One of the saddest realizations a young food snob will face upon moving to Glasgow is that social gatherings are not necessarily centered around food. On the official tourism site, they describe the traditional Scottish attitude to food as a "disinclination". I think this is such a perfect and polite way to phrase it. In fact people here can forget to eat all together in favour of continuing to drink. When the beer starts making you feel hungry, there are always crisps or peanuts at the pub or chips and kebabs on the way home.
On Saturday's social calendar there was an early appointment at the pub to secure seats to watch the Scotland match, followed by a party later in the evening. Knowing that enough beer and whisky would be consumed during the five hours at the pub to make going home to cook unappealing, I resigned myself to a fate of procuring food on the streets of Glasgow. Here is the disgusting list:
- Bacon sandwich for lunch (delicious. Made by J. This was to line our stomachs pre-pub.)
- Peanuts at the bar shared amongst friends (both regular salted and dry roasted variations)
- A portion of chips with a topping so indulgent and so revolting that it will have it's own post one day
- A few crisps and a couple of spring rolls at the party in the evening
- beer, whisky and really, really good mojitos made by Anna's strong arms. Those were some muddled leaves. Amazing.
- Apple juice (one of my 5 portions of fruit or veg a day. Can you spot the other four? Whatever.)
This is gross, but the day was super fun and in Glasgow you quickly learn that you don't need good food to have a good time.
(Out of concern for my camera's wellbeing, it was not taken along that evening. Instead, here are the Sauces of Excellence trio offered up at the chippy:)
The next day I woke up early and felt fine and started work on my knitting project. This is because I am obnoxious and still young enough to not have significant hangovers. J is not quite so young and was feeling like garbage.
Time for some food that won't kill us!
Now, while my head was ok, a day like Saturday does leave me tired and stupid. I had two naps and I didn't make the best food decisions. On the menu that evening was a ginger and citrus chicken soup with watercress. That sounds healing. In theory it wasn't bad: I simmered 1 lb of chicken wings with a load of sliced ginger, some smashed lemon grass, dried orange peel and watercress stalks. It was pretty fragrant and flavourful. I drained it off into another pot and added some noodles and some watercress and lemon juice right after taking it off the heat. But I decided to put some dried tofu in. I quite like the stuff, but had never cooked with it before. Although I soaked it according to instructions, I don't think I let it cook enough in the soup. A bit gross. And because I realized that the tofu needed more time than I had anticipated, I left the noodles to cook for too long. That wasn't the best: tough tofu and soggy noodles. It was fine, but not as bright as it could have been.
A potful of green tea was made to activate the enzymes in our liver. Delightful!
Then I made a fruit salad with grapefruit, pomegranate seeds, chopped ginger preserved in syrup and a teensy tiny bit of Triple Sec:
Just a tiny splash. Don't worry all of the alcohol cooks off! Ok. So that's a lie. It probably just soaked right into the grapefruit and then right into our tender flesh. But it tasted healthy. And perhaps homeopathic. Here's what I did:
Beautifully segmented two grapefruits, pulled the seeds from half a pomegranate, cut one lump of candied ginger into really small and sticky cubes. Mixed all of this in a bowl with about a tablespoon of brown sugar (only necessary because the grapefruit were really sour) and a small glug of booze. They all played together nicely while we ate our soup and picked out the unsuccessful tofu from our bowl.
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