Snail porridge heralding changing tastes?

Best in the world

The UK has long been the subject of jokes about the bad quality of our food but now this might be behind us. A UK village restaurant has been declared the best in the world, and 13 other British restaurants were among the top 50 places to eat.

The Fat Duck restaurant in the village of Bray in the English county of Berkshire was named as the world’s best place to eat by a panel of 600 international chefs and critics.

Fat Duck dishes

The Fat Duck is owned by chef Heston Blumenthal whose style of cooking is often described by foodies as ‘molecular gastronomy’. He explained to The Times newspaper exactly what was meant by this. ‘I like to experiment with different tastes and flavours of sweet and savoury to show they have no boundaries. People expect ice-cream to be sweet, but the Victorians ate it savoury. Cucumber ice, for example, with fresh cucumber was common as a starter…’

So what actually turns up on the Fat Duck’s menu to make it such an exciting place to eat? Well, if you dined there tonight you might try nitro-green tea and lime mousse, which is dipped in liquid nitrogen to make it cold, smoked bacon and egg ice-cream, sardine on toast sorbet or snail porridge. It was this last dish that the UK media really picked up on when they reported the Fat Duck being voted best in the world – probably because snails and porridge are two things many people think they would never want to eat and here they are combined on one dish!

New things?

These different dishes may reflect the fact that the British are more willing to try new things and experiment with what they eat. Not all of us may want to go as far as snail porridge but increased access to food from other cultures means that the UK has moved on from the days of meat and two veg.

Now that we have discovered foods from around the world British chefs are beginning to fuse these into new and distinctly British dishes, as Heston Blumenthal is doing.

Stella
July/August 2005

天下第一饭馆

由于食物不够美味，英国菜一直以来被人引为笑柄。不过现在情况可大不一样了！英国乡村的一家餐馆已经被评为“天下第一饭馆”，而且还有另外13家英国餐馆入围全球50家最佳餐馆。

肥鸭餐馆是被一个由六百名国际级厨师和评论家组成的评委会评选为天下第一店的，它位于英格兰中南部贝克郡的一个名为布雷的村庄。

肥鸭美食

肥鸭餐馆的老板是厨师赫斯顿•布拉门斯，他的烹饪风格常被称作“分子烹饪法”。他向《泰唔士报》解释了到底何为分子烹饪法。“我喜欢尝试不同的口味，尝试不同风味的甜味和咸味，证明二者之间并没有界限。人们觉得冰淇淋就应该是甜的，但实际上维多利亚时代人们吃的冰淇淋就是咸的。还有比如以前拿黄瓜冰淇淋和新鲜黄瓜做第一道菜是很普遍的。 ”

那么肥鸭餐馆的菜单上到底有些什么菜，使它成为一个如此大快朵怡的地方？这么说吧，如果你今晚去那儿吃饭，你可以试试硝基绿茶和酸橙慕司，吃的时候蘸点液化氮能让奶油冻保持冰凉，还有烟熏的熏肉，鸡蛋冰淇淋，沙丁鱼果汁冰糕土司，或者蜗牛粥。英国媒体在报导肥鸭餐馆被评为天下第一店时特别提到的正是这最后一道菜——蜗牛粥。或许正是因为蜗牛和稀饭是许多人认为永远都不会想吃的两样东西，而肥鸭餐馆现在偏偏把这两样东西做成了一道菜！

新鲜事物？

这些与众不同的佳肴可能反映了这样一个事实：英国人更乐于尝试新鲜事物，更喜欢在吃东西方面尝试些新花样。虽然还不至于人人都想尝试蜗牛粥，但我们确实正越来越多地接受来自其他文化的佳肴，这说明英国已经远离了一荤两素的日子，正向多元化的饮食迈进。

在发现了世界各地的佳肴后，英国的大厨们便开始把这些佳肴融入到典型的新式英国菜中，正如赫斯顿•布拉门斯所做的那样。

斯特拉
2005年7月