Yorkshire Meatball

Yorkshire Meatball

Not much in the fridge today. Found a frozen "Aunt Bessie's" Yorkshire pudding, half a pound of ground beef and one potato in the spud drawer and thought I'd have a little fun with them.

I thought, "what would a modern English gastro-pub serve on their menu". In England the traditional pub is quickly going the way of the dodo bird. According to this article on the BBC site, pubs are disappearing at a rate of 36 per week. A shame really because not only do pubs offer locals a nice comfortable environment to get s-faced, they often pull double duty serving as meeting halls, a source for community gossip, and an occasional refuge from irate spouses.

Let's band together and increase our efforts to keep the institution of the English pub around for generations to come. I propose our first step should be to fancy up the traditional pub menu. I'm a fan of pub grub. Standard fair is unpretentious, usually inexpensive, traditional, satisfying, down to earth food that washes down quite nicely with a frosty pint of lager. What we need to offer instead, is ostentatious, over-priced, conspicuously modern cuisine to accompany ostentatious, over-priced, conspicuously modern beverages with names like "the Harvey Corn-wall Banger", the "Birmingham Vomitini" or the "Bishop's Regret". We should address the market demands of the changing demographic by catering to the too well off for frugality, too young to know they're being taken advantage of, twenty-somethings with disposable income. By cheerfully separating said twenty-somethings from their hard earned cash we may someday be able to cross off the noble English pub from the endangered species list.

Here's an example of a dish that could possibly find it's way onto a beleaguered pub's menu near you. "The Yorkshire Meatball".

The description might read something like this: A half pound of prime Oxfordshire, herbed ground sirloin gently formed by hand into a meatball and roasted to perfection, nestled in a fluffy Yorkshire pudding atop rosti potatoes with sage au jus. 18.00 pounds.

Sell enough of these and the English pub will be in danger of disappearing no more.