With our rugby team in London this weekend, I thought is was timely to share a few English recipes, if not to celebrate a win over the Poms, but also to console ourselves in their cultural food if the boys succumb to a British onslaught on home territory. As a former British colony, the trade of ingredients and culinary delights from across the Empire have endured centuries later, and are evidenced throughout Fijian cuisine today.
The British legacy on Fijian cuisine
The introduction of sugarcane farms, processed sugar and flour paved the way for locals to create new dishes not enjoyed before the European arrival.
Baked pies, cakes, biscuits and sweetened coconut desserts were being cooked across the island archipelago as the wives and cooks of the colonial diplomats learned to adapt their recipes to Pacific island produce.
First published in 1934 and revised in 1958, the Authentic South Sea Island Recipe booklet was arranged and issued by the Girl Guides’ Association of Fiji with classic English recipes and as exotic cuisine from other British colonies including India, Singapore, Malaysia and the South Pacific.
But what is classic British cuisine and do you still enjoy the dishes today?
The Sunday roast and all the trimmings
In days gone by, most families in the UK would sit down together for a big roast lunch every Sunday. This doesn’t happen so much now but the Sunday roast is still a very popular meal.
Beef, chicken, lamb, pork or, especially at Christmas, turkey is roasted in the oven. It’s served with a selection of vegetables such as roast potatoes, carrots, cabbage, roasted onions, Brussels sprouts, peas, as well as tiny sausages wrapped in bacon called ‘pigs in blankets’ and gravy made from the meat.
Roast beef is traditionally accompanied with a peppery horseradish sauce, English mustard and Yorkshire pudding (a batter of eggs, flour and milk which rises up in the oven). Roast pork is often served with an apple sauce, while roast lamb tastes delicious with a mint sauce or redcurrant jelly. The next day, families would fry up the leftover vegetables to make “bubble and squeak” and eat it with slices of the cold meat; something my mum still does till this day!
Fish and chips
If there is one dish that is a perennial favourite among many Fijians, it has to be fish and chips. Brits have been eating fish and chips since the 19th century. This is street food, best eaten with the fingers, which used to be served wrapped in a piece of white paper and newspaper.
These days the local chip shop or “chippie” is more likely to hand it over in a foam box with a plastic knife and fork. The fish, usually cod or haddock, is dipped in batter and deep-fried; the chips are cut thicker than French fries and deep fried twice: once to cook the potato; second to crisp up the outside.
Traditional fish and chips are sprinkled liberally with salt and malt vinegar, and as an accompaniment of a pickled egg or onion, mushy green peas, a giant pickled cucumber called a “wally” or some curry sauce thanks to the huge Indian influence in British cuisine today. In Fiji, we drown our fish and chips in tomato sauce; the quintessential Pacific island favourite!
Puddings
Most of the traditional desserts, puddings, “sweets” or “afters”, as they’re called in the UK, are not for those on a diet. In apple crumble, apples are covered with a crumbly flour, sugar and butter mixture and served with custard made from eggs, milk and vanilla. Bread and butter pudding is made from sliced bread interlaced with dried fruit and baked in custard. Spotted dick is a steamed suet pudding with dried fruit and served with custard.
Trifle is a cold pudding made from layers of sherry-soaked sponge cake, fruit, custard and cream. Summer pudding is sliced bread layered with fruits, berries and fruit juice, and eaten with cream. Get the picture? Not so healthy but oh so delicious!
And pies
We can thank the Brits for our love of pies today. There are so many different pies from around the UK: cottage pie (minced beef with a mashed potato topping), shepherd’s pie (using lamb instead of beef), Cumberland pie (similar to cottage and shepherd’s but with an extra layer of crunch from breadcrumbs), steak and kidney pie made with a suet-based (beef or mutton fat) pastry case, pork pie (famously made in Melton Mowbray) which is eaten cold, and the Cornish pastie — meat, potato and vegetables wrapped up in a semi-circular pastry case which is a meal in itself.
The fry up or “Full English” breakfast
No one in the UK would eat this breakfast every day but most people admit to indulging every now again.
A “fry up” may consist of fried or grilled bacon, a sausage or two, a fried egg, baked beans (tinned beans in a tomato sauce), grilled or fried tomatoes, a slice of fried bread (or toast), perhaps some slices of fried black pudding (sausage made from pig’s blood), and fried mushrooms — eaten in any combination, with a dollop of either brown sauce or tomato ketchup on the side.
Other traditional English breakfasts to try are smoked kipper fish, scrambled egg on toast, kedgeree (a rice and smoked haddock dish from the days of the British Raj) — or just a bowl of cornflakes and milk.
Haggis
Haggis is a traditional Scottish dish, which is always eaten on Burns Night, a celebration of Scotland’s national poet Rabbie Burns, author of “Auld Lang Syne” and the poem Address to the Haggis, which is recited at the start of Burns’ Suppers on January 25. A haggis is the stomach of a sheep (or an artificial casing) stuffed with a mixture of chopped sheep’s heart, liver and lungs, oatmeal, onions, suet (fat), stock and seasoning.
It’s eaten with “neeps and tatties” (boiled and mashed swede and potato) and washed down with a dram (glass) of Scottish whisky. Thankfully, this dish is not so common in Fiji, no doubt because we don’t farm many sheep!
The British banger
Unlike European sausages such as the Italian chorizo, most British sausages, “bangers” as they are known there, are made from fresh meat rather than smoked or cured and then grilled, fried or baked.
Sausages are usually made from casings filled with pork or beef and flavoured with herbs and spices and come in long “links” or strings.
The classic Cumberland sausage, originally from what is now Cumbria in the north of England, is a long, coiled sausage made from chopped pork, and seasoned with pepper. Chipolatas are thin sausages.
Popular sausage dishes include “toad in the hole” (sausages baked in a dish of batter) and the classic “bangers and mash”, sausages served with a pile of mashed potato and eaten with English mustard and/or an onion gravy.
Lancashire hotpot
This stew, which originated in the north west of England, is made from mutton or lamb and vegetables, topped with sliced potatoes. It’s simple to prepare and cheap to make, but cooked long and slow so that the meat is succulent and tender, it tastes delicious. It’s often eaten with pickled red cabbage or beetroot.
Other similar stews are scouse from Liverpool, Irish stew from Ireland and cawl from Wales. Stews are one-pot dishes that are easy to cook at home, and when adapted to our local ingredients, can include our favorite meats and root crops.
Cream tea
If you ever wondered where our love of tea, scones and cream buns came from — blame the British! The cream tea is a teatime treat associated with the South West of England, especially Devon and Cornwall and served in cafes and tearooms all over. It consists of a pot of tea — Earl Grey in preference — drunk black with lemon or with a dash of milk, and scones.
These are dense, bread-like cakes made from flour, butter and milk, served with strawberry or raspberry jam and clotted cream, a rich yellow cream with a crusty top. Simply cut the scone in half, spread it with jam and clotted cream, or just plain butter — divine!
Go Fiji, go!
* Lance Seeto is executive chef for Fiji’s first island beach club, Malamala Beach Club, opening in mid-2017.