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Eating Spotted Richard

When we last left C.C., our Culinarily Challenged counterpart in San Francisco, she had just sprung the news on her British Boyfriend (B.F.) that she’d be spending time in old Blighty for a work assignment. Join us now, won’t you, for Part Two of C.C.’s introduction to British foodstuffs….

C.C. arrives home from the gym one day to find a package from Amazon. It’s heavy, like the weight of a bazillion books, all hardcover. She ponders the possibility, as she hauls it up the steps, that she may have actually ordered a small library of heavy tomes, perhaps one night after too much Prosecco, but no, by the time she reaches the Stair Master-level floor, she knows this is a gift, as she does not recall participating in any literary shopping spree of late.

Breathless, she opens the lovely box to find …

Spotted Dick in a Can
Six cans of Heinz Spotted Dick.

The card reads: Thought this Spotted Dick in a Box might get you in the mood for British food!

She smiles. A thoughtful and hilarious surprise gift from her thoughtful and surprisingly hilarious British B.F. At least he didn’t send ketchup.

The gift is to commemorate to C.C.’s upcoming trip to the U.K. and the many conversations in which C.C. expresses her fear of “egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam.” And the redcoats in general, AKA ketchup.

It also references C.C.’s mirth every time she and B.F. are at Faletti’s market where the queue bypasses a small British food section, to which C.C. points and giggles at the assortment of packaged foods: Branston Pickle, Marmite, Treacle, and Spotted Dick. (C.C. would like to mention that she only points and giggles if no one is looking. But if someone is looking, then she points and loudly exclaims to her dear B.F., Have you ever had Spotted Dick? Or Remember the time you brought that Spotted Dick home?)

C.C. decides to try this sponge cake named Spotted Richard–reportedly menus in England have changed the name. It turns out that one does not eat Spotted Dick directly from the can–and, yes, it comes in a “can.” And no, it must first be microwaved or boiled in the can.

Since C.C. does not own a microwaving device, she puts the Spotted Dick in the kettle (an earlier gift from B.F.; had he been plotting this all along?) and sets the timer to 35 minutes. Bubble, bubble, toil, and trouble.

While she waits, C.C. grabs a Chocolate Chunk cookie directly from the La Boulange container and eats it sans cooking. She realizes, mid-bite, that eating uncooked cookie dough may actually be grosser than eating Spotted Dick because dough contains raw eggs. But, she reasons, La Boulange cookie dough is organic and “super natural,” and she has just come from the gym and aren’t raw eggs what body builders eat? She flexes her powers of perception and swallows.

And then she wonders, just how does British Spotted Dick hold up against French Chocolate Chunk? And since she’ll be in the U.K., won’t it be the perfect time to pop over to Paris because she’ll already be all the way across the pond? Should she restrict her trip to “les rosbifs” or visit “the frogs”? She decides to let the desserts decide the course of her peregrinations.

Chocolate Chunk cookie
Hmm, it tastes very good and is nicely sweet. Although the color is a bit dark and the dough too finely textured and heavy. Peut-etre that is due to the oven of C.C.?

Cooked Spotted Dick
After the Spotted Dick has boiled, C.C. remove it from the can, recalling how she once ate Heinz baked beans out of a can on a camping trip. The Spotted Dick smells like a bran muffin, and tastes like one too, with nice spices, but she turns up her nose at the very manufactured ingredients and texture, just as one would expect from a sponge cake that had been boiled … in a can.

Two bites is all it takes to decide her fate. C.C. does the math quickly: she can take the Chunnel to Paris in less time than it would take to cook the remaining cans of Spotted Dick.

That settles it: C.C. would go to Paris after finishing her job in Cambridge! Viva la Boulange! She leaves poor Richard on the plate and pings B.F. on the video chatty to tell him of her adventures with his Spotted Dick and to thank him for sending more Spotted Dicks than a girl knows what to do with.

And then he reveals the real reason for the surprise: He is coming to meet her in London after her work is done!

C.C. is overjoyed. A vacation in London with her British boyfriend! What could be better than that!? After they sign off the video chatty, she takes one more tiny nibble of the Spotted Dick. Eh, it’s not completely terrible, and maybe it would taste better smothered in crème anglaise….

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