I am reminded by a client of whom I am very fond that this blog is a bit dusty and flabby from lack of exercise. Apologies, again, but it is slightly aging technology. All around me people have shiny Substacks and tip-top Tik-Tok accounts and a blog seems a bit old school but I keep it on my website because is represents quite a lot of work and many happy hours.
So I feel that I should make a bit of a contribution. Most of my more recent posts have had little to do with gardens and more to do with the various peregrinations and roaming which take me around the country and, less frequently nowadays, the wider world. I have just returned from Middlesborough which is not a Citybreak that is high on the bucket lists of most people. I was there for professional reasons but wanted to draw your attention in particular to the culinary side of that part of the North East.
Until the railway arrived Middlesborough was mostly farmland. afterwards it became a major centre of heavy industry with thriving docks, iron smelters, coal shippers and ship building most of which has disappeared leaving a city with fine Victorian buildings but pretty diminished. Famous residents include Brian Clough, Paul Daniels, Bob Mortimer and Captain James Cook (who brought the west to Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands with mixed results. Good for the British, pretty awful for the indigenous people. He was killed in Hawaii on Valentine’s Day in 1779 by some Hawaiian Islanders.)
Back to the food. We went to dinner in a small Italian Restaurant where we were introduced to a local speciality. Apparently you cannot expect any restaurant in Middlesborough to survive very long unless you have a Parmo on the menu. This was invented in 1958 by an American navy chef who was wounded in the war, recuperated in mIddlesborough and never left. It consists of a chicken breast which has had seven bells knocked out of it so it becomes flatter and wider (like an escalope). This is then dipped in breadcrumbs and fried. Next it is smeared generously with béchamel sauce and a snowstorm of grated parmesan cheese. It then goes back under a grill until melted and gooey.
It was served with chips and, in my case as I am a soft southerner, a salad (£1 extra). There were more sophisticated options that included pulled pork (in addition to the chicken) or (in the case of the signature ‘Parmageddon’) a fillet steak. Apologies to any vegans who dropped in here looking for gardening tips. I went with the classic original Parmo – no frills.
Reader, I ate it: my arteries may be little harder but it was good and more than made up for my missing lunch. Although, if I am to be critical) the chips were a little flabby for my taste.
I am listening to Short Haired woman Blues by Dave Rawlings Machine. The picture is of a bit ion industrial Middlesborough