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Post by ripper on Aug 11, 2021 17:19:44 GMT
Not having tasted root beer before, I had it in my mind that it was actually what Americans called ginger beer. My aunt and uncle, sadly both passed away many years ago, had a ginger plant from which they made their own ginger beer. They would use 2-litre plastic pop bottles and stored it in their garage. They must have had about 40 to 50 litres of the stuff in there at any one time. I don't know why but the bottles started to swell and explode. After three or four went off, they were forced to open the remaining bottles, not easy as the pressure had swollen the bottles so that the screw tops were really tight--and pour it all away down a soakaway they had, but that area reeked of ginger for weeks afterward. It's what ginger beer does: it tries to escape. That's why glass bottles with internal screw stoppers are recommended: that said, even they sometimes burst under pressure and I remember a news item from the 1970s about a bomb disposal squad being called out because of multiple explosions in a garden shed. They turned out to be bursting ginger beer bottles. I also remember aged about three sneaking into the pantry to have a proscribed swig from one of the bottles my mother was culturing and having the contents jet out uncontrollably all over the place when I opened it. You can't even use large plastic bottles, I've discovered, as the pressure forces them out of shape and you come down in the morning and find them lolling all over the kitchen floor. It is a very easy drink to make though (I've tried root beer and didn't enjoy it, and US cream soda was way too sickly for me, while the UK variety is rather a treat, especially if you use it to make an ice cream float). I do tend to drink a fair amount of ginger beer as on all family holidays in the UK and all trips in the country for lunch I, being a Dad, always drive (don't ask me why it's the rule, it just is). Since I can't have a cider, drinking a ginger beer tends to feel right in a really nice traditional rustic pub in the way, say, a diet coke wouldn't. there are a wealth of different companies making ginger beer, a hangover from the time when every town, and many villages, had its own ginger beer manufactory, leaving us all those lovely examples of localised stoneware bottles. I'm afraid I find Crabbie's too sweet, and Fevertree a bit too hipsterish. Old Jamaica and Schweppes are OK and there are many small scale makers you seem to find only in out of the way pubs. My favourite is Palmers of Dorset, a king among ginger beers, which you find in some West Country pubs. It's so good that I have twice bought a crate of it from their wine store. There, a whole discourse on ginger beer that I never expected to write and I'm sure you didn't expect to read. On the subject of school dinners I second all that has been said, except for the bit about chips, which we never were lucky enough to have had. For completeness sake I will throw in 1960s spam fritters with bright pink meat (I consider these delicious, my brother would rather die than eat one again), and a special assembly in that decade where it was announced that we were going to have a meal with rice (shock) and peanuts instead of meat (double shock). I think this was during a seamen's strike. That's just what happened to my aunt and uncle. Those plastic bottles had deformed so much that they couldn't be stood up, and what a bang when one exploded. Their garage was attached to the house and when the first one went off they were in their lounge and thought someone was trying to break in. To be honest, I don't like the taste of ginger, so steer clear of ginger beer. I do enjoy creme soda, but, yes, not too sweet or syrupy. Ah, yes, you have reminded me of Spam fritters, only at the time I didn't realise it was Spam, and, of course, we had chips with them. As for rice, I don't recall ever having it for school dinner. As I have said before, it was basic food, stodgy, but plenty of it, probably a function of most of it being cheap to produce. Peanuts? Surely a no-no in today's world due to allergies.
