in (limited) praise of british food

As my consistent readers have probably noticed, I've been really mean to the Brits on the subject of food. But in the interest of fairness, and in looking on the bright side of things, I thought I would present a few of this island's culinary strengths. Or failing that, things that they do better than Americans.

Beer. It's not exactly food, but beer is as good a place as any to start. I have to admit that before I came here, the thought of drinking room-temperature, minimally carbonated beer was mildly repulsive. But now I would consider it sacreligious to chill Old Speckled Hen or another fine English ale, because that would destroy the more subtle flavors that come out at warmer temperatures. For the sake of international comparison, I should note that I never caught on to the Filipino custom of drinking beer with ice, so score one for the Brits.

Cheese. The UK does not have quite the cornucopia of cheeses offered by its neighbor on the other side of the Channel, but it does have some great homegrown varieties. My favorite is Stilton, an English blue cheese that has taken up permanent residence on my refrigerator shelf. One of the things I love about formal hall at Emma is that there is always a cheese course after dessert. When we go to formal swaps at other colleges and there isn't a cheese course, it just confirms that Emma is the best college ever and the rest are all second-rate. Why do Americans eat so much of this "pasteurized processed cheese food" crap when there is so much of the delicious real stuff to go around?

Potatoes. The humble spud is such an essential part of the British diet that it's not surprising that Brits have seen more possibilities hiding inside the homely tuber. One concept I will certainly bring home with me is the "jacket potato" (or simply "jacket"), which is really just a baked potato freed from the tired old formula of butter, sour cream, and occasionally bacon. The baked potato is a great canvas for so many other kinds of protein: chili, tuna salad, baked beans, Stilton and grapes. One of my American friends here was a devotee of the jacket potato stand in the market square for all of Michaelmas Term; he was on a first-name basis with the owner and measured time during his day with reference to his potato break. Apparently, though, you can get too much of a good thing... he has switched to soup during Lent Term.

Really huge breakfasts. You may have thought the US had a lock on conspicuous overeating. You thought wrong. Because really, are two eggs, sausage, hash browns, and coffee an adequate breakfast? No sir, that's just the beginning: add a grilled tomato half, some bacon, a big scoop of sauteed mushrooms, baked beans, and two pieces of toast, and then you're getting a proper English breakfast.

Fish and Chips. If nothing else, a country better be good at making its own national dish, and on this front the Brits deliver. Fish and chips are reliably edible no matter what back-alley pub you find yourself in. I've also developed a taste for fries with a healthy sprinkling of malt vinegar. According to my brother, it seems that Rhode Island is the only one of the old colonies to have adopted that fine practice, but I will be taking this one back with me too.

Less-loved animal parts. I ate a dish consisting mostly of oatmeal and sheep organs, and I liked it, and I've deliberately eaten it again. 'Nuff said.

notes from auld reekie

Almost as soon as the rest of the family headed back across the pond, Trevor and I were on a plane to Edinburgh (pronounced ED-in-bur-uh). As compensation for being the family's and Trevor's tour guide, Mom paid for my flight and even gave me an allowance for our travels. Edinburgh is a delightful city: visually striking and gritty, intellectual, chronically inebriated, reasonably cosmopolitan and yet thoroughly Scottish. You are far more likely to see St. Andrew's Cross flying than the Union Jack, even in a city that has historically been more loyal to the crown than most of Scotland. On the same latitude as Ketchikan, Alaska, Edinburgh has the kind of low winter sun that I remember from my time in the last Frontier.

Encounters with unexpectedly good Scottish food. At last I had my first encounter with haggis, Scotland's famous dish of sheep organs, oatmeal, and spices boiled in a sheep stomach. The stomach was not included as part of the presentation on my plate, which was probably for the best. To my surprise, the haggis was not bad, not even merely tolerable, but quite tasty. Which is a good thing, because next week Trevor and I will be eating haggis again. Our next MCR formal commemorates Burns Night, an annual fete honoring Robert Burns, the Scottish national poet. As is customary, the haggis will be paraded into the hall while one of our Scots reads Burns' poem "Address to a Haggis." See how much of it you understand.


