Lunch and Dinner or Dinner and Tea?

[danny la rouge]

Anyway, the most popular thread in this forum, and one of the most popular threads on the boards, is named correctly.

 

[danny la rouge]

How can a corn dumpling be seen as Guardian food? It's as traditional and established an ethnic snack as samosas or bhajis

Is it made from sweetcorn?

 

[tarannau]

Corn flour....

 

[danny la rouge]

Corn flour....

Cornflour? Or corn flour?

 

[tarannau]

Not cornflour, more cornmeal. I can't say I know the anglicised term for cornmeal if there is one.

 

[danny la rouge]

Not cornflour, more cornmeal. I can't say I know the anglicised term for cornmeal if there is one.

It's just that cornflour is made from maize. Whereas corn flour would be ground corn. And corn round these parts would refer to barley or sometimes oats. I can't even grow maize in my garden; I've tried. So these "peasant" dumplings are not in fact local peasant food. They're the sort of "peasant food" one eats in Islington, while thinking dreamily of Tuscan sunsets.

 

[kyser_soze]

More like Caribbean sunsets...

 

[danny la rouge]

More like Caribbean sunsets...

It was a general concept rather than specifically about pholouries. But I thank you for the ethnogastronomical lesson.

 

[DotCommunist]

whack that on a triple world score and watch your scrabble foes weep.

 

[tarannau]

No, they eat them in Trinidad, Guyana and Brixton and beyond. I've never claimed they're local food in the slightest - it's just the name of a snack I've had plenty of recently> I'm not going to start anglicising their name in affected fashion or insisting that they're called cornball tea snacks or anything.

I tend to eat them out of a bag on the way back from the station,fwiw. Not sure where dreamily comes into things

 

[danny la rouge]

No, they eat them in Trinidad, Guyana and Brixton and beyond. I've never claimed they're local food in the slightest - it's just the name of a snack I've had plenty of recently> I'm not going to start anglicising their name in affected fashion or insisting that they're called cornball tea snacks or anything.

I tend to eat them out of a bag on the way back from the station,fwiw. Not sure where dreamily comes into things

Do you jot down the recipe for your Guardian column on the bag?

 

[tarannau]

Recipe? Have you ever heard of such a thing amongst friends. It's bung some of that in and fry, no more than that.

 

[danny la rouge]

Recipe? Have you ever heard of such a thing amongst friends. It's bung some of that in and fry, no more than that.

Yes, I know the deal: a dash of smoked Chermoula paste (not the unsmoked powder!), some ground Yotam, and some storecupboard truffles.

 

[innit]

I'm amazed the weekend Guardian doesn't have a special neeps edition for you lot.

 

[tarannau]

Blimey, you've got all that stuff in your storecupboard? Ponce

Sadly it's only cornmeal, self raising flour, egg and butter. Maybe a little coriander if you're feeling daring.

 

[danny la rouge]

Blimey, you've got all that stuff in your storecupboard? Ponce

No, I Googled one of your columns.

 

[tarannau]

I think you're getting me confused with that Ottolenghi fella.

Still, with your advanced level of storecupboard favourites I'm sure you'd be a whizz if you entered the next round of Scotland's 'Come Eat Tea With Me' programme

 

[danny la rouge]

I think you're getting me confused with that Ottolenghi fella.

You deny it, then?

 

[Maidmarian]

I think you're getting me confused with that Ottolenghi fella.

Still, with your advanced level of storecupboard favourites I'm sure you'd be a whizz if you entered the next round of Scotland's 'Come Eat Tea With Me' programme

Now , you just sound coarse

 

[tarannau]

Look, us ethnics don't all look or write the same you know.

One second I'm Sewell, the next Ottolenghi. I'm beginning to wonder if you have some kind of personality disorder that affects perception.

Still, I salute you for your ability to stick up for affected, old terms like 'havers' and 'tea'

Maybe one day we can both take the final step and you can start writing your posts in the style of James Kelman and I can scribble in patois and street slang. Deal?

 

[danny la rouge]

Maybe one day we can both take the final step and you can start writing your posts in the style of James Kelman and I can scribble in patois and street slang. Deal?

Kelman's from Glasgow. You probably think we all sound alike, dontcha?

 

[Idaho]

There are frauds on here though Idaho. DLR and other yokels have special dispensation as stated.

It's those living amongst the normals in Southern civilisation that prattle on about the correctness of calling it 'tea' who deserve opprobrium.

If someone wants to call it tea, then good on them.

I call it tea because I grew up being told "It's teatime", "come and get your tea", etc. as I am sure many others did.

 

[tarannau]

Clearly yes.

If I'm apparently comparable to both Biran Sewell, Ottolenghi, some Tuscan cook and a host of others, you'd be mighty rich to complain about me lumping you in with a town a comparative stone's throw away

And I'm glad to see common sense and progress is prevailing. Take your archaic 'tea' term and prepare for it to be consigned to historical footnote status. How folks will laugh at (y)our quaint and illogical affectations in the future.

 

[Idaho]

Clearly yes.

If I'm apparently comparable to both Biran Sewell, Ottolenghi, some Tuscan cook and a host of others, you'd be mighty rich to complain about me lumping you in with a town a comparative stone's throw away

And I'm glad to see common sense and progress is prevailing. Take your archaic 'tea' term and prepare for it to be consigned to historical footnote status. How folks will laugh at (y)our quaint and illogical affectations in the future.

You knob

 

[tarannau]

If someone wants to call it tea, then good on them.

I call it tea because I grew up being told "It's teatime", "come and get your tea", etc. as I am sure many others did.

That's fine with me too fwiw. It's when they insist on it being anything other than a less than common sense and dated term that I have a slight issue. Particularly when folks insist that their dated and illogical term is 'correct' over the more widely used lunch and dinner, like reverse snobs from a past era

I grew up hearing many old fashioned and largely outdated terms too, but I'd like to think my language reflects my generation and the fact I'm of more modern times. I may occasionally slip in a vex, nincompoop or chups into my language, but generally I speak and write like a modern Britisher. There's no need to continually and proudly hark back to the past when more appropriate and common sense terms exist. Lunch and dinner are more indicative and sensible terms - appreciate their logic and clarity I reckon. Why call the main meal the name of a hot beverage and introduce unnecessary ambiguity.

 

[discokermit]

it's nearly tea time.

 

[cesare]

it's nearly tea time.

Aye. And I'm having tea at home, not going out to dinner.

 

[geminisnake]

I usually have lunch and tea but I've lived in Scotland and Kent so it's allowed

 

[danny la rouge]

I usually have lunch and tea but I've lived in Scotland and Kent so it's allowed

This is allowable if the meal you have midday is a light one, and you have English connections. But the evening meal is tea.

 

[danny la rouge]

If I'm apparently comparable to both Biran Sewell, Ottolenghi, some Tuscan cook and a host of others

Notably Eddy and Patsy. And Lynne Franks.