Fray Bentos - the critic's speak out

[Mariner69]

My vote goes for the FB Baby's Heads. Great with a pint of Broadside or three.

Reference service food. I was in a Naval Party deployed in the middle east. Foreign cook onboard the vessel. The Corporal of Marines comes up to me

"Sir, I have a complaint the food is c**p (he was right) and there's not enough of it!"

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Boiled steak was the final straw before we got shot of the cook. Read that how you will

 

[reginaldon]

I reckon that Paddy has got it bang to rights with one exception. " Don’t trust people from Yorkshire " is simply wrong. But then as a furriner, he has probably mistaken a Lancashire accent for a Yorkshire one ( surprising but can happen) in which case he's right.

Being a Yorkshireman(NE), brought up on the Lancs/Ches border and working in Lancashire with a Cheshire wife, I'm rather ambivalent, however I thought a Yorkshireman had a Punjabi accent these days; my last visit up North was to Bradford!

 

[fergie_mac66]

Being a Yorkshireman(NE), brought up on the Lancs/Ches border and working in Lancashire with a Cheshire wife, I'm rather ambivalent, however I thought a Yorkshireman had a Punjabi accent these days; my last visit up North was to Bradford!

that would be a good one ! FB curried steak and k pie !!! nice for winter weekend !

 

[FullCircle]

You mean you really went all the way to Ostend and chose to eat minced dog with a cardboard covering rather than some proper continental cuisine? Peasant!

Its a rite of passage, but I don't expect you would recognise that tradition. Philistine!

 

[VO5]

One point not so far mentioned is the use of an FB pie as an very effective heavyweight frisbee. It can impart considerable damage. Very effective against the 'Arbour Doos' man in his little boat.

I have a far better wheeze than frisbee launching..

I have a Geiger counter...specially rigged with a hidden button underneath that makes it buzz...

Of great use in French harbours when the topic of the Chernobyl cloud drifting over France is brought up as a topic of conversation...

....does not fail to frighten silly.....

 

[peterb]

FB Jake and Sidney.

Food of the gods.

Though which gods, I'm not saying.

Pluto?

 

[zarathustra]

I rest my case!

But to answer your questions. yes Fray Bentos Pies are real, and no they are not generally popular - only popular with a certain element of the population. This apparently includes some middle aged male sailors.

The article I quote is not a spoof - and the fact that these 'pies' sell is a sad inditement of the culinary tastes and cooking ability of the British population. Perhaps I will get off the fence and give you my real opinion now... However I guess that Americans think that hamburgers are real food as well - so its not just us. Just to spread the pain and grief, and without wishing to sound even more of a foodie snobbish type person, one of the things I REALLY dislike about staying in the USA is the food - and to exacerbate it even more, the residents think its good! I remember being on a USN ship for a while, and the crew thought the food was 'awesome'. It wasn't...

The junk food industry has been on an absolutely massive scale marketing overdrive for decades in USA, and outside of the regular junk like McDs, Cocacola, candy bars and the microwaved cr*p, their veg and fruit is very badly contaminated with a huge list of chemicals, even though the Uk and ireland is following suit, its nowhere near as bad, but certainly on the same road as USA's nutrionally deficient so called "food" chain. There are a whole generation of people in USA, UK and Ireland who don't know what real fruit and vegetables grown without chemicals actually taste like. And their taste buds have been so polluted with artificail foods that they don't know any different but also don't want any different. Its sad as the health implications are obvious and a reason why obesity is such an issue. I saw Jamie Olivers efforts to change the school dinners in UK, we never had such a system here where the school provided the food. What the state run schools in Uk were feeding the kids was an absolute disgrace, no wonder tinned pies seem like luxury to some.