The Ashes

And Harry Potter catches the Golden Snitch!

The quintessentially English sport!

You know, not really. It's not a natural pairing for us. When cased sausages make their way to a dinner plate - as opposed to a bun with ketchup, mustard, and onion - the traditional accompaniment is sauerkraut.But primarily sausages are a hand food for us, usually grilled at somebody's cookout. In a situation like that there's more likely to be potato salad and cole slaw, not mashed potatoes. And they're usually brats or franks. (I love me a good brat! Beer boiled with onions and a little butter, then grilled to perfection on a sourdough roll with a little kraut and onion. Don't touch the red and yellow stuff or the dogs, myself.)I don't think I've once in my life cooked a sausage and mashed some potatoes. I usually don't make mashed potatoes unless there's something to make gravy out of, and a sausage doesn't really give you much in the way of drippings.

Oh, undoubtedly. Germany influences almost all aspects of American food culture. Almost all of our "traditional" deserts and baked goods - pies (apple pie, especially), doughnuts, cookies - were either developed or perfected by the "Pennsylvania Dutch", a group of German immigrants who settled Pennsylvania and other areas of the East Coast in the 18th and 19th centuries. Of course, in Minnesota and Wisconsin, where my wife and I are from, there's as much a German influence as a Swedish and Norwegian one. Yeah, and I've had bangers and mash a number of times over there, too. Like I say it's just not a natural pairing for most Americans. I mean I'm sure there's some Americans who do, perhaps of recent English extraction, but frankly my experience is that English food culture is so boring and god-awful that it just gets overwritten by anything even slightly more interesting.

Yeah, I've noticed that. I think it's an example of what I'm talking about; English food culture getting overwritten by anything even slightly more interesting or flavorful. Good on you! I mean, don't get me wrong; I've had great food in England. It's just that none of it was English. Although you guys do serve up a pretty bitchin' piece of fried cod. Huge, too. Wish I could get that here. (Your fries, er chips, suffer the same problem we have here in the US - you can get a good burger, and you can get good fries, but you can't get both in the same place.)