Now that I’ve been in London for a couple of days and have started to acclimate to my surroundings, I’ve started to notice some things. As I said in my vacation announcement, I don’t plan on doing a lot of blogging, but a short take here and there to break up the reruns definitely seems advisable when I happen to have some down time to do it, particularly since I somehow loaded the weekend with so many Hitler Zombie reruns. (Don’t worry, there are only a couple more before a more varied set of topics start.)
Soooo….
[Enter Jerry Seinfeld voice]
What is the deal with mushy peas?
[Exit Jerry Seinfeld voice]
They’re everywhere. The first time I tried ordering fish and chips here (which, by the way, were only so-so; apparently in our utter exhaustion, hunger, and lack of willingness to walk more than about 100 feet from the hotel, we chose poorly the first place we went to eat after arriving on Friday), I noticed a greenish glob stuck in the corner of the plate. I was thinking that perhaps I should send it back because some careless or malevolent cook had emptied his nostril there to torture an exhausted American tourist, but a closer inspection revealed that it appeared to be mushed-up peas. Since then, I’ve seen “mushy peas,” listed as side dishes or included with various dishes at a number of places.
Can anyone in England (or elsewhere) explain one question to me: Why? Why ruin perfectly good peas by mushing them into a greenish, disgusting blob? And why serve this disgusting blob with perfectly good fish and chips? Or am I just being an whiny American? Or was it my utter exhaustion from the flight that colored my perception of them. (And, yes, I did try them.)
