York, Foreign Food and the Corporations

(Sky View of York and a Video I took of the Bells at the York Minster Cathedral)

How do you like the title of this post--York, Foreign Food and the Corporations?  How and why would I put all those things together in regard to a city in northern England?  Well, I will tell you.

First things first.  I decided last weekend to get out of Durham for the day, as this lovely town is a bit small.  Our friend Beth--who is a self-employed paintings conservator in Cleveland Ohio and a new mom, yeah for her and Mike!--did a year's fellowship at Cambridge and toured the country.  One such journey brought her and colleagues to Durham's cathedral.  She said "A lovely town, but it seems it could quickly start feeling a bit small, especially coming from Cleveland."  She is right.  In fact, many of the professors here live in towns elsewhere: York, Newcastle, etc.

So outward into the countryside did I proceed to go see York.   

(Here are some pictures I took as I entered into the City)

York is a wonderful city--click here to read a bit more--known for the largest Gothic cathedral in northern Europe, and for a variety of other great historical and cultural points of interest, including its various cuisine, ham and, finally, for what are called the shambles.  I'll let Wikipedia explain the shambles: "The Shambles (official name Shambles) is an old street in York, England, with overhanging timber-framed buildings, some dating back as far as the fourteenth century. It was once known as The Great Flesh Shambles, probably from the Anglo-Saxon Fleshammels (literally 'flesh-shelves'), the word for the shelves that butchers used to display their meat. As recently as 1872 there were twenty-five butchers' shops in the street but now there are none. There is still a butcher in the adjacent Little Shambles which leads to York's open-air Newgate Market."

 Here are two pictures I took of the Shambles.



As my family and friends know, I tend to tour cities through their food and by talking with locals.  Few things make me as happy as being the only outsider in a restaurant or section of town and completely, as my friend Ron would say, assimilating into the environment, going "completely local."  In short, I want to be as far away from my fellow tourists as possible.  If a crowd is moving along and they are going north, I immediately turn around and go south.  I also like to make directional mistakes, as that is when often the most interesting things happen.

So, for me, two things stood out on my first and then second trip to York. 

FOOD Reflects Growing Diversity
I apologize ahead of time to my British friends--I am just having some fun here--but while your facility with our shared language is so brilliant as to make me want to stop talking, the "food of the country" here is rough.  I mean, it's not McDonalds.  But...  Well, why don't we let Wikipedia do the explaining.  Here is how it politely puts it together: "British cuisine is the specific set of cooking traditions and practices associated with the United Kingdom. British cuisine has been described as "unfussy dishes made with quality local ingredients, matched with simple sauces to accentuate flavour, rather than disguise it."  Unfussy is one way to put it.  Phew.  Bangers and mash, black pudding, baked beans and scrambled eggs, Toad in the hole.  What, I am not eating that.

And, the potato, what is up with that?  I could be entirely wrong, but it seems to me that, if Americans are hysterical for 'all things meat' (pork, steak, burgers, hotdogs, sausage, lamb chops, pork chops--you get my point), the Brits are just as mad for the potato.  I cannot think of a local meal I have had here that did not include some play on the potato.  They even have a website devoted to the potato, for god's sake--click here.  And you can follow the potato women on twitter, as they share their memories of their joyous potato experiences.  Wow!  Try to find that kind of potato enthusiasm in the states.  Even their salads have potatoes on them.  And, if you don't want a potato, they offer you fries, which are called chips when served with fish--which goes to another point.

Now, you would think, with the UK being an island, they might try doing something with fish other than deep frying it, but this appears to have escaped them so far.  But, I will admit the fish-n-chips are quite good--in fact, that is all I ate the first three days in the country--and, okay, I am just having some fun, so please let me stay a bit longer.  I really, really do love this Island.

Actually, of all the places I have traveled, the most limited cuisine was in Sweden and Norway.  All they seemed to eat was hamburgers.  Even my daughter, who was 9 at the time, started losing it, digging in people's gardens in search of a vegetable.  (Click here to read more about traditional British cuisine.)

