h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Manchester is famous for its cheap curry houses and take-away kebabs but there are many local foods and drinks from Manchester and it surrounds, I'll name a couple to get the thread started :

Eccles cakes and the less well-known Chorley cakes
Baps
Robinson's Stockport Ales
Beef Stew and Dumplings served with pickled red cabbage (I'm not sure if this is a Manchester dished but I've only ever been served this combination in Manchester.)

(-:

Oven bottom muffins (baps, bread rolls or whatever just don't cut it when you've got the real thing )
Fish and chips, seems like there's a chippy on every corner in some parts. All doing good fish and chips, or if you don't like fish try one of the Hollands Pies. OK so Hollands is a NW thing but there much easier to get in M/CR than down here in London.
What else, Warburton bread, Vimto. Suppose Vimto has to be mentioned, as well as the sculpture in the middle of UMIST which is a trubute to Mr Nichols who first blened Vimto.
Vimto is of course an exceedingly sweet mixed fruit drink, mainly containing black grape and blackcurrant juice.

I'd forgotten about Vimto and its inimitable taste. Whilst it can be bought in ready carbonated form in other parts of the country, I only remember have seen the cordial in Manchester.

I'm not so sure about Hollands Pies but when I lived in Salford, more than a few years back, there seemed to be a small bread shop on every corner which sold Cheese and Onion pies with melt in the mouth pastry.

Hollands seem to be the one selling mostly to the Fish and Chip shops.
They've a ridiculously high percentage of the trade in the NW.

The carbonated vimto just isn't the same I find. And the sugar free stuff well that's horrid.

I thought I check out Hollands Pies so I searched the internet and learned that Hollands Pies is owned by Northern Foods who make loads of stuff for M&S and Sainsbury's. That said Hollands must have their own recipes because I don't think the ones in M&S and Sainsbury's taste the same.

I used to enjoy steak pudding and chips with gravy (or when I was feeling exotic curry sauce). I always used to get asked if I wanted it in a tray. I found this a strange question, did they real serve people with steak pudding, chips and gravy in nothing more than greaseproof paper ?

BTW, the search directed me to www.manchester.com but don't tell the editors in case they nip over an copy the lot.

I think they use seperate recipes for the different things. Shame you can't get them down here in London.
A friend I work with went to uni in Manchester and agrees about things like Warburtons bread, and Hollands pies. So much so he tries to stock up if he goes up there !

I'm a southerner by birth, but I lived in Chorlton cum Hardy a couple of years back (I've gone posh and moved to Macc now). I still remember with fondness and much mouth watering the 'veggie kebab with everything' from Abduls on the Oxford Road. I also used to frequent a take away curry place in Withington called Kismet (I think?) that used to serve pilau rice with so much artificial colour it was day-glo orange and would light up the living room for hours. Tasted great.

I recently sampled a curry in Oxford (whilst visiting my family) and it was awful - they just don't make them like they do in Manchester.

I just don't get that chips and gravy thing though.

Vimto, along with its stablemate, dandelion and burdock, are hangovers from the temperance bar tradition of the early twentieth century: these were designed as tasty alternatives to beer to quake the thirst of the working man and lead him from the demon drink. Once there were hundreds of temperance bars offering non-alcoholic drinks; today few traces remain, apart from those two great north-western temperance beverages still on sale today (a third is sarsaparilla, when you can get it, but it's not anything like as widely available as Vimto or D&B. The only reliable supplier seems to be the ONE temperance bar still open out of those original thousands, which isn't in Manchester, it's in the Lancashire town of Rawtenstall. Just down the road from the Methodist Church - there is a connection)

These drinks are as intrinsically North-Western, especially Lancastrian, as Irn Bru is Scottish, and deserve our protection and patronage!

People down ere, in the south always look at me funny when I have gravy n chips... Mind, the really odd thing is I found the dish and got into having it long before I'd lived in Manchester :: agreed about that kebab shop on Oxford road; I think its the one that was nearest to wehre I lived as a student... think I practically lived out of the kebab shop for food (no cooking facilities in uni acomidation ) Used to get some fantastic home made style pies up in manchester too from little bakerys

Yates Wine Lodge was born out of the Temperance movement although I find it hard to see today. Probably the last place you'd see anyone ordering non-alcoholic drinks.

Boddington's, famous for its Strangeways brewery, cruelly next door to the prison. Not bad enough that you're behind bars and can't have a beer but you have to see it and smell it all day.

Joseph Holt is another Manchester area brewer. It's famous for its strong bitter at ridiculously cheap prices.