British Street Food Awards 2012

Have a look at it — my first hot dog of the season. Well, frankfurter if you want to be picky. The Frankfurt Butcher’s Guild first introduced spiced and smoked sausages, packed in thin casings, back in the 1850s. (more…)

Fashions in food change. In the eighteenth century, Irish apprentices insisted on marking their indenture papers with the number of days on which their masters could feed them salmon. Salmon was deemed the food of the poor. So were oysters. In fact, oysters were so common that they were even made into sausages. In those days, a real delicacy was the tongue of a whale, or even the whole head. I’m so glad, now the Mersea oysters are so amazing, that the whale head is off the menu…..

I love Gascony. It’s where Tony Blair used to go to relaxed. He urged the locals to “m’appellez Tony”. But when the Gascons presented him with a spirited pony called Justin, Blair got confused. As he later confessed to Des O’Connor “I didn’t know whether to ride it or eat it”. Eat it, fool! In Gascony, you won’t offend anyone by eating anything. (more…)

I have just found out that Leon want to get involved with the British Street Food Awards. And I’m excited. You see, I can still remember my first Leon meal – in a busy pedestrianised area behind Libertys. Not like Soho, where diners are never more than, say, three feet away from a car exhaust. Apart from the proximity of the Great Marlborough Street public conveniences (which, to be honest, is a plus rather than a minus at my age), it felt like a nice place to set down a few tables. (more…)