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Post by samdawson on Aug 11, 2021 17:34:10 GMT
Ah, yes, you have reminded me of Spam fritters, only at the time I didn't realise it was Spam, and, of course, we had chips with them. As for rice, I don't recall ever having it for school dinner. As I have said before, it was basic food, stodgy, but plenty of it, probably a function of most of it being cheap to produce. Peanuts? Surely a no-no in today's world due to allergies. I just can't believe that you had chips. They must have made everything better. We got mash, full of eyes, or 'roast' potatoes: small, shrivelled things. The rice and peanuts phenomenon was, I think, for three days of one week only, an emergency response to one of the dockers' or seamen's strikes and so momentous (the only meatless meal ever served) that it required a special assembly to explain to us that it would provide the necessary nutrients for life. Peanut allergy was unheard of at the time. On edit: I've just realised which chat room this is, so am getting out of here PDQ
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Post by Swan on Aug 12, 2021 0:19:32 GMT
On edit: I've just realised which chat room this is, so am getting out of here PDQ It's too late. Things have gone beyond redemption. The Vandals (I include myself in this, alas) have stormed the gates, and the dream that was the Rome of afternoon tea rooms has fallen and is no more. In place of macaroons, peach cobbler, pounding chomeur, and butter tarts, there is now only spam fritters, mash, rice with peanuts, and coleslaw, all washed down with spruce beer, to the sound of exploding ginger beer bottles. Scenes like this are no more. Never again let lass put garland on. Instead of garland, wear sad cypress now, And bitter elder, broken from the bough.
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Post by helrunar on Aug 12, 2021 1:57:25 GMT
Alas and alack!
I realize it's out of period, but somewhere I hear Hyacinth Bucket mournfully wailing: "This is NOT a Chinese takeaway!!!"
H.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 12, 2021 6:13:03 GMT
On edit: I've just realised which chat room this is, so am getting out of here PDQ I've taken all the names, and I'm telling Miss! You'll be in the most TERRIBLE TROUBLE!
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Post by samdawson on Aug 12, 2021 9:08:32 GMT
Thanks goodness that, thanks to my childhood diet of spam fritters, I can run like the wind
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Post by samdawson on Aug 12, 2021 9:09:36 GMT
Actually, hold on a minute. Before I do, let me ask what exactly you are doing in here, DB?
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Post by samdawson on Aug 12, 2021 9:11:25 GMT
On edit: I've just realised which chat room this is, so am getting out of here PDQ It's too late. Things have gone beyond redemption. The Vandals (I include myself in this, alas) have stormed the gates, and the dream that was the Rome of afternoon tea rooms has fallen and is no more. In place of macaroons, peach cobbler, pounding chomeur, and butter tarts, there is now only spam fritters, mash, rice with peanuts, and coleslaw, all washed down with spruce beer, to the sound of exploding ginger beer bottles. HUZZAH!
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Post by helrunar on Aug 12, 2021 12:28:45 GMT
You chaps are really cracking me up! Thanks for the laughs, lads--I needed them this morning.
cheers, Hel
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Post by Swan on Aug 12, 2021 13:23:14 GMT
Helrunar surveys the devastation that was once the Ladies Afternoon Tea Room.
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Post by helrunar on Aug 12, 2021 13:53:10 GMT
That's an exquisite ballad, Swan. I'm imagining the Princess performing it on a balcony in full outraged Valkyrie mode, angrily stamping her eagle-winged staff to emphasize certain phrases.
And only in my dreams would I ever have been that staggeringly handsome... great performance from the actor (have no idea who he is).
cheers, Hel
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Post by samdawson on Aug 13, 2021 9:46:36 GMT
That's an exquisite ballad, Swan. I'm imagining the Princess performing it on a balcony in full outraged Valkyrie mode, angrily stamping her eagle-winged staff to emphasize certain phrases. I am almost in awe of the way you have so vividly evoked an image in one short sentence
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Post by andydecker on Aug 13, 2021 10:31:49 GMT
Is this the famous British tea-time menu? I always was under the impression that there also would be little sandwiches?
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Post by Swan on Aug 13, 2021 13:00:15 GMT
That is a themed one. A Midsummer Night's Dream I believe. The savoury items are on the bottom. A more traditional example.
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Aug 13, 2021 21:14:28 GMT
I see men just couldn't resist posting on this thread. As it has now been ruined by wickedness, I shan't bother with it anymore. If I complain men just post even more. I declare this tea room
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