Idols and Toads

I was just flicking through the channels on the TV. After EastEnders was over, there was literally nothing on worth watching. I did stop for a few minutes on American Idol, a show which I watched with almost religious fervour in the 2008 and 2009 seasons. It was the mens' night, first time live in the studio. Seacrest was his usual fatuous self, of course, and new judge Ellen seemed a little trepidatious. The first guy up was a dude named Todrick Hall who totally reworked Kelly Clarkson's "Since You've Been Gone", which was a daring move. He was working the crowd too, strutting his stuff with total confidence, which is natural as he's a dancer and so very used to being in front of a crowd. His singing, although a little on the "twenty-five-notes-per-syllable" side, was pretty dang good, I thought. The song was completely unrecognizable from Kelly's version, which, in my opinion, is not a bad thing. I watched all the judges pick apart his performance like they were in Biology Lab dissecting a frog. Then I changed channels. I just can't stand all that stuff anymore. Maybe I'm just getting old or soft or something. But I don't plan on watching any more Idol.

So I made dinner tonight, something traditionally English. Toad In The Hole. In the States I encountered much confusion about this dish. Some knew what it was, but abhorred the name. Others didn't know what it was. And a whole lot more thought they knew what it was, but were sadly mistaken. These people I had to correct. This group thought Toad In The Hole is where you fry a piece of bread with a hole cut in the centre on both sides, then drop an egg into the centre and cook it. No. That is Eggs In A Basket. Toad In The Hole is where you bake some bangers swathed in Yorkshire Pudding Batter in the oven. It all puffs up nice and crispy on the top and a bit doughy on the inside, and you find your sausages inside the batter, poking their ends out like a little toad in a hole. Like so.

Don't get me wrong. Eggs In A Basket is a fine dish. I've eaten it several times. It's just not Toad In The Hole. Oh and by the way, I put the sausages in the pan first and cook them about 10 minutes before covering them with the batter, but every picture I found on the Interwebs shows as above, the saussies lying on top of the batter. Wrong! The Toads (i.e. the sausages) are supposed to be in  the hole, not lying on top of it. It's not called Toad On Top Of The Hole, is it? And another thing - it's always been called Toad In The  Hole. Not Toad In A Hole. The number of websites I saw that on! Some purporting to be all about English food! Ack! Some 'English Food Blogs' also illustrated the egg thing instead. Silly people.

This all leads me on to another thing about food. Seems while I was away, things went a bit haywire in the food department. No wonder, with me not here to keep watch. Upon my return what do I find? You can buy frozen Yorkshire Pudding. Yes. We have sunk that low. It is probably one of the easiest things in the world to make, just three ingredients, eggs, milk, flour - yet we are so caught up in the convenience of an item, we just buy it, and our kids never see us make it from scratch and they don't know how it's made. They just think it grows on a supermarket shelf. I can just see people 10 years from now running out to the grocery store because the Wilsons are coming round and they have no Yorkshires in the freezer. Horror of horrors! I'm sorry, but a frozen Yorkshire Pud will never be a substitute for the real thing. And now I see bloody frozen Toad In The Hole!! Can you believe that nonsense?!

I don't know who Aunt Bessie is, but as far as I'm concerned, she is one of Beelzebub's little wizards.