English Banger Roll Observations

This past Tuesday, January 31, I took a stroll into Emory University's Farmers Market looking for something I had never tried before. The one requirement that I instilled into my head was that the food must be of a foreign origin. What I found for a meager $2.50 was something called the English banger roll, a traditional sausage that was wrapped in a roll.

Picture: Courtesy of 4and20pasty.com

The roll actually looked more like a pastry than something a sausage would be wrapped in. Because of this, maybe surprisingly to some, I was more inclined to eat the roll. You might wonder why I say that. For various reasons, I generally do not eat sausage, bacon, or pork. I just don't like the taste of those types of ground beefs. I figure that I won't be going to the United Kingdom any time in the near future so I might as well give this banger roll a try. Much to my pleasure, I liked the English banger roll wrapped in the pastry roll.  

The funny thing about my experience, though, was that I did not even notice what the meat was until I was about half way done with the sausage. The meat was pretty light in color and I kept trying to cut the roll with a fork. The sausage was fairly easy to cut at first, but then I realized that it was a sausage when I picked up the entire sausage with my fork. Before this point, I thought that the roll was some sort of miscellaneous food item that I could not even describe. It was one of those moments where you figure something out, and all of a sudden everything makes sense. I started laughing at myself because I felt like such a moron.

I never would have thought that trying a food such as the English banger roll would have created a rather amusing incident. However, I enjoyed the taste and experience of the rather traditional English banger roll. These types of funny experiences are what make food such an integral and powerful part of our daily lives. On Tuesday, that roll changed the outlook of my day.

Czech Trdlenik Appears Better Than it Tastes

Picture: Courtesy of thejetpacker.com

This past summer, I visited Prague, Czech Republic with my family and discovered some interesting varieties of food. But nothing caught my eye as much as this one food called trdlenik. My father, brother, and I instantly looked at each other and thought, “What the heck is that hollow-looking bowl?”

           There was a rather long line, so we inferred that it must be worth waiting for. We had some spare time on our hands and waited about 20 minutes to order ourselves 2 roles of trdlenik. While the trdlenik was not the most amazing pastry I have ever tasted, it was definitely worth tasting in a foreign country such as the Czech Republic. It possessed a weird taste of walnuts and sugar that looked better than it tasted. There was an empty feeling after waiting 20 minutes for something of this nature. However, out of pure curiosity, I searched the word “trdlenik” on Google to find out what went into this exotic pastry.

            The process to make trdlenik is precise. The roll of trdlenik is made from dough and a hole is put in the middle to give it the hollow shape. The dough is then grilled on a wooden stake called a trdlo, which is where the name trdlenik is derived from. After the dough is grilled, the roll is topped with some sugar and walnut mix displaying a beautifully made trdlenik roll.

            The stand I went to may not have been the best trdlenik, but I would still recommend trying one if you happen to go the Czech Republic any time soon.