Tag Archives: McDonalds

Thank you McDonald’s for introducing me to a new taste

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I was an unadventurous eater when I was a child. So, I never tried any of the pickled gherkins, a food which my father enjoyed eating. A visit to McDonald’s changed my approach to these pickled cucumbers …

Believe it or not, there was a political aspect to my father’s consumption of pickled gherkins. My parents did all they could to avoid supporting dictatorial regimes. They would not visit Franco’s Spain or any of the Communist countries behind the so-called ‘Iron Curtain’. Many good, pickled gherkins were, and are still, produced in countries that were once dominated by the USSR. My parents were against buying these because they felt that with each purchase, they would be contributing a little money that might be used to finance a Russian nuclear weapon that might be used to attack ‘The West’. Therefore, the only gherkins my father ate prior to 1990 were those manufactured in Holland and West Germany. During my childhood and teenage years, I became fascinated by the countries in the Soviet Bloc, and wished my parents would have purchased gherkins from these places. If they had, I might possibly have tried one, but they stuck to their purchasing principles.

When McDonald’s came to England in 1974, I was, for some now forgotten reason, against entering one of the company’s restaurants. It was only later in the 1970s when I first entered a McDonald’s – the one in London’s Haymarket – with a group of friends. I ordered a Big Mac, and it was love at first bite.

In case you did not know, the Big Mac contains a slice of pickled gherkin. While eating my first one, I noticed the slice, and tasted it separately from the rest of the burger. The gherkin’s taste appealed to me, and I wondered why I had avoided sampling one for so many years. Now, I am not exactly addicted to pickled gherkins, but I cannot resist eating them often.

Since I began visiting India in the 1990s, I have discovered that although they are not on most Indians’ menus, pickled gherkins are manufactured in India – and very good ones they are. For example, there is a company called Unpick, which has been producing them since 1994 – the first year I visited India. Based near Bangalore, they export their gherkins to over 56 countries. Some of their gherkins are produced under the supervision of Orthodox Jewish food inspectors, and are certified as being Kosher.

Currently, when at home in England, we prefer to buy the gherkins produced by the Polish company Krakus. They supply a variety of different types of gherkins. Of these, our favourites are the Kashubian style, which are bottled along with strips of red bell pepper, white onion slices, dill, and whole spices including: mustard seeds, allspice, and bay leaves.

To conclude, thanks to McDonald’s, I now count pickled gherkins amongst my favourite food items. And other pickled vegetables are also very much to my taste.

Green and wet

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The heart of Central Europe_800

 

As a child and teenager, I did not like gherkins (pickled cucumbers). My parents ate them, but refused to buy them if they were made behind the Iron Curtain, for example in  Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, or Poland. They would only by jars of these green, wet vegetables if they were made in Western Europe, say in West Germany or Holland. You may well wonder why my parents were so fussy about the origin of their gherkins. The answer is simple. They were unwilling to buy anything from Soviet-dominated parts of the world because they felt, rightly or wrongly, that every penny they paid for goods from these areas would help the Soviet Union pay for yet another atomic bomb or some other military equipment that could be used against the West.

I did not worry me where my parent’s gherkins were grown and bottled, as I did not eat them. This was true until the late 1970s when McDonalds opened a branch of their hamburger restaurant chain in London’s Haymarket.

At first, I felt that I was too superior to enter a McDonalds, and developed an irrational prejudice against the company. Eventually, some friends decided to eat at the Haymarket branch andas I was with them and also a little curious about McDonalds, I joined them. I cannot recall which burger I ordered, but whatever it was, it contained slices of gherkin. I did not remove the gherkin as I might have done had I been served it a few years earlier. I bit into the burger and realised that it was the gherkin that made the rest of the burger sandwich delicious. From that moment onwards, I have become a gherkin afficionado.

I am happy eating gherkins anywhere. However, some of the nicest gherkins that I have found are those often served in fish and chips shops. These large, very tasty specimens often come Holland. Served from large glass jars, these gherkins are often known as ‘wallys’ (pronounced ‘wollees’) in London and South-East England.

Finally, here is something that you might not know about gherkins. The south of India, which I visit often, hasbeen a major producer and exporter of gherkins since the early 1990s. The soil condition in that region are perfect for growing the cucumbers that will be pickled. For more information, see: http://igea.in/.  Had these been around in the days before the fall of the Iron Curtain, I wonder whether my parents would have bought them.

Raw fish

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raw

 

Japanese food was a relatively new addition to the Londoner’s diet in the early 1970s. It was then that I first tasted sashimi (i.e. raw fish).

Some friends including my future wife persuaded me, an impecunious PhD student, to join them at one of London’s few Japanese restaurants. This one was in St Christophers Passage that leads off Oxford Street. I ordered a serving of tuna sahimi. Four neatly cut cubes of tuna arrived in front of me. It was delicious. Fish had never tasted as good as this before. Cooking, however carefully done, removes something essential from the fresh taste of fish. The four exquisite cubes of fish soon disappeared. I did not order anymore because this tiny portion of sashimi  cost £7 Sterling, a huge amount in the early 1970s. The purchasing power of £7 in 1974 is roughly equivalent to the purchasing power of £66 today. Despite its enormous price, I became ‘hooked’ on sashimi. 

I must tell you that I left the Japanese restaurant with my hunger unassuaged. Without telling my friends, I sneaked off to a nearby … now, don’t frown disapprovingly … McDonalds outlet and filled up on junk food.

Fortunately, although not cheap, Japanese food, including sashimi, is relatively cheaper in London now than it was back in the 1970s,