Humor aside, what really stands out to me in York was said by several of the travel books I read to prep for my trip: London and some of the larger cities in the UK are becoming rather international, not just with tourists, but also with a growing diversity of cultures and foods.  In this way, I think British cuisine is similar to the states: the food eaten is really not any one food; instead, it is food from all over the world, and that is worth writing about.  Here, for example, is a bit from an article in the The Press--click here to see full article.  They state:

York has traditionally been viewed by many as a WASP city – overwhelmingly white, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant. But new research has shown York to be a very different city in 2010, with the ethnic minority population having more than doubled in the past decade to almost 22,000.  The research, commissioned by the York-based Joseph Rowntree Foundation, also revealed there were now more than 70 different languages being spoken in the city and an estimated 800 migrant workers were currently employed in York.

Case in point.  I had two of my best meals in the UK so far in York.
 

The first was a fantastic Indian restaurant and the second was an Indochinese Restaurant, called The Evil Eye Lounge--think Berkeley hippies meet Southeast Asian cooking meet British pub and you get this place.  I absolutely loved it.  And, to 'top it off,' freak n' Rick Steve's recommended it.  Now that ought to say something.  So, increasing diversity is something that really stood out to me.  The other was the slow corporate takeover.

CORPORATIONS versus the Local Shops
I have a really hard time with the states and the way in which 'corporate-everything' has pushed its way into every nook and corner of our lives.  In fact, one of the reasons I travel to Europe so much is to get away from corporate-based food, clothing, hotels, you name it.  Any American reading this blog knows what I am saying, particularly if you are a small business person or live in a small town and watched the strip-mall, as they call it, slowly encroach upon everything, clogging up the streets and ruining the whole vibe.

Unfortunately, while the UK is not anywhere near as corporate-overwhelmed as even my little town of Willoughby Ohio, USA, it seems to be getting there.  My second trip to York led me into their open market.  As I stated in a previous blog, my hero Anthony Bourdain is always talking about street food and the absolute awesomeness of local and street vendors.  I completely agree.

So, here is what happened.

I have been looking, while in the UK, for a leather winter coat; and so I see this stand with two guys and some great leather coats.  No sooner do I touch the first coat and one of the guys is already all over me, "Hey, you want to try that on?  Great coat, will totally fit you.  Now, I got it for 300 pound, last one, but i am willing to sell it to you for, say, 120 pound.  Common, try it on."  As soon as I hear the man say all of this, I am in heaven, as we are going to have a fun conversation.  "Wow," I say, "You are good.  But, no, I do not want to try on the coat; I just got here.  Besides, I am trained in the art of sale by constantly visiting my brother, who lives in the other York."  "What other York?" he says.  "You know," I say, "New York City!"  Ah, both men burst out laughing.

We proceed to have this fantastic conversation.  Turns out, both guys are from Istanbul and they and their families have moved here.  We talked about life in large cities and how urban living wears on people and the joy of small cities and towns, like York.  Eventually we get to the corporations.

The one guys says, "You see how the corporations have moved in here; makes it difficult for small businesses like us."  "Yes," I said.  "I see the American companies, obviously, but also the British-European corporate places as well: Cafe Nero, Cafe Rouge, Bella Italia, the department stores, the pharmacies..."  "Yes," the one guy says, "and we even have the British version of your T.J.Maxx; it's called T.K. Maxx."  I said, "No way?"  "Yes," he said, "look right there."  I take a picture.

"Run," I tell them, "run while you can."  We all started laughing.

But then the laughing stops and it is time for me to move on.  As I walk away, I say to myself, I hope such things never become too popular here; local, local, local, that is what makes the UK and so much of Europe great!  The wonderfully odd tea shops, the funky fish places, the dusty old menswear stores, the British memorabilia shops, the endless chocolate stores, there is nothing quite like it.  And, we need to find a way back to it in the States.  I am going to really miss this place when I leave.  These people are my kind of wierd.