Thursday, June 26, 2008

Delicious mock Anglicans!



Finally I own a recipe for delicious mock chicken.
Finally! And after all these years of running a household without one.
tsk tsk tsk
How did I do it?
Anyway, things have been set right now.

Mock chicken has long commanded instant hilarity in our house.
Well, at least since Jeff and I went into town one day and encountered vegan protesters (my personal favourite) outside KFC at Town Hall handing out literature demanding that KFC stop killing tortured baby chickens and use delicious mock chicken instead.

Knowing that my brother has a wee problem with KFC, and struggles to remain vegetarian because of it, we were kind enough to bring him home a range of mock chicken reading material.

After thanking us both profusely and sincerely by saying, "get fucked", "you're killing me!" and "you cunts", we were satisfied that we'd done the guy a solid and that he was genuinely grateful for our consideration and kindness.

But I've never had the opportunity to actually make him a dish of mock chicken, but soon all that will change and his karma will once again be acceptable.
What an excellent sister he has, lucky boy.

Yesterday, my friend Mark arrived at work toting a book he'd picked up from the scummy Parramatta Town Hall church stall on the way to the bus stop.
He seemed very proud of himself.

He produced from his bag, The Anglican Retirement Village Cookbook, a very fine specimen of Australian kitsch, no, make that Australian cuisine.
Hmmm, well I'll let you decide which one once I've walked you through a few of it's more notable pages.

And please don't think that I'm poking fun at the people who honestly believed that not only were these recipes fit to serve to their friends and families, but worthy of publication, no less.
And I say were and speak in the past tense, because I cannot believe, even if this book was published but a fortnight ago, that anyone who regularly ate this way is still breathing as I write this.

And remember kids, that's a professional opinion. ;O)
So there.

Well, what can I tell you?
I ogled this Mock Chicken recipe with sheer delight and disgust and immediately sent a text to both Jeff and Adrian, informing them of our very good fortune. A miracle, if you like.

I'm not going to bother with the method as I truly doubt anyone I know would plan on making this stuff, but the ingredients are as follows:

  • butter (what, no margarine!?)
  • onion
  • fine white breadcrumbs (hard to believe that the kind of person who would use mock chicken would also eat white bread, isn't it?)
  • grated cheese
  • chopped tomato
So, essentially, what they're proposing you slap on your white bread sandwich is, well, white bread.
Clearly this person was a health nut and possibly even worked for both Diabetes Australia and The Coeliac Society at some stage.

Should I tell you that right above this recipe there is one for Savoury Ham Rolls?
What you need to do for these beauties is to spread some cream cheese onto some hyper-processed, square ham slices and then roll them up.
Dear God, why?

OK, so, at this point, I must mention that the first page of this gem fair near took my breath away.
It has a recipe for Chicken and Corn Soup.
After reading it over a couple of times, I asked Jeff what were two ingredients he would expect to find in such a soup.
He very rationally informed me that he would expect to encounter both chicken and corn in his bowl.
But no.
No chicken at all.
Perhaps this one was also submitted by the mock chicken person?

What is it with Anglicans and chicken? Do they secretly worship poultry and we haven't figured this out yet?
Well, I've got my eye on them.
My suspicions were later deepened by the discovery of a recipe for a Feather Cake towards the back of the book. ;O)

And as if none of this were bad enough, the SALAD section almost caused me to swallow my tongue. Given a choice of the two, I would certainly prefer my tongue to their salads.

Apparently Australian Anglicans believe that fried hard boiled eggs qualify as a salad. Umm, no. At least if I'd written that as an answer in a nutrition exam, I'm sure I would have been marked down for it. Don't you think so?

Nevermind. God love the Anglicans!

But you just have to get a load of this recipe for Egg Cutlets.

What they would like you to do, is to chop up hard boiled eggs, with milk, curry powder, butter and flour and then squish them into little cholesterol like balls and deep fry them.
But the fun doesn't end there... they actually suggest that you serve them with bacon for Sunday night tea.
Might be an idea to phone the ambulance just before you sit down to eat this though, there might be traffic.

