80's Desserts

When I was in the 3rd or 4th year at school (Year 9 and 10 in today's language) the teaching unions were slightly disgruntled about how the government of the day was treating their terms and conditions. This led to the inevitable industrial action involving strikes and work to rule. The work to rule meant that the teachers would not supervise any students during the lunchtime. For my school this led to all the students being forced to leave the premises for the entire lunchtime. 

My school was not small, about 1600 students. We all left the school and headed towards town. This was great. I went to school in a seaside town and if you were quick enough you could make it to the beach and the amusements. Most of us went to the chippy and hung out on benches around the town centre.


Occasionally we would visit the local burger restaurant. This was before the golden arches, which on it's arrival seemed to out compete the restaurant in question. It was an interesting establishment as it did burger and chips on china plates with knives and forks, whilst if I recall correctly also serving classic gammon steaks with pineapple - even then it seemed a little old faishioned. However, their were two amazing things on the desert menu that made it worthwhile visiting.

The first was a black forest sundae; chocolate and vanilla ice cream, cream and cherry sauce. Maybe this is where my love of cherries came from. The second was described as decadent on the menu and is pure genius. It was called a Brown Derby (I am still uncertain if it is pronounced dar-bie or der-bie). It is composed of a warm doughnut topped with vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce and nuts - simple but delicious. Even better very easy to replicate at home.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jessicawashereandthere/3532147234/

Last night I paid homage to what I thought was a long forgotten dessert by taking the ingredients to a party and constructing them into the brown derby. Today I found out that some of these restaurants still exist and in fact one of them is only 10 miles from where I live. What is more, 25 years on both the brown derby and the black forest sundae are still on the menu.

Come to think of it another great 80's dessert that is still served in roadside restaurants is also a great favourite of mine. I save this for Shrove Tuesday; the Jubilee Pancake - a warm pancake filled with vanilla ice cream, cherries and cherry sauce. Delicious and just the thing after an Olympic breakfast.

http://www.insearchofheston.com/tag/big-chef/
 
A road trip to seek out these desserts is definitely needed this summer. Care to join me?

Comments

  1. Anonymous21 July 2012 at 20:37

    Wimpy is the restaurant to which you refer I do believe. Loved it there! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bones21 July 2012 at 21:52

    We are learning a lot about Ed's childhood :0))

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sparkly bathroom prevented by natural chemical equilibria

Image
I have had the pleasure of cleaning the bathroom today. I have used a number of different products over the years to find a chemical that will remove the annoying marks from the tiles, taps and shower screen. The hard water means that no matter how clean and sparkly I get the taps, they are only two showers away from being once again covered in the annoying white powder.   Crystals of limescale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kesselstein_k.jpg) There is a lot of interesting chemistry involved in limescale. It is essentially deposits of insoluble calcium carbonate left behind from the hot water. But how does it get into the water in the first place and why doesn't it stay in it? Limescale initially starts as limestone, chalk and other similar sedimentary rocks that formed from the bodies of tiny calcium containing sea creatures that lived in warm shallow tropical seas millions of years ago. See the BBC clip at this learning zone site. Since their formation these rocks have been
Read more

Polka dot, 7 inches, 15 minutes, luke warm

Image
January 2010 and a new craze hit Facebook. Across the social network women started to post colours as their status. Some posted beige, some ivory, some hot pink, some polka dot. For a while people across the world were confused, intrigued, indeed fascinated by what these colours could mean. In fact the colours referred to the colour of the bra the woman was wearing that particular day. This 'craze' was in aid of a breast cancer awareness campaign a fantastic cause and in my opinion a clever and innovative use of Facebook. Over the last couple of days some of the ladies have begun to post a length measured in inches followed by a time in minutes. This has resulted in a status that might read '6 inches 25 minutes'. Oh how amusing...I like a bit of smut but I found these updates strangely annoying. Obviously it doesn't mean what it says and is code for something fairly inane and boring. So slightly intrigued and determined to crack the code I did what I always
Read more

What's Your Station?

Image
One of my most vivid memories is completing my Silver Duke of Edinburgh Expedition in the New Forest one October half term. It must have been 1987 as Mike Smith was the Radio 1 breakfast host and I remember cooking bacon on the Trangia stove, in a field behind a scout hut in Fordingbridge, whilst listening to T'Pau's new single China in Your Hand, it was a gorgeous Autumn morning.  http://asymptotia.com/wp-images/2007/08/Radio_dynamo.jpg I had a red plastic battery operated radio that we listened to as we walked. That radio once got us into trouble on a snowy February in Dartmoor as the magnet in the speaker affected our compass, a rookie error that put us out a couple of miles searching for a postbox on Rough Tor.   Radio 1 was the station to listen to, the new music was heard first on this station, and alongside Mike Smith the line-up included Simon Bates, Mike Read, Simon Mayo and of course Steve Wright. Whilst at Uni I still enjoyed listening to Simon Mayo's breakfast
Read more