Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Pub Food Recipes

By KC Kudra

You will expect different types of food from different restaurants - pub food, caf food, fast food, and fine dining all fall under the category of meals from food outlets. We all expect there to be a world of difference between a meal from a fast food joint and a dinner from an award winning restaurant, both in quality and price, but what about pub food? Is pub food freshly made or mass-produced? Just how healthy is this kind of food?

Pub food in Britain is also known as "pub grub." At the turn of the twentieth century, you could expect to see shellfish vendors outside public houses selling whelks, mussels, cockles and the like, or you could get a cold snack like a salad at the bar.

In the 1950s it was common to get "a pie and a pint," with the steak and ale pies being made by the landlord's wife. In the 1960s and 1970s, you could get chicken or scampi in a basket or, in Ireland, soda bread with Irish stew.

Modern Types of Pub Food

Pub food currently found in British pubs includes fish and chips, bangers and mash, hot pot, pasties, steak and kidney pie, shepherd's pie, ploughman's lunch and Sunday roast. International recipes such as chili con carne, curry, and lasagna are often served too. In Australia, the pub food menu will include bangers and mash, steak, chicken schnitzel, pub-style hamburger and fish, often served with mashed potatoes, chips or wedges and a salad.

Since the 1990s pub food has become a more important part of the pub experience and most public houses, serve lunch and dinner at the table instead of bar snacks at the bar. Some pubs serve top quality food, which can rival that of a good restaurant and the pubs at the far end of this scale call themselves "gastro pubs." This word is a combination of the words pub and gastronomy and it was coined in 1991 when The Eagle, a pub in London, opened and started serving fine food.

Why Pub Food Takes Second Place to Homemade Food

Few pubs can rival the Eagle and many pubs use cheap ingredients, easy methods such as microwaving and they have a cook at a cook's wages rather than a chef at chef's wages. The cook might or not be qualified. Rather than a freshly cooked pub meal, you can expect something that has been made on a conveyor belt in a factory, packaged in cellophane, boxed, and deep-frozen.

Your chicken Marsala might have been made a year ago and been in the pub freezer all that time. One popular British pub chain only has two freshly made dishes on its menu and the rest are all frozen dinners but of course, they do not tell you that.

You might like to eat pub food now and again but you cannot compare it with homemade fare. Look at boneless chicken recipes for example. Chicken is used in lots of pub dishes because it is cheap, versatile and freezes well but did you know how quick and easy it is to make your own boneless chicken recipes at home? Not only that but it is cheaper to make your own food, you control the ingredients and your family will love you for it.

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