Special bonus weekend report: Mr Brain’s Faggots
Because if you can’t trust a weasel to keep a promise, what is this world coming to?
When I first saw Mr Brain’s fine product, I’m sure it was labeled “Mr Brain’s Frozen Faggots.” I can’t work out if “pork faggots” is more or less funny than “frozen faggots.” Anyhow, of all the absurd things in the British supermarket that make an American fall to the floor and bark like a hound, Mr Brain’s offering takes the prize.
I’ve always meant to try them. I almost left it too late; we had to visit several supermarkets before finding one down-market enough for MBPF’s.
I was pretty sure I was going to be okay with the pork balls, but the “rich west country sauce” worried me a good deal. Looks like some unholy mash-up of moose testicles and Shoney’s strawberry pie filling. Frozen, it was a symphony of shit brown and ice crystals.
Cook from frozen, 30 to 40 minutes at 230 Eurodegrees.
On the whole…not bad. Tasted very strongly of sage and onion, like country sausage but less firm. Subsequent research has turned up worrying information about the traditional composition of faggots, but it looks like the Brain variety involves nothing more terrifying than pig liver. Ugh. Liver.
I ate all four. I’d do it again on a bet, but I won’t crave them in the middle of the night. Just as well, really.
I leave you with this classic BBC news item about the Doody family and their famous love of the British faggot.
If I die in the night, tell the weasels I love them.
Posted: May 26th, 2007 under adventure, food, international, personal.
Comments: 10
Comments
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: May 26, 2007, 9:27 pm
It looks to me as if you had to strengthen your resolve with three corks worth of Ye Ole Brainstem before consuming these…uh…things. Braveheart. Stout stoat! May your digestive efforts be rewarded with success.
Comment from mesablue
Time: May 27, 2007, 2:40 am
Yes but, where are the peas?
And, it just occurred to me that one could make millions selling fried faggots.
That is all.
Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: May 27, 2007, 10:18 am
Apparently traditional British cooking, such as it is, is making some sort of major comeback in England. They are embracing formerly mocked food and trying to pass it off as high cuisine.
Thanks, I’ll pass on the spotted dog, blood pudding, and eel.
Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: May 27, 2007, 11:22 am
Ha! If you think British cuisine is gross, don’t even think of sampling the delights of the genuine French and Italian equivalents!
Peasant food (in other words, everything almost everyone ate until supermarkets and packaging companies created fwuffy bunny syndrome) used every bit of the animal, because they had to. Scratch the surface of regional ‘delicacies’ from just about anywhere and, beneath a name that sounds quaint in French, you’ll find offal.
If you’re lucky.
British cooking got a bad reputation after WWII and it deserved it. Before then, the relatively high quality of ingredients enabled the ‘common’ style to be plain, as opposed to the prevaling mode in Europe, where good ingredients were often scarce – resulting in the use of strongly flavoured sauces, often used to disguise what lurked beneath.
Weasel’s faggots had relatives you could find almost anywhere people ate meat.
Comment from Missourian
Time: May 29, 2007, 10:09 am
Pork faggots. Double haraam. Off with both your heads! 😉
Pingback from S. Weasel
Time: August 6, 2007, 5:37 pm
[…] Yes, that’s right — after ten years of desperate scheming, Weasel is finally moving to England, land of socialized medicine, Benny Hill and Mr Brain’s Pork Faggots. […]
Comment from cheshirecat
Time: October 29, 2007, 11:31 pm
Thanks, I’ll pass on the spotted dog, blood pudding, and eel.
Spotted dick, not dog. And it has neither dick nor dog in it. All it is is sponge cake with raisins/currants in it. Rather tasty.
Blood pudding, well, yeah, it’s fried blood from beef, similar to beef drippings, just more of it.
Eel…well, I’m with you there.
Pingback from Word of the week « The Hostages: No Bigots Allowed. And no Mexicans.
Time: December 16, 2007, 7:12 pm
[…] **Chicken fried bacon courtesy of the weasel lady, who also turned me on to frozen faggots and spotted dick. […]
Comment from Keggar
Time: September 29, 2009, 5:30 pm
I saw these in a grocer back in 1982. I just had to try them. At that time pork did not appear in the name and it was quite common to hear the frays “I’m going to get me some faggots and mushy peas”. After trying them once I felt it would fulfill my desire for them for the rest of my life. So far I am correct in that assessment. It was fun to see your take on them though and the picts are fab!
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 29, 2009, 5:38 pm
I remember them being called “Mr Brain’s Frozen Faggots” and was surprised to see the “pork” in there, too.
All in all, they didn’t suck. Much.
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