Читать книгу Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table - Nigel Slater - Страница 17

The French cook with their senses, the Italians with their hearts, the Spanish with their energy and the Germans with their appetite. The British, bless them, cook with their wallets. Our ingenuity in matters frugal knows no bounds. When it comes to scrimping and saving, we are the masters. We have taken the worthy ‘waste not, want not’ to heights unsealed by the rest of the world’s cooks. Bread and butter pudding did not come about because someone had the idea that bread, butter and rich, sweet custard would make a sensuous and tender pudding. Whoever it was thought of the idea to use up a few slices of leftover bread and butter. It’s a wonder we can hold a wooden spoon, our fists are so tightly clenched.

But then, who can argue with a pudding so calm and gentle, so quivering and fragile, so light and creamy? Bread and butter with its layers of buttered bread, sugar and egg custard is a hot pudding for which we don’t have to resort to making a cake mix and steaming it for hours. It is ingenious, and who cares if it just happens to be seasoned as much with meanness as with nutmeg.