When I returned home from church yesterday, I hastily put Radio 4 on to listen to """The Food Programme""". The topic under discussion turned out to be chips (French fries as far as any American readers are concerned).
Apparently one of the best places for good chips is Belgium. They even have a museum dedicated to chips & their history. Belgians still believe in peeling potatoes, rather than using the ubiquitous frozen ones, & then deep frying them in beef dripping. I couldn't agree more. I hate frozen chips. They have no flavour. As for oven chips, enough said. They're just an abomination to be endured, rather enjoyed. I confess we're tempted to go back to dripping as the frying medium. We moved to oil in an attempt to reduce my blood pressure but I really do wonder how much difference it would make if we went back to dripping. It's not as though we eat chips every day & they would taste so much better.
It got us thinking about Belgium as a place to visit. It certainly has got some good things to be said for it. Decent chips by the sound of it, wonderful chocolates (for me), good beer (for the Fox, though I'm not sure how much fruit beers appeal to him). It's also easy to get to from here, just a quick trip over to Hull then on to the ferry to Zeebrugge.
Later on, after dinner, we indulged in some wine to the sound of some Belgian music ie Jacques Brel, followed by Django Reinhardt, and talked about Belgium. As a country it only became independent in 1830, very recently. I remember reading Charlotte Bronte's ""Villette", set in the early days of the new country. Yet since then it has produced some remarkable characters. In the field of art there is Magritte. Literature brings Simenon with his Maigret stories & Herge with Tintin. In music, apart from those already mentioned there's Franck. Or how about the beautiful Audrey Hepburn. All international recognised figures in their fields.
No. One of these days we ought to go an investigate this small, but clearly culturally rich, country. When, that's a different question.
1 comment:
the programme was truly fascinating - I loved how they described the type of chips that could be obtained from the different varieties of chipping potatoes. I hadn't realized about the different regional batter preferences either.
Post a Comment