Adam Turtle, Freelance Web Design in Belfast, Northern Ireland
Since1986
Ulster Fry…sort of
- 12th October, 2007
- filed under: San Francisco
- 2 comments
Saturday lunch for me back home always consisted of a big Ulster Fry, and since moving to Belfast as a student it became a more than once-weekly meal. Some have branded this national favourite as a “heart attack on a plate” but there are very few Irish people that don’t enjoy a good fry every so often.
Since moving to San Francisco, I have missed my native cuisine immensely so yesterday I decided to do something about it. I went to Safeway to pickup a short list of items to make my very first American Ulster Fry. Below was my list of items I deemed essential to complete the meal:
- Sausages (pork or beef, preferably with apple or Guinness)
- Bacon (hickory smoked back bacon)
- A egg (cooked sunny side up)
- Potato bread (called fadge when fried)
- Baked beans
- Soda bread (again, fried)
Safeway has a huge selection of food available, but sadly they don’t give much consideration to the Irish. The sausages I chose were ‘British Bangers’ which was the closest they had to a normal sausage without straying into Bratwurst country. Bacon was easier, Americans love their bacon. So much so that it’s laughable to expect to buy six rashers in a pack. Instead, I had to fork out for a pound (1 lb) of hickory smoked back bacon – like 15 rashers! Eggs proved difficult, they only sell eggs by the dozen so I decided to leave the eggs for now and mooch one off the French girls. Potato bread is practically non-existent, which saddens me because it’s probably my favourite part of the fry. Soda bread too was scarce and I happened to go shopping on the day they were sold out. Luckily, they had plenty of baked beans albeit without the traditional tomato sauce. I chose ‘country style’ which had a barbecue flavour and extra brown sugar.
So at the end of my shopping trip, my actual shopping purchases actually looked like this:
- Crappy ‘British’ sausages (sage and onion flavour)
- Too much bacon (with more fat than meat)
- No potato bread (sadness ensued)
- No soda bread (disappointment again)
- Barbecue baked beans in a ‘family size’ tin (much farting resulted from these)
When I got home, I started to cook along with some Korean girls. They were naturally curious as to what I was preparing and after explaining it was our national dish, they expressed interest in sampling some. Here’s a few photos of my culinary excellence:
You’ll probably have noticed the beans in the second picture. It’s not a bad photo, they really were that horrible baby poo colour. And they tasted absolutely awful. In fact, after smelling the beans, the Korean people suddenly didn’t want any anymore so I was left to eat the whole thing. I have loads of leftover bacon because I just couldn’t face eating a pound of the stuff. My overall verdict was that it was by far the worst fry I have ever cooked. I’m even embarrassed to associate myself with such a disgrace of a meal. Don’t think I’ll be cooking another fry anytime soon unless the six aforementioned ingredients are all available and to my regular standards.
Oh, and the French girls didn’t have any eggs. Valerie used her last 3 eggs to make a French omelette which turned out worse than my fry and smelled very bad.
Lol! You really didnt have the luck there with the fry!! And where was the fried pancake???
Dad was reading your blog on my P.C. and was most amused with that slop on a plate you rustled up. Needless to say I had a mega big fry today in a nice wee restaurant in Belfast as I had no footy match and thought I would treat myself…..it was gorgeous…I’ll keep you a doggy bag next time!!