Edinburgh takes to the streets. Edinburghers love their outdoor festivities, and we stumbled on not one, but two large public gatherings during our weekend. One was a road race, which warmed my runner's heart, and the other was a street protest against Israel's military actions in Gaza. The protesters were numerous and quite vehement. I'm certainly no fan of Israel's response to date, and I can understand why Scots might be particularly disposed to be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, but the whole event oozed hyperbole and unwarranted moral clarity. George W. Bush's mirror image.

Scottish politics. Scottish-English relations are tamer these days than when William Wallace was fighting Edward Longshanks, but things are still in a state of remarkable flux. I was floored to learn that Scotland just got its own Parliament in 1999, after almost 300 years of being ruled exclusively from London. We visited the new, ultramodern Parliament building, which sits across from Holyrood Palace, the Queen's home when she's in town. (We didn't visit Holyrood, but Trevor did leave his mark; as we stood outside the gates he dropped his Coke can, which was summarily swept under the gate and onto the Queen's front yard by a strong gust of wind.) Scotland's Parliament only has authority over certain, "devolved" areas of government, but it was nice to see signs of a new budding of civic consciousness. In general, I was surprised by how kindly the Scots I met spoke about England. Some -- and I should probably note that most of these conversations happened in pubs after many beers -- took great pains to emphasize how much influence has traveled from north to south and not just in the other direction. Those age-old antagonisms are more like sibling bickering or collegiate rivalry than a blood feud, and Scotland's incredibly violent history seems to be receding in the face of prosperity. Below, Parliament and Trevor, Coke can still in hand.

london calling

London -- Before Lent Term gets underway in Cambridge, I am spending a week around England with the full nuclear family: Mom, Dad, two brothers, one sister, and our newest addition, my sister-in-law. We have peered through the gates at Buckingham Palace, toured Churchill's underground WWII bunker, looked down at the Thames and Big Ben from the London Eye, minded the gap on the Tube. Given what's to follow, I should state at the outset that we're having a wonderful time, but it's just more fun to write and read about the "bad" experiences. "We went to the Tower of London, learned a lot!" just doesn't make for good blogging, you know?

Encounters with bad British food, vol. ii. On our second night in London we had dinner at a pub just a few hundred meters from Trafalgar Square. By then I think everyone was beginning to catch on to the fact that the UK has somewhat different standards of service and convenience than the U.S., but it still came as a surprise that we had to walk up to the bar to order our food and that the waitstaff were not exactly falling over themselves to clear the previous party's dirty dishes. But so far we had been lucky with food, particularly with a delicious dinner on the first night. That luck would come to an end at this particular pub. All four of the guys ordered "sausages and mash"--known more colorfully in the British culinary lexicon as "bangers and mash," as if you didn't already have enough to smirk about with all of the guys ordering sausages. One of my brothers declared it to be the worst meal he had ever eaten. I wouldn't go that far, but the sausages were mushy and bland, the potatoes clearly of the instant variety, and the gravy utterly devoid of taste. The ladies' meals didn't go over much better, and we ordered a pizza when we got back to the hotel.

Jack the ripoff. By far the worst tourist attraction I have seen to date in the UK is the Jack the Ripper walking tour. As far as serial killers go, Jack the Ripper has a more terrifying reputation than he deserves. He killed five prostitutes in 1888, and his notoriety owes more to the conspiracy theories swirling around the killings--more than one involving the royal family, naturally. The tour started off promisingly enough, with our apparently quick-witted guide getting regular laughs from the group. By the time we got to the site of the first killing, however, it begin to become clear what we were in for. The temperature was near freezing; the guide rambled, repeated himself and frequently went off on tangents; and nearly 45 minutes had passed before we moved on to killing #2. To make matters worse, there was nothing to actually see along the way, as most of the important Ripper-era buildings are gone or now house reputable establishments such as banks. We had been out for nearly two hours, going ever deeper into deserted East End neighborhoods, when we finally bailed out, leaving about ten poor souls to listen to the rest of this guy's yammering. By this point most of us were delirious with cold and finding ways of entertaining ourselves and each other on the sidelines. I didn't feel too bad, because I have little patience for people--whether they're teachers, conference speakers, or Jack the Ripper tour guides-- who show so little effort to assess and respond to their audience's level of interest and engagement.