Now, a couple of things I do know about old school, British descendant Aussie cuisine... if they give it a fancy name, it's going to be gross.
Times ten if that name includes any French.
Also, if they're going to flavour something, it'll be with curry powder or ham.
And wherever possible, your ingredients must come from a tin.

Of course, the truth is, they've got no idea.
White Australia just doesn't know how to eat. They just don't. The poor bastards think that bland is a flavour.

OK, onward and upward.

Pear or Peaches Au Fromage.
As I have already mentioned, the fancy name alerted me to probable disaster.
You'll need tinned fruit, cream cheese, milk, gherkins, onion, capers and olives....
No, I'm perfectly serious, that's what it says.

And right underneath it, there is a recipe for Smoked Oyster Salad, perhaps just to divert your attention and horror away from the above recipe.
For this one, you'll be wanting rice, curry powder (told you so), French dressing (anything French is perceived as fancy by elderly Aussies), celery, smoked oysters, shallots and capsicum.
And to really do this one justice, you must garnish it with parsley.
Scrumptious I'm sure.
Certainly a conversation starter.
A bathroom filler too.

Honestly. There really is a recipe for Sour Cream Salad on page 15. There is!
Probably no-one is surprised by now though.

But, maybe I can still impress you with the Russian Potato Salad?
To make this exotic number, you will need 3 tins (they come in tins?!) of potatoes... which suggests to me that it may have been a royal recipe at one stage.
Furthermore, and I shit you not, they actually tell you to add a little caviar if you can afford it.
But who knows, maybe shelling out for those tins of potatoes has blown the budget?
Cripes.

Naturally, there is a recipe for Tuna Casserole that uses cornflakes in it.
Cornflakes...in your dinner...on purpose!

Not too far from this, there is something called Pineapple Chops.
Now, at least one of you may think that this is a good idea, but if I told you that they're talking pork and that they've included mixed dried fruit and raw rice... well, not so funny now, is it?

And I'll tell you something else that isn't funny, and that's the Ham and Cheese Au Gratin recipe.
Once again, the fancy name suggested to me that this was likely to be of interest to me.
Damn it's boring being right all the time!
From what I can determine, au gratin simply means this is so bad that I must cover it with a lot of cheese in order to draw attention away from the other ingredients.

I think this recipe is even more of a trial to my sensibilities than the mock chicken was.
I'm trying to imagine anyone not living in a caravan or trailer while they're eating this, but I'm having little success.
See how you go.

First you make a full loaf of heavily margarined white bread ham sandwiches, and then you cut the crusts off.
Surely they're not attempting to make this dish look posh by cutting the crusts off?
Then you roll your sandwiches up (can you believe there are 2 recipes in the world that call for such nutritional delinquency?) , put them in a baking dish and cover with beaten sour cream and egg.
Naturally you'll need to cover your ham sandwiches with plenty of cheese before you would bake them in the oven. OMG baked ham sandwiches.
You need always to ensure that you cram as much saturated fat into a meal as is possible. Anything less is slovenly housekeeping and will make the baby Jesus cry.
Well, it doesn't actually say that, but it's implied.

I cannot neglect the Orange Pudding, whose ingredients are as follows: white bread, orange juice (but I suppose Tang would do), sugar and water.

How can I end before mentioning that very scary recipe for Wine Tonic?
But of course, I can't.
Just how sick must you be in order to wish to consume something that contains malt, port, bovril and Fisher's Phospherine?
If you don't know what Phospherine is, it's an emulsion of yukky, gritty fish liver oil liquid. Bovril of course being something like liquid vegemite.

Hey, wait a minute... anyone else starting to think these guys are taking the piss?
Are Anglicans known for their sense of humour?
They might be. They've hidden their chicken worshipping all these years.
Maybe they're just trying to kill off non-Anglican Australia with their cooking, in an evil bid to take over the world, or at least the Hillsong facilities?
Maybe they secretly own the patent for Diaformin, plus all the statin (anti-cholesterol) drugs and are seeking to increase their profit margin.

hmmm... I'm starting to like Anglicans....delicious mock Anglicans.





1 comment:

gretchenaro said...

They're Roostie lovers! As if you need to be told this - Burn that book.