Two bites and back to the plastic tub.  awful.

I passed the time by watching a couple of movies, “Chef” which was kind of a foodie movie, and then a rather odd one called the Grand Budapest or something like that.

Anyway, we finally landed, and we knew we were in a different country

So off we went to tour, our first stop being Chester

And lunch in a recommended Pub, the Brewery Tap, which i had researched.  Nice Job.. feeder...

There's nothing like it at home..  Wise travelers that we are we knew to get the menu at the bar

I ordered a version of "bangers and Mash" and ti was pretty good.

More to come, as wireless becomes available... oh yes, within our packed bags were the necessaries to be

DFD