Krakow preview. My youngest brother, Trevor, is staying for an extra 11 days beyond the rest of the family. He is enjoying this longer sojourn thanks to the Winter Study term at Williams, which he is using for an independent project (already written before he even boarded the plane) on WWII in Europe. I am putting him on a train to France during my first week of class, but on the surrounding weekends he and I will enjoy two parentally-subsidized trips to Edinburgh, Scotland and Krakow, Poland. There will surely be many fantastic experiences on these trips, but somehow what my little bro has latched onto is the idea of going clubbing in Krakow. The idea has found its way into almost every conversation about his European tour (always accompanied by his rendition of a techno beat: nnnnnn-TST nnnnnn-TST nnnnnn-TST), and it now feels absurdly over-anticipated... which will surely add to the hilarity of whatever actually does happen.

ode to formal hall

I have complained about bureaucracy and kvetched about overcommitment, but as Michaelmas Term '08 draws to a close I thought I'd focus on the positive and pay tribute to some of the things that make Cambridge special. The first installment of a multi-part series: an ode to formal hall.

Each and every one of Cambridge's 31 colleges have some version of formal hall, which is a regular, highly ritualized multi-course dinner. I've already described formal hall for you once, but at the time I didn't appreciate what a central feature of Cambridge life it is. No joke: I eat an extravagant, sumptuous, Thanksgiving-sized meal here at least once per week. Every college does it a little differently, and the character of formal hall is a little window into the soul of a college. Some colleges hold formal hall quite often, others quite rarely; some require academic gowns, others do not; some seat the fellows (i.e. teaching faculty) of the college at an elevated "high table," others are more egalitarian; some have their own port and a cheese course after dinner, other's don't; some have multiple elaborate graces in Latin, others have a pithy two-word blessing. Most colleges have pre-dinner drinks and post-dinner parties in other spaces on the college grounds.

I would guess that the majority of Cambridge grads go to formal hall at their own college with some regularity, and it's also possible to attend other college's formal halls either by getting a friend to bring you as a guest, or through "formal hall exchanges" between colleges. Some M.Phil students set the ambitious goal of dining at all 31 colleges during their year. I haven't adopted that goal for myself, but I have been to six so far, so I'm on track to hit up more than half of the total by the end of the year. Here's a photographic tour of five of them:

Newnham is one of three all-women's colleges at Cambridge, but they sure seem to import a lot of guys for formal hall. There was much fodder for stereotyping: the hall itself reminded me of a wedding cake, and after the final grace the head of the college delivered an unusual pep rally-style speech about what a great term it's been. I went with four of my Development Studies classmates, two of whom are members of Newnham.

Trinity is among the oldest, wealthiest, most prestigious, and most traditional of the Cambridge colleges. I ate my dinner with a large group of fellow Gates Scholars under a looming portrait of Amartya Sen. Sen is a former master of Trinity College and Nobel Prize-winning economist/philosopher whose thought is the basis for one of the courses I've been taking this term. Some of his most pathbreaking work has been in the area of famine, and the obvious irony did complicate my feelings about our opulent feast. I suspect that's just how Professor Sen would like it.

Churchill is a relative newcomer, founded in 1958. Named for the former prime minister and styled as England's MIT, Churchill has a large male majority, but only because of its emphasis on engineering and other high-tech fields. Churchill is also one of the more secular colleges. The pre-dinner grace is just two words: benedictus benedictat. ("May the blessed one give a blessing" or something like that.) After dinner, the students traditionally raise a rather sedate toast "to the Queen," followed by a rambunctious toast "TO SIR WINSTON!"

Peterhouse is the oldest college in Cambridge, and the fact that they've had eight centuries of practice doesn't mean the food was good-- in fact, it was pretty awful. The hall is entirely candle-lit and reminds one of a medieval castle, which I suppose is pretty close to the truth. As the fellows were filing out at the end of the meal -- a ritual obliging the students to stand in silence -- somebody knocked their long bench over, sending it tumbling to the stone floor with a tremendous thud. As soon as the door closed behind the last fellow, the hall erupted in repressed laughter.

And last but not least, the best college, Emmanuel! We have "MCR formals" every other Monday, which means that we pack the hall with grad students and have some kind of theme dinner and after-party. I really do feel that Emma has some of the best food around, and the formal dinners always conclude with a cheese course and a glass of Emmanuel College port. (Yep, someone bottles it just for the college.) As one of the new MCR social secretaries, I'm now the one responsible for coordinating the MCR formals. But that's a tale for another post.

lake district recap

I am back in Cambridge for the madness of "freshers' week" after a fun but soggy few days in the Lake District. A few thoughts before I return to the more mundane tasks of assembling my life:

The Scholars. I traveled with 100-odd Gates scholars, most of them freshly minted like me, but there was also a number of returning scholars doing multi-year degrees who served as our chaperones/tour guides. I referred to them as "the elders" until I realized that I am older than most of them; one, in fact, is younger than my youngest sibling! For those not familiar with the program, the Gates Cambridge Trust can theoretically support scholars from any country except the UK. Our group was roughly half Americans, but it included students from countries ranging from Canada to Zambia to Croatia to Malaysia.

Poets and opium-heads. Our Lake District amusements included orienteering in the rain, hiking in the rain, kayaking in the rain, visiting a gingerbread bakery in the rain, and touring the former home of the great poet William Wordsworth in the rain. Wordsworth's house began its life as a pub and hosted a number of colorful men of letters as long-term houseguests. Sir Walter Scott, who tried his best to be polite but could not abide by the Wordsworths' teetotaling and twice-daily consumption of porridge, would sneak out the window of the guest room each morning to get a proper English breakfast and a pint of beer before his hosts woke up. Another guest, Thomas de Quincey, penned Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, possibly launching the addiction-memoir genre that has more recently given us Augusten Burroughs and James Frey.

Encounters with bad British food, volume 1. On the way to the Lake District, we stopped at a park for a picnic lunch. We were each issued the kind of lunch you carried to school in 3rd grade: a sandwich, a bag of "crisps," a juice box, fruit, and some "biscuits," all in a brown paper bag. The first unusual thing I noticed about my tuna sandwich was that it had corn in it, which seemed odd but wasn't a dealbreaker. (The Subway chain has stores here, and it has corn in its lineup of vegetable toppings.) A few bites in, however, I noticed a taste that was vaguely familiar, mildly unpleasant, and definitely out of place. I puzzled aloud about the taste until a nearby scholar, an Irish woman, filled me in on the mystery ingredient: margarine. Tuna salad, white bread, corn, and margarine-- yuck. Fortunately, the names of the crisps and the biscuits provided some comic relief. The flavors of crisps included "Ready Salted" and "Prawn Cocktail," while my cookies carried the appetizing name of "Digestives."

The family name. Perhaps as some kind of karmic compensation for elementary school taunts about my last name, the Powers name won me an unprecedented degree of cachet with the Gates crowd. A few of the returning Gates scholars who organized the trip told me that they were eager to meet me because of my name. I accepted the compliment as graciously as I could, but mentioned that my name couldn't stand up to that of one of my Alaska friends, Dan Stellar. The name Daniel just sounds like a winner all around, and when combined with a last name that's a synonym for "awesome," it's pretty much impossible to compete.